BUTTERFLY'S SLEEP 01
Title: Butterfly's sleep
Author: spokesman
Pairing: YunJae
Genre: AU, horror, action, romance, humor(?)
Length: 5 chapters
Rating: PG-13 ~ NC-17, depending on each chapter.
Warnings: Use of bad language.
Summary: He woke up and found himself in the middle of what looked like the apocalypse. His only survival posibility: to team up with Kim Jaejoong, the soldier.
BUTTERFLY'S SLEEP
Eyes delicate like a young girl's, gone transparent
Pale white skin that's never been defiled
A dress which dances like a butterfly
Even if your secret wishes are never brought to fruition,
in the season when one wishes for eternity,
the lord of the dark discreetly hides his shadow crooked gears
I don't care if the world is reduced to ash
I don't care if they scramble around grabbing at everything
Your eyes will never again be graced with visions of a beautiful dawn,
even if you tie your life up in a bundle and offer it
Please rise from the dead on earth with my last kiss
I don't care if the world is reduced to ash
I don't care if they scramble around grabbing at everything
No matter what wish is made, only sadness comes of it
Forevermore I'll quietly watch that sleeping face
until the gentle wind which tempts us to sleep surrounds me
This love will extend beyond time
I'll make it bloom before you
living endless nights and mornings
in a land where no one's hand may reach
1. DÄMMERN
.27th June 2010. 18.35h.
A dim light greeted his eyes, next to a pounding headache. He raised his hand to massage his forehead, but only managed to let a grunt escape his lips when he felt his hand way too heavy to move, and, seemingly, not responding to his commands. Was it numb? His headache intensified while he tried to make his arm respond again, slowly, heavily. He closed his eyes and tried to move his other arm, his fingers, his legs, his toes... little by little trying to awake all his numb limbs while trying to ignore his throbbing head. Why was his body so numb? Why was his head hurting so much? Wait, where was he? When he managed to move all his toes as close to as he normally did, he opened his eyes again, sitting slowly on the bed he was lying on and looking around. White walls, white curtains, white bed? Was this a bed? It looked more like... wait wait, was he in a hospital room? Looking more carefully he noticed the needle on his arm, leading to a practically empty serum bag hanging to his left. What the hell happened? He searched for the button to call the nurse and pressed it a couple of times. And a couple of times more when time passed and nobody came. And a couple of times more after that. Exasperated and way too nervous for his own good, he noticed there was no light in the room, nor flowers or machines beeping, anything. He carefully removed the needle from his arm and moved his legs down slowly until he could feel the cold floor on his feet and tried to stand up. It proved way more difficult than he remembered. He was failing terribly at it though, and his now bony legs were not helping him at all. Leaning against the bed he stood still for some minutes until he finally found the strength to start walking.
Taking slow steps towards the room's door he wondered what happened. He just remembered taking his motorbike to go to class. Nothing after that. He opened the door looking into the hall, and somehow a creepy feeling got under his skin. Everything was a mess, dirty blankets on the floor, stretchers upside down, papers everywhere... no soul at sight, no lights on, not even a sound. What the hell was happening?? He closed the door and went back to the room, sitting down on the bed, tired after doing such a small thing as just standing at the door. He massaged his temples trying to put some order in his thoughts. So, he woke up alone at a hospital room, and he just remembers riding his motorbike? That seemed to point to some kind of accident, at least that would explain this all. But why wasn't anyone around? Why didn't any nurse come? Why did it look like the hospital was deserted? Looking around the room again he noticed a small closet, he went and picked up what seemed to be one of his worn out sports bag. Luckily it contained some of his clothes. So at least it looks like someone from his family was there at some point. He took off the hospital gown and put on a black v-neck t-shirt with a pair of skinny jeans and his black converse, and decided to go to look around the hospital for someone, or at least, some clue.
Walking down the hall he saw he was at the 5th floor. At the nurse station next to the room he was at there was a watch hanging on the wall that looked like it didn't work anymore, and he remembered his own watch. He was wearing it when the supposed accident happened and it could be useful to have it, so he walked back to the room to see if it was around there. He looked around the sports bag and the small closet, but it wasn’t there. He turned to look on the small table next to the bed, and there it was. When he walked to it he noticed a yellow post-it note next to the table lamp. He got his watch and put it on while reading the small post-it:
'Beloved son. We've stayed with you as long as possible, now we need to try to save our lives. Please forgive us. We hope you don't wake up, and if you do, just run away. We will always love you. Your mom, dad & Jihye. June 21st.'
He looked at the post-it note for a while, his mind blank. He slowly raised his wrist and looked at his watch: 19.51h. 27-06. He took a step back and sat on the edge of the bed, his mind running trying to attach all the small pieces. So it was June, and the last day he remembers was the 21st of May, a Friday. So he's been 'out' for a little over a month... and his parents note was written almost a week ago, so this means he's been alone for a week. Why? Why was there nobody? What was this thing about running and saving and... The headache turned almost unbearable, so he stood up and walked to the nurse station to try to find some painkillers. Luckily he found some ibuprofen pills and a couple of water bottles unopened. He swallowed 2 pills and leaned against the nurse's desk. He needed to go out and find someone and ask what the hell was happening there.
He walked through the hall until he found the elevator; he pushed the button out of habit. He slapped his own forehead afterwards, it was obvious there was no power on the building; all the lights turned off were a blatant proof. He looked for the stairs, and after having to dodge a lot of stretchers and other furniture on his way, and having to jump more than one ruined stair, he finally got down to the ground level. This floor was in a worst state than the rest. Broken windows, couches turned over with the cushions ripped, papers everywhere, abandoned shoes, weird stains... and deadly silence. His nerves were on breakdown point, he walked to the entrance of the hospital, breathing in heavily, he finally got out of the hospital and to the street... to see total devastation.
Saying everything was upside down was an understatement; it looked like chaos had paid a little visit. Cars parked in the middle of the sidewalk with the doors opened and the seats broken, crashed ones against others, glasses everywhere from storefronts, newspapers, drinking bottles abandoned, trash everywhere... He stood in silent contemplation of his surroundings, feeling utterly lost. What the hell happened with Seoul? He took a deep breath and looked at the streets and buildings trying to recognize where he was. He read the hospital’s name: Seoul Asan hospital. He knew this place! He only needed to walk north and he would arrive to the Han River, and then south west to go to his apartment! He decided the best was to walk to his place and try to contact his family, while searching for someone on the streets to give him information.
He walked north towards the river, preferring to go to open areas, thinking it would be easier to find people there (and feeling less crept out on a park rather than on the empty silent streets). His heart clenched walking down the Olympic avenue, looking at his surroundings. It looked like all the cars in Seoul decided to have a massive accident right there. The fact that there was no corpse in sight disturbed him as much as the thought itself.
What the hell happened? When he arrived to the cross with Jayang Street he heard a loud noise coming from down south. It sounded pretty far away, but it was the first sound he heard apart from the wind since he woke up, so he decided to walk down the street and try to find where that noise came from, and what was it. He walked south for a while, entering the Songpa Avenue. He knew this part of the city pretty well, since he used to come to Lotte World with friends, girlfriends (and maybe some ‘boyfriend’ too) in the past. It used to be noisy and lively. The silent streets were proving to be quite the mind fuck for him now. But then he heard it. Another loud noise, much closer now. He put his hearing on alert, and not too far away from him he could hear... voices... yes, yes they were voices! And laughing! He broke into a run, his heart almost beating itself out of his body. There were people around here!
