It was dawn by the time the troupe’s raft of multiple doors docked at some obscure location. The sun peeked over the landscape, and sounds of birds chirping whispered through the air. Everyone was deep in their own dreams, which were far cries from the reality they were experiencing. They tried to have a watch system while they were floating, but it seemed useless as each person succumbed to the fatigue that came with escaping and crying earlier in the night.

Emily grunted as she finally woke up out of her unconscious state. She carefully opened her eyes. She was not on a soft bed; on the contrary, her body was moving along with the raft. Emily furrowed her eyebrows, but they scrunched together even more when she realized there were arms around her.

Minseok? Emily turned her head and gazed at the boy whose arms surrounded her waist. He was deep in dreamland, with a peaceful gaze settled on his young facial features. In the early sunlight, Emily noticed his pink lips, pale skin, and the black hair roots that grew out and stood out so differently from his dyed light-brown locks. His eyes, on the other hand, were not so beautiful at this time. They were puffier than usual, and seemed pink on the edges.

Emily smiled and lifted her good arm. She tried to turn around and face him without disturbing him, but had a lot of trouble since her shoulder was still injured. Once she successfully managed to turn herself a little and prop herself upright, she once again faced the sleeping boy. He must have taken care of me… Emily’s heart fluttered at the thought. She then realized it was the first time in a long time that she felt so… content. Seeing that Minseok showed no signs of waking up, Emily decided to preoccupy herself and focused on his cheeks.

She took her forefinger, and lightly poked it. She nearly giggled as she felt the soft skin rebound under her finger. So cute, she thought amiably, but the thought didn’t last long, as Minseok captured her hand in his own.

The young man opened his eyes and gazed sincerely at her. Emily could only stare back as the two shared a very short but comfortable silence before he spoke. “You’re awake,” Minseok breathed out, as if in total relief.

Emily nodded her head. “Yeah. I am,” she smiled at him.

“Thank God,” Minseok gasped as he suddenly sat up and hugged her tight, causing the door to rock from side to side and the water to slosh up a bit onto the door surface.

Emily froze at the tightness of his grasp and tried to ignore the wetness of her pants as she felt the desperation in his tone. “Em… I was so scared…” Minseok sniffled in her shoulder as his whole body shook.

She looked at him in concern and started patting his back with her good hand. “What’s wrong, Minseok? I’m back…”

“I know,” he shook his head. “But you weren’t awake for a while, and seeing you bleeding…”

“Shh, shh, I’m okay…” Emily murmured into his ear. “See?” She pulled away from him so he could get a good look at her. “I’m okay…” she rubbed his arms as her eyes softened.

Minseok nodded, as if comprehending that she is alive and well. “Sorry…”

“Don’t be. I understand,” Emily replied with a smile. “Thank you for caring for me.”

“I didn’t do anything though…”

“You were there though, right? When I was injured?” Emily asked him.

Minseok nodded. “Yixing stitched you up, but I was there to help you out… I was so scared…”

“That’s all that matters. You were there.”

“How’d you know I was there?”

Emily shook her head and smiled. “I had a feeling you were there. I don’t know, but it felt like you were there. It was almost like I could hear you in my reverie.”

Minseok looked back into her deep brown eyes. “You could hear me?”

She nodded. “Kind of, like I was underwater. It seemed like a dream, but somewhere in me knew it wasn’t. Were you there, talking to me every night?” He nodded. “Thank you, Minseok-oppa.”

Minseok blushed. “You’re welcome,” he murmured. He felt his face warm up even more when Emily shot him another smile.

“Now, can you tell me why are we all floating on doors?”

Eve woke up to voices. She cracked her eyes open, and noticed that they stopped moving. Jongin was fast asleep beside her, curled up in a fetal position. Eve propped herself up, and the first thing she noticed was that they left the city of Seoul behind. Next, she saw that her sister was awake along with Minseok.

Words couldn’t leave as she gaped at Emily. Emily noticed and waved at her. “Jie jie…” she whispered before a wide smile graced her face. “Jie jie!!” Eve shouted in glee.

Grunts could be heard across the floating doors. “Eve, no need to shout,” Emily jokingly reprimanded her.

Eve laughed. “Finally, I was waiting for you to wake up!”

“I know, it was about time,” Emily chuckled right back. Minseok smiled at Emily, and Eve swore there was something going on. She nearly giggled at the thought. And Em gets herself a dude. ‘Bout time!

Jongin stretched his arms and legs in a deep yawn right then, and Eve stifled a chuckle when she saw his face pout in the known cute manner she has seen in all the pictures before. “Jongin-ah…” she patted him.

He blinked his eyes open before gazing at her. “Mm?”

“Want to say hi to Emily?”

Jongin looked at her in confusion. “Emily?”

“She’s awake, silly,” Eve smiled at him.

Jongin’s eyes widened, and turned in the direction of Emily and Minseok’s door a few doors down. Emily was smiling widely at him. Jongin couldn’t contain his happiness. “Emily noona!”

“Jongin! You okay there?” Emily waved at him. Since day one of his being awake, Emily knew he had a liking for her younger sister. And though she hadn’t known him for long, she didn’t have a problem with him. He seemed like a good kid.

“Congrats on being awake!” Jongin waved back, a wide smile on his face. Emily chuckled and gave him the thumbs up.

