Minho sighed as he popped a sweet fried thing into his mouth. He'd forgotten what they were called. Something French. Anyway, it tasted fine. He leaned back, distancing himself from his family. His brother was absorbed in his video-game, as always. His parents were being typical tourists, murdering the language and jabbing at a map. Minho rolled his eyes. He was fifteen and, naturally, found his family very annoying.

He was on a vacation in Europe. France, actually, where, in his opinion, the air was too clean and the scenery was too pretty and the food was too good. It was too nice. He hated it. He wanted to at least see the dark side of France, the dingy underworld or the night life. The clubs, with all the hot guys and girls getting it on, instead of the boring hotel room.

And would someone shut that damn music off?

Minho's head whipped around to find whatever idiot was playing harp music, whoever was refusing to turn off their ing radio. Minho hated it when people played beautiful music on the same device as rap or mindless hip hop. It was degrading, and Minho knew what it was like to be degraded.

Instead, someone was actually playing the harp. And it was—he was—probably the most beautiful thing on this trip. The musician was a child, but still... Minho raised an eyebrow as he looked at the mysterious musician, who was playing like there was nothing else in the world anchoring him down. He wasn't perfectly happy, but he seemed to be gaining happiness from the instrument. Minho swallowed as he watched the people walk by, some dropping coins but most just ignoring him.

"Bro... Bro, dude, damn it, can you stop killing Bowler for a second?" Minho hissed, slapping his brother's arm furiously, letting the words grate between his tightly clenched teeth. Minseok sighed and lowered his DS, looking at Minho with mild annoyance.

"His name is Bowser, Minho. And I wasn't even on his level yet. I was facing Bob-Omb. What do you want?" he growled softly. Minho rolled his eyes.

"Where's that notebook mom and dad got you?" Minho asked, practically jumping out of his seat to grab it. Minseok sighed and leaned down to the backpack next to him, looking for the leather-bound little book. He pulled it out from under bags of chips and cameras, handing it to Minho.

"Keep it," he grunted as he went back to his game. Minho pulled the pencil from the spine, quickly bringing it to the paper and sketching the harp-player. He was no artist, but he felt like getting this down. His heart was pounding like crazy, and he didn't even bother to wonder why.

The picture turned out... Fine. Just fine. The musician's hands were a little lopsided and the harp looked slightly mangled, but it wasn't horrible. Minho got up from the table and loped over to the boy. His parents didn't bother to ask what was going on. After all, Minho was only their strange biual son. Why bother?

Taemin brightened up whenever people dropped coins into his harp case, and when they didn't, he tried to smile anyway, because he couldn't blame them, could he? He just smiled and plucked his strings, and maybe he'd be able to pay rent this week. Still, coins were just coins, cold and empty.

Then, someone didn't move. They stood next to him, watching him, a pair of shoes in the edge of Taemin's range of sight. It was a little unnerving to be watched doing something that Taemin perceived as "everyday." Still, he enjoyed the silent company as his fingers did their last waltz over the strings. He sighed as a small wave of applause went through passersby, and he accepted the coins graciously.

"Um, excuse me," a deep voice murmured. Taemin nearly jumped out of his skin and turned to greet the silent watcher. He was given a picture, folded eight times and tightly creased, as the giver quickly ran in the other direction, tossing a few coins into the velvet case. Taemin hadn't even seen what the boy looked like.

Slowly, with shaking hands, Taemin peeled the paper open. It seemed reluctant to unfold, but it finally yielded to Taemin's quiet determination. The tears rose as soon as the picture hit Taemin's eyes. Okay, so the proportions were a little strange and his hands looked broken at the wrists and the harp was way too thin, but still...

"Thank you!" Taemin called out into the crowd as he pressed the picture to his chest. Minho turned to respond, but he saw the ring of people around the mysterious boy and knew that he'd never get a word in. Sighing, he turned and followed the sound of Minseok's beeping game.

When he woke up the next day, he'd already forgotten the boy's face. All he remembered was that he'd drawn a picture for a harpist and then had eaten a load of mushroom bisque at dinner. Time to start a new day in this never-ending cycle of life.

~

Five Years Later

~

It's the date 11-16-2014. I am the last of the scientists researching the disease known as "Bloody Mary." As discussed in the previous tapes, one pathogen involved causes sever hallucinations and increases pheromones in the subject, causing the patients to become extremely angry to the point of violence and murder. The infected will not communicate their thoughts and will instead destroy everything in their path.

The second eats away at the muscles slowly, causing deformations in the patients and extreme pain. A combination of these two pathogens renders the patient nearly primitive, relying on senses heavily and operating in fight-or-flight instincts.