When the huge statue of the Lotte Racoon at the entrance of the Lotte World building appeared in front of him he saw a group of people walking west by the Olympic street, a few blocks ahead of him. He saw them stopping and some of them entering a building while the others stayed outside. He smiled and broke into a run to them. Finally, more people! He finally would know what happened! When he was close enough he slowed down to a walk because he was still too weak after weeks of an only serum diet. He stopped frozen on his tracks when he heard that loud noise again. A loud bang? Was it a shot what he just heard? The people in front of him where really close now and he could see they were carrying... rifles? He took a step backwards but then another shot was heard, and he couldn’t stop himself from screaming. The people in front of him turned to his direction, and undoubtedly saw him, since he was there, frozen, in the middle of the street. One of them walked slowly closer to him after saying something to one of the others in the group, aiming his weapon to his face. He couldn’t even walk away, his gaze glued on the rifle pointing at him, until the person was right in front of him.
"What... what the fuck? Are you human??"
He looked up when he heard the voice (a man’s voice) and the rifle stopped aiming at him. In front of him was a young guy, with black longish straight hair, and impossible big eyes looking at him with surprise.
"How is it possible? How did you survive all this time!? ... Are you bitten somewhere?" The man (boy, better said, since he couldn’t be much older than himself) grabbed his arm and started to look around him, checking his skin carefully, as if searching for something.
"What are you doing?" Finally he got his voice back. The black haired guy looked back at him with those huge black eyes full of wonder.
"Wow, you’re really human!" The guy kind of laughed and turned his head back, to the direction where the rest of the group was "Hey, a survivor!" The black haired guy raised his voice a little so the rest could hear him, but not really screaming. There was no need to scream. All their surroundings where deadly silent.
"Of course I am!" He got free of the guy’s hand "what do you expect me to be?"
"Hey, sorry, it’s been long since we’ve found survivors! It took me by surprise. So how did you do it?" The guy was talking with a warm smile on his face, and somehow it made him feel calm. Looking closely, this guy had to be some kind of soldier? He was wearing a black tank top with a dark green vest full of pockets, a couple of dog tags hanging from his neck, military pants, military boots, a belt full of... ammo? A backpack, the rifle in his hand ... yeah, he looked like an army soldier. But then his face didn’t look like it at all. Long straight black hair, the longer ends of it reaching his shoulders, and his bangs covering one of his eyes at the front, didn’t military men sport shaved heads? Ears full of piercings… what the... Eyes big and shiny and warm, full lips, straight noise, strong jaw... from neck up he looked more like a model rather than a soldier, but maybe he was being biased.
"I don’t know..." He answered after swallowing. "I just woke up..."
"Woke up?" The huge eyed soldier in front of him raised a brow.
"Yeah, in a hospital, Asan hospital there" He pointed to the way he came from "I don’t know what’s happening or what happened or anything..."
"What the fuck? Really?? You do-"
"Jae! Who’s that?" The soldier in front of him (Jae?) turned his head and looked to a man who just appeared behind him. Another soldier, taller, with blondish shorter hair, who also seemed young but older than the boy named Jae.
"No idea, he says he just woke up in a hospital. Maybe he was in a coma or something." The black haired soldier answered.
"No way, he would have died by now without treatment or the life support machines. Seoul has been abandoned for weeks!" The shorter haired man exclaimed. Abandoned for weeks?
"True..."
"There was a note, written by my parents" He shyly broke the soldiers’ conversation "It seems they stood with me until a week ago... don’t know."
"... brave parents." The older soldier said. "Well boy, bad luck waking up now. It would have been better to keep on sleeping forever."
"What..." Yunho didn't follow what the tallest of the soldiers was trying to say.
"What the fuck hyung!? Don’t say those things! We should be happy to still find survivors!"
"Why should we? We have nothing to do with survivors. Our mission is ‘to clean’ the city." The tall soldier’s tone was cold and he really didn’t like that one bit.
"What are you saying?" The black haired soldier narrowed his eyes looking at the older one.
"That we need to carry on our mission. I’m sorry, man" The older soldier put a hand on his shoulder, and turned to walk down the way he came.
"WHAT? Are you serious hyung? Are you leaving him here on his own?" The younger man yelled. His heart stopped beating. Alone? He didn’t want to be alone again!
"We can’t do anything else. We need to follow our mission. He would put the mission in danger."
"Hyung..." The younger guy looked speechless "I can’t believe this... after so many weeks we found a human, and you want to abandon him!!"
The older soldier looked at him up and down with a cold stare that took the breath out of him, in a bad way. The blonde man finally sighed and turned his gaze to the younger guy.
"Ok, you’re responsible of him" The blonde man turned and walked down the street.
"What!? B-but..." The older soldier turned his head and looked with a raised brow to the younger one, and then kept on walking. "Damn."
"W-what..." He stuttered, trying to understand what was happening. The younger soldier grunted.
"I can’t believe it, why can’t I keep my mouth closed?" The guy seemed to be talking to himself.
"Excuse me... what... happened?" The soldier looked at him with an angry stare.
"You come with me. Don’t stay away from me, don’t wander, don’t walk slowly. Keep my pace and don’t make a sound, understood?"
"What? B-but why..."
"And no questions! I’ll take you out of here so at least do what I say." The guy turned with the intention of walking down the street.
"Hey, wait a second! I didn’t ask to get out of here, I just want to know what happened!" He grabbed the soldier’s arm, stopping him from walking away. The dark haired man turned and looked at him with a strange stare. Was it sad? Angry?
"Look, man..."
"Yunho" He said while the soldier looked at him "My name is Jung Yunho."
"Look, Jung Yunho" The shorter man took a breath "I can’t tell much, actually it’s better if you don’t know. You’re blessed with ignorance, right now. So just do as I tell, please, and I’ll help you out of here, ok?" The dark haired man was talking with a calm voice, and looking to Yunho with a warm stare... Yunho looked at his surroundings: the destruction, the silence... he gulped and looked back to the soldier .
"What’s your name?" The soldier looked at him curiously.
"Kim Jaejoong."
"Ok Jaejoong," He saw the soldier raising a brow at the lack of formal speech "I’ll go with you, and I’ll try to behave."
Jaejoong showed a tiny smirk and made a movement with his head, as if telling Yunho to follow him, and so did YunHo.
So there he was, following a group of 6 soldiers, being under the surveillance of one who couldn’t be much older than him, who looked more like a magazine model than an army soldier. He still couldn’t understand anything. Weeks without finding survivors? Seoul being abandoned? ‘Cleaning’ squad? What happened here? An earthquake? A terrorist attack? War exploded in the end? His head was a mess and if he tried to even mutter a word or a question to the military man, Jaejoong would look at him with a hard stare that clearly meant ‘shut up or else’.
They advanced in almost complete silence for a long time. Yunho checked his watch and saw it was close to 00.00h when they were walking north of Baekjego street, next to the Jamsil stadium, direction north to the Han river. He was exhausted, his body was not in its best condition and the long walk had taken a toll on him. The soldiers stopped and talked in really hushed voices and hand signs for a second, all serious faces and furrowed brows, and then 3 of them entered a building at their right, while the other 3 stayed outside, assault rifles ready just in case. Just in case of what? Yunho thought, and walked to where Jaejoong was, the only one he felt ‘comfortable’ to talk to.
