Skeleton
Ragnarök
Han Sanghyuk led his team toward the darkened school, his nerves finding the way the old paint on the structure had peeled off in large sections mildly unsettling, like looking at a hulking corpse with it's skin falling away. Pulling his gaze from decrepid walls, he took in the rest of the exterior. Not a single window remained whole, play equipment for the younger children were ripped apart, dismantled and singed from some long forgotten fire. Not far from the entrance, a bike rack was pulled from the ground, bicycles strewn across the asphalt in rusted pieces, evidence the school had been occupied the day N had come to them.
Being sure to have his pistol at the ready, Sanghyuk made his way to the front door. Surprisingly, it opened with very little noise considering the condition of the building itself. The heat of another body moving close to his alerted him to Hongbin's growing fear. Every fiber of his being begged him to bring his boyfriend back to the safety of the van before continuing on with the mission.
"Everything will be okay, Hongbin. I promise." Giving Hongbin a gentle kiss, Sanghyuk tried to be as reassuring as one possibly could be in a twisted wasteland such as the one they were currently trekking. "I love you."
"I know." With a few deep breath and halfhearted nods, Hongbin seemed to be as well off as he was going to manage until they were finally on the way home. "I love you too."
"Are we going to sit around making out or are we going to get on with the mission?" Nakhun's voice was impatient as he rolled his eyes, tapping his foot in exasperation.
"We're coming. Take up the rear. Hongbin stays between us at all times." Hyuk gave Nakhun a dark look, heading inside first. If at all possible, beyond the front doors was even worse than the world outside. The building had an old, musky smell, like something had once been decaying there, not strong enough to make you gag but still pungent enough not to be entirely ignored. A grotesque reminder of what must have occurred there. The first classroom they investigated was home to a few mangled corpses, mostly decomposed, tattered school uniforms hanging from broken skeletons. A small relief for the group of men.
Sanghyuk found himself highly on edge at all the open doors as they walked down the hallway. With so many opportunities for an ambush, he was sure something would come at them at any moment. Yet, with luck, each classroom yielded the same results as the first. Mold, mildew, and bone decorated the walls and floors, blood, long since dried, created a macabre painting of the students' final moments. Naturally, though, luck could only hold out so long while strolling through hell on earth. Theirs just happened to shatter with the scared cries of a child.
~~~
The hair on Lee Hongbin's arms stood on end. Out of all the sounds they could have encountered, this was by far the one he had hoped to hear the least. When it came to the task of gunning down a child, even an infected one, it had never quite sat well with him. Hongbin's eyes instantly sought out Sanghyuk's for support, afraid that without encouragement he may be unable to take another step.
"Does anyone else hear that?" Nakhun inquired, his eyes darting from side to side nervously. Hongbin felt the icy sensation of fear creeping down his spine, finding a home in the pit of his stomach. Even his worst nightmares had spared him this injustice.
"Yeah..." Hongbin bit at his lip to keep from whimpering in terror. "I think it's coming from that classroom..." With a shakey hand he indicated the door before them, the first one they had encountered that was actually closed, hinges rusted from disuse. This fact alone disturbed Hongbin. No living child could have remained as such behind an unmoving object like the one before them.
"Get ready, you guys." Hyuk raised his gun and kicked the door open. It was all Hongbin could do to keep from shrieking at the sudden movement, or vomitting at the sight that met them. A half rotten corpse of a small girl sat in the center of the room, her tiny uniform ragged and stained in blood, one leg no longer ever attached to her body. At the loud intrusion, she turned her face toward the door, clouded eyes surveyed them like a lion would a zebra, what was left of her nose sniffed at the air. Slowly she began to drag her gruesome form across the floor, saliva dripping from her festering lips. A scream finally escaped Hongbin as his control on his terror slipped. With swift accuracy, Sanghyuk dispatched of the horror with a single bullet to her skull.
~~~
Kim Wonshik sighed in frustration. The first two houses they came across had been more than pointless to investigate. An inferno had clearly wiped them out, leaving nothing but a few scarce bits of wall standing. Despite the impossibility of finding anything useful among the devastation, they used the steel toes of their combat boots to safely sift through the rubble on the off chance that any clues had survived.
Nothing more was found despite their efforts but some charbroiled bones and a few metal fixtures that hadn't entirely melted in the blaze. Writing those dwellings off as a loss, Wonshik led his group toward a third house. Despite his urge to keep his team safe, he desperately hoped to find at least something of interest soon before boredom overcame him.
