Morning came with its soft light seeping through the blinds, showering Ren's face in an orange glow. This was all it took to wake him up. Indeed, as he sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes he wondered if he had slept at all.

He remembered lying awake, sickened with worry, but couldn't recall dozing off. If he had slept, it could not have been long, because his eyes burned with a night spent restless.

Not acting difficult, he had retired to bed still in his clothes, so he now had no need to change, nor did he feel any necessity to make himself look presentable. That didn't matter now.

Nonetheless, he made his way over to his dresser absent-mindedly, and retrieved his phone from the top of it to see if anyone had replied to his communications the night before.

He had called Woori, who was in a flurry at the time because everyone had deserted her. To Ren's surprise, she had admitted to having access to the wristband tracker system when prompted, and she reluctantly agreed to look up JR's records.

Furthermore, he had sent out a group text to everyone else, telling them to be careful.

Then, to prevent himself from hysterically checking for replies every minute, he had shut the phone off and left it up here, as far away from his bed as possible.

What he saw when he turned it back on surprised him. Of all people, only Aron had replied. Though Ren had not expected Woori to get back to him so soon he had frankly anticipated a few words of reassurance from Seungah and Jisook. Instead, all there was was this single message from Aron that simply read: Stop scaring me, man.

Despite everything, he couldn't help but smile. That kid, sheesh.

Still, it was surprising he hadn't heard from the girls, who were probably still at the party when he sent the message and surely hadn't retired to bed yet.

Put on the thought track of absent friends, he wondered where Baekho was. He hadn't paid attention to whether they had even slept in the same room or not, but found now that they hadn't.

Quickly running a hand through his hair, he moved away from the drawer and came over to the door. Opening it, he immediately caught a waft of fresh coffee.

Baekho sat at the kitchen table, stirring the leftover milk in his cereal bowl with a blank expression. The dawn outside painted the whole room gold, but failed to fill it with warmth. The atmosphere in the apartment was still the same as when they went to bed.

"Good morning," Baekho said without looking up.

"I didn't hear you get up this morning," remarked Ren.

Baekho nodded. "I took special care, didn't want to wake you up."

Ren suppressed a smile. So I did sleep after all.

"I don't think we've ever gotten up at the crack of dawn before." Helping himself to some coffee and a handful of cereal from the open box still on the counter, Ren went to lean against the refrigerator groggily.

"There's marks on the counter by the sink," whispered Baekho as he threw a glance at where they had found JR the night before. "Nail marks. In a stone counter."

Ren nodded, understanding what Baekho really meant by that "We'd best head over to Minhyun."

...

"You guys look like ," Minhyun remarked casually when he had come to answer the door. "Though I shouldn't be surprised, given the circumstances.” He gave them a humourless smirk, and beckoned them inside while Baekho gave a quick but polite greeting.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Minhyun asked, suddenly sounding much more serious and down to business.

“Yeah, we're good. Thanks for asking,” Baekho confirmed. Ren nodded in agreement.

Not wasting many words, Minhyun went into his ever-cluttered living room and plopped down onto the couch, implicitly inviting the others to do the same. With a sigh, he slumped forwards, his chin resting in his hands.

"I'll have to be honest with you guys, I never thought this would happen to one of us, but here we are."

"You knew this was a thing?” said Ren with an edge of anger to his voice. “You knew these things could happen and you didn't warn us?"

Minhyun sat upright defensively, clearly not pleased with Ren's accusative tone. "I didn't know. I suspected it, but I was never sure." A smile spread on his face very briefly before flickering out again."I guess I didn't want to be sure. I'm no better than the rest, really."

"But it's ridiculous!" exclaimed Baekho, looking up at Minhyun like a kicked puppy. "People turning into Lurkers, how can that be?"

"It makes sense when you think about it," Minhyun rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "With all these people going missing all the time isn't it odd that they never find any bodies? I mean, even if we assume the Lurkers eat them, we'd at least have to find something. Yet we never heard anything about that."

