Chapter 2
Forgotten Idols
In comparison to what they had just left, the heat in the lobby was
suffocating; the air so thick it was almost malleable.
"It feels like we just walked through the gates of hell!" Shin yelled, his voice echoing around the dark lobby.
The room was admittedly miserable to be in, and Hana immediately missed the frigid breeze from outside as soon as they walked through those sliding doors. Despite this, she tried to look on the bright side of the situation. Anything was better than what they had just left.
"At least there's a roof over our heads. There maybe even be food here," she said.
"That reminds me, I'm starving," he groaned as he pulled his sweater over his head, wrapping it around his visibly thinner waist and exposing his scrawny arms..
To stop the sweat from pouring down her own face, Hana used her hand to wipe it clean. But after many attempts, her face felt even more drenched- but not in sweat this time.
That's when she remembered- she still had blood on her hands.
Holding her breath, she cautiously rubbed her stained fingers together, feeling the slippery substance.
Yes, that was most definetly blood, and she had completely covered her face in it.
She put her lips in a tight line and resisted the urge to gag.
Suddenly, she was blinded by a bright light being flashed in her direction, "Hey, Hana, I found the flashlight-OH MY GOD!!!" Shin screamed, gripping his chest in horror.
Hana stood there stone-faced, not understanding Shin's terrified expression until she thought about how freaky she must have looked..
"Hana, what happened to you?! I thought you changed into one of those things outside!" he was so loud that any zombie remotely close to the building had a chance of hearing.
"Thanks for your concern," Hana whispered, showing him her hands "I kind of forgot about all of this when I was wiping my face."
"Oh...well trust me, if you saw what you looked like, you'd be scared too." Shin said matter-of-factly
Hana scoffed, "Wow, those are words every girl loves to hear," she muttered, making Shin chuckle.
"Come on, let's go find some food in this place."
The SM headquarters was built like a maze.
Even after spending a few hours wandering down the many dark halls, they had no idea where they were. It was hard to imagine anyone finding their way around that place, even in the day time.
After taking the thousandth clueless step that night, they eventually came to a dead end; nothing in front of them but a set of large double doors with broken chains around the handles.
"So...what now?" Hana asked, looking up at Shin expectantly. Being the oldest of the two, he naturally took the lead in their survival, though at that moment s
he could tell he had no plan,
"There were stairs back there. Do you want to go check another floor?" she suggested.
"No, let's see what's in here," he said as he easily wrenched open the huge doors.
Much like the rest of the building, it was pitch black inside. Shin shined his light along one of the walls and came across a row of switches. Once he flicked them all up, they saw that they were standing in a room half the size of a football field.
Rows of long tables, towers of stacked plates, and buckets of silverware were scattered around the room.
A pink banner hung proudly above their headsl. The white cursive letters read:
SM Entertainment Cafeteria
Shin and Hana's bags dropped to the floor with a thud.
Shin ran over to a buffet table, his face falling once he saw there was no food in the pans, only a few measly crumbs in which he dropped into his mouth, "The kitchen," Shin suddenly said, "We need to find the kitchen."
Forgetting all about their backpacks, they ran across the sparkling tiled floor. Their muddied shoes marked their hasty path.
After running the length of the cafeteria, a large set of swinging doors were found.
The sign above read Employees Only.
The cousins exchanged a glance, smiles forming on their faces in anticipation.
Taking a deep breath, Shin kicked open the doors.
__________________
There were several taps at the door.
"Why so serious?" Eunhyuk asked, standing in the doorway, a pitying smile appearing on his lips. Behind him in the shadowy hallway stood Donghae and Amber..
"Eunhyuk!" the four EXO boys chorused.
The elder nervously rubbed the back of his neck, "Hey, we just wanted to know whether or not you guys have...decided."
The boys eyed each other, knowing they all had their own opinions on leaving.
Donghae stepped into the room, pushing past Eunhyuk, "We know you've been sitting here for a while, we all have. But how much longer can we wait?"