Wonshik noticed the way Jaehwan and Daehwan's gaze couldn't seem to stay steady, constantly jumping at every little sound. Offering them his most reassuring thumbs up, neither seemed to appreciate it and he honestly couldn't blame them. This was not the reality anyone had truly planned on living and no amount of training would have ever prepared anyone entirely for battling Ragnarök. More than anything, he wished he could give his companions back the happy lives they had before the outbreak. The two beside him, they weren't meant for what the world had become, far too pure for the evils that were now a constant.
~~~
Lee Jaehwan shuddered at the condition of the third house. One wall, closest to the destroyed buildings, was darkened, even burnt to charcoal in some places. Half off it's hinges, the front door hung wide open. A dark splotch, slowly flaking off the doorway, could have only been blood.
Jaehwan was scared, to put it simply. With every step forward he fought the increasing urge to run, screaming, all the way back to the training facility to hide in his room. Yet one look at the way Wonshik bravely faced every situation kept him on task. His will to make Wonshik proud overshadowing his natural instinct to survive. So he took a shakey breath to steady his pounding heart and followed his leader up the sagging porch steps.
The flapping of wings behind them startled him. Jumping slightly, Jaehwan looked over his shoulder, past Daehwan. Only a crow, settling itself on a power pole. Letting free a sigh of relief, he followed his group into the dark house.
~~~
N punched in the key code to open the front door of experiment housing center. It chilled him to see the large metal building with such a lack of disrepair. There was something eerie about it's pristine guise. A heavy metal door made a ghastly screetching sound as Taekwoon took the initiative to push it open. Despite shuddering at the noise, he couldn't help but be mildly relieved that at least one part of the establishment was mirroring the world surrounding it.
"Come on." Taekwoon whispered, going in first, motioning for N to.follow behind him. Yoonchul took up the rear, ensuring nothing attacked their greatest asset from behind. The entrance way was normal enough, shelves for shoes and jacket hooks lining a wall. It wasn't until after N punched in the second set of security codes that the use of the facility was exposed. A long hallway, poorly lit by blue emergency lights, ending at a door to a dark room. Other rooms ran down both sides of the long corridor.
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Slowly progressing toward the end door, he peered through the large windows on either side of him. Each new window harbored a fresh skeletal horror confined in cages stacked from floor to ceiling. Flashes of memory returned to N with each step forward, things he wished would have stayed buried in his mind. Rabbits, mice, monkies, animals of all sizes, had fallen victim to the Ragnarök experimentation, held captive in this prison for observation. The memories alone were enough to make N feel weak with horror.
~~~
Jung Taekwoon felt sick. With every room, the skeletons and cages got larger as did his own hatred of the people responsible for such vile forms of abuse. The grisly hall displayed everything from mice to what he was sure were cows. What had these innocent creatures been put through before they finally slipped way to blessed death? What human could possibly inflict such haunting injustices?
"What's in the last room?" Yoonchul wondered as N pressed a palm against the smooth, metal door, a frown tugging at those beautiful lips that Taekwoon loved so much.
"The dogs..." He had never heard N sound so scared in the years he'd known him. It filled Taekwoon with worry but, despite his own unease, he placed a soothing hand on N's cheek, wanting nothing more than to calm his love's fear.
"Do you need to go back to the van?" Taekwoon knew that N was vital to the mission, he was more than aware that they couldn't succeed without him, but when it came to N's safety, nothing else mattered to him.
"I'm fine. Let's do this." N's smile was forced as he punched in a new code. "The exit to the courtyard is through this room. If the exit is blocked off we have to go back through the front door and scale a wall in the back."
"Let's hope it's straight through then." Yoonchul shrugged, seemingly unphased by the atmosphere. "I want to get this over with as quickly as possible. This place gives me the creeps."
"Me too." N's voice was hushed, his hand shaking slightly as he held the door handle. Taekwoon placed a gentle kiss on the quivering man's cheek, not sure what other form of solace he could offer at that particular moment.
"I'll protect you." He assured N, receiving a small nod of acknowledgement as the shorter man began to open the door.
"Hurry up and help me find the light." Yoonchul barged past them with his gun at the ready, a flashlight in his free hand. The room stank like a corpse that had been exposed to the severe heat of summer for a week. With the level of decomposition they had seen in the other rooms, the stench should have been merely the ghost of decay. Warning bells were exploding inside of him and his nerves were raw with anticipation, hair on edge from terror.
N left his side before he could stop hin, joining Yoonchul's quest for a light switch before Taekwoon could stop him. Reaching his hand out for his love, he attempted to whisper a warning as the lights flickered to life. A sudden, low, rumbling din filled the confines around them, shaking Taekwoon to the core. More than a moment went by before he gathered his wits enough to realize the horrible sound was coming from the foaming maws of at least 20 half rotted dobermans, slowly emerging from the depths of their busted cages.
"Everyone out!" He demanded. Panic began to grip his chest as the undead curs collectively sprung upon them.
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