Baekho's thoughts wandered off when he heard that. Could this mean that the little girl with the yellow dress wasn't... He couldn’t finish the thought, and wasn't sure he'd even like the alternative. Still, it was better than nothing.

Minhyun went on,"And besides, where else would they come from?"

"But how?" Ren interjected in a confused whisper. "JR didn't explain it, how can they do that?"

"God only knows," said Minhyun. Then he smiled. "That is, until we find out for ourselves."

“And you intend to do so?”

Minhyun nodded. “Definitely. JR is our friend, and I for one don't intend to desert him. I don't know how big all of this is, and how much trouble we'll find ourselves in for facing it. But I will help you find JR and I will bring him back to normal. That I promise.”

Leaning forward again, he took a moment to look each of them in the eye. Then he jumped to his feet and started pacing the room.

“Problem is, I have no idea where we should start looking. Have you heard back from Woori yet? Or for that matter, did you even call her at all?”

“I have,” Ren paused. “I mean. Yes, I've called her, but no, I haven't heard from her yet.”

Just at that moment, he was startled by a motion in his pocket, caused by his phone going off.

“Speak of the devil. I presume?”

Ren didn't reply to Minhyun's remark, focused on answering the call.

Baekho just looked at the both of them. “If that's really her you really do have an uncanny ability for summoning events, Minhyun,” he remarked in a sort of stunned admiration.

"Woori?"

"Good morning, I haven't woken you up, have I? It's just that I didn't get much sleep tonight and I've really just been waiting for a few hours for the right time to call." She didn't sound like her usual calm self, talking a mile a minute as if to get things over with.

"No, don't worry about it, I was already up." Ren swallowed, tense with anticipation. "Did you do what I asked you, did you find anything?"

"Yes, actually.” There was a pause and a slight sigh and rustling noise, signalling Woori sitting down for the rest of the conversation. "You said to pay attention to Monday, and as you predicted there was some unusual activity."

"Woori, wait a second, I'm putting you on speaker." He removed the phone from his ear, answering Baekho and Minhyun's questioning stares. He pressed a button before seating himself next to Minhyun as he placed the phone on the coffee table before them.

"Okay, Baekho and Minhyun are listening in. Please go on."

"Well, yes. Monday started off quite normally. He checked out of your building in the morning and into the university shortly after. Then there was no activity for most of the day, as was to be expected. Until at 2:08 pm, probably after his last class had ended, when he left the building and then headed towards the shopping district near the station."

"Any idea what he was doing there? Because we were meant to meet back at the university library at three," interjected Baekho feverishly.

"He didn't stay in any place long. This was not the interesting part. He probably just went for a walk to kill time is my guess."

“Well that makes sense, the weather was nice that day.” Minhyun's casual tone struck a chord within Ren and he was suddenly b with frustration. To think that they're talking about such frivolous details when JR was still missing, still out there somewhere.
He took a deep breath and schooled his expression. It was selfish to assume he was the only one growing impatient. Everyone was dealing with the situation in their own way, and it would be arrogant to throw a ruckus and upset everyone further.

“But then something odd happened.” Woori's statement halted his internal musings and he was once again listening closely.

“He left the main street, into an area where I don't think there's anything worthwhile. The only thing a quick daum search brought up are a few business no longer running. They're all scheduled for demolition at a yet undetermined time, and they'll be building new apartments there eventually. I don't see what there's to find there. Then I'm not sure where he went afterwards, because there's not many checkpoints in the low-traffic areas, but he didn't use his wristband for the rest of he day after that.”

“Then that must be where it happened.” Baekho's whisper was easy to miss, and indeed Woori didn't seem to have heard.

“The first time the wristband was used after that was when he headed straight back home last Tuesday night.”

“And since then? Where is he now?”

“I can't say for sure. He never checked out from your building.”

“But that's impossible. He ran away, Ren and I both saw it.”

“Maybe he's still hiding in the building somewhere,” offered Ren.

“That seems unlikely. That would be nothing but trouble for him.” Minhyun looked at the opposite wall in contemplation. “Maybe he took it off. Left it behind in the building.”

