Chapter Text
[The black SUV shot out of the parking space, slammed into a plastic barrier, and sent it flying aside. In front of them, a small car suddenly reversed. The driver was panicking, not looking left or right. Jeongguk jerked the wheel sharply, tires screeching against the asphalt.
On any normal day, Seokjin and Hoseok would have already cursed him out, launching into a long lecture about driving properly and responsibly.
Unfortunately, this was not a normal day.]
Jeongguk’s eyes stayed fixed ahead, jaw tight, both hands gripping the wheel too hard. Outside, people were crowding the exit of the parking lot. Some were running without direction.
For several seconds, no one spoke. There was only the sound of their breathing, adrenaline, shock, and fear ran through their veins all at once.
Jimin was the first to speak after their escape. He swallowed, gaze dropping to Seokjin’s hand. “Hyung, your hand,” he whispered.
Seokjin looked down. His thick, warm jacket was ruined because of the bite, torn at the sleeve. Red stained the fabric—blood, mixed with some dark fluid. The stain clung near his wrist, far too close to his skin for Jimin to feel calm. On Seokjin’s lap lay a stick of cotton candy, the child’s cotton candy, sticky and half-crushed. He did not even remember taking it.
“Hyung, take off your jacket.” Jimin’s voice was firm. “That’s someone else’s blood, we don’t know what’s in it, and we don’t know if any of it got on your skin.”
It was not suspicion, not yet, but after what they had just seen, caution came faster than comfort. Jimin slipped into the only role he knew how to take in a crisis, remove the contaminated clothing, keep it away from skin and face, check for any open wounds. If there was nothing, then there was nothing, but he had to know first. So Jimin was not willing to take even the smallest risk.
Seokjin swallowed, then nodded. With stiff movements, he pulled the zipper down. For a moment, his hand caught in the torn part of the sleeve. Jimin watched anxiously from the back, his worried face clear in the rearview mirror. “Slowly, Hyung. Don’t let the dirty part touch your face. Let me check after.”
Slowly, carefully, Seokjin eased the jacket off, making sure the bloodied part did not brush against his neck or the skin of his arm. Once it was off, he rolled it up with the dirty side facing inward and placed it on the floor of the car, together with the abandoned cotton candy. By then, Jimin had already climbed over from the back row into the middle seat, nearly bumping into Taehyung in the process. He leaned forward and took Seokjin’s arm.
He checked Seokjin’s wrist first, moved to his forearm, his elbow, and the area near his shoulder, making sure there wasn’t even the smallest scratch hidden under the fabric. The entire car held its breath.
“No open wounds.” Jimin let out a breath of relief. “Clean.”
Hoseok closed his eyes for a moment. Taehyung let out a broken breath. Yoongi sank deeper into his seat.
“Don’t wear that jacket again. We’ll throw it away later. Or just burn it,” Jimin continued.
Stiffly, Seokjin nodded. “Okay.”
Jeongguk did not look over, but he heard everything, especially the horrifying pause before Jimin said there were no wounds. One sentence, spoken only once, yet it kept echoing in Jeongguk’s ears, as if it could somehow erase the image of a bloodied mouth nearly reaching Seokjin’s arm.
Still, Jeongguk said nothing. His hands stayed locked around the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. Not now.
Taehyung stared at the window that had been struck from the outside. In his head, pieces of what had happened kept replaying, a mouth slick with blood, red eyes, an employee collapsing only to rise again, bodies moving in ways bodies should not move. People had been bitten, they had dropped, gone still, and for one terrible second, it had looked like the end of it, but their bodies had started moving again, with bloodshot eyes and violent movement. Whatever came back, it was not the same person anymore. Too real to be a movie, too impossible to call human. “What the hell was that?” he muttered. “Don’t tell me those were zombies.”
Yoongi let out a humorless snort. “If you’ve got a better name that makes more sense, go ahead.”
“We don’t know what they are yet,” Namjoon said. “Hold off on that.”
Yoongi gave a dry laugh. “Why? Not scientific enough?”
“Nothing’s confirmed yet.”
“Namjoon-hyung is right.” Jimin. “We don’t know how it spreads, what’s happening to their bodies. We don’t know if the people who went down back there were actually dead or just… changed.”
