"I'll ask you one more time," TOP said, bending down to Amber's level with a clenched jaw, "Where is she?"

       That very question had been asked several times without a word from Amber, and his patience was waning as was the time.

        A battle of her conscience began to ensue.

        Maybe it would be for the best if someone else knew...

        She cracked, releasing a deep sigh and dropping her eyes to the ground, "She left."

        "What do you mean 'she left'?"

        "Her and Shin. She said that they needed to find his mom and that they would be back in a of couple days."

         TOP stood up straight, "How long ago did they leave?"

        "Around fifteen minutes ago," she replied. TOP his heels and walked away, "Seunghyun, where are you-?"

        "Be ready in the garage in five minutes. We're going after them," he turned to Chen who was standing confused in the middle of the wide hallway, "You're coming too, Jongdae, we need you."

         As Amber and Chen ran to get their things, TOP went down to the basement's wine cellar. To his surprise, nearly an entire artillery rack was empty. All he could do was laugh at the irony of it; Hana did use the key he gave her after all, it just wasn't under the circumstances he had imagined. After grabbing a few rifles and handguns of his own, he left he basement. When he entered the garage he saw that the Jeep was missing, but Amber and Chen were waiting for him in Siwon's polished, silver Porsche 911 Carrera.

        "You want to catch them right? Come on, let's go!" she yelled, patting the empty passenger's seat.

         No questions asked, TOP jogged over to the car and sat down. Amber put the car in reverse and sped out of the Hallyu Village, "I put a note on the fridge in case they wonder where we are later. Henry will probably see it in the morning if we don't make it back before then," Chen said from the backseat.

         As soon as they hit the vacant roads of the woods, Amber sped up dangerously, easily exceeding a hundred miles per hour in the sleek car. The night air whipping through their hair was exhilarating, and the nearly silent purr of the engine was enough to comfort to their anxious spirits.

       After a few minutes flew by, they approached what resembled tail lights in the distance. Amber slowed down when they got closer.

       TOP instructed her to turn off the headlights so that they wouldn't be seen.

       "So how far are we going to follow them?" Chen asked skeptically.

       "Until they stop."

___________________________________________________

      Shin estimated that the Hallyu Village was approximately an hour away from their old neighborhood. In the darkness of the night and the winding forest roads that all looked the same, Hana didn't know how Shin could tell.

     "Trust me, I know where I'm going," he said, keeping his eyes on the road with a serious expression, "You didn't tell anyone that we were leaving did you?"

      "No, not at all," Hana lied, "By the way, didn't you say that your mom couldn't be home because her job was too far away to get there fast enough?" Hana asked, remembering their conversation in the movie room a few nights before. It felt like years ago.

      "Yeah, but now that enough time has passed she might have made it."

       "I wonder what will happen when they realize we're gone...and if they'll come looking for us or not," Hana thought aloud. Shin said nothing, and paranoia began to set in the longer they drove. They had taken the group's guns and a car, all while sneaking out like thieves in the night.

       "I don't know," he said, swallowing back a lump in his throat, "But I promise this is the last time."

       "The last time?"

       "This is the last time I'll go look for her, and the last time I'll ask you to come with me. The last time I'll risk our lives for the fleeting chance of us finding her somewhere. But I need to do this, one last time...for me. It's selfish, I know."

       "It's not selfish at all, you're doing this for her too, remember?" Hana said in understanding. She put her head against the window, watching the trees disappear in a green blur. The forest eventually thinned out as they neared civilization. They drove on the crowded highway, which reeked even more of death then, as they approached the city; never noticing the silver sportscar following closely behind them.

       When they passed by the abandoned SM van on the side of the road, they knew they were nearing familiar territory. Before they knew it, it they were in the heart of the small town where the fateful events had taken place only a few days prior. They passed by the now empty gas station and the dark flower shop, bringing back memories to the day Eunhyuk lost his mind and Donghae lost all hope.

      They passed several staggering bodies on the bloodied sidewalks, but the road was surprisingly clear considering how late it was. Hana spared a glance to the front of the flower shop, and Mrs. Lee was no longer laying there. She wondered in passing if she had turned into a monster and walked away, but then remembered that TOP had put her out of her misery her out of her misery so that wouldn't happen. Shin's grip on the wheel was firm and his lips were placed in a tight line as he kept his eyes on the road. Hana tried to do the same, but each time her curiosity would cause her attention to venture off to the depressing chaos. The places they passed that were once familiar now looked foreign, ruined by the ugliness and destruction of their harsh reality.

     "We're almost there," Shin said, answering Hana's mental question of how much longer they would have to endure this sight.

