8:21 P.M. | Location unknown

Kelsey blinks slowly, heavily disoriented.

The smell of debris and smoke invades her senses and she groans, attempting to gain feeling in her limbs. Her vision is still blurred, and what she can see is a mixture of an off white and an illuminated orange.

It hurts her eyes.

“Are you awake?” The voice startles her and she jumps, at least her body attempts to, but it ends up being a measly pull on her sore muscles. It’s surprisingly soft, the voice, but she figures it’s due to how faint it was. She doesn’t have time to dwell on it long anyway, because she’s being yanked up by the front of her shirt, more gently than she is expecting. Her vision chooses that exact moment to clear up and the next thing she knows, a pair of twinkling, deep, dark eyes are boring into hers. They belong to a wild, platinum blonde boy who’s grinning down at her, but Kelsey doesn’t miss the urgency in his gaze.

“You any good with a Semi?” He asks, and before she can even blink, or process what he even means by it, he’s shoving a Semiautomatic in her hands, but they’re still paralyzed, so it falls awkwardly in her lap.

He chuckles at that, but its low, almost as if he’s trying to keep his voice down. She does a quick sweep of her surroundings, but it’s so dark, all she can really make out is his figure and the various crates surrounding them. The street light is faint but it illuminates the way he’s crouched before her, an assortment of weaponry and bullets scattered about them. That’s when it hits her.    

They’re hiding.

“Never mind, I think an M9 will suite you just fine” The boy murmurs, reaching toward the gun closest to them. This time, apparently not trusting her lack of movement, he grabs her hands, uncurling them and placing the gun lightly in her palm.

He nods at her, some sort of encouragement, she guesses. Hesitantly, she wraps her fingers around the gun, and her hand is shaky, palms sweaty, but it’s fine, because she’s doing it. She’s holding the gun, progress she figures.

“There you go, you’ve got it” Untamed strands of blonde hair fall into his face when he nods animatedly at her, smile encouraging as she wields the gun.

She’s a little put off by his friendly disposition, but quickly discards the thought as she catches a glimpse of the white mask hanging around his neck. Her breath catches in and she blinks multiple times, but nothing changes. Not even the vividness of her memory that seems to return. It was the same mask the boy that had almost killed her had donned.

She flinched back from the blonde, as if burned. Almost immediately he noticed the panicked expression on her face. He reached for her, but she just stared at him, unwavering.

“I know you’re probably extremely confused and you want answers, but I can only promise them if you trust me in this moment. I know it’s hard to trust someone you don’t know, especially someone like me,” He laughs at that, humorlessly, giving his mask a small tug.

“But both of our lives depend on it right now, especially yours” Once he finishes he finally looks at her, awaiting her answer. Kelsey contemplates it, but only briefly.

Could she trust him?

The only opposition she saw was the white mask hanging from his neck, taunting her. That, and she didn’t know where she was, who was after her or them both, or how to use any of the many weapons scattered about. She was completely useless, and she knew it.

However, it was the sound of gunshots that made her decision for her. She jumped, but the blonde appeared unfazed, glancing around the crate. He mutters a light curse at what he sees, but turns to her with a disarming smile, most likely to not frighten her at the impending danger. 

It was his effort that won her over. She squeezed his shoulder firmly, gripping the gun tightly with a small nod. His smile that followed made her feel at ease despite the shower of bullets raining over them. She also found her face heating up.

“Okay, first we need to get rid of some of these bastards”

Kelsey found that despite how he spoke with slight irritation and heavy determination, his facial expressions always remained jubilant. She supposed it was for her sake. She’s broken out of her small reverie when he begins reloading two guns simultaneously, while she remained crouched awkwardly off to the side.

“Uhm, I don’t know how to use this” She trailed off equally awkward. He laughed again at that, and she found that, even among the many bullets cast overhead, it was very light hearted and assuring.

“Here, just trust me okay?” She flinches slightly when he reaches forward, moving her fingers and the gun about accordingly so she was holding it properly. She stayed true to his word, holding still and letting him get close. When he placed his hands lightly atop hers, she found herself slightly distracted at the warmth from his palms.

“Okay, I don’t know if you’ve been shot at before, but it’s pretty scary. Around that corner is about twelve guys. Not that many, but they’ve got us surrounded. We won’t be able to kill them all, just a few, but all we really need to do is clear the exit. The others will be waiting for us outside. Now, once we get rid of enough of them, I’ll give the signal and we have to move.”

There’s so much to take in that all she can do is nod. She’s never held a gun a day in her life nor shot one, she’s also never killed anyone. The thought makes her nauseous, but so does the fact that her life is on the line also. If she doesn’t kill them, they’ll definitely kill her. She figures that’s the best way to think of it, her life or theirs, their life or the mysterious blonde boy that’s trying to save her.

Briefly, it hits her that it is the night of The Purge. A night fueled by anger, vengeance, and greed, and here she was, being shot at, hiding in some factory with some boy she didn’t even know, who wanted her to trust him, even with the white mask taunting her with his every movement. Nothing made sense, not even the soreness in , or the way her hands shook as she gripped the gun. Nothing made sense, but she made sense of everything, and with that in mind she let him guide her.