“Changed,” Hoseok repeated. Somehow, the word felt worse than zombie.
Up ahead, a car scraped against the fence, making the motorcycle behind it to drag along the side of the vehicle. A man ran too close to the hood of their car, forcing Jeongguk to jerk the wheel again. Hoseok curse from the back.
Jeongguk pressed harder on the gas. The black SUV forced its way through the narrow gap between two cars, nearly scraping its right side against a barrier post. Horns screamed all around them.
Seokjin leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes for a moment. With his jacket off, he was left in nothing but a thin shirt, skin feeling too cold. Outside the window, the city was still moving.
“Where are we going?” Yoongi asked.
“Our apartment,” Seokjin answered without opening his eyes.
The original plan, back when, the intention had simply been to spend more time together. The original plan, still technically meant the same thing now, together, only under circumstances that could not have been more different. “It’s the closest too. We get inside, lock the door, and find out what’s going on.”
“Just, don’t go to a hospital,” Jimin said. “If that many people are injured, hospitals will be the first places to get overwhelmed.”
Hoseok rubbed a hand over his face. “The police?”
Taehyung shook his head. “Emergency calls aren’t going through.”
For a moment, no one spoke again. Then Namjoon’s phone rang, anincoming call. He looked at the screen, something in his face changed. Yoongi noticed immediately. “Who is it?”
Namjoon answered the call. “Hello?”
“...”
“Yes, this is Kim Namjoon.”
“...”
Namjoon listened, face growing paler with every passing second. “We just got out of the amusement park area. There was an attack. A lot of civilians are injured. We’re heading somewhere temporarily safe.”
Seokjin opened his eyes, repeating Yoongi’s question. “Who is it?”
Namjoon covered the phone speaker with his palm. “The office.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Namjoon went back to listening, his jaw tightening. “Wait, what do you mean all routes out of the district are blocked?”
Through the rearview mirror, Jeongguk glanced at the older man. Namjoon’s face had grown even tenser, making something cold drop into the pit of his stomach.
“Which routes?” Namjoon asked again. “All of them?”
The voice on the other end was not clear enough for them to hear properly. The bad signal broke everything apart, making it sound like someone speaking from underwater.
“…riots… not just Seoul… stay where you are… wait for instructions…”
Namjoon closed his eyes “We can’t stay where we are. We’re already on the road.”
Seokjin turned toward the window.
They had already left the amusement park area, but the main road did not look much better. Cars were starting to pile up at the intersection. Some drivers had gotten out of their vehicles, arguing. On the sidewalk, people were running in different directions. A huge screen on one of the buildings was playing a brightly colored ad for a cold drink. Beneath it, a man covered in blood ran past, clutching his arm.
The contrast was so wrong it made Seokjin feel sick.
“Hyung.” Jimin holding out a wet wipe from the middle seat. “Clean off whatever blood’s left. Don’t touch your face.”
Jeongguk’s grip tightened around the steering wheel again. Still, he did not look over.
“Sir,” Namjoon’s voice sharpened. “If this isn’t just Seoul, is there a civilian evacuation protocol? Shelters? Safe routes?”
“…do not use public hospitals… medical facilities are full… avoid crowds… contact with bodily fluids…”
Hoseok’s head snapped up. Yoongi leaned forward slightly from the back seat. “What did he say?”
Namjoon looked at each of them in turn. “Avoid crowds. Public hospitals. And contact with bodily fluids.”
Hoseok cursed under his breath. Taehyung stared at Seokjin’s jacket on the floor of the car like it might start moving on its own.
Seokjin dragged the wet wipe along his wrist, scrubbing harder than he needed to until his skin reddened. Jimin touched his arm. “Hyung, that’s enough.”
Up ahead, the traffic light turned red. Jeongguk did not stop, he slowed the car to check left and right, then drove straight through the intersection when the lane looked clear. A long horn blared from the side, but Jeongguk had already jerked the wheel, steering the SUV onto a smaller road.
“Jeongguk-ah,” Namjoon said, checking the car’s direction.