Eve blushed, knowing exactly what her sister was referring to. Jongin, on the other hand, once again entered the land of confusion. “Eve? Your sister gave me a thumbs up…”

Eve shook her head and laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Jongin-ah.”

Jongin shifted his eyes to Eve’s and smiled. “’Kay.”

Eve looked over to the rest of the EXO boys, Alex, and Joy, and no one showed signs of waking up. She then glanced over at Emily, and saw that her older sister was engaged in deep conversation with Minseok.

She then looked back at the young boy next to her. Jongin’s gaze never left her, and the intensity in his eyes caught her off guard. “Jongin?”

He didn’t reply immediately, but soon murmured, “Want to stay here for a bit? I don’t really want to get off the door yet.”

Eve laughed and patted his leg. “Silly, who said we had to get off?”

Jongin shrugged and gave her his signature smirk. “I don’t know, so we can hang out on solid ground?”

Eve giggled. “I’m fine here. You?”

“Mm,” Jongin murmured as he placed his hand on top of her smaller ones and started patting her fingers.

Eve glanced at him, puzzled. “Jongin?” The boy shot a teasing glance at her and focused back on his hands over hers. “What are you doing?” She felt butterflies all over her body and smiled.

The boy shot one of his trademark smiles at her. “Your hands are cute. Can I play with them?”

She giggled in response. “Who said you couldn’t?”

“Well, you didn’t quite give me a response,” he smirked.

“You’re so silly, Jongin-ah,” Eve laughed out loud.

Jongin turned his gaze away from her petite hands and looked straight into her brown orbs. “But I’ll be silly for you.”

Eve stared at him. She then blushed, and tried to turn her head away. But Jongin grasped her hands tightly so she couldn’t away too much. “Are you okay with that?” he whispered.

Eve wanted to calm her rapid heartbeat, but knew it was futile. She could only nod, but couldn’t face him. She didn’t want to admit the excitement she felt when his gaze pierced hers.

Jongin chuckled as he wrapped his fingers around hers. “It seems you’re silly too, hon.”

Eve gasped at the nickname, and lightly slapped his arm with her free hand. “I didn’t say you could call me hon!” she pouted.

Jongin laughed out loud for the first time in days. “Okay, okay, just teasing you…”

Emily gazed at the scene with a content smile on her face. “What are you thinking about?” Minseok asked.

“I’m happy for Eve,” was her short reply before turning to face Minseok. “You?”

He turned his attention on the two young kids and smiled as well. His situation wasn’t as different as Jongin’s. It was only that Minseok himself couldn’t be as bold. It wasn’t his personality. “I’m happy for Jongin too,” he answered as he then turned and looked into Emily’s asking eyes. Minseok grinned. “But I’m happier that you’re okay.”

Emily blushed. “Oh, you cheesy bun,” she shook her head as she tried to stifle her laugh.

Minseok shrugged and smirked. “You know you like it.”

Emily could only shake her head at the corniness. “Where are you going with this?”

“You’ll know soon enough if you don’t already,” was all she got out of the oldest member of EXO.

She sighed, but her lips curled up in amusement. The two soon fell into a comfortable silence as they watched Jongin and Eve tease each other. Emily also took in the surroundings. In the distance, she saw rows upon rows of mountains covered with vast and lush trees. Before the mountains lay shadows of a once metropolitan area, and the river water was clouded with silt and debris. At least they lived through all of this, and that was enough for her to be grateful.

The others soon woke up from their deep slumber, and once everyone was alert, Emily asked a question that had plagued her mind as Minseok was unable to answer. "Does anyone know where we are?"

Eve and Jongin stopped their banter, and most of the boys looked at each other, confused and uncertain. But Joonmyeon soon answered, "I think we passed Goyang district..."

"Goyang district?" Alex asked.

"It's where Kyungsoo's from."

The girls nodded, saddened that Kyungsoo was still unconscious and they passed his hometown. "Should we go there then since it's closeby?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Jongdae disagreed. "It's probably also wrecked like Seoul is."

"What do you suppose we should do then?" Yixing wondered out loud.

"Maybe we should keep going down the Han River? If we get lucky we should hit the North and South Korean border soon..." Joonmyeon pondered.

"I didn't know you had all this knowledge in you?" Alex teased.

"He's a bookworm, that's what," Luhan laughed.

Joonmyeon chuckled as well, "Nah, I had nothing else to do on the subway sometimes."

The whole group laughed merrily at the first humorous moment since the catastrophe. Joonmyeon shook his head at all his friends, "but I'm serious, if we hit the border, at least we know there is farmland nearby."

"But isn't the farmland all destroyed by the Han River flooding?" Emily pointed out.

"Oh... right, but at least we can climb some mountains?"

"Sounds good to me," Eve nodded, and everyone else chorused their agreements as they grabbed their paddles and began to row themselves further away from the ghosts of modern South Korean civilization.

Just a quick note, I checked the geography of South and North Korea up for this... Hopefully I'm not too inaccurate with which direction the Han River's flowing...

Also, thank you thank you to all the new subscribers to my old story "Nothin' Like You!" I'm glad you guys enjoy that one too even though it's finished. As always, I have a poll in Chapter 8 for what kind of story you'd like for me to publish on AFF next, so let me know! I appreciate it :D