“But then how does he get around? The gates would stop him from getting very far,” Baekho reasoned.

“Not if he's in the sewers.”

Everyone was silent for a moment to look at Minhyun, even Woori on the other end of the line said nothing.

“Why would he be in the sewers?” She eventually asked.

“Because that's where we think the Lurkers are. And I think I know exactly where he went inside.”

“Minhyun, what are you not telling me?” Woori's voice sounded stern and also hurt. She feared she was being left out of something bigger.

"I'll tell you when there's more time, but now we must go.”

“Minhyun...”

He interrupted her. “Ren, hang up, we need to get a move on.”

“But I-” objected Ren feebly, before being silenced by Minhyun's glare. “Goodbye Noona.” He ended the call but not without giving Minhyun one of his famed icy stares to let him know he did not approve of this conduct. “Why not tell her what's really going on? You can't expect her to assist us at every bump in the road without bringing her along.”

Minhyun gave him no direct reply, he merely went on about his plans. “If my suspicions are correct, which they probably are, JR went into the tunnels through a maintenance access here,” He had moved over to a map of the city that he'd pinned on his wall, and tapped at a street that didn't look familiar to Ren. Running a hand through his hair thoughtfully, he went on.

“I've seen this location pop up in missing person cases a lot lately. I've always thought that was suspicious, since it's so deserted, yet several people have gone missing there, even though they had no real reason to even go there in the first place.” Without paying the others much attention, probably assuming they'd follow him regardless, he walked to the door and snatched his messenger bag off the hook mounted on the wall, clearly intending to leave.

“Are you sure it's really the place we ought to be looking?” As eager as Ren was for action, he didn't want to go on any wild goose chase fuelled by Minhyun's overenthusiastic whims.

“Woori will confirm it, but even without that I'm sure enough. Let's just go. I don't want to waste any time right now. Not now we finally have a lead.” Not listening long enough for any protests, he was out the door, running off with what Ren considered to be inappropriate excitement.

"I can't decide if I'm happy about following his lead or not.” Baekho sighed after that, but without any further complaints, both he and Ren obediently followed the only person who had any clue what to do.

…

They walked to their destination. Ren couldn't stand it.

The thought that they were wasting so much time with their travel when JR needed their help was excruciating. If it were up to him, they'd have taken a bus or a taxi, but no taxis were around at this time, and they'd scarcely missed the first bus of the morning so they were left with little other choice.

They walked in silence, following Minhyun through the still deserted street. The sun had not been up long, and it was still busy warming up the city.

After a while Minhyun stopped walking to fumble something from his pocket. It was his phone. He looked at it and made an approving noise.

"It's Woori," he clarified, "she just confirmed the location of the last checkpoint, it's just as I thought it was."

"So this is the right place?" Baekho asked as he and Ren overtook Minhyun to walk by his side.

"I presume so, yes."

Something about his demeanour was bothering Ren to no end.

"Minhyun," he began, trying to make eye contact with his friend despite the other's consciously averted gaze.

"Yeah?"

"You don't seem worried or scared at all about any of this."

"That's because I'm not." Ren doubted that.

"Not at all?" he pressed on. "Not even after hearing what they can do to people?" He saw a muscle in Minhyun's jaw twitch.

"Do you want me to be scared, Ren? Is that what this is about? Am I not living up to your expectations? Is that what you need? For me to be nervous and on the verge of freaking out?"

The anger in his voice hit Ren like a slap in the face. He instantly understood what caused it, though. Minhyun was afraid to show weakness. As much as Ren wanted him to be afraid, like he should be as a friend, he also needed him not to be. They needed someone in their group callous and unaffected, calm while braving the storm. Someone to rely on. And as usual, Minhyun had martyred himself and taken that task upon him without anyone's approval.

Ren sighed. He realised someone needed to do it, and he was glad it wasn't him.

Baekho, sensing the need for something to break the conflict, tried to change the subject.

"Is this the place?"