“The main road’s jammed,” Jeongguk answered shortly. “I’m taking the back streets”
“Which way?”
“Behind the shopping complex. Past the pharmacy. Then the alley near the east entrance,” Jeongguk did not taking his eyes off the road. “It’ll bring us out behind our apartment.”
“That alley’s barely wide enough.” Though none of them had really been to Seokjin and Jeongguk’s new apartment before—their schedules rarely allowed for house visits anymore, most of their meetups happened somewhere easier for all seven of them—Taehyung had passed through the area a few times for work. He knew the alley Jeongguk meant was narrow even for a regular car.
“For this car, yeah.”
“Jeongguk-ah.”
“I can make it.”
No one questioned him after that.
Namjoon went back to the call. “We’re heading to a private residence, seven people, no one’s been bitten. One person got blood on their clothing, but there are no open wounds.” A pause. “Yes, we’ll isolate the contaminated clothing. No, we’re not heading to a main evacuation point.” Namjoon’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean the main evacuation points have been suspended too?”
The air inside the car grew heavier. The voice on the other end rose slightly, then broke apart under static. “…no confirmation yet… several points… rapid spread… personnel overwhelmed… do not circulate information… wait for official instructions…”
“Wait,” Namjoon said quickly. “Wait, I need—”
The call was cut off. Namjoon stared at his phone screen, no signal.
For a few seconds, only the sound of the engine filled the space between them. Hoseok let out a short laugh. “Wait for official instructions, he says.”
No one laughed with him.
Taehyung looked down at his phone, fingers moved quickly, opening a news app, social media, emergency call again. The signal appeared as one bar, disappeared, came back, then stopped on a loading symbol spinning endlessly. “The internet’s not working.”
“The group chat?” Jimin asked.
“Loading.”
“Family?”
Silence. Taehyung did not answer.
Seokjin reached for his phone, the same, no signal. He tapped his mother’s name, his brother’s, the calls would not connect. He tried once more, the same. Jeongguk only glanced at his movement from the corner of his eye.
The others did the same. Hoseok called his mother, failed. Jimin tried the hospital’s number, failed. Taehyung typed a message to someone, deleted it, then typed it again.
Yoongi stared at his phone screen for a long moment before finally slipping it back into his pocket without calling anyone.
No one spoke after that.
Not long after, the car reached a quieter area. At the same time, a scream rang out from the end of the narrow street they had turned into, making Jeongguk hit the brakes at once. The car stopped abruptly, throwing all of them forward. About twenty meters from the car, several people came running out of a convenience store. An employee collapsed in the doorway, crawling backward with one hand raised. From inside the store, something moved, a body launching itself out and crashing into him.
“Turn around.”
Jeongguk was already turning the wheel before Yoongi even finished speaking, but then a horn blared from behind them. A sedan had turned into the same narrow street, stopping far too close. The driver kept slamming the horn again and again, panicking, completely unaware of what was ahead.
“We’re boxed in,” Jimin said.
Jeongguk looked at the rearview mirror, then at the road ahead, then at the narrow sidewalk on their right.
“No, we’re not.”
He shifted gears hard.
“Hold on.”
And stepped on the gas.
The SUV climbed onto the sidewalk, the whole car jolting violently. Taehyung cursed, Hoseok yelped, and Jimin grabbed the seat in front of him. The right tires slammed against the curb, hitting a large potted plant in front of a café and shattering it. Dirt and broken ceramic scattered everywhere.
“This car is expensive!” Hoseok shouted on instinct.
“Hyung, do you want me to care about the car or our lives?” Jeongguk shot back without looking over.
“Our lives first, but still!”
Through the cursing and disbelieving stares, Jeongguk drove the SUV along the sidewalk, dropped it back onto the smaller main road at the end, and sped up as soon as he saw an opening.
Behind them, the sedan was still trapped, its horn growing more distant by the second.
Only then did Seokjin realize he had been holding his breath. He forced himself to look ahead.
Their apartment was not that far. Ten minutes in normal conditions, maybe twenty with the roads beginning to fall apart. Maybe they would never make it at all if the city truly collapsed faster than they could understand.