Their heads barely peaked around the crate before a barrage of bullets flew past them. She felt a sense of vertigo as they flew past her. At any moment one could strike her, and wound her or him, or worse, kill them both.  She no longer has time to think when the blonde pinches her, on impulse she tenses, pulling the trigger, and it makes her arm jerk back, the force of it, a bullet flying from the muzzle.

A body comes slipping from behind one of the crates, a man, from what she can tell, donning nothing but a measly blood soaked apron, rolls around on the floor, clutching his now wounded, bloody arm. He’s yelling something, stumbling to a kneel and fumbling for his fallen weapon, but he’s now caught in the cross fire and all it takes is for the blonde boy to adjust her aim slightly, push down on her finger, and she’s pulling the trigger again,shooting the man square in the heart. He falls again, almost immediately, and Kelsey has to look away because, when he glances back at them, it feels as if he’s boring into her soul as he bleeds to death.

It’s terrifying and her hands begin to shake uncontrollably, but the blonde just pulls her backward, occupying her previous position. The contrast between them reminds her all over again that she doesn’t really know him, this boy with shocking, wild blonde hair and a toothy grin. Because, when he pulls around the corner, gun loaded and cocked so, she’s reminded faintly of the white mask clasped loosely around his neck, and it dangles so as he pulls the trigger with expertise, aiming and shooting with precision. The gun shower over them lessens as some of their enemies go down, some with strangled grunts others with pained cries, but the boy seems unaffected as he kills them, the bullets form his gun lodged deep in their flesh.

He doesn’t miss a shot. Kelsey shudders.

He wiggles two fingers behind his back and she realizes it’s the signal a second too late, because he’s already crawling toward the next crate, and she’s left to struggle behind him. She moves as quickly as she can, trying to think about the possibility that she could be dead any second. All it took was one bullet to kill, and he had proved that for her.

There’s a moment when Kelsey finds safety behind another crate, collapsing from her hands and knees, in which she just lays there. In the midst of fire, death, chaos, Kelsey just lays there. She can’t breathe, her thoughts void, nothing. She’s paralyzed, and it’s like drowning, how you desperately want to breathe, to live. That’s what she wants, but more.

She wants breathe, to survive this, this ... purge. Kelsey wants to live.  

The crate she’s behind explodes into a mess of burnt wood and bullets, splinters lodging into her skin, and her gun flies from her grip, but that’s not what makes her freeze. It’s the fact that she’s completely exposed that makes her pause. Her companion was nowhere in sight, not that she could really see much with the darkness overhead, but what she could make out made her chest tighten.

She’s stumbles to her feet, but it’s fruitless and she collapses in the pile of scorched wood. A man wearing a black cap tucked tightly on his head, with an all-black attire, is approaching her slowly, as if to taunt her, and maybe he is, with the way his face is contorted into a sneer. He waves his gun menacingly, but keeps it aimed on her nonetheless.  

Kelsey opens to say something, anything, but all she can do is stare at the man before her, anxious of his next move. Her nerves are beyond fried, and she’s shaking uncontrollably. When the man reaches forward all she can do is whimper pathetically when he grabs a handful of hair and yanks, rather roughly, so that she’s slumped on her knees before him. She squeezes her eyes shut, but he grabs her chin, forcefully pulling her head up, and when she opens her eyes, she’s staring down the muzzle of a gun.

The silence unnerves her, but her mind has blocked out the raging bullets and all she can hear is her own heartbeat. She doesn’t breathe, she doesn’t blink, just waits, for the end.

An end that never comes, because a sickening cracking sound resonates and the barrel wavers before falling all together, as does the man. When his slumped form hits the ground, her body gives out, and she collapses, dry heaving as she tries to process what just happened. Suddenly, a hand slides around her waist, hoisting her up.  

“We have to keep going. Hold my hand. Don’t let go for anything, okay?”

It’s the blonde, and his voice is just as hushed as before but for some reason he looks rather remorseful, not quite looking her in the eye as he regards her. She nods not trusting her voice at the moment. He rubs her back momentarily before slipping his hand into hers, then he takes off, tugging her along with him.

Kelsey holds on for dear life.

They duck and dodge behind multiple crates, crawling and rolling, but she never let’s go of his hand, not even for a second. He takes out as many of them as he can during their escape, Kelsey’s gun long forgotten in the rubble from the crate explosion. Not that she’d ever use it again, or at least that what she thinks.

“This is one of the exits. The others are waiting just around the corner. I’ll go first, to check and make sure it’s safe. Watch your back while I’m gone.”

Kelsey can see the dim illumination from the street lights from the rubble blown exposure of the building. She breathes a sigh of relief, nodding at the boy, whom gives her one last reassuring smile before creeping toward the exit. Sagging against the crate, she whips around to do just as the boy requested, eyes darting around for any signs of movement. The gunfire had ceased, but it only sent her even further up the edge.

