We let the unconscious body of the National Guard slump to the ground once we were done with it. The Rebel turned towards me and gazed at me for a moment with a curious look in his eyes.

                “Hi?” I said uncertainly, shifting my gaze away from him and looking down the street.

                “What do you think you’re doing out here?” he asked, sounding stern and very serious-like. I turned back to face him. He looked irritated and angry. Extremely dangerous too.

                “Taking pictures.” I said, then gestured towards where my camera had dropped. “But that guy made me drop my camera back there, so I’m going to go and look for it.”

                The Rebel fell into step with me quickly. “It’s dangerous to be out here at this time of night, especially so close to a riot. You could have gotten killed—“

                “I know.”

                “All because of some stupid pictures and—excuse me?” he skidded to a halt, watching me bend down to pick up my camera. “What do you mean you know? You knew you would have died back there?”

                After checking to make sure my camera wasn’t seriously damaged, I calmly turned back to the Rebel. “Yes, I knew.”

                He seemed to mull over my answer for a bit. “And?”

                I shrugged. “If I died, then my parents would just come after him and that would be one less Guard for Civilians to worry about.”

                The Rebel paused and titled his head to the side. “Interesting family.”

                “You have no idea.”

                He chuckled and stuck out his hand. “Youngjae.”

                “That’s nice.” I flipped through a couple more pictures on my camera before glancing up at him. He was giving me an expectant look, like he was waiting for something from me. “What?”

                “I gave you my name, give me yours. That’s what people do, right?” he raised an eyebrow at me, shoving his hands in his pockets. I opened my mouth to reply when a truck suddenly sped by, coming to a halt behind him. It was the truck that had driven through the Base and it was still full of Rebels, although I could tell there were less than what had gone through. They were whooping and hollering, holding up their new weapons with pride.

                The driver honked and called out to Youngjae. “Are you coming, Jae?”

                He smirked and nodded towards the Rebel before looking back at me. “You take photos of the Rebels in action, right? Want to see our hideout?”

                I looked at him skeptically. “Are you seriously going to trust me?”

                “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked curiously.

                “I could be a spy.” I responded matter-of-factly.

                He smiled and gestured for me to climb into the back of the truck with him. “Spies don’t say stuff like that.”

                Shaking my head, I allowed him to pull me beside him as the truck began to speed off again. I took pictures of the scenery around us as we rode, while Youngjae spoke with the Rebels around us. They were inspecting the weapons that they had managed to grab on their way out. They spoke of certain Rebels that had been able to steal a few more trucks. They had piled the backs up with weapons and gone on ahead without waiting for the others. I gazed at the members seated near me for a moment.

                Two of them in particular stuck out to me for a couple reasons. They were clearly young, definitely younger than I was, but they also showed the marks of people who had fought for quite some time. They weren’t new to raids or riots or anything else the Rebels threw at them it seemed.

                Before I could even stop and really think about what I was doing, I had my camera raised and pointed at the two of them, snapping a few quick pictures.

                I mean, this was as close as I’ve ever been to the Rebels. Might as well get proof, right?

                The sound of the camera brought them out of their thoughts, and they both lifted their heads up to look at me.

                “What is she doing?” the taller of the two asked Youngjae, turning to give him a quizzical look.

                “Taking pictures, just ignore her.” Youngjae replied, turning a knife over in his hands.

                They both turned back to look directly at me.

                The one that had spoken before sighed and shook his head. “Should we smile or something?” he asked, tilting his head to the side and eyeing me curiously.

                I smiled and quickly shook my head in response. “Giving me your names would do, though.”

                He stuck his hand out. “Junhong, but everyone calls me Zelo.” I shook his hand and smiled.

                The other guy his hand out eagerly for me to shake it with a wide grin on his face. “I’m Jongup!” he said in a bright tone that didn’t match the setting at all.

                I giggled as I shook his hand. He was a sweet kid, I could already tell, but I was curious on what exactly they were doing, running around with the Rebels and all.

                “I’m Sohyun.” I said shyly, looking down at my camera and avoiding the glares being sent my way by Youngjae. If looks could kill, I would have been dead seconds ago.

                “Seriously?” he demanded, getting to his feet despite the bumpy road. “You’ll tell them your name, but not me, Sohyun?”

                I ignored him and focused on flipping through photos on my camera. He continued to rant, but everyone seemed to have stopped listening to him just as quickly as I had.

                “Would you relax? And sit down before you fall out of the truck, will you?” another guy muttered, yanking Youngjae back into his seat. He sighed and turned to face me. “The name’s Daehyun, and go ahead and ignore Youngjae, we all do.”

                I laughed along with everyone around me, but Youngjae didn’t seem to find it very funny.

                The truck drove down a winding dirt path through lots of trees and wild grass, which indicated that we weren’t in the city anymore, much to my surprise. I hadn’t realized we’d been driving for that long.

                It stopped in the middle of nowhere and everyone began climbing out.

                “What are we doing?” I asked Daehyun as he helped me jump off the back of the truck and land smoothly on the rough terrain underneath our feet.