The cure has been found, though, thanks to the tireless efforts of my former team. The cure to Bloody Mary is—OH GOD! OH GOD! GET AWAY! GET AW—

And then static. Nothing but the sound of the world burning. That tape was a year old, but still, it was on an endless loop. Not the actual tape, because that had been burned down with the lab, but the message of the tape, the terror and panic and hopelessness. The feeling of an answer right over the horizon, only to find more of those monsters waiting.

A year after the initial infection, the world was still burning in the static of the tape, in the lost answers and broken dreams and demolished future.

In this world, Minho was curled up under a blanket, hugging a burnt beam. He was sleeping in the midst of a wreckage, the scent of ash all around him. His face was streaked with charcoal to help him blend in, and his arms seemed to tighten every few moments, as if assuring their owner that the beam was still there. His hair was singed short, or cut short. Either way, it was short and uneven, like his nails, which had been cut short, and his pants, which were burnt right above the knee.

Very different from the boy's appearance as it had been a year ago, but then again, things had changed. The world had changed. School had changed, from places of education to survival camps for the students. Even preschoolers learned how to hide their scents and in a hole to bury the stench from the monsters. Houses were looted night for supplies, and men shot their sisters and mothers and children to save them from the fate. Libraries became fortresses for the weak, easily infiltrated. Hospitals shut down, and so did big businesses as those who could run ran for cover.

Yes, the world had changed. For Minho, everything had changed. He had changed.

A sudden roar woke the boy from his sleep. In stormed a monsters, its eyes wide and bloodshot and its hair stained with red clumps. It used to be a woman, but now its soul seemed lost. It lunged for Minho, and he barely managed to get up and swing his makeshift club and catch the thing in the ribs. The monster was sent flying into a blackened wall. So early in the morning, and Minho's heart was already pounding. He stood, weapon at the ready, eyeing the monster. It screamed and flailed in anguish as Minho stepped closer.

"GARGH!" A strangled sound erupted from the monster's throat, and Minho jumped back a few inches, beam held over his shoulder. It was about six inches in diameter and a foot long, broken and splintered a both ends. As of a few months ago, it was Minho's best friend.

"Don't make this worse than it needs to be," Minho growled slowly, even though he knew that the disgusting thing couldn't understand him. The monster opened its mouth, revealing the monsters that were already settling in it's rotting tongue.

"Haaagh..." A soft hissing groan emanated from its throat, and Minho snarled softly in response. The monster braced itself; Minho could see the muscles tense, and then it sprang. Like a batter, he caught it just in time and sent it flying back to the wall. The weight of the monster rang through his arm, causing the shoulder joint to ache as the monster hit the charred plaster. He heard bones cracking in the thing's spine, and still it was struggling to get up.

Time to finish this.

"Goodbye," he whispered before lifting up bringing down the beam, crushing its skull. The boy willed himself not to be sick as a thick, red liquid splattered onto the surface behind the monster. The body twitched, another soft moan rising from it's mouth, and then it was still. There. Finished.

The gruesome task done, he leaned against the wall to catch his breath, looking at the blood as it poured from the smashed head. The woman used to be quite beautiful, evidently. He could see the soft jaw-line still, or whatever was left of it. Her lips were full and probably used to be glossy, and her eyes were still half-open, their emerald irises staring at the floor. She was slim, and dressed in civilian clothing. A mother? A sister? A wife?

Minho sighed and rubbed his face with his hand, not caring how dirty he got. He just wanted to stop thinking about that woman—no, monster—as a human. That would make it harder to kill these things, and killing was survival. Killing was life. He sighed as he picked up his beam and blanket. The others would be coming soon, no doubt. Others monsters trailing the scent of blood, like a pack of animals.

He heard a moan from the wall and looked back, watching as the monster tried to stand. He swallowed the mass of bile in his throat as it staggered towards him, blood flowing and eyes pinned on his face. He raised his beam and brought it down again as the monster got close, and again, and again. He kept going, not stopping until he was sure it was dead, and then beating the pulpy remains some more.

Again, killing was life.

Each day, he expected to wake up as one of them. He expected to be crazy, animalistic, seeing red and wanting to kill, and yet, he was still him. He didn't know why, but he did whatever he could to keep sane. He stepped away from the bloody body and quickly grabbed his things again, trying to ignore the mess as he dug up what little food he had. There were some canned things, a lot of bread, and a canister of water. Then, he was running as far and fast as he could, past other burned buildings. Houses, shops, offices... Nothing had been spared.