"Hey, why are you checking buildings with weapons ready and..."
"Shhh!!!" Jaejoong turned to him alarmed and put a hand on his mouth "Do you want to get killed?? I told you to shut up!!" He muttered, taking his hand back to his rifle.
Yunho grunted but shut up and walked away from the soldier. Jaejoong looked at him for 5 seconds with a scold on his face, until he turned gazing back at the building, rifle ready. Yunho walked to the other side of the street, kicking some gravel on his way, hands in his pockets.
"What the hell, obviously I want to know, isn’t it normal? No need to be such a bastard..." He kicked more gravel and walked to a car where he leaned in, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting to himself. "Stupid pretty boy, thinking he has the right to order me around..." He kicked the side of the car he was leaning on, not too hard trying not to make much noise (he was complaining but didn’t want to check what would happen if he did noise, after all). But the car was in a horrible condition, having crashed surely, and it was upside down already, so the door of the car got unhinged and crashed on the floor, making a loud metal noise followed by a dry thump. Yunho shrank his head and closed his eyes scared of the noise. When he opened them again he looked at the door on the ground and then to where Jaejoong was, and found not only Jaejoong but the other 2 soldiers looking at him with pure hatred? He gulped and turned away, not wanting to receive such a hard stare. He was sulking on his own and trying to calm his hard beating heart when he heard a weird noise coming from his right, somewhere in between the trees. He stood still and listened carefully. It was a creepy sound, as if something was being dragged on sand. Yunho took a step forward in the direction of the noise. Was it an animal? He stopped suddenly when he heard a small... groan?
"Oh my god?" Yunho gasped and walked hurriedly to the trees, thinking he found another ‘survivor’, probably a wounded one by how the voice sounded "Hey, somebody there?" He talked loudly and stepped in between the trees.
But what he saw wasn’t a survivor. It was a human once , sure, but... it just wasn’t alive anymore.
"Shit!" He covered his mouth in disgust at the sight of the almost rotted corpse lying on the ground upside down in front of him. He took a step backwards not being able to take his eyes off the sight "What the fuck, what the fuck?!" He felt that he was close to be on hysterics and tried to get out of the trees and breathe normal air and calm down.
When suddenly the corpse moved and grabbed his leg.
"FUCK!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and after freezing for 1 second to understand that the corpse really moved on its own, he kicked the hand holding him. The corpse didn’t let go of his leg, and slowly groaned while raising its head up, or what it had left of its head. Yunho was dumbstruck with horror. The corpse was missing half of his lower jaw and part of its left cheek. His flesh was rotten and it had a blue tone to it. Clots of blood where spilling from his opened throat every time the corpse groaned. Wet sounds of flesh moving and cracks of bones arrived to Yunho’s ears, and hysteria overpowered him.
"WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK, GET AWAY, WHAT’S THIS SHIT, SHIT!!" He kicked and kicked with all his strength the hand holding him and the face of the corpse trying to break away. He heard a crack sound and saw how the wrist of the corpse got broken after one of his hard kicks, almost ripping the hand away from the arm. He screamed in horror and kept on kicking.
"FUCK JAEJOONG, JAEJOONG HELP!!! SOMEBODY!!!"
And somebody appeared through the trees, rifle aiming to the corpse's head, and shoot one clean shot that pierced the corpse’s head from side to side. The putrid body stopped moving or emitting any kind of noise.
"Are you ok? Are you ok??" Yunho felt an arm on his shoulder, shaking him, but his eyes couldn’t get away from the rotted hand holding his ankle.
"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck..." He was almost hyperventilating and completely terrified.
"Yunho calm down!! It’s dead!! C’mon calm down, we need to get out of here!!" Slowly and still close to hyperventilation, Yunho turned his head and saw Jaejoong there, looking at him with a deep frown, his hand squeezing his shoulder tight.
"Jae-Jaejoong... what was..."
"Calm down, we need to get out of here. You ok? Did it bite you??" The soldier looked so serious.
"N..." Not being able to talk due to the shock, he just shook his head ‘no’. Jaejoong sighed relieved.
"Ok, now let’s get back before more of those things get here."
"M-more?" Yunho stuttered.
"I’ll tell you later, let’s go!" The black haired boy dragged Yunho from his arm outside of the trees and back to the street. The other soldiers were there in the middle, in alert mode, rifles aiming to different points, scanning every part of the street.
"Jaejoong, what the fuck!? What did that idiot do??"
"There was one in the trees, grabbed his leg" Jaejoong dragged Yunho running to where the other soldiers where.
"So what?? Stupid bastard, put us all in danger screaming like that!" The one who was probably the oldest on the squad looked with pure disdain at Yunho. The other 3 soldiers came running out of the building at top speed.
"What was all that screaming??" The shorter of those three asked.
"This fucker screamed at the top of his lungs when he met one of them!!" The oldest answered, pointing to Yunho, who was shaking from head to toes.
"Fuck, now probably they are all coming this way, stupid bastard!!" The same short soldier from before exclaimed furiously.
"There were a lot inside the building, so surely there are more around! We need to get out of here now!!" Another of the ones who came from inside the building yelled.
"Idiot, do you see what you did here? We told you if you put the mission in danger, you were out, right? Well, you just fucked it up big time!!" The oldest soldier raised his riffle and pointed it to Yunho’s face, whose eyes almost flew out of his face.
"What are you doing Dongsun!!" Jaejoong slapped the rifle down "Are you out of your mind??"
"Shut up, he just fucked up everything!!" The oldest, called Dongsun it seemed, pointed his weapon back to Yunho’s face.
"Are you trying to kill him or what??" Jaejoong slapped down the weapon again, and pushed Dongsun backwards.
"Yes I am!! Easier to run away without this useless shit following us!!" Dongsun was red with rage. The other soldiers just looked at the situation, probably agreeing with Dongsun.
"You fucker, he’s just a civilian!!" Jaejoong grabbed Yunho and put him behind himself. Yunho wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to act, completely out of his mind.
"I don’t give a fuck, this is a survival matter!!" Dongsun pushed Jaejoong backwards, but before he could as much as raise his weapon a steady sound was heard.
As if something was being dragged. As if something slippery was being rubbed. And then a groan. And then another. And then many more, and closer, and louder. Steps, and feet being dragged, grunts, and moans as horrible as anything ever heard on a vivid nightmare. Yunho started shaking violently and grabbed Jaejoong’s vest strongly.
"What’s that, what’s that noise, what’s that??" He was completely out of himself, the noise becoming louder and coming closer.
"Shit, a lot of them..." Jaejoong muttered, raising his rifle.
"It’s this bastard’s fault!!" Another soldier of the squad pointed his weapon to Yunho’s head. Jaejoong turned and aimed his own riffle to that man’s head.
"Are you out of your mind too , Daehyun?? Have you all gone nuts??" Nobody answered, they just looked with loathe to Yunho, behind Jaejoong’s back.
"... ok, fuck you all. I’m taking Yunho out of here, you do what you want, but I will not stand still while you kill a civilian!!" Jaejoong turned to look at Yunho. "Ok man, calm down, breathe. We’re getting out of here, ok? You come with me."
