TW/// There's going to be a death scene here (not any of the girls) and some dead bodies. If you're uncomfortable with the following, please feel free to skip this chapter.

The sound of a ukulele being tuned and played so early in the morning served as quite the unique alarm. Someone excitedly strummed notes from a relaxing tropical piece and everyone would be lying however, if that didn’t make them smile upon hearing it. Zoa was sitting in the passenger seat, giggling whenever she saw her sister stir in her sleep. She didn’t stop playing until everyone was awake, Jaehee even playfully snatching the ukulele away at one point. Zoa gave Soojin a big hug filled to the brim with gratitude that morning for finding the instrument. In the meantime, the girls were having snacks for breakfast since they felt too lazy to cook for today as Soeun suggested the laundromat should be cleaned soon. And by then, it was the afternoon when they finally did so. Jiyoon and Monday ‘supervised’, Jihan was playing sword fighting with them using mops, Soojin splashed the walls with gallons of water from the beach’s shower head, and Soeun, Zoa and Jaehee were cleaning machines with rags. The group basically had a whole party ramping this place back up to its former glory as Zoa fixed the lights, fans and washers. Everyone cheered afterwards, jumping on tables to belt out song lyrics and dancing around. Soeun raised an eyebrow as she watched Jiyoon and Jihan battled to see who could sing the note higher. Thankfully, Soeun kept the earpieces on so she wouldn’t become deaf when they finished as the rest laughed at their antics. This was definitely a place where they could stay for a while. 

Later in the afternoon, Jihan and Jaehee stayed behind to finish doing the laundry after losing a bet, while everyone else was either touring around the area or making lunch. The younger girl laid on the table when she finished putting all of the clothes and the washing machine. Now she was just idly resting by as Jaehee folded the last pile of shirts and hummed to a song. Jihan groaned before sitting back up, looking outside to see parts of the streets filled with trees, making the town nearly a forest. In a way, it felt like they were in the wilderness camping. Then instantly, Jihan was reminded of the times she’d gone hiking with Jaehee and their parents when they were younger.

“Hey, do you think the others would mind taking us back home to our parents? We’ve told them about our situation, but this town seems like we could make good use of it for the time being.”

“But they’d understand though, right? I really wanna see mom and dad again….” 

Jihan sighed, nodding softly. “…I want to see mine, too.” 

“So let’s ask them later?” 

“Sure.”

After a while, they took all of the dried clothes, dumping them in baskets before rushing back to the RV, where the girls had just cooked some curry. Jiyoon noticed them both returning and invited them to the table where Monday was setting down some bowls and plates. “You guys should try this, it’s really good!” 

True to Jiyoon’s words, Jaehee gasped after doing so. “This is amazing! Did you make this?” 

“Actually, Soojin’s cooking it.” Monday pointed behind over her shoulder as the older girl herself waved back smiling. 

“Hope you enjoy! I just followed the instructions.” 

“The curry is even better when you add in eggs.” Zoa commented as Jihan also took a seat and tasted the food. 

“Wow! I love this!” She smiled before eating more. While everyone was finishing lunch, Monday spoke up. 

“By the way, I was thinking we should stay here. You know, after revamping the laundromat, we can restore this town and maybe find a way to find more kids like us.”

The girls perked up as Soeun nodded. “I agree. We could make this our own home now.”

“Yo! Monday and I were exploring this place a few hours ago and the buildings are still intact. We might even have an arcade!” Jiyoon happily added. 

“U-uh, wait—”

Before Jaehee could speak, Zoa pitched in with more ideas. “Oh my gosh, if we’re able to build our own territory and communications, we might be able to send out some kind of signal for them.” 

“Yes! We’ll make a city of our dreams!” Soojin clapped along and added more on the excitement, until Jihan quickly stopped them.

“Wait just a minute! Jaehee and I have something to say….” Everyone instantly grew quiet, patiently waiting. 

“We, um…we want to go back to our home.” 

Oh, right. They’d forgotten about that. Zoa hesitantly responded. “It could be dangerous to, you know…drive back on the road since the military might be looking all over for us. And that person who we’d encountered the other day.”

“But we were able to handle them, right?” Jihan countered, but to no avail. 

“And there could be more. They tried to kill us, so they were also hunting us down. Just like the military is.” The girls slightly perked up, shocked after connecting the dots. 

“So…” Jiyoon pondered on. “Them and the military are working together?”

