Yuri and Taeyeon slipped between a few buildings making sure they were always in the shadows, “how you doing Tae?”

Taeyeon was already limping from over use of her leg, “I am okay. We have to hurry.”

Yuri stopped Taeyeon from moving, “Hold on. Drink this.”

Taeyeon took the bottle from her friend, “Thanks. We should be close.”

Yuri packed away the bottle again, “Any sign of trouble and we are leaving okay?”

Taeyeon nodded, “I got it. I promised Jessica too.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

Carefully staying near the buildings, Taeyeon and Yuri continued through the night going through the alleyways. Regular patrols would pass by now and then causing Taeyeon and Yuri to duck into the darkness, avoiding detection. Nearly an hour later, the two had successfully avoided a group of pedestrians that were out at this time of night before they arrived to a giant stadium, “I don’t think I ever saw this thing in person before.”

Yuri stood in front, “I saw it once as a kid. Still as grand as I remember.”

Taeyeon was frozen looking at the huge stadium made of cement. It was everything Taeyeon would expect from the Party, “So this is where the celebration will be at. I was really little when they had the last one, but I was sick at the time and missed it.”

Yuri shrugged, “Large crowds, fireworks, propaganda…I mean you didn’t miss much really. I expect the 30^th to be the same. Should we split up to cover more ground?”

Taeyeon shook her head, “No I think we need to stay close by. Don’t go too far incase we need to yell for help. There isn’t too much time before daylight so we need to act fast. I know something is here.”

“Roger that boss. How much time do we have till the sun rises?”

Taeyeon looked down at her watch, “4 hours.”

“Where should we start?”

“Which end of the stadium will have the leaders?”

“I am not sure…we should start left.” Yuri lead the way as she picked the lock to a side door and entered. The area was pitch black so Taeyeon and Yuri their flashlights, “there should be an underground passageway. You go that way and see if we can find the stairs going down.”

Taeyeon split off to the right looking for a stairway. With how big this place, was, Taeyeon wasn’t surprised to see so many doors that she had to go in and out of hoping one of them had a staircase, but most went into storage or lead into the stadium.

“Tae Tae! I found it.”

Hearing Yuri yelling for her, Taeyeon turned around and jogged over to where she heard Yuri, “You got it?”

“Maybe, hold my light so I can pick this lock.” Yuri bent down and went to work on the lock which was very simple to get open and within seconds Yuri had it open. It looked like the staircase went down like they thought so Taeyeon took the lead and went down into the tunnel.

“With how close the ceremony is, why isn’t there any security here?”

Yuri shrugged, “Most of the guards are at the Party buildings guarding and recently a lot of solders were pushed into certain sectors. Plus the celebration is about a month away. I doubt there is much here to guard other against us sneaky Resistance members that found a cryptic letter to tell us to come here.”

Taeyeon started laughing, “Those sneaky Resistance members. Always causing trouble for the Party.”

Yuri laughed too, “Goodness. Making jokes during a civil war, are we masochists?”

“No,” Taeyeon giggled, “We have just been living this life too long.”

When a group of doors appeared, Yuri and Taeyeon flashed their lights up to see where they were, “I think this is the left side line.” There was a series of doors that they assumed lead out to the field or locker rooms, “We need to check all these doors.”

“Okay I am going go up ahead and get the ones further that way.”

Yuri nodded in agreement and started with the first door.

Of course most of the doors lead to nothing. There were rooms, storage and maintenance but nothing of interest. Where Yuri was, she was having no luck finding anything of interest. She wondered if they would be able to scour this whole stadium with the time they had left.

--------------------

Taecyeon woke up after his watch buzzed signaling 2am. Stiff from sitting so long, the man stood up and stretched. Knowing it was time, Taecyeon took the knife in his left hand and started to push on the wall hoping that it would open. With all his might, the wall started to open inch by inch. Still, it was difficult to open the wall so Taecyeon stopped to take a short break. While catching his breath, he leaned against the wall to hear if anyone noticed he was opening the wall, but there was nothing.

Trying to open the wall again, Taecyeon pushed enough until he could fit through the crack in the wall. Clutching onto his knife tightly he expected to run into someone as he came out, but there was nothing. Instead, he was surrounded by bars.

Standing up, Taecyeon examined the steel bars surrounding him, “Is this the Party prison?” Putting his hands on the cool bars, Taecyeon looked beyond the bars, “this isn’t good.”

Knowing he can’t go backward, Taecyeon now found himself in the Party prison. Quickly going over to the door, Taecyeon was relieved to find that it wasn’t locked. He assumed because the cell was empty, the guards failed to lock it. Before running out, Taecyeon tried closing the wall he opened and gathered his belongings to get out.

Previously, Taecyeon has only been in the prison once before to transfer a prisoner over, never had he needed to navigate the prison. Also, this was an unauthorized visit so even if he got caught, it would be suspicious and he could be sent here as a traitor.

This was dangerous. How was he going to break out of a prison without getting caught?