With no more words Jaejoong grabbed Yunho’s wrist and ran north of the street. Yunho was completely lost, didn’t understand what was happening. He heard the other soldiers swearing and calling Jaejoong back, but his mind couldn’t analyze more than that. Then he heard groans and screams and shots and shouts, and Jaejoong yelling to him to ‘not look back’. And they kept on running faster and faster, their surroundings changing, now the Olympic avenue, now the stadium at their left, now crossing the Cheongdam bridge over the Han river... He was out of breath and out of his mind when they reached the Ttukseom resort, so he finally glued his heels to the ground trying to stop Jaejoong from running, and after a couple of seconds he finally achieved it.
"What!? Don’t stop now!!" Jaejoong turned to look at him and saw him breathless. He looked behind them and seeing they were alone he ran a hand through his hair, furrowed his brows and then tugged at the hair on his scalp "Fuck, fuck!! Now what!!? We’re fucking alone, shit!! There’s no way we can survive alone, damn!! Do you see what you’ve done, do you know what the damag..."
Yunho couldn’t stand it anymore and fell on his knees, retching violently. Only liquid came out, since he hadn’t eaten any food for over a month. He was scared shitless, he couldn’t understand a thing, he felt nauseous and sick and weak and desperate, and he felt tears running down his face, his breath coming out short, hard and painfully.
"... Ok" Jaejoong kneeled next to him "Ok calm down. I’m sorry." He put a hand on his back and patted him "It’s not your fault, I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine how you must feel waking up in this nightmare..." He started rubbing Yunho’s back comfortingly. Yunho started to breathe more calmly, but tears didn’t stop falling.
"What’s happening, what’s all this, what are those things, what..." He was talking too fast and too high.
"Shhh, calm down first." Jaejoong grabbed Yunho from under his armpits and made him stand up again, throwing Yunho’s arm around his shoulders and letting him lean against himself. Yunho really appreciated it, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own. "We’re going to find some place to hide, ok? Then we’ll rest and I’ll tell you everything, ok?" Yunho turned his face and found Jaejoong’s face really close to his, looking up to him calmly. He took a deep breath, then another, then swallowed and closed his eyes.
"Ok, yeah, sure" he whispered, not able to talk louder than that. Jaejoong sighed and held him closer.
"Great, let’s go to one of those buildings, ok?" With his free hand he pointed to some high buildings to their right at the end of the bridge "Maybe we’ll find some good hiding place.
They walked slowly north of the bridge, up Dongbugansondo street, Yunho leaning on Jaejoong. He noticed the soldier was shorter than him, but looked strong enough to carry him if necessary. Not like it would be too difficult, Yunho was really thin and weak after all that time at the hospital. They passed close to a Family Mart and Jaejoong told Yunho to wait for him. He gave Yunho a gun. Yunho looked at the gun wide eyed and then at Jaejoong. Jaejoong just pointed to the convenience shop.
"I’m going to check if it’s safe there, and it’s better if you wait outside. I’ll be back soon. If you see one of those monsters, just shoot at its head, ok?" Jaejoong pointed his finger to his own head. Yunho gulped, shaking, and nodded his head. Jaejoong half smiled and patted Yunho’s shoulder "C’mon, 5 minutes at most, ok? I’ll be right back." And with a jog he crossed the street, leaned his back against the wall next to the convenience store entrance, reaching to one of his vest’s pockets and picked up something that turned out to be a small torchlight. After looking through the broken glass door, rifle ready in his hands, he opened the door and moved slowly and quietly inside, disappearing from Yunho’s sight .
Yunho gulped and looked at his surroundings. It was dark, just the moon light illuminating the street. No other light around him, anywhere. He checked his watch and pressed the button for the background light. 00.43h. He felt exhausted, physically and mentally. And completely paranoid, checking every corner, every shadow, every noise. He looked at the store hoping for Jaejoong to appear already. He felt like he was dreaming. He wanted to pinch his cheeks but he somehow knew that no nightmare could look this real. He took a glimpse at his ankle, where the ‘thing’ had grabbed him. What was that? It looked like it had been human before, but surely it was no more. What the hell? Jaejoong had called them monsters... and a few names came to his mind. Undead, zombies, ghouls... but that was just science fiction, and this was real life, wasn’t it? He checked his watch again, Jaejoong was taking too long. 00.49h. Oh shit, more than five minutes had passed. Was Jaejoong all right? Did he find those monsters? Was he fighting? He put himself on alert to try to listen to any noise, holding the gun with a death grip. No noise could be heard apart from the river down the street. Maybe... maybe Jaejoong was dead already?
"Oh shit, no, oh no..." He whispered and trembled and closed his eyes, and didn’t know what to do, just grabbing his gun close to him.
He gulped hard, feeling like throwing up all over again, even if there was nothing else to throw out, when a noise and a movement coming from the store’s direction caught his attention. He pointed the gun there as an automatic reaction, but then saw the movement was a torchlight and slowly lowered his gun. Finally, Jaejoong emerged from the shop’s entrance, and Yunho let out a breath he’d been holding for too long.
"Yunho" Jaejoong whispered, waving his hand in the air to catch his attention "Come, it’s safe!"
So Yunho walked as fast as he could, being as silent as he could to where Jaejoong was, and grabbed his wrist searching for some kind of safety. Jaejoong chuckled, but said nothing more, leading Yunho inside the shop. As soon as they were inside, Jaejoong moved some huge shelves to block the door and the windows, and put a lot of stuff on the ground in front of it, like cans and plastic bags and candies. Yunho looked at this display silently until Jaejoong turned to him, turned on the torchlight and raised an eyebrow.
"Surviving skills pal. I’ll teach you, you‘re lucky to learn from the best" he winked an eye to Yunho and told him to move to the back of the store. "I grabbed some food and drinks that weren’t expired so we can eat something. I have energy bars with me too. There’s a high window on the back that leads to a closed courtyard from the building next to this one, where we can run away in case we’re attacked." When they entered the back store he closed the door behind him. Then walked to the window and opened it, letting as much moonlight in as was possible.
Yunho sat down on the floor and put his head between his legs, finally able to breathe a little. He heard Jaejoong moving around, moving stuff and preparing things whatever they were. After some time he finally heard him sighing contentedly and felt him sitting next to himself. His warmth was really welcomed, even if it wasn’t cold at all.
"Ok, all ready." Yunho looked up at him and found him looking back, small smile in his lips "How are you feeling?"
"Like shit."
"Then you feel like you look, so it’s all ok" Jaejoong chuckled and grabbed a water bottle, he opened it and passed it to Yunho, who happily accepted it and drowned more than half of it in one go, feeling thirsty and wanting to get out the bad taste from his mouth "Wow, thirsty, huh? Drink all you want, there’s plenty of water in the shop. There’s a lot of ramyun too, but we shouldn’t boil water here at night, the fire makes too much light... I found chips and chocolates and a lot of kimchi. Weird mix, but at least it’s something." He was passing packages to Yunho.
"I’m not hungry..."
"Sure you’re not, but after waking up from a who-knows-how-long coma you need to eat, more in the situation we’re now!" he started opening packages for Yunho.
"Seems I’ve been unconscious for a little over a month..."
"Oh, wow. So you were awake when this all started? Then you should know th..."