       Soon after, they eventually pulled up to their old neighborhood. Caution tape could be seen wrapping around the entire block. There were no bright streetlights or stray cats patrolling the alleys. There was no easy feeling of "home sweet home"- it was plainly dark and eerie.

       "We actually made it," Hana breathed. She looked over at Shin, who was reclined in his seat, looking at the scene before him with a pained gaze. While Hana had only been living in the neighborhood for several months, Shin had lived there his entire life. She could only imagine what this change must look like through his eyes.

        The two silently got out the Jeep and headed over to the trunk, where Hana ped the bag of guns and gave one to Shin. While he looked down at it skeptically, she gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and the two ducked under the yellow caution tape.

        Far down the block, the shiny Porsche came to a silent halt.

        "So what's the plan?" Chen asked.

        "We'll go look for them if they don't come back in twenty minutes," TOP replied.

        "So what was the point of us coming all the way out here if we're not going to stop them?" Amber asked as she watched the pair disappear behind a wall.

        "We're not here to stop them, we're just here to help if anything goes wrong."

       Shin and Hana walked up the steep incline of the alleys, looking around at how familiar sights in their neighborhood appeared so foreign in such a short amount time. It wasn't abnormal for them to walk home at night in the old days, usually doing so after grabbing a bite to eat after a long school day. There would be a light glow through their neighbor's windows as the TV played, the occasional shout as a couple fought, or the bark of a dog as they sensed the cousins passing by. But then, overwhelming silence...emptiness.

       After turning another corner, the daunting sight of their front door appeared before them, tall and wooden how they remembered it. They took cautious steps forward, and Hana drew her gun from her waistband. Their front door was locked, and Shin reached under the mat to find the key. With a quivering hand, he unlocked the door.

       Like all of the other houses in the neighborhood, it was dark within. Their only guidance was from the moonlight that bled in through the windows. Hana shut the door behind them.

       "Mom!" Shin yelled, waiting for an answer. There was none, "MOM!" almost tripping over his feet, he began to run down the hall wildly, opening doors and checking inside random rooms.

       Hana felt around the walls for the light switch, but as expected, the electricity was out. She followed Shin's voice down the hallway and began to look into rooms as well. After checking the kitchen, she checked the bathrooms, and the hall closet, all while calling for her aunt like they were playing a game of hide and seek. As she continued her search, she stopped when she reached her old room.

       After spending time at the plush mansion, the space she once called home felt weirdly tight and grimey. The floor was littered with clothes and the walls were peeling with paint. She wondered in the back of her mind how she could have lived comfortably like this for so long.

      "Aunt Eunjung!" she called out again, looking behind the door and in her disorganized closet. After an odd moment of silence, Hana noticed that Shin was no longer calling for his mother. Though a few seconds later, there was the sound of many things crashing to the floor down the hall. She immediately ran out of her room with her gun at the ready, following the ruckus until she found Shin standing in the middle of her aunt's room, throwing everything he could reach onto the floor in a fit of rage. He went behind a table and pushed down several vases, picture frames, and a television with a single swipe of his arms.

      The entire floor was covered with broken glass and water, and Hana stood in the doorway trying to make sense of  her cousin's meltdown. Shin reached out to smash another picture frame but before he could do so, she leaped across the room to grab his glass cut hand.

       "Hey! Hey! Stop! Shin, what are you doing? Stop it!" she yelled. He turned around to meet her eyes, and the expression on his face was as if he was just remembering that she was there. He sunk to the floor in defeat, and began to cry harder than she had ever seen him do before.

      "She's not here!" he sobbed as he wiped his nose on his sleeve, "I really thought that we would find her this time."

      Hana crouched next to his shaking frame, sitting her gun aside. She awkwardly threw her arms around him, coming short of what she could do to help him, "Me too, Shin," she said somberly, feeling a lump of emotion form in .

      "There's no where else to go," he cried, "We even checked her job, Hana! The job that Mrs. Lee said that she didn't even come to! And then we came all the way out here tonight for nothing! We've found nothing!"

       "It wasn't for nothing," she assured, "It's good that we came out here and checked. It's best to know, right?"

       "But we don't know! And that's what's killing me, because we'll never know what happened for sure. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually jealous of Donghae, because at least he got a definite answer," his voice hitched at the end as another sob came out.

        "Shhhh, it's okay," Hana said, rubbing his arm in her pitiful attempt to console the young adult. It wasn't okay, and she knew that she was telling him a blatant lie, but the words came out out of habit, "Wherever she is, I hope she's in a better place than this hellhole."

