Cass POV

It has been a long day, there are many of them that came to the borders these days. Maybe because the weather is getting cold and they need to hibernate so they wanted to eat more food, us, humans. Those monsters will never stop, their hunger will never subside, and they will always want more, until there are no humans left.

Perimeter checking is taking half of our days now, before it only took us 2 hours max since not much are lingering near the borders, today, they are attacking our shield, breaking it to get in. They are getting desperate since not much humans are outside anymore, you are an idiot if you even cross the borders.

But us, it is our job to check the perimeter, see if there are packs of those monster trying to get in. Kill them before they even succeed in breaking our shield.

“there are many of them now a days huh?” taemin mentioned, a slender young boy in his early 20s, nerd looking because of his thick eye glass and black hair all over the place like he never saw a comb in his life. But he has a cute smile, he is like our baby brother in the defense department that gave us hope in this post apocalyptic world just by smiling. He is also the head in charge of our technology, shield, cctv monitoring, broadcasting, anything in tech, he knows.

He has been monitoring us while we are on rounds. Checking if there are more monsters coming from below the mountains, or if the shield is breaking at some point.

“yeah, I need to check in the armory again, I have used all my bullets so fast that I needed to use my swords again” I told him even though I knew that he saw everything in his monitors.

“but you are good at it anyway” he smiled at me.

“I still don’t like it, I prefer fighting them from afar with bullets, I don’t like seeing them face to face, they are disgusting and look at me” I spread my arms to show him the black blood from those monsters all over me. “I look like and I smell like ”

“hahaha, you really should take a bath Cass” he laughed at me, so I just rolled my eyes and leave his place, I am done checking my schedule of duties from his assistant anyway. I also don’t want to spread anymore of these disgusting blood on his precious computers or else I would face his wrath.

After taking a bath, I went to the armory to restack my bullets for my guns and get my pair of swords cleaned and re sharpen for tomorrow’s rounds again.

I was on my way back home when I heard my name called.

“Cass!!”

I look back and saw my comrade Minho running towards me, he is tall muscled man, clean cut blonde hair because he doesn’t want it to get in his way while fighting those monsters. Very handsome to be exact, every young girls in this place is so in love with him, he could even pass as a model, if we are in those peaceful times a decade ago. But now, there are no more of that.

“what?” I asked him when he came near me

“are you coming tonight at the field? It’s our time now you know, to get drunk!!” he said excitedly

“yeah yeah, of course I’m coming. How can I miss this once in a year relax time that we can get”

“hahaha, just want to make sure that you did not forget, with all those fighting we had earlier”

“oh come on, no one here will ever forget the day when we finally established those shields, it is the very first day we can finally sleep peacefully”

“are we really sleeping peacefully?” he asked suddenly with a serious face.

“Maybe not us, but those people are, the ones depending on us everyday”

“yeah, you’re right” he said ending our conversation, then we just walked on the rocky road to our houses in the middle of the circling shield, where most of the houses are built, away from the shield, away from the monsters outside just waiting to get in.

Most of the women, children, and elders that are not capable of fighting are living in the middle of the circle to farm for our foods and produce any basic needs. We all have our duties in this place, farming, production, defense. Each of us has a schedule for our duty, arranged by the team of taemin, and we all must follow.

For special occasions like today, where we celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the shield, we celebrate for 2 days. The first day was yesterday, and today is the last day of the celebration, we cannot risk celebrating with all the people in the circle at once because some people needs to be on alert at least.

We reached minho’s house first so I said goodbye to him and went to my house to get ready for later.

My parents are already at home, they are in the farm duty.

“where is sam?” I asked them about my younger brother

“he is scheduled to help in the open field for the celebration tonight” my mother answered

“I’ll see him later then”

“can you watch out for him? He already celebrated yesterday, I think he and his friends volunteered to the open field today because they wanted to get another drink tonight, if he gets caught, he would have additional duties for who knows how long” my mother asked worriedly.

“let them be, they will learn once they are punished” said my dad

“even if they tried, I don’t think they will get anything” I said “ taemin’s system is very secured, they are not on the list for today”

“Just look out for him, he is a teenager, they rebel” my mother insisted

“ okay okay, I will”

I got dressed with black pants and white tank top with a cartoon rabbit print in the front and put on my leader jacket, something that is very rare now a days, but I managed to get when we are on rounds a few years before the establishment of the shield.

We did not have much back then, lost souls with nowhere to go. Our city has been attacked and we barely managed to escape, there are only a few of us but we met people along the way. They said that there are no monsters at the mountains yet because there are few people who lived there and the monster’s priority are the cities, where there are bunch of people to eat.

So we went here, in the mountains, where there are a few people who climb before us. We organized ourselves little by little and we made a system, everyone should contribute, everyone must have a duty to play, even the young children are helping in their small ways. Thankfully, everyone agreed, who would even dare oppose when we have a bigger problem outside.

The first few months here are really terrible. We have no food, no shelter, we have to build everything from a scratch. We don’t know what happened to the government, soldiers or anyone with power. Some people said that the monsters targeted them first so that no help would come, but I wondered, how? Did they plan all this? How can they plan everything? Do they even have a brain to think? Aside from their disgusting looks and black blood, I don’t see anything smart in them, just hunger for human flesh.