"No, I don’t know. The last thing I remember was me going to class. There weren’t monsters, or the army, no empty Seoul, no disappeared family, no guns, and ..." he was getting all worked out, breath coming out fast and shallow again.
"Ok ok man, calm down! I’ll explain it all to you, ok?" Yunho breathed deeply and exhaled, relaxing himself, and then nodded. "Ok, where to start..."
Jaejoong got the water bottle from Yunho’s lap and drank from it, then got one of his energy bars and bit it fiercely. He hold a pensive look on his face, then swallowed and turned to Yunho.
"Ok. So like, I don’t know everything since at the beginning I was at my hometown out of Seoul, and I’ve been out of the army for some months, practically a year, so well..." huh, so that explains the long hair and the piercings thought Yunho "What I know it’s that at the ends of May I received a call from the ROKA, soliciting my services here in Seoul. I already saw the news of the accidents and the weird stuff happening up here, but I didn’t imagine it was THIS big..." The dark haired man took another bite, Yunho finally doing the same, hoping not to throw it all up again, his attention fixed on the young soldier "Well the thing is, I arrived at Seongnam base on the 24th of May, and instead of receiving orders to go to the battle point or something, we, as in me and the other guys you saw back there, received orders to form a special squad." He looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to relocate his thoughts "Well the thing is we were trained specially for all this shit."
"And what is ‘all this shit’?" Yunho asked after swallowing some energetic bar. Jaejoong looked at him in silence before he started talking again.
"The zombies’ invasion." He said it totally serious, but Yunho choked on his own breath.
"Z-zombies? Like... really? Like in the movies?? What the fuck??" He furrowed his brow, almost angry, even if he didn’t know exactly angry at what or who. Maybe just at the whole situation.
"You’ve seen it, haven’t you? What would you call the thing that almost took off your leg?" Yunho swallowed. "Call it whatever you want, but those things bite you, and eat you, and they were human before but turn into those monsters, so... if they’re not zombies, I don’t know how to call them."
"... where do they come from? Why here?" Yunho was talking in a whisper, having a hard time digesting it all.
"Nobody’s sure, but it all points to North Korea."
"What?? How??" He looked up surprised at Jaejoong, who had an angry scowl at his face.
"Seems they’ve created some kind of virus... I really don’t know much, we’ve only been told they came from North Korea, and that they’ve bombed this virus around, and that we must kill them all and clean Seoul once and for all."
"... why would they do that?" Yunho asked in a tiny voice. Jaejoong snorted.
"Why? They’ve always been kind of trying to destroy us, haven’t they?" Jaejoong's voice was full of sarcasm. "Damn! I hate them all, how could they create such a thing? War is a thing, but cowardly doing this, turning innocent people into monsters that kill each other..." The soldier clenched his fist in pure rage, and was silent from there on. Yunho just looked at the ground, his energetic bar already forgotten.
They stayed in silence for a while, until Jaejoong drank some water and stood up.
"Ok, so no need to sulk now. You eat that, you need energy and you’re going to need it more from now on." He pointed to the energy bars and chips and other stuff around Yunho on the ground. "I need to contact my team..." The soldier was basically mumbling to himself. He took a small black talkie from his belt and turned some buttons until some static noise came out of it. "Black Panther to Phantom, copy me?" more static "Phantom, here Black Panther, do you copy me?" The static noise continued. "Damn" Jaejoong touched some buttons and turned a small wheel. The static became louder, higher in pitch "Cleaners, Black Panther here, does anybody copy me? I repeat, Black Panther here, Cleaners, anybody there?" After some seconds of waiting the static persisted "Fuck!!" He clenched the radio on his hand, as if wanting to break it, and turned from Yunho’s view, showing his back to him.
"... what’s up?"
"Nobody answers. Damn, we’re totally on our own." The black haired man was talking in hushed tones, his head down, his shoulders down. "…ok..." He suddenly looked up and turned to where Yunho was sitting "Ok! No matter if we’re alone or not, we’re going to get out of here, ok?"
"Ehh..."
"Ok!??" his face looked like someone you don’t want to mess with.
"Ok ok!! Sheesh, calm down!"
"Great! I think it would be foolish to rush out now" Jaejoong started pacing up and down in the small back store room, arms folded over his chest "We should stay here for a while. I mean we have food, we can warm water during day and eat ramyun, we have drinks, we have sugar... yep, it’s all good. The place has an easy escape so it’s also good in case of attack. Now you..." He looked down at Yunho.
"Me what?"
"You need to do some exercise. You got tired too easily..."
"Hey, I just woke up from a coma, what did you expect, tsk" Yunho was indignant. Even more when Jaejoong looked at him with a smirk on his face.
"I know man, I know, but that’s exactly why! If we’re going to be running around Seoul you need to be in shape. I’ll teach you a couple of intensive exercises that will make your muscles sing in joy!"
"What? Wait, wait a second!" Yunho stood up looking down at Jaejoong’s eyes "Running around Seoul? What? With those... zombie things out there?? Oh no friend, don’t count me in."
"And what do you want to do, stay here?" Jaejoong looked kind of pissed off, but Yunho wasn’t going to change his mind. He was a soldier, great, but Yunho was a normal university student! He had done the military service, yeah, but that didn’t mean he could run around a zombie infested city!
"Yeah?? Someone is bound to pass by sometime, right? Squads are around killing zombies and cleaning the city, didn’t you say so?? You were one!!"
"We were the only squad with that task, that I know" Jaejoong’s voice was really low suddenly.
"WHAT??"
"You heard me. Don’t ask me why, I also would like to know, but this is how it is. Nobody is going to come around. And if you stay here alone, be sure zombies will come after you, my friend. They’re kinda slow and can’t open doors or walk up stairs or whatever, but believe me: they achieve to be everywhere."
"..." Yunho swallowed. "You would leave me here alone?"
"I don’t want to die here, hiding. If we work together we can get out, Yunho! I’ve been trained for this, trust me." Yunho looked at him in silence, not knowing what to do "Really, we can stay here until you’re healthy enough, I’ll help you. And then we’ll go to Seongnam, to the central base. It’s pretty far away but sure we can find some vehicle on the way? ... What do you say?" His big black eyes looked up at him with some kind of shining hope? Yunho couldn’t understand it, did a soldier really need his help? And did he really have to go out?
"Aish" He sighed "I suppose it’s the best option" He ran a hand through his hair. "Ok, Mr. Soldier, take me out of here."
Jaejoong smiled and stretched his arm, grabbing Yunho’s hand and squeezing it with strength.
"Sure I will! You can trust me, I won’t leave you behind!"
And, somehow, Yunho did, completely.
_______________________________
a/n: This is the first time ever that I write anything '_' and english is not my first language! This has been betaed and all, but sure there's still mistakes and badly written things so, please, forgive me m(_ _)m
The fic is practically finished, I'm writting now the 5th and last chapter, so if you like it, leave me some comment and concrit! I promise I won't make anybody wait too much with the updates ^^
Hope you liked it!
Author: spokesman
Pairing: YunJae
Genre: AU, horror, action, romance, humor(?)
Length: 5 chapters
Rating: PG-13 ~ NC-17, depending on each chapter.
Warnings: Use of bad language.
Summary: He woke up and found himself in the middle of what looked like the apocalypse. His only survival posibility: to team up with Kim Jaejoong, the soldier.