         As the two sat in silence, Hana noticed a photo laying amongst the broken glass on the floor. In the photo was Shin smiling excitedly as a toddler, surrounded by his mother and a tall man with a round face and eyes shaped like half-moons, making him appear almost child-like. When Hana began to piece the image together, Shin spoke up, "We took that picture when we vacationed in Jeju Island in 1998. I think it was the last one we took together as a family, actually," he saw Hana still looking at the man in the photo and took a deep breath, "Did I ever tell you what happened to my dad?"

        Shin's dad was always a taboo subject, even in Hana's own household back in America, her father refused to answer the questions she had about his own brother in law, "No."

        Shin sighed, the moonlight coming into the room making his face appear to be glowing, "He disappeared a long time ago, but you probably already know that much," he began, "I was about five years old when he left...or vanished...or whatever. I remember, I was getting ready for school in the morning, and he told my mother and I goodbye before he left to go work at his lab. I never knew what he did exactly, but he dealt with medicine and sciency stuff. Anyways, I came back home that day and ate dinner, took a bath, got ready for bed...but he still wasn't home yet. We called his office, and they said he left during a lunch break and never came back," Shin bit his lip as he remembered, and Hana listened intently.

       "The police got involved, and it was a week later before they found anything. A scuba team found his car at the bottom of the Han River, but he wasn't in it...no body, nothing. They eventually gave up the investigation and stopped looking after a few months, and that was it. He was just...gone. After that, it was just my mom and I. She worked odd jobs trying to support us while I got teased at school for not having a dad," he began to laugh in spite of himself as tears streamed down his face once again, "Almost my whole life has been surrounded by mystery, Hana, and I'm so sick of it. I'm so tired of not knowing."

       Her chest ached as she listened to his story. In all of her years of speculation, she would have never imagined such a thing to happen in the family; now she understood why it was never spoken of. Shin rested his forehead on her shoulder as the tears continued, soaking her shirt with warmth.

      "Come on, let's go clean your hand before you get an infection or something," she said with a light nudge, tugging him to his feet and escorting her older cousin to the bathroom. With the lack of light, she did the best she could to get what she needed from the medicine cabinet. She poured rubbing alcohol on his hand, and even as it fizzed painfully over the cut, Shin didn't react. She looked at his reflection in the mirror, and he was just looking down at his hand with a blank stare.

       Hana put a band-aid on his palm, "While we're here, we should probably take what we need. We probably won't be in this area again anytime soon."

       "I don't need anything. You get what you want, I'll be waiting in the living room," he said, brushing past her and walking down the hall.

        Looking after him with a pitying expression, she went to her room and filled her backpack with random clothes. Sure, there were clothes back at the mansion, but they couldn't compare to the comfort and fit of her own. After filling the bag with toiletries, she stopped by her aunt's room once again to retrieve her gun. She couldn't help but notice the picture still on the ground. She bent down and wiped off the glass, carefully tucking it in her backpack as well; she couldn't just leave it behind, but it was more for Shin's sake than her own.

        As he said he would, Shin was sitting on the sofa, facing the wall appearing to be deep in thought, "Hey..." Hana said as she approached him, "I'm done, we should probably go now if we want to make it back before dawn."

         Without a word, Shin got up from the sofa, gun in hand, and headed towards the front door. After Shin walked out, Hana went to lock it.

         "Do you still have the key?" she asked. When there was no answer, she turned around, only to see Shin face to face with a soulless, flesh-craving monster. But not just any monster- one of their old neighbors to be exact. Dressed in their signature red robe, was the corpse of the middle aged housewife that used to ask Shin to join her inside her home for "tea" when her husband was away at work. She also hated Hana with a burning passion for being "rude" and "getting involved with affairs she had no business in" when she told her that Shin wasn't interested.

        The groaning body drug itself closer to Shin's still form, "Shin..." Hana said as she watched the monster get closer to her non reacting cousin, "What are you doing?"

        Suddenly, the monster dove towards him, not paying Hana any attention (it was almost ironic). Shin's back collided with the wall of his house as he held the being arms length away by the throat. He just stared at the creature, looking into its grey orbs as it tried its best to attack. He didn't try to kill it or get away, and Hana stood on the side looking at the scene before her in a confused panic.

        After a few more moments, Shin's arms begin to give out, and Hana had seen enough. Before the creature could bury its teeth in Shin's neck, Hana pulled out her gun, jumped behind the zombie and blew out the back of it's head, making chunks fly on the concrete with a resounding splatter.

       The body collapsed onto the sidewalk in front of Shin's feet.

       "What the hell was that about?!" Hana yelled as she stood in front of him, "Why didn't you use your gun?" he continued to look down, refusing to acknowledge Hana's questions. He still had his gun in his hand, cold and unused, "Hey...are you trying to get yourself killed?"

       "No! I...I don't know," he said, seeming unsure of his own intentions.