Carefully, Taecyeon went through the prison finding most of the cells in this area was empty. So far he was in the clear but it wasn’t that way for long. Soon he heard grumbles and moans of what he assumed were prisoners.

Looking down at his attire, he knew he needed to change what he was wearing, “I need to find a guard.”

Going to the first hallway, Taecyeon looked down to see it was still dark, “that’s right. Most of the prisoners should be sleeping…hopefully the guards are too.”

Carefully, Taecyeon walked down the hallway trying not to make too much noise as he passed the sleeping prisoners. A quick cough or shuffle caused him to jump and hurry across to the next section, but that is when he finally spotted 2 of the night guards. They were busy playing cards near the end of the hall. Taecyeon knew he could take one of them, but two might be a little difficult.

Carefully he crouched down and watched the guards from the corner he was in wondering what his next move should be. Unknowingly to Taecyeon, he was being watched the whole time. While he was distracted by the two guards someone came up from behind and knocked him out.

--------------------

Taeyeon and Yuri were exhausted. They spent most of the early morning going through doors that lead to nowhere, “What if there is nothing here?”

“There has to be. Why else would this be on the note?” Taeyeon sat down feeling defeated, “It is almost daybreak. We need to leave now to not get caught.”

Yuri sat next to Taeyeon, “Maybe it was a plant. He wanted you to find it, to get you away from the Resistance? To throw you off his true trail?”

Taeyeon rubbed her head, “If that is it, he succeeded. We spent all night looking for nothing.”

Yuri took a sip of her water and offered it to her friend, “We shouldn’t stay here any longer.”

Taeyeon also drank the water, “Yea. Let’s go.”

Yuri stood up and helped Taeyeon to her feet, “How is your leg doing?”

“Sore but it shouldn’t be a problem.” Taeyeon brushed off the dirt from her pants sighing, “Do you think we can take a look at the track before we go? I always wanted to see what it looked like inside…”

Yuri laughed, “Of course. I am tired of these cement walls anyways.”

Taeyeon remembered where she saw a door to go into the infield, “There was a door near the entrance I think.”

Yuri followed behind watching Taeyeon limp a little in her step. She wondered if Taeyeon would be alright making the hike back to a safehouse.

Taeyeon found the door she saw earlier and opened it to the cool night air. Without stepping a foot out the door, Taeyeon breathed in deeply, “I can smell the morning coming.”

Yuri brushed past Taeyeon, “we will have to take a quick peek then.”

Smiling, Taeyeon walked in with Yuri, “I always imagined what it might look like in here. I saw photos but you know that isn’t the same.”

“I seriously don’t know why you have such a fascination with this place.”

“Although I have an utter disgust for the Party, they kept this stadium around. It was built before the Party was established and they took over this place as a symbol of their power, but I keep it in my mind as a place that stands despite the Party’s influence.”

Yuri rolled her eyes at Taeyeon, “I am not sure how much you can see with the electricity is off.”

Taeyeon flashed her light around seeing the old track and field that has been taken over by grass, “You can hardly tell sports were played here.”

Yuri walked behind Taeyeon looking around at the bleachers and the field, “They haven’t hosted events here for a while now. I don’t think they take care of this place like they should.”

“Maybe they will come in soon and make it look pretty. The Party always likes the appearance that they are doing well.”

Taeyeon walked around aimlessly in the stadium flashing her light around trying to see how big it was inside, but her light kept reflecting on something shiny, so she walked towards the object giving a slight reflection.

Yuri noticed Taeyeon wondering over, “Hey where are you going?”

“I see something over there.” Taeyeon continued her pursuit, “Not sure what it is.”

“Probably just a piece of trash,” Yuri joked, but she still followed behind her friend.

Taeyeon walked over the far side of the stadium following the reflective light, but as she got closer and closer, she saw an all too familiar object causing her to stop. Quickly she turned around, “Yuri stop!”

Yuri did as she was told and stopped pursing her friend, “What is it Tae?”

Taeyeon flashed her light around the area seeing a stockpile of homemade bombs, “There must be hundreds.” She knew that she couldn’t defuse all of them. Afraid they fell into a trap, Taeyeon turned her flashlight to the ground and looked around her feet. Luckily, she didn’t see any wires that could trigger the bombs to explode. Turning around, Taeyeon jogged back to Yuri, “we need to get out of here. They have hundreds of bombs stored over there. It is enough to blow the whole stadium up.”

“Oh . But we can’t just leave those there.” Yuri flashed her lights trying to see the bombs, “more people will be in danger if we do.”

“Yuri we can’t stay here. We need to get to a safehouse tonight and come back another time.”

“What if they move the bombs?”

Taeyeon shook her head, “they won’t. They need them here.”

“You don’t think…they would really kill that many people from their own side?”

“Apparently you don’t remember what happened 12 years ago.”

“Taeyeon that was just like 100 people…this would be thousands.”

Taeyeon shook her head, “The Party are a whole bunch of lunatics. They want to start a war.”

“I guess we know who will make the first move.”

Taeyeon shook her head, “No. I won’t let them.”