BUTTERFLY'S SLEEP
Eyes delicate like a young girl's, gone transparent
Pale white skin that's never been defiled
A dress which dances like a butterfly
Even if your secret wishes are never brought to fruition,
in the season when one wishes for eternity,
the lord of the dark discreetly hides his shadow crooked gears
I don't care if the world is reduced to ash
I don't care if they scramble around grabbing at everything
Your eyes will never again be graced with visions of a beautiful dawn,
even if you tie your life up in a bundle and offer it
Please rise from the dead on earth with my last kiss
I don't care if the world is reduced to ash
I don't care if they scramble around grabbing at everything
No matter what wish is made, only sadness comes of it
Forevermore I'll quietly watch that sleeping face
until the gentle wind which tempts us to sleep surrounds me
This love will extend beyond time
I'll make it bloom before you
living endless nights and mornings
in a land where no one's hand may reach
1. DÄMMERN
.27th June 2010. 18.35h.
A dim light greeted his eyes, next to a pounding headache. He raised his hand to massage his forehead, but only managed to let a grunt escape his lips when he felt his hand way too heavy to move, and, seemingly, not responding to his commands. Was it numb? His headache intensified while he tried to make his arm respond again, slowly, heavily. He closed his eyes and tried to move his other arm, his fingers, his legs, his toes... little by little trying to awake all his numb limbs while trying to ignore his throbbing head. Why was his body so numb? Why was his head hurting so much? Wait, where was he? When he managed to move all his toes as close to as he normally did, he opened his eyes again, sitting slowly on the bed he was lying on and looking around. White walls, white curtains, white bed? Was this a bed? It looked more like... wait wait, was he in a hospital room? Looking more carefully he noticed the needle on his arm, leading to a practically empty serum bag hanging to his left. What the hell happened? He searched for the button to call the nurse and pressed it a couple of times. And a couple of times more when time passed and nobody came. And a couple of times more after that. Exasperated and way too nervous for his own good, he noticed there was no light in the room, nor flowers or machines beeping, anything. He carefully removed the needle from his arm and moved his legs down slowly until he could feel the cold floor on his feet and tried to stand up. It proved way more difficult than he remembered. He was failing terribly at it though, and his now bony legs were not helping him at all. Leaning against the bed he stood still for some minutes until he finally found the strength to start walking.
Taking slow steps towards the room's door he wondered what happened. He just remembered taking his motorbike to go to class. Nothing after that. He opened the door looking into the hall, and somehow a creepy feeling got under his skin. Everything was a mess, dirty blankets on the floor, stretchers upside down, papers everywhere... no soul at sight, no lights on, not even a sound. What the hell was happening?? He closed the door and went back to the room, sitting down on the bed, tired after doing such a small thing as just standing at the door. He massaged his temples trying to put some order in his thoughts. So, he woke up alone at a hospital room, and he just remembers riding his motorbike? That seemed to point to some kind of accident, at least that would explain this all. But why wasn't anyone around? Why didn't any nurse come? Why did it look like the hospital was deserted? Looking around the room again he noticed a small closet, he went and picked up what seemed to be one of his worn out sports bag. Luckily it contained some of his clothes. So at least it looks like someone from his family was there at some point. He took off the hospital gown and put on a black v-neck t-shirt with a pair of skinny jeans and his black converse, and decided to go to look around the hospital for someone, or at least, some clue.
Walking down the hall he saw he was at the 5th floor. At the nurse station next to the room he was at there was a watch hanging on the wall that looked like it didn't work anymore, and he remembered his own watch. He was wearing it when the supposed accident happened and it could be useful to have it, so he walked back to the room to see if it was around there. He looked around the sports bag and the small closet, but it wasn’t there. He turned to look on the small table next to the bed, and there it was. When he walked to it he noticed a yellow post-it note next to the table lamp. He got his watch and put it on while reading the small post-it:
'Beloved son. We've stayed with you as long as possible, now we need to try to save our lives. Please forgive us. We hope you don't wake up, and if you do, just run away. We will always love you. Your mom, dad & Jihye. June 21st.'
He looked at the post-it note for a while, his mind blank. He slowly raised his wrist and looked at his watch: 19.51h. 27-06. He took a step back and sat on the edge of the bed, his mind running trying to attach all the small pieces. So it was June, and the last day he remembers was the 21st of May, a Friday. So he's been 'out' for a little over a month... and his parents note was written almost a week ago, so this means he's been alone for a week. Why? Why was there nobody? What was this thing about running and saving and... The headache turned almost unbearable, so he stood up and walked to the nurse station to try to find some painkillers. Luckily he found some ibuprofen pills and a couple of water bottles unopened. He swallowed 2 pills and leaned against the nurse's desk. He needed to go out and find someone and ask what the hell was happening there.
He walked through the hall until he found the elevator; he pushed the button out of habit. He slapped his own forehead afterwards, it was obvious there was no power on the building; all the lights turned off were a blatant proof. He looked for the stairs, and after having to dodge a lot of stretchers and other furniture on his way, and having to jump more than one ruined stair, he finally got down to the ground level. This floor was in a worst state than the rest. Broken windows, couches turned over with the cushions ripped, papers everywhere, abandoned shoes, weird stains... and deadly silence. His nerves were on breakdown point, he walked to the entrance of the hospital, breathing in heavily, he finally got out of the hospital and to the street... to see total devastation.
Saying everything was upside down was an understatement; it looked like chaos had paid a little visit. Cars parked in the middle of the sidewalk with the doors opened and the seats broken, crashed ones against others, glasses everywhere from storefronts, newspapers, drinking bottles abandoned, trash everywhere... He stood in silent contemplation of his surroundings, feeling utterly lost. What the hell happened with Seoul? He took a deep breath and looked at the streets and buildings trying to recognize where he was. He read the hospital’s name: Seoul Asan hospital. He knew this place! He only needed to walk north and he would arrive to the Han River, and then south west to go to his apartment! He decided the best was to walk to his place and try to contact his family, while searching for someone on the streets to give him information.
He walked north towards the river, preferring to go to open areas, thinking it would be easier to find people there (and feeling less crept out on a park rather than on the empty silent streets). His heart clenched walking down the Olympic avenue, looking at his surroundings. It looked like all the cars in Seoul decided to have a massive accident right there. The fact that there was no corpse in sight disturbed him as much as the thought itself.
What the hell happened? When he arrived to the cross with Jayang Street he heard a loud noise coming from down south. It sounded pretty far away, but it was the first sound he heard apart from the wind since he woke up, so he decided to walk down the street and try to find where that noise came from, and what was it. He walked south for a while, entering the Songpa Avenue. He knew this part of the city pretty well, since he used to come to Lotte World with friends, girlfriends (and maybe some ‘boyfriend’ too) in the past. It used to be noisy and lively. The silent streets were proving to be quite the mind fuck for him now. But then he heard it. Another loud noise, much closer now. He put his hearing on alert, and not too far away from him he could hear... voices... yes, yes they were voices! And laughing! He broke into a run, his heart almost beating itself out of his body. There were people around here!