She realized she no longer had anything to defend herself with, her gun long forgotten in the factory. There’s an array of weapons, guns and knives, things she can’t identify, spread about. She grabs the nearest thing, quickly scurrying back to the safety of the crate. It’s a gun, and with what little knowledge she has of them, she finds it’s empty. Cursing her luck, she moves to find bullets only to freeze when a pained cry and the loud smack of a gun hitting the ground sounds from the exit the blonde boy had taken.

She doesn’t think, she couldn’t have been thinking, when she rushes toward the exit, any attempts at cover long forgotten as she rushes out of the building, the gun held tightly in her grip. What she sees has her stumbling, gripping the wall for support. A man, two times larger than her and the blonde boy combined has said boy pinned down, choking and punching him without pause. The boy’s face is covered in blood, it gushing and flowing from his mouth and nose, and he’s struggling, fruitlessly, to remove the man’s hands from his throat. His gun is strewn on the ground a few feet away from the struggle, and Kelsey can tell from the look on his face what they both have in mind. The boy needs his gun, because Kelsey doesn’t have the heart to kill anyone, and because if he doesn’t get it the man will surely beat him to death.

The white mask around his neck is now blood red and Kelsey gulps, remembering the tight grip the other boy had, had on when he choked her into unconsciousness. She thinks of the white mask that hung loosely around his neck as he squeezed her life away, how eerily similar it was to the now blood stained one around the blonde’s neck. Only one thought came to mind.

Should she save the blonde? Or save herself?

Neither of the pair had noticed her, by some miracle, and she could easily slip away, but where would she go? The gun in her hand was bullet less and she was definitely too afraid to go back into the factory for another. In that case, she was too afraid to even use a gun.

Kelsey watched the man bend his arm back then sling it forward, the punch that followed resonated and there was a sickening cracking sound. The boy let out a strangled cough, losing some of his fight, and she watched him cough up so much blood that it pooled in a puddle beneath him. A look of panic crossed his features and he looked pained, it reminded her of just how youthful he was, he looked so fragile laying there in a pool of his own blood that it reminded her of a frightened child. He was so young, but he looked like he’d seen it all before. He had helped her though, remaining calm despite the situation, and most importantly, he had helped her, on a night where help was hard to come by.

Squeezing her eyes shut in silent prayer, she gripped her gun tighter, took a deep breath, and pushed away from the wall. She approached the pair as quietly and quickly as possible. When she was directly behind the man she raised her gun, slipped her eyes closed once more, then let her gun down on the back of his head with as much force as she could muster. The barrel and hammer made sickening crunching sounds when they came in contact with the man’s skull, but she didn’t stop, nor did she open her eyes. The man cried out, but she just struck him harder.

A shot rang out, loud and clear, and she froze, eyes flying open. The man, skull smashed open, slumped over, finally, from a bullet to the neck, blood oozing at a rapid pace from the wound. There she stood, in a puddle of blood, a man she had aided in killing, slain before her feet.

She was going to be sick, and she was, crumbling to her knees, dry heaving once more, the gun slipping form her grasp. A hand came to her back, rubbing soothing circles. She glanced up, only to be met with the bloody blonde, the red liquid still steadily streaming form his nose and mouth. She quickly looked away.

She couldn’t look at him.

He seemed to quickly pick up on the hint, slipping the mask from around his neck onto his face. It was blood covered also, but it was the best he could do. She also got the hint that they couldn’t stay there any longer than necessary. They had to move immediately, so she wobbled to her feet, letting him sling an arm around her for support despite him being the one injured.

“My name is Soonyoung, but on this night I prefer to be called Hoshi.”

Its faint, his words, and she has to strain to hear him, partly because he’s trying to talk around a mouth full of blood and he was speaking in a mere murmur. He turns to her, and she’s almost positive he’s grinning behind the mask. It makes her smile.

“I’m Kelsey” Is her reply and she thinks she hears him repeat it quietly, almost as if testing her name on his lips, and it makes her face heat up. She ducks her head as the stumble away from the factory, rounding a wide corner.

Around said corner is a truck, parked non conspicuously behind a blown street light. Hoshi slips his mask off then, relief evident on his face as he limps forward, arm still slung across her shoulders. As soon as they approach the truck, the doors fly open and all Kelsey does is blink, before six masked boys are before her. Two of them, upon noticing Hoshi’s condition, fly forward, snatching the boy from her hold as if she was the one that put him in such a condition.

“Wait!” The blonde calls in protest, choking slightly as he tries to speak around the continuous flow of blood, but it’s futile as the other two masked boys fuss over him, a brunette pulling his mask off and a blonde wiping frivolously at his bloody face with a torn black cloth.

Kelsey’s attention is brought back to the other four before her when the other blonde amongst the groups nods. Two dark haired masked boys fly forward, gripping her by the arms before they haul her forward on her knees. They scrape painfully against the concrete and she winces, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. All it takes is another nod from the blonde before they’re hauling her up again, except this time they toss her up, into the back of the looming darkness of the truck.

She whimpers pathetically as her back hits the cool floor with a loud thump. Any struggle she has left disappears, and she watches from beyond the darkness of the truck, as they slam the doors shut.

The last thing she hears is Hoshi’s pained screams, before everything goes black once more.