“Mhm. Therefore, if people like that person are able to capture and turn us in, they’d surely be paid for their ‘deed’.” 

“Bounty hunters.” Soojin whispered, but everyone heard clear. 

“Woah…I never thought I’d be a ‘wanted dead or alive’ person….” And all of that just for having powers. “But—we’ve only ever utilized our abilities out of self defense! Just like they would.” Monday massaged her temples. 

“Exactly. They’re just too ignorant to see our point of view.” 

“W-we can still fight them though.” Jihan tried to convince them once more. “Together, we can do anything.”

“Well,” the oldest girl responded, “what are you and Jaehee going to do if you find your parents?” 

“We…” She looked at her best friend, who gave an unreadable glance. “We’d like to stay there….” 

“Oh.” Soojin was somewhat shocked, but quickly understood why. Their home was their childhood after all. 

Soeun, on the other hand, merely stayed silent as everyone continued discussing the situation. Monday was especially not agreeing with going back to the city and would rather stay here, Jiyoon had no idea whose side to take, Jihan and Jaehee were still determined, Zoa looked like she was devising a plan, lastly, Soojin was trying to calm the girls down. “Guys, please, let’s just discuss this maturely.” 

“Look, you guys don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to, but you can just drop us off in our neighborhood, we can go our own ways.” Jaehee crossed her arm as she retorted. 

“Now hold on—”

“Plus, you’re the one that said you wanted to come with us in the first place.”

“Yeah. Before we found this place.” 

“Why stay here in an abandoned town if we can have our homes again?”

“You know what, do whatever you want.” Monday rolled her eyes before walking away without another word and walked off on the beach alone, Jiyoon quickly trailing after her. 

Soojin practically face palmed herself. “She’s probably just a bit angry, but she’ll cool off in a while.” 

“Well. We need some people to stay here while we go drop you guys off, I guess.” Zoa suggested, which caught their attention. 

“Wait, you mean it??” Jihan asked excitedly.

“Yes. But be on the best lookout for bounty hunters or the military. Can’t really trust anyone but each other at this time.”

The oldest girl offered to drive the RV, but Zoa was quick to inform them that there was another car they could use. They were understandably bewildered until she pointed towards an old orange Volkswagen, proposing that they could fix it up for the road. Now excited, the five of them quickly got to work as Zoa grabbed her box of motor tools. Soojin, Jihan and Soeun worked on cleaning the whole vehicle, its tires while Jaehee helped power the engines as Zoa replaced some parts inside. Two hours swiftly passed by and Soeun was filling the gas before hopping inside to start the car…but there weren’t any keys. Most of them groaned and were embarrassed forgetting the most important key factor of this revamping process, pun intended. But thankfully, Zoa had a perfect solution for this problem. Instead of using that, Soeun would have to shift the joystick to drive, which instantly ignited the engines as it roared to life. Jihan and Jaehee quickly hopped into the back while Soojin sat comfortably in the passenger seat. Zoa opted to stay behind with Monday and Jiyoon for the time being, wanting to keep a lookout for this town when they come back. But before leaving, Soojin hastily reminded them to take their earpieces and some backpacks with some snacks along just in case. Then, she and Jihan summoned an entire, fifty feet tall stone border around, which guaranteed their friends’ safety. 

Shortly after, the girls hit the road at last with Soeun stepping on the pedal so they could get there soon. Jihan and Jaehee checked their map to properly help navigate as the oldest girl simply leaned back, watching magnificent landscapes outside. Another two hours later, Soeun entered a highway when the two saw a familiar sign. Then, conveniently, all she had to go now was stay on the right lane and continue straight forward. Afterwards, they fell asleep by leaning on each other, while Soojin rested her head back on the seat, not napping but keeping her eyes closed as the wind softly breezed. Before everyone realized it, their map informed them that they were getting close, which woke Jihan and Jaehee up. Soeun switched a lane that led down into an isolated traffic, belonging to their old city. They couldn't even recognize anything at first glance, it practically looked like some dystopian future from a movie…none of this felt real. The best friends looked at each other in horror as their heart dropped, a terrible gut feeling inside that was only going to grow worse. Any hope of finding their parents here was now uncertain. Honestly, maybe Monday spoke the truth before they embarked here: there wasn’t any hope in the first place. 