"We're all hoping for the best, but you have to consider the possibility..." Amber hesitated, "that he won't come back. Then what would you do?"
The boys lowered their heads. The thought of something happening to their manager, a man they considered to be a part of EXO himself, was a troubling one. With their limitted knowledge of the outside world, their imaginations ran wild with the possibilities of what could have gone wrong.
Chanyeol grabbed his hair in frustration. He slammed his fists on the table as he rose to his feet, "We'll go."
Kai shot up from the couch in protest, "Hey, who said you would speak for everyone?"
Eunhyuk looked at Kai, "Well what would you suggest, Jongin? Would you rather sit here, waiting for the indefinite day that your manager does come back? Or would you rather leave this hell hole and figure out what's going on yourself?".
Chanyeol looked back at the boy, "I mean it's the only thing that makes sense at the moment. They're right, there is no guarentee that he will come back for us. We should take our chances outside, we've waited long enough."
"We have a good place to go, too. Trust us, we have a plan," said Donghae.
"And if it makes you feel any better, maybe we can stop by your manager's place and check for ourselves. Maybe he hasn't even left yet." Amber said.
Chen nodded, "Okay. That sounds good. At least that way we'll be able to say we tried." He rose from the sofa, his stiff joints popping as he yawned. He
slapped Kai's back as he walked past, "Come on Jongin, we're leaving."
Kai looked up at his friend with sad eyes. Chen extended a hand, and Kai looked at it questioningly. After a minute of hesitation, he took it as he separated himself from the cold leather sofa.
As the remaining SM entertainers went into the dark hallway and began their treck down the stairs.
"Does anyone know what time it is?" Sehun asked.
"It's 1:30 a.m. Damn, we've been here longer than I thought," Amber replied.
As the seven label-mates descended the dark stairwell, they noticed the increasing heat with every step they took, coming to the conclusion that the janitors turned off all the air-conditioners after everyone evacuated.
Well almost everyone.
Exiting the stairwell and emerging into the hallway, they began to weave their way through the known halls toward the exit, "Wait! Shouldn't we get some food before we go? The cafeteria is back there," Chanyeol pointed in the opposite direction.
"Yeah, if the trainees didn't take it all." Amber laughed.
"Did you see them? They all panicked when Lee Sooman made the announcement and ran straight to the cafeteria! I've never seen anything like it in my life," Donghae said in disbelief.
They continued to talk as they made their way to the direction of the cafeteria, not even needing light being veterans of those halls. That is until they rounded the corner and saw many bright lights coming from the cafeteria.
"Woah, hold on," Eunhyuk held out his arms.
"I thought the janitors closed the cafeteria when they shut down everything else," Kai stated.
"What's that doing there?" Chen asked, pointing to the two backpacks in the middle of the floor.
"Someone's here." Eunhyuk whispered, looking around with wide eyes. He pointed to the mud tracks on the floor, "It looks like it's headed towards the kitchen," he waved the group towards the containers of silverware, pointing at the knives, "Get one!" he said in a low voice. The boys and Amber reluctantly followed orders.
They tip-toed across the slippery tile, Eunhyuk in the front. Their shoes squeaked as they made their way across the room, which earned them annoyed looks from Eunhyuk. He turned to the group once they were outside of the kitchen door, "I don't know who's in there, but when I say so, we're going to bust through these doors and find out."
"What if it's one of them? The sick people we saw on TV?" Chanyeol asked, making the others nodded in concern.
"And I don't think 'busting' through the doors is smart, what if they'res more than we can handle?" Amber said.
Eunhyuk shushed them "Quiet! They'res seven of us, and we have weapons. It'll be okay," he said.
"Well, I wouldn't really count these as weapons," Chen said as he waved around his butter knife. Chanyeol snorted as he tried to hold in his laughter.
Eunhyuk was about to shush the group again until he heard noises in the kitchen. He waved around his arms as he tried to get their attention, "I think I hear voices in there," he said. Everyone grew silent.
"I'll go take a look," he said as he slowly approached the door. Looking through it's rounded windows, he saw shadowy figures moving about and heard the clanking of pots and pans.