When the huge statue of the Lotte Racoon at the entrance of the Lotte World building appeared in front of him he saw a group of people walking west by the Olympic street, a few blocks ahead of him. He saw them stopping and some of them entering a building while the others stayed outside. He smiled and broke into a run to them. Finally, more people! He finally would know what happened! When he was close enough he slowed down to a walk because he was still too weak after weeks of an only serum diet. He stopped frozen on his tracks when he heard that loud noise again. A loud bang? Was it a shot what he just heard? The people in front of him where really close now and he could see they were carrying... rifles? He took a step backwards but then another shot was heard, and he couldn’t stop himself from screaming. The people in front of him turned to his direction, and undoubtedly saw him, since he was there, frozen, in the middle of the street. One of them walked slowly closer to him after saying something to one of the others in the group, aiming his weapon to his face. He couldn’t even walk away, his gaze glued on the rifle pointing at him, until the person was right in front of him.
"What... what the fuck? Are you human??"
He looked up when he heard the voice (a man’s voice) and the rifle stopped aiming at him. In front of him was a young guy, with black longish straight hair, and impossible big eyes looking at him with surprise.
"How is it possible? How did you survive all this time!? ... Are you bitten somewhere?" The man (boy, better said, since he couldn’t be much older than himself) grabbed his arm and started to look around him, checking his skin carefully, as if searching for something.
"What are you doing?" Finally he got his voice back. The black haired guy looked back at him with those huge black eyes full of wonder.
"Wow, you’re really human!" The guy kind of laughed and turned his head back, to the direction where the rest of the group was "Hey, a survivor!" The black haired guy raised his voice a little so the rest could hear him, but not really screaming. There was no need to scream. All their surroundings where deadly silent.
"Of course I am!" He got free of the guy’s hand "what do you expect me to be?"
"Hey, sorry, it’s been long since we’ve found survivors! It took me by surprise. So how did you do it?" The guy was talking with a warm smile on his face, and somehow it made him feel calm. Looking closely, this guy had to be some kind of soldier? He was wearing a black tank top with a dark green vest full of pockets, a couple of dog tags hanging from his neck, military pants, military boots, a belt full of... ammo? A backpack, the rifle in his hand ... yeah, he looked like an army soldier. But then his face didn’t look like it at all. Long straight black hair, the longer ends of it reaching his shoulders, and his bangs covering one of his eyes at the front, didn’t military men sport shaved heads? Ears full of piercings… what the... Eyes big and shiny and warm, full lips, straight noise, strong jaw... from neck up he looked more like a model rather than a soldier, but maybe he was being biased.
"I don’t know..." He answered after swallowing. "I just woke up..."
"Woke up?" The huge eyed soldier in front of him raised a brow.
"Yeah, in a hospital, Asan hospital there" He pointed to the way he came from "I don’t know what’s happening or what happened or anything..."
"What the fuck? Really?? You do-"
"Jae! Who’s that?" The soldier in front of him (Jae?) turned his head and looked to a man who just appeared behind him. Another soldier, taller, with blondish shorter hair, who also seemed young but older than the boy named Jae.
"No idea, he says he just woke up in a hospital. Maybe he was in a coma or something." The black haired soldier answered.
"No way, he would have died by now without treatment or the life support machines. Seoul has been abandoned for weeks!" The shorter haired man exclaimed. Abandoned for weeks?
"True..."
"There was a note, written by my parents" He shyly broke the soldiers’ conversation "It seems they stood with me until a week ago... don’t know."
"... brave parents." The older soldier said. "Well boy, bad luck waking up now. It would have been better to keep on sleeping forever."
"What..." Yunho didn't follow what the tallest of the soldiers was trying to say.
"What the fuck hyung!? Don’t say those things! We should be happy to still find survivors!"
"Why should we? We have nothing to do with survivors. Our mission is ‘to clean’ the city." The tall soldier’s tone was cold and he really didn’t like that one bit.
"What are you saying?" The black haired soldier narrowed his eyes looking at the older one.
"That we need to carry on our mission. I’m sorry, man" The older soldier put a hand on his shoulder, and turned to walk down the way he came.
"WHAT? Are you serious hyung? Are you leaving him here on his own?" The younger man yelled. His heart stopped beating. Alone? He didn’t want to be alone again!
"We can’t do anything else. We need to follow our mission. He would put the mission in danger."
"Hyung..." The younger guy looked speechless "I can’t believe this... after so many weeks we found a human, and you want to abandon him!!"
The older soldier looked at him up and down with a cold stare that took the breath out of him, in a bad way. The blonde man finally sighed and turned his gaze to the younger guy.
"Ok, you’re responsible of him" The blonde man turned and walked down the street.
"What!? B-but..." The older soldier turned his head and looked with a raised brow to the younger one, and then kept on walking. "Damn."
"W-what..." He stuttered, trying to understand what was happening. The younger soldier grunted.
"I can’t believe it, why can’t I keep my mouth closed?" The guy seemed to be talking to himself.
"Excuse me... what... happened?" The soldier looked at him with an angry stare.
"You come with me. Don’t stay away from me, don’t wander, don’t walk slowly. Keep my pace and don’t make a sound, understood?"
"What? B-but why..."
"And no questions! I’ll take you out of here so at least do what I say." The guy turned with the intention of walking down the street.
"Hey, wait a second! I didn’t ask to get out of here, I just want to know what happened!" He grabbed the soldier’s arm, stopping him from walking away. The dark haired man turned and looked at him with a strange stare. Was it sad? Angry?
"Look, man..."
"Yunho" He said while the soldier looked at him "My name is Jung Yunho."
"Look, Jung Yunho" The shorter man took a breath "I can’t tell much, actually it’s better if you don’t know. You’re blessed with ignorance, right now. So just do as I tell, please, and I’ll help you out of here, ok?" The dark haired man was talking with a calm voice, and looking to Yunho with a warm stare... Yunho looked at his surroundings: the destruction, the silence... he gulped and looked back to the soldier .
"What’s your name?" The soldier looked at him curiously.
"Kim Jaejoong."
"Ok Jaejoong," He saw the soldier raising a brow at the lack of formal speech "I’ll go with you, and I’ll try to behave."
Jaejoong showed a tiny smirk and made a movement with his head, as if telling Yunho to follow him, and so did YunHo.
So there he was, following a group of 6 soldiers, being under the surveillance of one who couldn’t be much older than him, who looked more like a magazine model than an army soldier. He still couldn’t understand anything. Weeks without finding survivors? Seoul being abandoned? ‘Cleaning’ squad? What happened here? An earthquake? A terrorist attack? War exploded in the end? His head was a mess and if he tried to even mutter a word or a question to the military man, Jaejoong would look at him with a hard stare that clearly meant ‘shut up or else’.
They advanced in almost complete silence for a long time. Yunho checked his watch and saw it was close to 00.00h when they were walking north of Baekjego street, next to the Jamsil stadium, direction north to the Han river. He was exhausted, his body was not in its best condition and the long walk had taken a toll on him. The soldiers stopped and talked in really hushed voices and hand signs for a second, all serious faces and furrowed brows, and then 3 of them entered a building at their right, while the other 3 stayed outside, assault rifles ready just in case. Just in case of what? Yunho thought, and walked to where Jaejoong was, the only one he felt ‘comfortable’ to talk to.
"Hey, why are you checking buildings with weapons ready and..."
"Shhh!!!" Jaejoong turned to him alarmed and put a hand on his mouth "Do you want to get killed?? I told you to shut up!!" He muttered, taking his hand back to his rifle.