Soeun hesitantly drove further, although it felt like something was telling her to turn back and get the hell out of here. Soojin glanced at her, as if thinking the exact same, but Jihan continued directing her down the road. Along the way, the girls passed some familiar places; stores they’d frequented at, the arcade, mall, even school. Those were just the bare minimum of how awful the city looked, so upon reaching the neighborhood at last, almost every house was utterly destroyed. Roof tops looked like they had been completely torn off, walls broken down, or it was just not there at all, completely demolished. When Jihan and Jaehee finally saw their homes, both hearts shattered to millions of pieces as nothing was recognizable. Their childhood was torn asunder before their very eyes. Once Soeun parked directly in front of the houses, the two immediately hopped out and ran towards Jaehee’s house, where their parents were last seen. Soojin and Soeun quickly followed them, just in time to see Jihan busting down the door with telekinesis since the knob wouldn’t budge. 

It was incredibly dark inside and even with Jaehee’s powers, the girls had to resort to using their phones as flashlights. She and Soeun were wandering around upstairs, though the older girl had no idea what she was doing. This didn’t really feel safe, but whatever happened, she was thankful that Soojin had suggested they wear the earpieces before leaving the small town hours ago. Jaehee was merely sitting in her bedroom, or at least that was what it looked like, and held a frame of her and Jihan posing in front of a waterfall. The two were hiking to the mountains when they discovered it, she smiled when recalling how excited she felt telling her parents to come take a look. Sighing, Jaehee put the frame inside her backpack while Soeun walked by right then.

“You alright?” 

The younger girl nodded. “Fine, thanks.”

“I’m guessing this is your room?”

She chuckled at Soeun scanning confusedly. “Yeah. That is where my closet is supposed to be but I guess they really hate closets.” They both laughed a little at the joke. And truth be told, it was utterly destroyed. 

“So…are you and Jihan gonna stay here, or….” 

“Oh, absolutely not. We just thought maybe our parents would continue waiting for us here, but…I-I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about where they could be and why. I know they wouldn’t just run off without us.” 

“Yeah I get that. Can you call them?” 

“We both tried immediately after we got our phones at the mall but they never picked up.” 

“Hmm. Maybe something happened? Like they had to leave their phones.”

“I guess that might be true….” But what happened?

Meanwhile, Jihan was merely sitting in the living room trying to call her parents as well, knowing they’d pick up any calls from their phone, even if it was spam. She was slowly growing frustrated at this point, but nevertheless didn’t think about giving up anytime soon. Soojin almost pitied the younger girl, though understood how she felt. In fact, it was quite relatable. She, too, worried deeply about her own parents and had been helping Zoa contact them in any way possible, to get some update on what they were doing right now. Or if they were even alive. No, Soojin quickly shook her head from that thought, figuring that perhaps they were off somewhere far away from this place and she and Zoa just had to find them. She took a deep breath to calm down, directing her phone’s flashlight around. For now, they were searching for her friend’s parents. Soojin then entered the kitchen, gazing at the place with curiosity. There wasn’t anything too exciting, besides the amount of cute stickers on the walls. She chuckled and wondered if Jihan had put them up there while her mom and dad just let her. As Soojin walked down further, something on the floor caught her eye, an enormous stain by the kitchen table. Squinting at it, she bent down to examine closer, realizing it might’ve dried up after a while. She took a picture before sending to Zoa, hoping the younger girl could tell her what this was. Soojin’s heart immediately stopped upon reading the response, repeatedly doing so just to make sure she wasn’t crazy.

Just as Soojin sent the message, she looked up and noticed the stain trailing towards a door that led to the backyard. Gulping, Soojin cautiously followed it, her heart speeding up while approaching closer and closer. With another deep breath, she shakily opened the door, peeking out a little, shining her flashlight outside, but it was too dark to see anything. Soojin then decided to just exit out entirely and looked around, realizing how small the backyard is. With one left turn, she directed the light downwards and discovered…four body bags. Her phone instantly dropped and Soojin gasped loudly, covering as she looked in horror. How in the hell could anyone just leave them here? This was too overwhelming, so the girl’s knees quickly gave out. In the distance, Jihan heard the commotion before rushing towards her, getting ready to fight. Thankfully, before she could see what it truly was, Soojin quickly grabbed her phone and stood up to block her from entering the backyard.

“No! Jihan, don’t—please…just don’t….”

“Why?? What happened—” Goodness god, Soojin nearly had a panic attack when she was about to look left at the bodies, but thankfully, the older was faster and held her hand on Jihan’s cheek to prevent her from glancing further. 