Eunhyuk turned back to his six colleagues and held up three fingers.
He began to lower them one by one.
Three...two...one...
___________________
"I've never loved food so much in my life!" Shin said, nearly crying as he spooned ice cream into his mouth, "I'm so sorry I've never appreciated you," he said with over the top affection, hugging the tub that sat in his lap. Hana didn't look up from her food, but from his heavy breathing she assumed he really was crying.
Not like she could blame him. Hana herself felt a wave of foreign emotion wash over her when they opened all the refrigerators, cabinets, and cupbords and found them all left with remnants of food. But remnants were all they could ever ask for considering they hadn't eaten anything big since they started running. Before they left, they had put a few granola bars in their backpacks, but they disappeared on the first day.
Before Hana even began eating, she went over to the sink to wash the blood from her hands.
She surely didn't want to know the effects of digesting infected blood. She sat on the countertop, stuffing her face with slices of bread to fill her now satisfied stomach. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so happy.
"Have I ever told you that I loved you, Shin?" Hana asked, getting caught in her exultant mood as she threw down the bread and opened a bag of chips.
Shin stopped to think, "No...you haven't actually," he looked at his younger cousin from across the kitchen; she was shaking the remainder of the chips into her open mouth, "I think you're so hungry you're delusional. Eat up!" he said throwing a bag of shredded cheese into her lap.
For a moment, the only thing that could be heard was the rummaging of bags and sighs of contentment.
But after a while, Hana was reminded with a question that had been bothering her for the last few hours, "Shin?"
"Yeah." he said as he reached for a slice of ham.
"What did it feel like..." she began, "to kill one of them?"
Shin froze, dropping the meat with a sigh,
"I don't really know. It was easy I guess...like cutting through butter," Hana grimaced at the image, "But I was just in the moment, you know? I think if I had looked at it like I was killing a person, I wouldn't have done it...couldn't have done it," he said, "But it grabbed you, and it was about to..." he put his head down, not wanting to finish the sentence. But he didn't need to.
They both knew what would have happened if he didn't use that crowbar. "I hate to say it, but I think it'll get easier with time. The more encounters we have with them, the more we'll have to fight," Shin said, cracking his knuckles out of habit. "You'll have your time too, you know?" he paused, "Are you ready for that?"
The silence was thick with questions.
Hana rested her head againt the cupboard and exhaled, "Well what choice do I really have? We can't run forever, even though that's all we're doing right now. I'll have to face them one day." Shin nodded in agreement.
"Well just know it's us to the end," he said, "and nothing will ever change that. We'll be there for each other no matter what happens, okay?"
A small smile crept onto her face, "Okay."
Suddenly, a faint conversation could be heard in the distance.
"What's that?" Hana and Shin whispered at the same time. They both jumped off of the counter and stood together.
The voices were coming from the cafeteria.
"It's getting closer," Hana said, hearing the approaching footsteps. She ran over to the wall and turned off the lights.
Shin then remembered that they had left their backpacks outside, meaning that there was no way to reach his crowbar. Instead, he reached over to the nearest stove, grabbing two pans. The remaining cold grease splashed onto the floor.
"Here," he grabbed her hand and placed her fingers around the thick handle, "Use this if something goes wrong," Hana looked down at the heavy skillet in her hand, eyes wide.
No one told her the time would be now.
"They're right outside the door," Shin said, motioning towards the figures in the window. The once audible converstaion had stopped, leaving it silent on the other side.
"Quick, behind the counter!" Shin whispered.
They rushed to their places, swiftly sitting beside each other on the cold tiles.
Hana clutched the skillet to her rapidly rising and falling chest.
The cousins looked at one another, panic in their frightened eyes.
Shin reached for the Hana's hand.
"It'll be okay. Just stay quiet," he mouthed.
Without warning the door flew open, and they were greeted with the sound of many voices.
Hey everyone! I just got started in college and so I've been busy with adjusting, so sorry for being so slow with updating Forgotten Idols. Will update soon!
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