He forced himself to think practically. The apartment door. The elevator might still be working, or not. The food stocked in the kitchen cabinets. The medical kit. The animal medication that absolutely should not be used on humans without proper knowledge. Knives, flashlights, power banks, spare keys… the list arranged itself in Seokjin’s head.
Namjoon’s voice broke the silence. “When we get there, we don’t all go up right away.” He returned to the most terrifying version of himself, afraid but still thinking. He had always been like that, and when it happened, it was hard not to listen to him. Because Namjoon was reliable in a way that felt almost unfair. Give him a problem, a chaos, give him someone who needed an answer—ask him, and somehow he would find a way to make everything sound even a little more under control. “We check the lobby first. If it’s too crowded, we look for the back entrance. Emergency stairs are safer than the elevator. The elevator could stop working at any moment.”
Yoongi nodded. “Agreed.”
Seokjin and Jeongguk’s apartment building finally came into view between the rows of buildings. Tall, minimalist, almost luxurious. For a split second, everyone inside the car breathed a little easier. Then they saw the crowd gathered in front of the entrance gate. Dozens of people had gathered. Some residents were carrying suitcases, shopping bags, and oversized backpacks. Some were arguing with the security guards, others were trying to get back inside the building, while a few were forcing their way out. In the middle of it all, the gate barrier was half-open. A car had stopped crookedly in front of it, the driver’s door hanging open. Behind the windshield, the driver’s body was slumped over the steering wheel.
Hoseok covered his mouth.“Oh my God.”
“Don’t go through the front,” Yoongi said quickly.
“I know,” Jeongguk answered.
Namjoon leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as he studied the building area. “We take the back way.”
“Through the side alley, it leads down to the basement parking lot. But my card—” Seokjin patted his pants pocket, looked at the jacket lying on the floor of the car, the blood on the fabric looked dark under the daylight. He stopped.
Jeongguk didn’t even have to look over to understand. “Hyung’s card is in the jacket.”
“Use yours.” Taehyung looked at Jeongguk.
Jeongguk’s jaw tightened. “Mine’s upstairs.”
Taehyung stared at him. “You live there and left your access card?”
“I was with Seokjin-hyung,” Jeongguk snapped, a little too sharp. “I brought my car key. That’s it.”
Seokjin nodded stiffly. “The unit door has a keypad, we can get in if we reach the floor, but the basement entrance needs my card.”
“We do this another way.” Namjoon already thinking ahead. “Seokjin-hyung, is there usually a guard booth at the back entrance? We can ask them to open it.”
“Usually, yeah. But if there’s chaos out front…”
“It might be empty,” Hoseok finished.
“Then we open it manually.” Jeongguk turned the wheel before anyone could give another instruction.
The SUV slipped into the side street, moving away from the main gate before the crowd noticed them. In the mirror, Seokjin caught sight of someone turning toward their car and raising a hand, maybe to ask for help, but just as quickly, the figure disappeared behind the other people.
Seokjin looked away.
The alley beside the building was quieter, but that did not mean it was safe. Two motorcycles lay toppled near the sidewalk. At the end of the alley, the entrance to the basement parking lot came into view. The barrier was down, the small booth beside it was empty, its window open, the chair inside overturned. The sight made the air inside the car tighten.
Jeongguk stopped the car a few meters from the barrier.
Seokjin looked at the empty booth. “There’s a button inside.” He leaned forward, hand already reaching for the door, about to get out, but another hand caught his wrist, pulled him back hard that he nearly stumbled in his seat.
Startled, Seokjin turned. Jeongguk was already looking at him from the driver’s seat, eyes sharp. “You’re not getting out.”
Seokjin’s breath caught. Jeongguk’s voice was flat, which was worse than if he had shouted. Jeongguk rarely got angry. He moved through life lightly, as if as long as he could still move, breathe, and smile, everything would be fine. But when he got this cold, everyone knew better than to push him too far.
Seokjin held back the response sitting on the tip of his tongue.
Jeongguk was not truly angry yet, not yet, but they could all hear how desperately he was holding back something that was very close to breaking.
Namjoon drew in a breath. “I’ll go with Yoongi-hyung. Seokjin-hyung, guide us from here.”
