Jongin lay still on the carpet upon which the boy carrying him had placed him. His chest moved up and down with each breath, and Hwayoung blushed and averted his eyes when she saw his state. A fur had been carelessly draped across his torso, but it did little to hide his chest, which had a lean, almost tense look to it, as though even in sleep he could take off running at any second.

            "Is-is he okay?" Hwayoung asked tentatively.

            "He'll be just fine," the boy named Kyungsoo told her seriously, adjusting a bandage wrapped around Jongin's arm without looking up at her. "It's a nasty wound, though."

"What happened?" Chanyeol turned to the boy who had brought Jongin into the room, concern flashing across his dark features. "Did you see what happened?" 

The smaller boy shook his head, using his hand to scratch the back of his neck, ruffling his hair on the process. Dark circles grew under his eyes, and Hwayoung was struck suddenly by how tired all of the boys looked; each had dark, bruise-like circles around their eyes and a pale, colorless complexion.

            "I found him like this," the boy explained, "but the woods was crawling with village-dwellers. I think Jongin ran into one of them."

Chanyeol furiously turned to face Hwayoung, murder once again evident in his eyes, and the skinny girl shrunk backwards. The tall boy stalked towards her with long, even steps. The girl felt her heart skip a beat and drop to her feet,

            "You," Chanyeol growled. "This is all your kind's fault. Every day you hunt our kind and every day we are the ones who suffer for your ignorance."

"P-please," she began to stutter, finding her lips didn't quite work the way she wanted them to. "P-please. I-I tried to tell you in the woods," Chanyeol ignored her and continued his advance. "I-I didn't want Jongin to get hurt."

            "Ah," the unnamed boy declared. "It was you who saved him in the woods, was it?"

            Hwayoung nodded her head desperately, clinging onto anything she could for survival. Her hands were sweaty, and she could feel the material of her nightdress soaking through as she clutched desperately at her clothes. Her hands were trembling so hard she had trouble holding onto anything. Everything seemed to move faster around Hwayoung, and her breathe choked off in .

The boy must have noticed, because he gave her a reassuring smile. "We aren't killers."

Hwayoung did not feel any better. Images of her sister's cold, dead body ripped like claws through her brain, and before she knew it, a strangled noise left her lips. Stumbling backwards, she desperately sought to get away from the inhabitants of the room, who were watching her like a child studies a strange bug that they are about to squish.

She couldn't breathe; it was as though a hand had formed a fist around . The room was hot, so hot and she felt so cold, and it was like everything was moving too fast. Was eve