“Listen to me, we need to get out of here right now.” She pushed Jihan back into the kitchen and locked the door, then barricaded it with the fridge. “Don’t ask and just listen, ok? Please….” 

“U-um…” The younger girl didn’t know what else to say, but knew she was out of choices. “Alright, alright.”

While this happened, Soeun and Jaehee were still busy upstairs just socializing with each other. They both talked about close friends, some random ‘adventures’ they went on during breaks from school, and laughed together. Since Soeun always ditched school, she’d go to the park with her small gang of misfits like her, often skateboarding or playing sports there. Jaehee on the other hand usually attended student council meetings, and on top of that, being the Music Club’s president where they would go on field trips to auditoriums, watching professional orchestras and bands play. Soeun jokingly voiced out how boring that was, which earned a slap on her arm. After a while, Jaehee figured it was no use staying here after all and suggested they go back to the small town. The older girl grabbed her hand to help her up, but then something peculiar occurred. 

Soeun saw time rewinding and found herself standing in some hallway, looking around startled and confused. In front was Jaehee and Jihan, fending off against some soldiers together before running downstairs, Soeun quickly followed behind. She was trying to call out their names but nothing came out, bewildering her even more. Afterwards, she witnessed them both get instantly taken down by the ultrasonic gun. Soeun could only stand and watch as the captain pointed his pistol at Jaehee’s head, threatening her, though the younger girl didn’t seem to flinch at all. But soon enough, both her and Jihan were taken out of the house, leaving just a few soldiers and the captain. Two married couples were constantly berating and cussing at him, demanding that their daughters be safe wherever they were taken to. He himself seemed more amused at their energy before whispering something to the soldiers as they nodded in response. Soeun didn’t see this coming whatsoever. The next thing she knew, all four of them were repeatedly shot point blank. She stood there, utterly horrified before shutting her eyes tight, wanting this to end now. 

Then, Soeun was instantly back in current time, still in Jaehee's room and holding her hand. Soon enough, her legs felt weak and she collapsed on the ground, which immediately worried the younger girl. Jaehee hastily got down to her level, rubbing Soeun’s back to comfort her.

“U-unnie, are you ok? What happened?”

“I…I don’t know….” 

“You—uh…you were there.” 

“Y-you saw it, too??”

She hesitantly nodded. “It was like I was reliving the nightmare again, even though I'm not even asleep….” 

Soeun wondered if Jaehee saw the same thing she did. “What did you see?” 

“I just saw my parents, and then me and Jihan getting dragged out of the house. How did you do that just now?” Only a head shake in response.

“I have no idea…it just happened.” 

“Oh.” 

Before they could say anything else, Soojin and Jihan appeared by the door. “Hey, we have to go.” This immediately had Soeun by her side, very concerned. 

“Something happened?” 

“N-no, we just need to leave now.”

Either way, she found herself agreeing as well. “Ok.”

On their way downstairs, Jaehee took her blanket and pillow from her old bed, with Jihan helping shove them in the trunk. Afterwards, all of them were back in the car as Soeun started up the engines before exiting the neighborhood. As the younger kids whispered to each other in the back, both her and Soojin were still in a state of shock, blank, solemn expressions all over their face. She noticed the older girl was slightly shaking, then carefully reached out her hand to intertwine Soojin’s, who immediately returned the gesture. Thankfully, no memory surfing occurred like earlier, so she held it tighter. It seemed like they both needed the small contact. Soeun then decided to use telepathy.

Are you ok?

Not really…

What happened? 

I’m not sure you’d want to know…

It’s ok, you can tell me. I’m always here to listen. 

…I saw four corpses.

It took her entire willpower not to slam on the brakes and look at Soojin with widened eyes. Oh my god…

I know…I don’t know how to tell Jihan and Jaehee that…

I um…I think I saw what happened to their parents. 

S-so, you know?

Mhm, it happened so suddenly. I was in Jaehee’s memories and…yeah.

Wait, then does she know, too?

No, she didn’t see it either.

Oh …what do we do…? 

Tell the others, maybe?

Soojin slowly breathed out quietly, shakily while on the verge of tears. We’ll do it once we get there.

Ok. Soeun didn’t say anything else and just continued rubbing her thumb on the older girl’s hand. Without another word, she stepped on the gas so they could get home faster, getting closer to the highway. Jihan sighed and leaned back, turning as she was about to talk to Jaehee, but then something caught her attention in the corner of her eyes, only for them to widen in shock. 

“Guys, we got company.”