chapter 2; humanity

The day’s in the pitches of morning now, almost near the click of afternoon but like always, it doesn’t matter and it provides nothing but of a recognition to when the Infectious begin to roam out more. Between the peaks of twelve in the afternoon to three, is usually when the times are free and the streets are empty with chances of dying slim, but when it hits nighttime, that’s when all hell is loose. Maybe it is important, but the boys think else wise.

Kim Joonmyun and Do Kyungsoo stand there, near the fence gates to watch Chanyeol and Kris take off, their beings heading off to find another empty store to raid for the times being. It’s been of a desperate need since their supplies has run low and all that’s left of feedings is just a few granny smith apples, and maybe a box of animal crackers that’ll last them not even a day.

“Try to be as quick as possible,” Joonmyun says, giving a wave to the two boys who’re just laughing it all up, jokes bouncing off of one another. They’ve always had a thing as close friends, Joonmyun realizes, ever since high school to now. It was no surprise when they first showed up at Joonmyun’s apartment during the beginning attacks after Kris had dropped him off a few days later, stuck by each other with two backpacks, two teeth-wide grins and a remark on how badass they are going through a zombie apocalypse.

“We will, mother,” Chanyeol sarcastically says, and Joonmyun gives him a disapproving glare that’ll maybe kill him for whatever he wants. “I’m kidding!” he exclaims, trying to laugh it off, but he starts to become nervous and before Joonmyun knows, the two begin to run off, final looks gone.

Joonmyun sighs, sends a hand through his styled hair, courtesy of Kris who thinks that he looks more tougher with his hair up. He turns towards Kyungsoo, boy still quiet and his gaze still embedded in something Joonmyun’s unmanaged to decipher. Weird, really. It’s been a few weeks since Joonmyun’s found the boy near that one family’s nice coffee shop, and even then, the boy was just lying on the sidewalk, eyes bloodshot and fingers prodding and just rubbing off of one another. But ever since Joonmyun’s taken him in, the only words Kyungsoo’s ever managed to say were probably just greetings, and what his name was, and what so. But then again, he wasn’t very talkative in school either.

“Those rascals,” Joonmyun mutters to himself, and Kyungsoo says nothing so Joonmyun just turns around and begins walking towards the tent. Maybe he’ll have time to write in those filler paper Chanyeol’s managed to snag for him from the nearest Home Depot. “Stay safe, Kyungsoo,” he says as he’s walking towards the cerulean tent, and he hears a small grunt which is all he needs to hear as a confirmation. For now, at least. But for how long “for now” will last, Joonmyun isn’t too sure himself because life isn’t really countable anymore.

--

The clouds are just sweeping through the air, and the dust in the air just dissipates into something so thin, and exhales into smoke, almost-like. Sehun notices that when he’s in a tent, just looking around while his breathing becomes uncontrollable and he’s forced to take in another cigarette. The tobacco lies underneath his lips, and they quiver, smoke just being inhaled and contracting with every puffs he blows, drifting from the glitters along to the sides of the tent, and then just disappearing because not everything lasts.

Luhan’s in the tent too, and he says nothing because maybe he’s used to it. The smell of life leaving on by and just waving, mockingly to its giver by. But it gets annoying because Sehun’s just sitting there, taking a smoke while Luhan’s actually looking around in the tent, so he eventually says something.

“Can you dip that thing somewhere else and help me find ?” he asks, grumblingly, while peering underneath the stacks of notebooks, and journals but they’re empty. No words in, and just water drenched with the smudges of the blue lines and the red margins. Unusual, he perceives.

Sehun scoffs, and he probably would never stop but he does for some reason, and he just digs the bottom of the cigar onto the ground, and then stomps it, smoke flittering out and the last of orange flames just turning into small minuscules. “Whatever.”

The other rolls his eyes and they just continue searching in silence, because there’s nothing to be brung up and there’s nothing to say anymore, because they still might hate each other. Maybe a douse in grunts here and there, a little exclaim from Luhan as he finds a wrapper of bubblegum, because it’s been forever since he’s had something to chew on.

A few minutes on, and Sehun crouches down onto the floor where the comforters lie on the tent sheet, grass poking through the few protruded holes. He swipes his hand through the puddles, and something thick comes off with it, and it just drips, and drips, and drips. “Blood,” he mutters to himself, and he just drags it across the pillow. It seems new.

“Do you think someone lives here still?” he asks, bending up to meet Luhan who’s currently rummaging through the piles of papers in the corner. They’re all...blank. Just on the distinction of waste, and along the borders of emptiness and Luhan just cringes at the sight of how the blue lines don’t meet parallel with the red dots and the margins that separate one from another.

Luhan looks up, and Sehun’s still looking, an answer waiting. “U-uh, I don’t know? Why?”

The taller shrugs, and he points his bloody finger out towards Luhan, and the latter just backs away instinctively. “Whoa,” he says, surprised? Astonished? Scared? “I-is that your blood?” Luhan asks, and Sehun just smoothes out his lips, like how he always did whenever Luhan would make fun of Sehun back in those days. He gives Luhan a look that makes him feel stupid.

“No, dumb. I found this in a puddle near the pillows, and I was just wondering...do you think whoever was living here was murdered? And if so, are they still nearby?”

The emphasis is just killing. And the questions are just concluding into something horrible. A horrible premise that lies near their vicinity.

Appalled, Luhan just looks over to where Sehun’s pointing at, and he crawls over to examine the piles of splattered rubies, crimson showered from the corners to there. It’s thin now, and it’s almost drying out, turning into horrid sepia but still smells of freshness and is still washed with the old smells of bed linens.

“Hm,” he hums, and there’s a rustle in the bushes from outside, crows and raccoons probably. They’ve been roaming the streets ever since blood’s been a thirst. A growing quench. “I-I’m not sure,” he stutters, and he quirks his brows to peer in closer.

Eventually, Sehun rolls over to where Luhan is to also examine the blood with them, and maybe in that instinct of time, everything feels like how it’s been before. A couple, just benched over in a park, maybe examining a bug but then it all snaps back, because it isn’t the past. It’s the present, and there’s nothing that intimate in between them anymore. Luhan’s moved on. And Sehun’s moved on.They’ve both moved on--

A click of something that sounds too deadly, with how the metal clatters against the finger and how the bullet’s just aching to be sounded.

“W-who the are you?!” someone screams from behind, and it comes off as a whisper.

Static.

Sehun and Luhan just stay there, still, and hearts stopped because there’s too much scampering. And a footstep sounds too cold, but it happens, and the silence is so deafening because it’s just there.

“I-I s-said, who are you?!” the voice says again, and it comes off as an attempt to be more stern but just ends because the voice sounds too fragile.

So Luhan slowly aches his head around, just one hundred and eighty degrees, because that’s where the person is standing, and when he sees who it is, his mouth drops open. Wide open. Just open enough for Joonmyun to shoot him right there and then, bullet would’ve been leaving through his throat, probably through the larynx and spine popping out.

“Joonmyun?” Luhan says, and Joonmyun’s grip on the gun lightens up