Minhyun turned to look at him. During their argument, neither he nor Ren had noticed Baekho had gone up ahead and without directions led them to the right place. He now stood expectantly in front of a narrow alley between two high shop fronts, dark and easy to miss for those who weren't searching.

"Yes," Minhyun blinked a few times, as if he had to reacclimatise to the idea of searching for the sewer entrance. "It's just a little farther down here."

Taking the lead again, he dove into the alley, keeping his head down. At the end they met with a checkpoint, it seemed like an odd place for one since people probably rarely went this way, but the city had always been known to be very thorough. They all scanned their wristband and were granted access to a bleak concrete square lined with abandoned grey building. The tall windows were smashed in where they weren't boarded up, the graffiti adorning the walls the only source of colour. Ren noticed there were no floodlights here, at night this whole area would be a blot of darkness.

As if very familiar with the place, Minhyun didn't pause a single moment to orient himself. He walked straight on, skirting the square close to the wall of the largest factory building and following it to the end, where he turned the corner.

Having to jog to keep up with his pace, Ren saw him disappearing behind the wall and was hit with the slightest spike of panic. He didn't want to lose anyone from his sight here.

Around the corner the paving ended and made way for a barren plot of dirt. A rough approximation of a path was worn down the middle, dustier than its surroundings as a result of being travelled upon. No longer impeded by the concrete, weeds grew freely along the sides of the path, man-high thickets of knotweed lined a steep slope downward. At the end of this slope they found Minhyun standing in front of the sewer opening; a large concrete tube embedded in the dirt wall.

"And I think this is it," declared Minhyun in a businesslike tone. He pulled at his bag, rummaged through it shortly before pulling out a torch and turning it on. In the bright light of day Ren could hardly tell if it worked, but when Minhyun shone it into the pipe a narrow beam of light clearly extended into the darkness beyond.

"It's huge," Ren remarked lamely, taking note of the way he could only barely touch the ceiling if he stretched out his arm. "I didn't think the sewers would be so roomy, but seeing this it's not hard to imagine how someone could live down here. Something could live down here," he corrected himself.

Minhyun nodded sagely. "According to my maps, most of the network isn't like this. This big, I mean. Just the areas meant for maintenance access. Most of it is smaller, meant only for drainage."

"Do you know your way around here?" Baekho asked while feeling the ground beneath them tentatively, no doubt wondering why there was so little moisture at the entrance of a sewer. "Have you memorised your maps?"

"Of course I have," Minhyun said defensively, as if the mere suggestion he hadn't was offensive. The hand that held the torch noticeably shook as he stepped inside, though.

Like hell you have, Ren thought. It was unlike Minhyun to admit when he wasn't in control.

"But I've never actually been inside here before," he went on, deliberately allowing for some of his uncertainty to sound through in his voice. “We should stick close together, and stay alert."

Ren nodded, though he knew Minhyun wasn't looking at him. "We will."

They began walking after Minhyun, much like they had in the city earlier but now at a much slower pace and with a more distinguished feeling of lonesomeness.

The light of the torch raked back and forth across the pipe's interior, revealing their empty, wide path that looked like it went on forever. There were no side-tracks, only small pipes mostly covered in grating, too small for anyone to fit trough anyway. Ren kept seeing flickers of motion dart away from the moving light and wondered how much of that was his nervous imagination and how much, if any, was actual life in the shadows. Different from what he had expected, there was no stench. There was the dank smell of stagnant water and the underground, but no sewage. He figured this section of the pipes was for draining excess rainwater, not filth.

Sooner than he had expected, they met with a split leading two ways and were forced to make a decision. Minhyun didn't let his expression waver for even a second while he shone his light alternatingly in either direction.

"Where to now?" It was Baekho who peered into one of the pathways in search of anything of interest.

Ren had turned away from them and kept a close eye on the direction they just came from. It was unlikely any Lurker would sneak up on them from there, but he simply didn't like keeping their backs unguarded.