                He reached over me and grabbed a couple of the arsenal they had gotten from the raid and placed them all in duffel bags lying at his feet. “We have to walk from here.” He explained, handing a bag to me. “Feel free to take pictures of the scenery. There sure is a lot of it.”

                They covered the truck with a rundown tarp and tossed some broken branches and piles of leaves on top of it to make it blend into the scenery behind it then began walking further into the forest. I followed as quickly as I could, but it had been a long time since I had walked through such a mountainy area, so I was constantly slipping in the mud and on the dried leaves. Jongup finally seemed to take pity on me and placed an arm around my waist and guided me down the slope through an easier path that everyone seemed to naturally know.

                “It takes a while to get used to walking around out here.” He whispered before letting me go once we had reached leveled ground. “You’ll get used to it.” He flashed a quick smile before jogging to catch up with Zelo up ahead of us.

                I took multiple pictures of the Rebels’ backsides as we continued to wherever we were heading, keeping myself busy with getting the right angle and the little bit of lighting in the darkness engulfing us. Along with trying to keep up with their fast pace, I also needed to stay on my feet and not trip on any tree roots that were continually sticking out at odd places.

                The walk felt longer than the ride from the city, although I’m sure it probably wasn’t. When we finally reached the only building in sight, I had taken enough pictures to fill articles for the next couple of months and then some.

                And we hadn’t even gotten to their Refuge yet.

                I stopped walking out of pure amazement at the sight of the large grey building set in between the tall trees. There really wasn’t anything special about it. In fact, it blended in almost too well with the area around it. If you weren’t looking specifically for it, you could go straight passed it and not even notice. From where I was standing, I could tell it was made out of cinderblock, so it was definitely not something you could just plow through easily. There were lights here and there that shone down on the ground and scanned the area, probably for any unwanted guest. There were very few windows and only one door from where I could see.

                And many, many Rebels patrolling the area.

                No one glanced our way as we walked towards the entrance, not even as much as an eyebrow was raised at the new arrival—aka me.

                We entered the building after Youngjae pressed in a code on the doorknob and everyone dispersed and went their own ways with their bags of weapons. Youngjae gestured for me to follow him.

                “If you’re nice, I’ll show you Headquarters.” He said, sending me a smirk over his shoulder as we walked down the hall.

                “Headquarters?”

                “It’s where we plan for raids and stuff.” He turned right and I quickened my steps to catch up with him.

                “But that’s what the National Guard calls their meeting room.” I muttered as we descended some stairs and into a circular room larger than any room I had ever seen.

                “Ironic, isn’t it?”

                The room was set up just like any idea of Headquarters could be set up. A large table with blue prints and other papers strewn across it. TV monitors surrounding it with plenty of space for a large mass of people to crowd around. For now, however, there was only one person standing by the table, staring down at all the papers with a deep frown on his face.

                “That’s Yongguk, he’s basically our leader.” Youngjae muttered to me, walking around to the opposite side of the table and setting the bag of weapons down.

                “Basically?”

                “He doesn’t want to admit it. He says that having a leader makes us no better than the National—“

                “I can hear you.” Yongguk lifted his head up and smirked at Youngjae. “Who’s your friend?”

                “We’re not friends.” Youngjae replied, crossing his arms. “I found her trying to fight off a Guard, so I brought her back here. I’m sure she has a few questions for us.”

                Yongguk raised an eyebrow. “Really now. It’s not because she’s pretty?”

                At that, Youngjae spluttered and scoffed and looked down right flabbergasted at his leader’s forwardness. I only bowed my head and giggled.

                Yongguk chuckled and walked around the table to come and stand beside me. He leant against the table and crossed his arms. “You are pretty. Not my type, but I call it like I see it.”

                “Thank you.” I said, fumbling with my camera and avoiding looking him directly in the eye. “You’re pretty handsome yourself.”

                He laughed and sat on top of the table. “What’s with the camera?”

                “I take pictures for my school’s underground newspaper. We write about current events, so basically the war between you guys and the National Guards.” I shrugged. “I was out, taking pictures of the raid, when Youngjae found me.”

                “Getting beat by a Guard.” Youngjae quickly added, puffing out his chest proudly. I rolled my eyes.

                “Yeah, well, he intervened.”

                Yongguk frowned. “Are you hurt?”

                I shrugged and gave him a reassuring smile. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

                “You fought during the Revolution didn’t you?”

                “It has a name now?” I mumbled more to myself than to either one of them. “Yes, I did. My sister and I defended our home while our parents defended our freedom.”

                The two of them gazed at me for a long moment.

                “What?”

                Yongguk spoke first. “Everyone here has also fought during the Revolution. But I’ll assume that you didn’t lost anyone close to you?” I shook my head. “No one here can say the same thing. Now we’re fighting for the protection of the Civilians. In the hopes that what we had to go through won’t happen to more people.” He gestured towards my camera in hand. “Go ahead and take pictures. Make sure everyone knows what we’re fighting for.”

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wow...soooo

this should have been updated a long time ago

and i'm so sorry about that

but i sure hope it's worth the wait!

thanks for reading~