        Hana stepped over the body and moved closer, "Shin, I understand what you're going through, okay? I'm here for you, it's us to the end, remember? But...now is not the time to be reckless, because in the end it will only hurt you, which will hurt me," she said.

        While she spoke, a chorus of groans met their ears. Coming down the alley towards them was a small group of undead monsters, many of whom in the distance looked like their old neighbors.

        Once the gunshot had rang out, it was audible to anyone (and anything) for blocks.

        "Oh no. We need to go. Come on!" she said, pulling Shin away from their house and running back towards the car. Sprinting down alleys together reminded her of their horrific beginning not long ago; something that she thought they would never have to revisit. Hana stopped in the middle of the alley to shoot down a few of the freaks approaching them. While she ran backwards and shot, her gun made a clicking sound, and her heart dropped, "I'm out of ammo! I need some help!"

       Shin turned around to try his luck at shooting, but failed to hit any with his shaky, newly cut hands, "I can't do it!"

       The monsters were coming up fast and they were making no progress, "Nevermind the guns! The car isn't too far, let's just make a run for it!" she yelled.

       The two raced down the alley, fear coursing through them and their heart rates speeding up painfully. They both ran around a corner into another alley, looking backwards to check how close the zombies were only to crash into other bodies while their attention was diverted. The wind was knocked from their lungs as they plummeted onto the ground and rolled in pain.

        Three figures stood over them. Hana shielded her face instinctively, but instead was greeted with a hand to help her to her feet, "Get up, we need to get out of here!" TOP screamed over the bullets Amber fired at the approaching herd.

       Hana just sat on the ground trying to register the situation happening in front of her as she looked up at the tall rapper. When Hana didn't move, TOP lifted her up and Chen helped Shin to his feet as well.

     "I'm almost out of bullets!" Amber said as she continued to fire.

      "Let's just get to the cars!" TOP said. They began to retreat back towards the street, but their path was stopped by another group of undead bodies.

       They were blocked on both sides.

      "We don't have enough bullets to take them too!"

       They stood in the alley without a clue of how to escape when Chen suddenly ran up to one of the houses on the block and tried to open the front door, "It's unlocked!"

       The five of them ran inside, immediately closing the door behind them and pushing a sofa in front as a barricade. The monsters clawed and scratched on the other side, their groans taunting. Everyone collectively fell to the floor in exhaustion, trying to regain their composure and slow their breathing.

       No one knew where to start.

       "How," Shin managed to ask between gasps, "Did you know we were here?"

       "We followed you," TOP responded simply.

       "But how did you know that we left? No one saw us, I made sure of it!"

       "Actually," Hana admitted shyly, "Before we left, I told Amber we were going."

       Shin turned to Hana in shock, feeling slightly betrayed, "I thought you said that you didn't tell anyone."

      "Well it's good that she did, it looks like we came right in time," Chen said.

      "Trust me, Shin. She didn't want to tell," Amber said, "I had to force it out of her, and Seunghyun had to force it out of me."

      "How'd you catch up with us? We didn't even see you behind us when we were driving," Hana said.

      "I knew we wouldn't catch you with the pickup truck, so we used one of Siwon's sports cars and turned off the headlights. We followed a safe distance behind once we saw you so that you wouldn't notice."

      "We knew that the reason you guys left was important to you, and we didn't want to stop that. But we also didn't want you to get killed either, so we were just coming to keep an eye on things," TOP said, "We were going to give you a twenty minute limit before we went to check on you, but then we heard the gunshots."

     "I don't know how we would have gotten out of there if you didn't come after us, so thanks," Hana said. While she was surprised by the idols' actions, she was beyond grateful.

      TOP noticed that Shin and Hana were still alone ,"Did you find what you were looking for?" though he already knew the answer.

      Shin gulped, "No."

      "We could keep looking while we're here if you want-" Chen began.

       "No, there's no point anymore," Shin interrupted, standing up, "Anyways, we should get going if we want to make it back before anyone notices that we’re gone."

       "Oh, okay...I'm sorry," Chen mumbled.

      They followed Shin's lead up from the floor, and Amber began to climb through a window she had opened, "Come on let's go before they break the door down," she said, hearing it bang and shake. 

      They followed her lead out the window and walked back to the cars.

      "We need to get more food before we go back. We’re almost out," Chen whispered as they cautiously roamed the alleys.

      "Is there a grocery store nearby?" TOP asked the cousins.

      "The closest one closed down a few months ago, but there's a market. It's a fifteen minute drive," Hana replied.

      Once their cars came into view they simultaneously relaxed. The plan was for Shin and Hana to lead the way to the market while the others followed, and once it was established everyone walked back to their vehicles.