One
Four Shots
DAEHYUN POV
I am lying on the ground. My head is throbbing, right at the base of my temple, and dirt is plugged in my mouth, shoved down my ears, folded within my clothes, like I had been born this dirty. I felt something warm on my legs though, my left calf, which I noticed immediately, since I was so cold everywhere else. I was sprawled on the ground, legs wide, arms thrown up to cover my eyes with my forearms, and I wondered what had happened. Something sharp was prodding into my back, and I twisted, trying to move, but I only managed to move onto another sharp point. I unstiffened my arms, clamping my lips together to muffle the groan of pain the motion caused, and let my arms fall to my stomach. I moved my head, a little, just enough to peer down at myself, bending my neck. Blood. Blood was seeping through my left calf’s pant leg, dripping on the ground, a deep, hellish red. Feeling sick, I let my head fall back to the ground, but let it release too hard and my head fell onto yet another rock, giving me a second throbbing headache. And, just like that, it came back to me.
Bombs.
Bombs had come to Seoul, loaded into sleek black jets that soared overhead, releasing packages onto the ground, which had exploded immediately, all over the city. Bombs had triggered those terrible screams, those panicked streets, those wild-eyed people. Bombs had destroyed the world. Bombs had destroyed my world.
With that realization, panic and fury mixed together so tightly it was hard to tell which it was rose inside of me, but I fought it down, pushing with all of my strength, all that had been left but the bombs. It wasn't much, but I know that anger won't help me now.
I wonder what will help me now.
I need to get my thoughts together. I need to get to shelter. I need to survive.
Who am I? My name is Daehyun. Jong Daehyun. I am 20 years old. I live in a loft above my work with my best friend, a coffee shop where I have been working while I finish school. My father is a banker and my mother moved to America last year to find work as a lawyer. They have been separated for three years, and divorced for two. I am an only child. My best friend was named Suga. He worked at the coffee shop too. He is dead now. I saw him, with his legs torn off, blood staining the ground, his clothes, everywhere, and I saw that panicked look in his eyes when he realized he was dead.
I wonder where my heart has gone.
What true friend would lie here, knowing his best friend is dead, knowing that he died in front of his eyes, without a tear? While only feeling numb?
I remember now. I haven't cried since I was seven. When my grandmother died, that day was the last time. When I stood at her grave, that black-veined marble with the blood red roses fanned out on the surface, I swore I would be strong. I swore to her I would never cry again, and as I did, I could feel my heart freezing over. I haven't broken my promise. I'm not the kind of person to break promises.
I think I'm okay. I think it's just the shock, the aftermath of the life-destroying bombs that are messing with my brain. But right now, this is what I need. I need to be numb, to be distant. I need to survive.
So I raise my head, already braced for the wave of dizziness that follows, and raised it a little more. Slowly, I inched my hands off of my stomach, feeling my muscles protest with flashes of pain, but I gritted my teeth and continued until my arms were laying in the dirt and broken-down concrete, and then I slid them back, the skin on my palms bloody from the unsanded points, until my arms were bent and my palms were below my back.
Carefully, I pushed up. Immediately, white flashed across my vision, my weak arms trembled and collapsed, and I plunged into darkness once again.
I snapped open my eyes. Noticing my position with a little discomfort, I remembered what I had been trying to do before I had passed out. Oh, right. I had been trying to stand up. With my chin tilted towards the sky, I could tell it was about five o'clock, about two hours until the sun would usually set.
I had two hours before the Wolves came, with glittering fur and copper teeth. Two hours before my certain death.
With a gasp, I pushed myself up, finally, but my arms trembled under my sagging weight, and pain, hot and red, burst from behind my eyes, but still I stayed.
The next step would be the worst. I would have to somehow curl my legs under me, straighten my feet, and find the strength to push myself up to a standing position.
More than a half hour later, I was up. Leaning heavily against a rock, covered in sweat, but I was standing. As I moved my hands from the rock, testing my balance, I flipped my palm, and stood still, palm facing up at the darkening sky. A symbol, faded, covered in blood and grime but still visible, was imprinted in the middle of my palm. It was about the size of a penny, with a dark red, upside-down V in the middle, centered inside a black circle of the same ink, the two lines of the V branching out behind the circle for maybe a half centimeter more before stopping abruptly. Despite the wear it must have gone through, the symbol was crisp, clear, strangely vibrant, and hauntingly familiar.
How had I gotten this? I don't remember anything about it; nothing, just a lingering sense that I should know what it is, what it means.
Closing my eyes, I tried to focus my scattered brain, tried to make it work, but it did nothing. As I opened my eyes to stare at my open palm, a tiny bug buzzed onto my hand, and settled on a clear patch of skin. Flinching, I instinctively slammed my other hand onto the bug, effectively squishing it. But something was wrong. When I lifted up my hand, and looked at the mangled corpse of the bug, I didn't see all the bug-like insides, the lungs, the things that make bugs able to live. I saw a piece of metal, flattened into an unruly disk, with webbing sticking out. It was a freak Bug, pieced together out of tin and silver and anything they can find, given movement with gears, borne by the flick of a switch.
Its kind was the food, tonight. I would join them if I didn't get out of this place, now. But as I looked out, truly, for the first time, I realized just how much the bombs destroyed.
Seoul was a wasteland. Even though it had been more than a day -by my estimate- since the bombs had struck, the burned shells of the remaining buildings stood, smoking and unrecognizable. The rest of the once solid structures were reduced to rubble, or completely gone, blown into the sky, separated from the matching pieces forever. The ground was rocks and dirt and soot and debris, all signs of plant life gone. The sky was fitting, in all shades of grey, and the clouds that hung low stained with smoke, the ones higher in a sky clouded with ash and debris were hard to see. The sun was a faint circle, but still there, although it was clouded, so the light gave off of the sun was little and weak, falling the destroyed land into grey shadows, which was almost merciful, considering the terrible wasteland that surrounded me.
Seoul was completely destroyed. Abandoned. Gone.
I was the only human left. I wasn't the only alive thing, but as I stared, paralyzed, at my home, I didn't see anyone. My father. My friends. They were gone. They were dead, and I am the last person in the world.
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An hour later, the sun had all but disappeared, and every stumbled step was agony. At first, I had aimed for the edge of the ruins of Seoul, hoping that there would be something there, at least food or shelter from the cold setting in, from the freak predators that were surely prowling, hungry for a meal.
My mind was cloudy; the constant throbbing pain had taken its toll, and my sheer exhaustion was making it hard to think rationally, but I kept going, swallowing my fear, because fear won’t help me now.
So I just keep going, keep stumbling that every other step, and keep almost blacking out every 6 steps. I keep ignoring the blood that still trickled out of my leg, ignoring the fact that a blood trail will get me found in about 5 minutes, and get me killed in 5 minutes and 20 seconds.
I fight the blackness back, I fight back to escape to a place without pain, and I keep going, although I don’t know why I am. I just do.
But eventually, the blackness is too much for me. I am too weak, and so as I stop, the dirt and debris I kicked up clouding my eyes, the blackness clouding my eyes, and I fall to my knees, the sunset stretching shadows to cover me in my pathetic form, my vision flashing black and white.
So it was hard to force my eyes back open when I saw figures, hard to hear when I heard voices, hard to stop myself from falling to the ground as arms try to keep me up, hard to fight the blackness that has already won.
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*salutes* Welcome to the first chapter! I hope you liked it.... And I decided to write this in honor of our maknae's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZELO!!!! :D
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