Yoongi looked at him. “Why me?”
“You’re the most likely to stay calm if the button doesn’t work.”
“I’m touched by your faith in me.”
“And because you’re small enough to climb in through the booth window if something happens.”
“I take back being touched.”
Seokjin exhaled, giving in, he pointed toward the small booth. “There’s a gray panel inside, on the left wall. The green button opens the barrier. If the power’s out, there’s a manual lever underneath it. Pull it down, but it’s pretty heavy.”
Namjoon nodded. “Okay.”
Namjoon and Yoongi got out. The moment the car doors shut behind them, the outside world came in more clearly, from afar, sirens beginning to answer one another.
Jeongguk stared straight ahead. His hands did not loosen around the steering wheel. Seokjin wanted to say something—don’t grip the wheel so hard. Breathe. I’m okay. I know you’re scared. I know—but not a single sentence felt safe enough to let out right now.
After a brief hesitation, he placed his hand over Jeongguk’s where it rested near the gearshift. Jeongguk went still for half a second, then some of the tension in his shoulders loosened. Instead of pulling away, he turned his hand over and held Seokjin’s back. Seokjin exhaled in relief.
Ahead of them, Namjoon reached the security booth first. He peered inside, waited one second, and signaled to Yoongi. Yoongi followed him in, body disappearing halfway behind the small door.
One minutes, two minutes. The barrier did not move. “What’s taking so long?” Taehyung muttered.
Hoseok stared out through the windshield. “Come on, come on…” he chanted.
A new scream rang out from the direction of the main gate. Close. In the side mirror, Seokjin saw movement at the mouth of the alley, several people spilled into view, three at first, then five, then more. Behind them, something was chasing. His heart dropped into his stomach. “Namjoon-ah, hurry.” He panicked, even though there was no way Namjoon could hear him.
At the security booth, Yoongi suddenly appeared again, his face tense. He raised both hands, pointed toward the panel, made a twisting motion with his wrist. Seokjin understood at once. “Manual. They have to use the manual lever.”
“How long?” Jimin asked.
“Not long, if it isn’t stuck.”
“And if it’s stuck?”
No one answered, the silence only made the tension worse. The people in the alley were getting closer. Some of them were just panicked residents, but among them, the one who moved differently, their body was fast, too unsteady, crashing into the wall without slowing down.
Namjoon came out of the booth, helping Yoongi pull at something from inside. The barrier moved a little, only a little.
“Jeongguk,” Seokjin said.
“I see it.”
The barrier moved again, rising in jerks until it was about knee-high, still not enough.
Jeongguk measured the gap with his eyes. The barrier was metal, not plastic.If he forced it, the thing would slam into the hood. Worse, it could get caught halfway and trap them right in front of the gate. His hand moved to the gearshift anyway.
The barrier finally lifted high enough to clear the hood.
“Get in!” Namjoon shouted from outside. Yoongi was already running back to the car. Namjoon followed right behind. They opened the doors almost at the same time and climbed in before Seokjin could even count to three.
“Go!”
Jeongguk slammed his foot down on the gas.
The SUV rolled beneath the barrier before it had fully opened. The roof almost brushed against the underside, making a thin, metallic scraping sound that had everyone holding their breath. As soon as they were through, Namjoon hit the lock button again from inside. Behind them, several people reached the barrier. Someone pounded on the back window. “Open up! Please, open up!”
Hoseok squeezed his eyes shut. Jeongguk did not stop.
The car descended the ramp into the basement parking lot, slipping into the damp, cold darkness. The light from outside shrank behind them.
Seokjin and Jeongguk’s apartment basement parking lot stretched out in front of them, silent and empty. A red emergency light on the ceiling flickered once. On. Off. On again. Somewhere in the distance, from one corner of the parking lot, came the sound of something dragging across the concrete floor. Jeongguk slowed the car. No one breathed.
Seokjin’s gaze moved over the rows of parked cars, the elevator door, until the door to the emergency stairs far left. Their home was up there. There was food, water, medicine, a door they could lock. Safe, he thought. He wanted so badly to believe it.