The street was empty except for his footsteps echoing across the gravel. as he ran, he kept looking behind his shoulder, imagining the moans and roars of the monsters right at his heels. Their sour breath was in his ear, and their clawed hands were on his shoulders. Every step he took, they were there. They were , growling, killing. If nothing else, they were monsters. He might've even called them zombies. That was what everyone else had called them, anyway. Zombies.

But that implied that they were already dead.

Finally, probably about a mile from the scene of his last killing, he did what needed to be done. He was outside of a gas station, all the gas long gone and the building abandoned. Minho sometimes felt like a gas station, empty and alone. But sometimes, at times like these, he wanted to be alone. He dropped his blanket and the bloodied beam, collapsing to his knees and looked at his hands. Humanity took over and he felt his body try to purge itself with a few dry heaves. Good thing he hadn't eaten yet, or there would have been a mess. He caught his breath and looked at the blood again, the drenched sleeves and the soiled hands. Blood, blood, all around him. Bathing the streets, clogging his lungs, spreading over him like ivy.

Then he did the only thing that kept him believing in his own sanity. He screamed.

~

Taemin poked his head out of his hole. He'd dug it under a rock a few nights ago, and it was a pretty good hiding place. Granted, there was no water nearby and he had to trek two miles to get a drink, but still, the zombies weren't coming after him. Maybe they didn't like forests. That would make sense, right? Or not?

It was daylight now, and the sun reflected off of the rock, shining on the back of his neck. Taemin squirmed back into his hole, bringing out the folded scrap of paper from his pocket. He smoothed it out over his knee and sighed as he looked at it, remembering the butterflies he'd felt when he'd first gotten it. Granted, he was nineteen now, but the fourteen-year-old boy who'd played the harp on the streets was still in him somewhere. He'd never truly grown up, thanks to the zombie catastrophe. Some part of him just refused to move ahead.

His nostalgia was cut off by t dull roar. He put a hand over his mouth and shrank against the dirt wall, quickly folding the picture and hiding it in his pocket. A zombie approached, it's rancid odor seeping in through the walls. Taemin d for a stick or something as the zombie neared. His hand closed around a smooth shaft of wood and he held it close, just in case.

Eternities ticked by at a time, causing his heart to flop over and over. Finally, the zombie grunted and gnashed at the rock before loping away. The footsteps were slow and languid, without purpose. Those monsters had no purpose if there was nothing to kill, and the boy knew that. Taemin let out a long sigh of relief it finally left. He dug himself out of the hole, bursting into the fresh air. He was parched.

First, he decided to eat. He didn't have much, and he was rationing what little he had grabbed from the abandoned convenience store's back room. If there was one thing he could do, it was steal. He counted ten steps to the right of his rock and leaned down to dig. He counted steadily to thirty handfuls of dirt, singing to himself.

"29 handfuls of dirt in the hole, 29 handfuls of dirt. Take one out, throw it around, 28 handfuls of dirt in the hole..." At three handfuls, he could feed the waxy paper that his food was wrapped in. When he'd gotten down to zero, there was a small parcel of food about as big as his head. He opened it slowly. Bon appetite.

He bit hungrily into a stale bagel and tried to swallow with his throat so dry. It was challenging, but he just pretended that it was going down a slide. Whee! He ate half of it slowly, pretending that it was a magic bagel that would protect him from the zombies. He sighed and kissed the other half before wrapping it in grease paper and burying it. He liked the burying part the most. He could pretend to be a dog.

Humming, he got up and travelled to the nearest source of fresh water there was: a stream. It was a clichéd source of water, no doubt. It would have been cooler of it had been a tank or a waterfall or maybe an eternally-replenishing well, but no. It was a stream. Taemin thought up stories about it as he walked. Maybe there were mermaids in it the size of thimbles! Oh, maybe there was a secret colony just below the rocky bed, and one day he'd join them. Yeah, he liked that story...

Finally, the stories had to stop as he reached the pathetic trickle of water. He could jump over it if he wanted to, and he had, to be honest. Still, he couldn't complain. It was water, at the very least. Taemin got on his knees and put his hands on the rocky ground in front of him, leaning down and drinking deeply. It was cold and clean, and Taemin was thankful to have a water source that was still usable. He sat there, looking at the sky, wondering about what he do without water. Maybe he'd turn into a flower...

Behind him, a pair of red eyes loomed, and an unheard snarl travelled through the air.

A/N - I swear, the next chapter will be longer OTL

ANYWAY, here's our set up! Welcome to Bloody Aftermath~!!!!

More to come, comments are love!