"I don't know," he heard Minhyun say from behind him. "I only knew this is the place he went in, not where he went afterwards." Ren listened and as he did Minhyun's voice seemed to grow more distant. He turned back around quickly, afraid that the others were moving on without him only to find they still stood in exactly the same place as before.
He blinked his eyes a few times, probably having to adjust to the change in light now that he faced Minhyun's torch again. He couldn't think of any other reason why he had such a hard time bringing his friends into focus.

"Looking for someone?" Minhyun nearly dropped his torch at the sound of the unknown voice and Baekho whirled around frantically to find out where it came from.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Ren located the owner of the voice, a young man with shaggy dark hair standing right next to Baekho, somehow having appeared there without making a sound. He could only get brief look at him before something knocked their light source from Minhyun's hand and sent it flying out into the main access way.

It was dark now, but not as pitch-black as he had expected. A distant glow emanated from the pipe towards the outside world; the last remainder of sunlight to show them where they were.

Behind Minhyun, opposite the stranger, a second figure emerged; a girl with her hair in a high ponytail, her large eyes looking at the boys with fascination. The two, realising fully well that these were not ordinary people, looked at each other for help. They realised too late that they should've come more prepared than this.

Ren observed their fear of the strangers, who he realised were probably Lurkers, but didn't understand it. These seemed like nice enough people.

"How odd," the male said, moving closer to Baekho who in turn took a hasty step backwards until he and Minhyun collided.

"They're not like the others who come down here," the male went on as he watched Baekho and Minhyun in amusement.

"This one is, though." The girl smiled and Ren took notice of how pretty she was. She looked very familiar but he couldn't place why, like an old friend he hadn't seen for many years.

She reached out to touch his face, her hand felt soft and warm against his cheek and he only barely felt the claws scraping against his skin. "He's susceptible," she said.

"Don't you touch him!" Baekho roared with sudden bravery and he jumped forward to slap the girl's hand away. She hissed in irritation, her eyes suddenly clouding over with a jet-black haze that quickly covered them completely, like ink droplets in water.

Not understanding his distress, Ren was reluctant to go along when Baekho pulled him away from her.

"Minhyun, come on! Let's go!" Baekho shouted, poised to make a run for it, but his friend didn't move a muscle. With the young man's sharp thin claws pressing against his throat, already lightly drawing blood, Minhyun dared not risk any sudden movements. All he did was stare at the pretty girl before him as the blackness in her eyes slowly spread over her entire body, leaving her skin dark and glossy like an oil slick. She looked at Minhyun in a predatory delight, showing her teeth - now longer and sharper than they had been a few moments ago- in a ghastly mockery of a grin.

They're going to kill him, Ren observed to himself in a dull surprise. That's not very nice

Torn between his fear of what would happen if he let Ren go, and what these people, these Lurkers, would do to Minhyun if he didn't, Baekho could do nothing else but shout his friend's name again in a panicky voice.

Then, as if summoned by the scream a deafening roar came from the very beginning of the tunnel, echoing loudly off the walls.

The monster that had produced it came rushing towards them at blinding speed in a surge of bright light and noise. Stopping with a high-pitched squeal, it only barely avoided crashing into the far wall.

As the light shone upon them the Lurkers both released inhuman banshee-like screeches. The male let go of Minhyun and doubled over onto the ground in pain, the girl falling much the same way, desperately covering her face with her blackened arms. At once their control over Ren's mind snapped loose and he was back into the turmoil of reality, confusion, fear and the accompanying adrenaline hitting him like a freight train.

The monster was, as he saw now, actually a motorcycle and on top of was a familiar lean figure clad head-to-toe in leather. Woori lifted the visor of her helmet so she was clearly audible before shouting "What are you waiting for you idiots? Run!"

After a dazed second in which all three of them took in just how close they had been to death, and wondering what Woori was even doing here, they decided not to take it for granted and ran like hell.

Author's Note: A long chapter to make up for my absence. ;)
Also, before the end of the week you can expect a mini chapter focussing on JR and Aron. As much as I love my main plot, I just can't help but ship those two, so I'm going to try and work that in someway that doesn't look too out of place.