And then, from the darkness near the elevator, someone appeared, just standing there. An apartment security guard, his uniform torn at the shoulder, head hanging low, one hand dangling strangely at his side.
Seokjin’s whole body went cold. “Mr. Han?”
The guard lifted his head. Red eyes stared into the car.
Seokjin and Jeongguk both stopped breathing.
Mr. Han was the night guard who often greeted Seokjin whenever he came home too late from the clinic. A middle-aged man who always complained about his knees when it rained, who had once accepted a food delivery meant for Jeongguk because the kid had entered the wrong address, who knew Seokjin’s habit of buying two trays of eggs at once at the start of every week.
More than once, he had held the elevator door for Jeongguk when his hands were full of groceries, laughing as he asked, “Are you buying food for one week or one whole winter?”
He was someone who had seen Jeongguk come home late too many times in a hoodie, hair still damp after training, a bag of fried chicken in hand because Seokjin had forgotten to eat dinner.
Mr. Han was not a stranger. He was a small part of their routine, a small part of what made this place feel like home, but the figure standing in front of them now, beneath the flickering red emergency light, no longer looked like someone who could be called by name.
“Jeongguk,” Namjoon said softly. “Don’t stop.”
Jeongguk did not answer right away. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, vision blurring at the edges.
Ahead of them, Mr. Han began to move, one broken step, then another.
Seokjin flinched beside him. He was not doing any better, biting his lip too hard, his hands clenched tightly in his lap.
Something in Jeongguk’s chest twisted, but his foot stayed on the gas.
He could not stop, could not hesitate, not now. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. Whether it was for Mr. Han, for himself, or for Seokjin, he did not know.
By the time the SUV lurched forward toward the emergency stairs, Mr. Han moved at the same time. Too fast. He broke into a run and threw himself at the car as it passed, slamming into the side with his entire body. The impact made Taehyung jolt back. Namjoon held his breath as a bloody palm smacked against the glass beside him, leaving a widening red smear behind.
The SUV sped past the elevator area and stopped abruptly near the emergency stairs. Jeongguk positioned the car as close to the door as possible, using it as a barrier between them and the darker part of the parking lot. “Get out! Fast!”
The door opened.
Yoongi got out first, keeping himself low as he ran toward the emergency stairs. Hoseok came right after. Taehyung followed, nearly slipping on the basement floor, slick with water from God knew where before Jimin caught him. Namjoon waited until all of them had reached the door. He turned to Seokjin. “Now.”
Jeongguk caught his wrist before he could step out.
Seokjin turned to him. Jeongguk did not say anything, his eyes were still focused, breathing controlled, but the red at the corners of his eyes betrayed the self-control he was forcing into place—at least to Seokjin, and the grip around his wrist said too many things at once.
Don’t do anything stupid again.
Don’t get away from me.
Don’t almost die twice in one day.
Seokjin swallowed. He gave a small nod. “I’ll stay beside you.”
Jeongguk let go.
They got out together.
From the other side of the car, Mr. Han appeared again, slamming into the hood of the SUV with a heavy thud. His body slid, but he did not stop. He crawled up with stiff, jerking movements, mouth open, breathing rough and wet.
“Run!” Namjoon shouted.
Seokjin ran for the emergency stairs’ door, Jeongguk right behind him. Jimin held the door open from inside. “Hurry!”
Seokjin slipped in first. Jeongguk followed and immediately slammed the metal door shut. Mr. Han hit it a second later.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Everyone froze as the hinges of the metal door shuddered. Jimin covered his mouth, eyes wide. “He… he was the security guard?”
“Yeah,” Seokjin answered hoarsely.
No one knew what to say. In the end, Yoongi moved first, searching for the extra locking bar on the side of the door. “Help me.”
Hoseok immediately helped him pull the iron bar down. It screeched loudly as it locked into place. The next impact still rang out, but the door no longer moved as much as it had before. Namjoon looked up at the stairs stretching above them. “What floor?”
“Eighth.” Hoseok stared at Seokjin like he had been personally betrayed. “You live on the eighth floor?”
“Sorry for not considering this situation when choosing our unit.”
