Nine
Four ShotsHimchan POV
I just miss him so much. So much, so freaking much that it's tearing my heart to pieces, my heart that is already so weak. And now it's shredded as well? I just don't want it to be like this. None of us do, but I don't have the strength left in my torn heart to hide it, and live, day through day, like Daehyun. Like Jongup. I wish I could be like them. I wish I could close it all inside and lock it away and never speak of the pain of yesterday, and focus on the pain of today.
But I can't. All I can do is try to pull myself together, try to stop my crying, try to forget him, as much as it hurts me to forget him when I never can, never will, for now. So I straighten, lifting my head off Jongup's shoulder, unwrapping my arms from my legs. With one hand, my head down, I try to scrub away the tracks my tears left on my face, and try to wipe all evidence of my breakdown from my skin.
I squeeze my eyes shut, suddenly embarrased in the face of the strong, stoic Jongup with my teariness. I wish he hadn't seen me like this, but it was sweet of him to help, sweet of him to comfort me. I let out an explosion of breath and Jongup tilts his head towards me, like he hadn't noticed me moving before. The cave entrance, only a little to the left, lets in the streaming morning light, and it makes me feel vulnerable, more exposed when compared with the quiet darkness I had fallen asleep to.
Jongup meets my eyes with his, and the light brightens his dark brown irises that remind me of dark chocolate until they shine, glossy like a polished marble.
"You okay?" He asks me, so softly I cold barely hear it, and I got the sense that he was trying not to wake the others.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good," I tell him, and his eyes soften, but he doesn't say anything. "Thank you," I say when I realize he isn't planning to say anything.
"It's nothing," he replies nonchantly, but in the light I see a faint blush creep up his cheek, and I grin a little bit. Then, acting only on instinct, I move my hand towards Jongup's, just a little. He doesn't notice. I move it a bit more. He still doesn't notice. I slip my hand into his open one, and smile again as he jerks in suprise, but doesn't draw away.
I just need someone right now. I need someone right now, and Jongup happens to be right here. That's all it is. That's all it is, I repeat to myself, ignoring my feverishly beating heart, because that's all it can be. Understand? That's all it is. I try to repeat that to myself, to my stupid heart, over and over.
I'm not sure it worked.
➻➻➻➻➻➻➻
When light fully filled the cave but for the shadowed corners, all of us were up, except Zelo, who was still snoring next to Yongguk. The leader was pacing in the cave, the top of his hair just brushing the cave ceiling, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he puzzled over one of our many problems at the moment. Youngjae was methodically dipping his hands into the little groudwater stream and running them through his hair, combing out the many knots with his fingers, and dripping dusty water down his cheeks and neck. Daehyun was sitting up against the wall, his leg cut newly bandaged thanks to Jongup, scooping out a peach with his fingers. He managed to snag a slice and passed the can to Jongup, who did the same and passed it to me.
The cave is mostly silent, save for the ever-present dripping of water, the scuff of Yongguk's shoes against the raw rock, and the occasional scrape of a fingernail against metal when we reach blindly into the peach can. There's some sort of peace in the cave, but not truly. It feels like the moment of calm, right before the storm. Right before a legendary storm that uproots hundred-year-old trees, and spins mailboxes through the tossed air, before the storm with the lightening strikes that kill a human.
And so we sat, in the false calm, when Yongguk suddenly stops pacing and stands over the three of us, just as Daehyun tilts the can to catch the last bit of sweet juice. His dark eyes lock onto mine, then Jongup's, then Daehyun's, like he's examining how ready we are for battle. But when he speaks, it's such a difference from his confident, ego boosted appearance that it fills me with dread before I even hear two words.
"What are we going to do?" The silence that follows the question is horrible. Because no one knows. No one knows what we're going to do, and that is the scariest part of this.
"I've an idea." The voice isn't loud, but it's snarky and even though I've only known him for not even a day, I immediately recongnize it as Youngjae's.
Yongguk turns his dark, heavy eyes to Youngjae, who slids onto the floor next to me, but Daehyun speaks first.
"Your brilliant idea is that we all run off the nearest cliff, yeah?"
Youngjae turns his eyes to Daehyun and a faint smile, maybe a tad sarcastic, curved his lips up. "Well, you can if you want to, Dae. I won't stop you." His tone is as sicky-sweet as venom and as sharp as a snake's tooth, but Daehyun only smirks back, seeming not bothered by his new nickname. "Actually, I've heard there's a safe place for people on the run northeast from Seoul. If we go there, we'll get shelter." It takes me a while to process that, that there's actually a place, in this new world, where we could be safe, be clean and fed and happy. Where we could be safe. But not for Daehyun, apparently.