Some of them even acts like animal, those are easy to kill, those few that can stand in two feet like a human can put up a fight but they can also be finished with just bullets. In conclusion, they can be killed, it’s just the fear that controls a human. Because those monster doesn’t feel anything, they are just hungry and they will do anything for food. But humans feel a lot of emotions, fear, sadness, anger, even confidence, if too much, can make a difference between killing and being killed.

Those are the kind of things we train to avoid, being distracted by emotions. And after a long years of fighting, I can say that I have managed to be good at it.

I can hear the music now, not that loud but enough to hear from where I am, a few meters away from the open field at north of the circle.

“you can dance, party, sing and drink 2 glasses of alcohol today Cass, loosen up, relax just this once.” I prep myself before entering the venue. I showed my ID to the guard at the entrance, he scanned it to confirm my schedule for the party before letting me in.

They did a great job here just like last year, bonfire at the center, speaker for music at the corners, the in charge of the music is at the right side, while the bar where they give out our home made alcohol is at the left side. They must have saved up a lot of solar electricity for this.

I stopped looking around when someone tapped me in the shoulder.

“Cass! how are you?” it’s my aunt, smiling at me. Our families and relatives Iived near each other before so when the monsters happened, we managed to save each other.

“Hi aunt, I’m great. it’s good to see that we have the same schedule. Mom, dad and sam had yesterday’s schedule, though sam is here on duty”

“your cousins have yesterday’s schedule as well, so it’s just me and your uncle”

I said hi to my uncle as well, then we went to the bar to get our drinks. They don’t dance anymore because they said they are already old, but to me they are just a little older than my parents which is in their 50s so I think they can still dance, but they said that their only purpose for coming here is to drink alcohol, which everyone missed because it is very rare now a days.

We sat at the chair near the bar after getting our first drink for tonight.

“how was the borders?” my uncle asked.

“kind of hard these days, they are travelling in packs now because of the cold weather” I answered

Uncle just nod then said “always be careful”

“I will” I smiled to both of them

A little later I saw my team minho, jonghyun, dean and cath giving their id to the bartender to scan to mark that they are getting their drinks as well.

I waved at them and after getting their drinks they sat beside us. We talked for a while before my aunt and uncle left to talk to their neighbor that they saw around.

When we are done with our first drink we all decided to dance to this SHINee song Body rhythm, there are no more new music being created, so we cherish this once in a blue moon events that we can enjoy old music.

We can still listen to music though, but it’s hard if you are on duty. And if you have a free time, you’d rather sleep it out to gain energy for the next day because there are so much work to do to meet our daily needs. There are many of us in the beginning, but since we still don’t know much and we are still used to having an easy life before, we had a hard time. Some died because of illness, lack of food, or being on duty for defense specially when we still don’t have the shield. Thankfully, the smart ones on our group made the shield to keep us away from the monsters outside.

Being exhausted from dancing, we sat down again. Get our last drink and just enjoy the music. I don’t really get drunk with just 2 glasses of alcohol. But jonghyun and dean are already swaying to each other and talking nonsense.

That’s when we heard taemin’s voice in the broadcast announcement from all the speaker everywhere in the circle.

“Area D on alert level 1, I repeat Area D on alert level 1. We advise everyone to stay away from the area” The announcement was repeated again twice before it was gone.

Everyone on my table was alert suddenly. Dean and jonghyun seems to sober up.

Then the in charge of the music announced that the party is over, it’s almost 10pm anyway so it is time for everyone who are not on duty to go to bed.

I saw my brother with his friends leaving the open field, I went to him and said “go straight home do you understand?”

“You?” he worriedly asked me.

“I’ll stay for a while, and wait for an update of the situation. Just in case they need us”

“but you are not on duty tonight”

“I’m still in defense, they can call us up in case of emergency”

“but you’re drunk, what help can you give them?”

“I’m not that drunk”

“You are only killing yourself for going there drunk, go home”

“I’m not going there, we are not called yet. And there are people on duty right now, I think they can handle it themselves since it’s just alert level 1. But we need to know what happened first before going home”

He kept quiet for a while looking at me. Maybe thinking of another argument to say just to get me home. But when he found nothing he just nod. “Just go home after”

“I will” then he left with his friends.

I went back to the table I was in with my team. They are all standing up looking at minho who has his earplug on and talking, maybe to taemin to ask for an update in area D. He looked at me when I came near him and pass me the earplug.

“It’s Taemin” He said

I put on the earplug and said “Cass here”

“They are double the number of what you fought earlier, and the shield is cracked” taemin said.

“Who’s in charge?”

“Thalia”

“Does she need assistance?”

“She’s saying she can handle it, they are all animal behavior”

“What do you think?”

“I can recharge the cracks in a few minutes, we can handle it”

“Ok then, let us know if you need help”

“it’s not exactly the reason why I called”

“What?”

“Someone came in tonight”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying taemin”

“What I mean is, some people entered the circle tonight”

“What? Who?”

“You know who”

Just then, I heard someone called me. Not from the earplug, but from my back. When I turned I saw my aunt and uncle smiling widely before I saw a bunch of people behind them, following them, walking towards me. I do not know who are these people, I don’t think they are from here because of their clothing, I’ve never seen those kinds of clothes in many years of me staying in this circle.

Then I saw a familiar face, my cousin, Jade. The one who run away before, the one so brave enough to look for the love of her life outside the circle.