Hoseok let out a resigned sigh. They started up the stairs. Jeongguk turned on his phone flashlight, aiming it at the first step. “Don’t get too close to the railing if there’s blood on it. Don’t touch the walls unless you have to.”
Taehyung glanced at him. “You’re starting to sound like you have common sense.”
“You can praise me later, hyung.”
“I didn’t say it was praise.”
They started climbing. The emergency stair was narrow, the smell of dust and metal filling the air. Emergency lights flickered on every floor, making their shadows appear and disappear across the walls.
On the second floor, they heard screaming from behind the corridor door, no one stopped.
On the third floor, Taehyung’s phone suddenly caught one bar of signal. He immediately tried calling emergency services again, but before the call could connect, the signal disappeared.
On the fifth floor, Jimin stopped for half a second when he heard a baby crying behind the door. Hoseok gripped Jimin’s hand, a silent warning, don’t.
Jimin’s face crumpled, but he kept climbing.
On the sixth floor, something crashed below them. The sound of the metal door being struck again came from far underneath, muffled. It made them quicken their pace.
“Is he still down there?” Taehyung asked.
“Don’t think about it,” Namjoon answered.
“Of course I’m thinking about it.”
“Then think while climbing.”
Yoongi, strangely enough, almost laughed.
By the seventh floor, Seokjin could feel his lungs burning, his body finally realizing it had been running on adrenaline for far too long. His legs were shaking. Jeongguk noticed, of course. A hand appeared against Seokjin’s back, resting there lightly.
Seokjin did not turn around. If he turned around, he might lose control.
At last, they reached the eighth floor. The corridor door was closed in front of them. Everyone stopped.
Seokjin lifted a hand, signaling for them to stay quiet. He stepped closer to the door, held his breath, pressed his ear against the cold metal surface. Silence. He turned back to the others and nodded once.
Jeongguk took position beside the door. Yoongi grabbed the small fire extinguisher mounted on the stair wall and lifted it as a weapon. Hoseok kept Jimin and Taehyung behind him. Namjoon stood in the middle, ready to pull anyone back if he needed to.
Slowly, Seokjin opened the door.
The eighth-floor corridor was half-dark. The main lights were out, leaving only a small red emergency light glowing at the end of the hall. No people, only a suitcase lying tipped over near the elevator, its contents spilled across the floor: clothes, water bottles, and a small rabbit plushie with one folded ear… Seokjin forced himself not to look at it for too long. “Our unit’s at the end.”
They moved quickly down the corridor.
One door on the right was slightly open. Inside, a television was on with no sound, showing a news broadcast with large red text scrolling across the bottom of the screen. There were no residents in the living room that they could see. Namjoon stopped briefly to read the ticker beneath the broadcast.
[THE GOVERNMENT URGES RESIDENTS TO REMAIN INDOORS AND AVOID PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH INDIVIDUALS DISPLAYING AGGRESSIVE SYMPTOMS.]
He did not read it out loud, they all understood without needing to hear it again.
Jeongguk reached the door to their unit first. He lifted a hand and entered the code into the keypad.
The lock chimed softly. The door clicked open.
They spilled inside like water overflowing from a container too full. Jeongguk was the last one in. He shut the door, locked it manually, and hooked the safety chain into place. Seokjin helped pull the large shoe rack in front of the door, followed by Taehyung and Jimin, who dragged a chair and small table over from the living room.
Yoongi walked to the window and lifted the curtain slightly. His shoulders tensed as he looked down at the street below. He dropped it again. “Don’t turn on any bright lights.”
“Do we still have power?” Hoseok asked.
Seokjin pressed the switch. The living room lights came on. Everyone froze.
The light felt far too normal, especially paired with the sight of Seokjin and Jeongguk’s apartment suddenly laid out in front of them. Traces of a home. A smiling flowerpot beside the television, a cap thrown carelessly over the sofa, two coffee cups, already empty, sitting on the table. Warm.
Outside the building, a siren wailed long and loud. Seokjin turned the light off again.
The apartment fell back into dimness, lit only by the window and the glow of phone screens barely clinging to signal.
For the first time since they had left the amusement park, they were behind a closed door. Here, at least, they had water. They had food.
They had a few minutes to breathe.