"Oh, yeah, that's a wonderful idea. We'll just stroll right on through North Korea." Youngjae rolls his eyes.
"We'll take the coast, Dae. Duh. And besides, the entire country of North Korea was bombed, like, a week ago. We'll be fine. No one will even be alive to see us." Daehyun shuts his mouth after that, but he still has a certain glint of steel in his eyes. Yongguk's gaze darts up to Youngjae's.
"You think this has happened to everyone?" His voice is deep, gruff.
Youngjae considers that before replaying. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it was just Asia, or just us, or the whole world. Who knows?"
The cave plunges into silence. "Well... what choice do we-" Yongguk stopped, cutting himself off as he froze, every muscle taunt. We all stood still in response, not knowing what had startled our leader, but trusting him anyway. It was baffling, to me at least, how quickly we had came to think of him as our leader. Yongguk his lips, and when he spoke, it was barely a whisper. "Jongup, wake up Zelo. Quickly. Youngjae, get the food. Daehyun, get everything else." When still no one moved, Yongguk snapped. "Now!"
Just as he did, a low, spine-chilling sound echoed through the cave, like a howl, but low and quiet and like nothing I had ever heard before, something that shook my bones. And with it, the slow, purposeful rustle of metal wings as they uncurl from each other. Youngjae clenches his jaw, and stands, every movement planned to the second, and starts to pack all of the cans and bottles of water into the bag, no movements sudden, or unexpected. Daehyun does the same, and as he shifts, I hear that same rustling, and dart my eyes to the very back of the cave, straining to pinpoint the noise and the thrills of fear it causes me. I wish I hadn't.
Because there, filed perfectly in a line, is a row of eyes that glow acid green in the shadows. All focused on us, all unblinking and wide and large. But when the light gave a pulse of brightness, a beam struck just right, and it hit the tip of a fang, white as bone and as sharp as a thistle, and another, and another, gleaming sickly. But that wasn't the worst. The worst was that these creatures, by my estimate, where larger, much larger than your average cave bat. Larger than your above average cave bat. I swallow, my throat suddenly dry as dust, and struggle to control my breathing, my heartbeat, in fear that any extra noise would only provoke the creatures.
I tear my eyes away, feeling like the gaze of the one I was focusing on was staring right back at me, and start to back up, away, away from these creatures that are so focused that it can't be real. Youngjae, finished, starts to back away, and Daehyun soon follows, until they're both just a step behind me as we inch our way out. But then Jongup moves to wake up Zelo, and he puts a hand on his shoulder to try to wake him up quietly, and Zelo stretches and opens his eyes and Yongguk, always the last to leave and the first to enter, starts to back away, and I start to feel the touch of sun on my heels, I breath a small sigh of relief. We can do this. We won't be torn to pieces by the teeth of these freaks.
But then,
Zelo meets the eyes of a freak. He blinks, focuses, and screams. Jongup, right next to him, claps his hands over his ears and just runs, blundering backwards as the entire clot of freaks starts to move, start to rustle and spread their metal wings of beaten silver, that I can now see are about two feet wide, each. Yongguk spits out a vicious curse and screams at us to run, but we already are, running, but the uneven floor brings us to our knees,
But then,
a dry flap like wet paper in the wind, and I risk a look back and I see Zelo, as he's scrambling to his feet, and I see a cloud descending on him. I see Yongguk, and he's going back and dragging Zelo, and they're attacking him too, beating at his face with their wings of steel and drawing blood with teeth of ivory. I'm outside, and Daehyun, and Youngjae, and Jongup is just stumbling out, a lone freak attached to his leg, blood coating his skin, but Yongguk and Zelo are still there, not here. Youngjae snarls, and, cursing, draws his knife, stabbing the piece of brutal metal on Jongup's leg.
And then,
Just when we think no one else is coming out, I feel the nip of teeth in my calf, and I see Yongguk dragging the stumbling, half concious Zelo behind him, and the freaks are still coming out, a cloud, blood dripping from someone, and I feel a horrible pain in my leg but I'm ripping it off and I feel just one thing, one thing in the terrifying, mind-numbing chaos; a deep, panicked, oldened voice, screaming until his throat ran hoarse, even as he obeyed his own order: "Run!"
And so I ran, and as the death trailed at our heels and brought tears to my eyes with pain but I run, I have to keep running, through this forest,
and a part of my brain is praying praying to whoevers out there in this brutal world to let me go, to let me die.
But I still run.
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