Yunho grunted but shut up and walked away from the soldier. Jaejoong looked at him for 5 seconds with a scold on his face, until he turned gazing back at the building, rifle ready. Yunho walked to the other side of the street, kicking some gravel on his way, hands in his pockets.
"What the hell, obviously I want to know, isn’t it normal? No need to be such a bastard..." He kicked more gravel and walked to a car where he leaned in, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting to himself. "Stupid pretty boy, thinking he has the right to order me around..." He kicked the side of the car he was leaning on, not too hard trying not to make much noise (he was complaining but didn’t want to check what would happen if he did noise, after all). But the car was in a horrible condition, having crashed surely, and it was upside down already, so the door of the car got unhinged and crashed on the floor, making a loud metal noise followed by a dry thump. Yunho shrank his head and closed his eyes scared of the noise. When he opened them again he looked at the door on the ground and then to where Jaejoong was, and found not only Jaejoong but the other 2 soldiers looking at him with pure hatred? He gulped and turned away, not wanting to receive such a hard stare. He was sulking on his own and trying to calm his hard beating heart when he heard a weird noise coming from his right, somewhere in between the trees. He stood still and listened carefully. It was a creepy sound, as if something was being dragged on sand. Yunho took a step forward in the direction of the noise. Was it an animal? He stopped suddenly when he heard a small... groan?
"Oh my god?" Yunho gasped and walked hurriedly to the trees, thinking he found another ‘survivor’, probably a wounded one by how the voice sounded "Hey, somebody there?" He talked loudly and stepped in between the trees.
But what he saw wasn’t a survivor. It was a human once , sure, but... it just wasn’t alive anymore.
"Shit!" He covered his mouth in disgust at the sight of the almost rotted corpse lying on the ground upside down in front of him. He took a step backwards not being able to take his eyes off the sight "What the fuck, what the fuck?!" He felt that he was close to be on hysterics and tried to get out of the trees and breathe normal air and calm down.
When suddenly the corpse moved and grabbed his leg.
"FUCK!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and after freezing for 1 second to understand that the corpse really moved on its own, he kicked the hand holding him. The corpse didn’t let go of his leg, and slowly groaned while raising its head up, or what it had left of its head. Yunho was dumbstruck with horror. The corpse was missing half of his lower jaw and part of its left cheek. His flesh was rotten and it had a blue tone to it. Clots of blood where spilling from his opened throat every time the corpse groaned. Wet sounds of flesh moving and cracks of bones arrived to Yunho’s ears, and hysteria overpowered him.
"WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK, GET AWAY, WHAT’S THIS SHIT, SHIT!!" He kicked and kicked with all his strength the hand holding him and the face of the corpse trying to break away. He heard a crack sound and saw how the wrist of the corpse got broken after one of his hard kicks, almost ripping the hand away from the arm. He screamed in horror and kept on kicking.
"FUCK JAEJOONG, JAEJOONG HELP!!! SOMEBODY!!!"
And somebody appeared through the trees, rifle aiming to the corpse's head, and shoot one clean shot that pierced the corpse’s head from side to side. The putrid body stopped moving or emitting any kind of noise.
"Are you ok? Are you ok??" Yunho felt an arm on his shoulder, shaking him, but his eyes couldn’t get away from the rotted hand holding his ankle.
"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck..." He was almost hyperventilating and completely terrified.
"Yunho calm down!! It’s dead!! C’mon calm down, we need to get out of here!!" Slowly and still close to hyperventilation, Yunho turned his head and saw Jaejoong there, looking at him with a deep frown, his hand squeezing his shoulder tight.
"Jae-Jaejoong... what was..."
"Calm down, we need to get out of here. You ok? Did it bite you??" The soldier looked so serious.
"N..." Not being able to talk due to the shock, he just shook his head ‘no’. Jaejoong sighed relieved.
"Ok, now let’s get back before more of those things get here."
"M-more?" Yunho stuttered.
"I’ll tell you later, let’s go!" The black haired boy dragged Yunho from his arm outside of the trees and back to the street. The other soldiers were there in the middle, in alert mode, rifles aiming to different points, scanning every part of the street.
"Jaejoong, what the fuck!? What did that idiot do??"
"There was one in the trees, grabbed his leg" Jaejoong dragged Yunho running to where the other soldiers where.
"So what?? Stupid bastard, put us all in danger screaming like that!" The one who was probably the oldest on the squad looked with pure disdain at Yunho. The other 3 soldiers came running out of the building at top speed.
"What was all that screaming??" The shorter of those three asked.
"This fucker screamed at the top of his lungs when he met one of them!!" The oldest answered, pointing to Yunho, who was shaking from head to toes.
"Fuck, now probably they are all coming this way, stupid bastard!!" The same short soldier from before exclaimed furiously.
"There were a lot inside the building, so surely there are more around! We need to get out of here now!!" Another of the ones who came from inside the building yelled.
"Idiot, do you see what you did here? We told you if you put the mission in danger, you were out, right? Well, you just fucked it up big time!!" The oldest soldier raised his riffle and pointed it to Yunho’s face, whose eyes almost flew out of his face.
"What are you doing Dongsun!!" Jaejoong slapped the rifle down "Are you out of your mind??"
"Shut up, he just fucked up everything!!" The oldest, called Dongsun it seemed, pointed his weapon back to Yunho’s face.
"Are you trying to kill him or what??" Jaejoong slapped down the weapon again, and pushed Dongsun backwards.
"Yes I am!! Easier to run away without this useless shit following us!!" Dongsun was red with rage. The other soldiers just looked at the situation, probably agreeing with Dongsun.
"You fucker, he’s just a civilian!!" Jaejoong grabbed Yunho and put him behind himself. Yunho wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to act, completely out of his mind.
"I don’t give a fuck, this is a survival matter!!" Dongsun pushed Jaejoong backwards, but before he could as much as raise his weapon a steady sound was heard.
As if something was being dragged. As if something slippery was being rubbed. And then a groan. And then another. And then many more, and closer, and louder. Steps, and feet being dragged, grunts, and moans as horrible as anything ever heard on a vivid nightmare. Yunho started shaking violently and grabbed Jaejoong’s vest strongly.
"What’s that, what’s that noise, what’s that??" He was completely out of himself, the noise becoming louder and coming closer.
"Shit, a lot of them..." Jaejoong muttered, raising his rifle.
"It’s this bastard’s fault!!" Another soldier of the squad pointed his weapon to Yunho’s head. Jaejoong turned and aimed his own riffle to that man’s head.
"Are you out of your mind too , Daehyun?? Have you all gone nuts??" Nobody answered, they just looked with loathe to Yunho, behind Jaejoong’s back.
"... ok, fuck you all. I’m taking Yunho out of here, you do what you want, but I will not stand still while you kill a civilian!!" Jaejoong turned to look at Yunho. "Ok man, calm down, breathe. We’re getting out of here, ok? You come with me."
With no more words Jaejoong grabbed Yunho’s wrist and ran north of the street. Yunho was completely lost, didn’t understand what was happening. He heard the other soldiers swearing and calling Jaejoong back, but his mind couldn’t analyze more than that. Then he heard groans and screams and shots and shouts, and Jaejoong yelling to him to ‘not look back’. And they kept on running faster and faster, their surroundings changing, now the Olympic avenue, now the stadium at their left, now crossing the Cheongdam bridge over the Han river... He was out of breath and out of his mind when they reached the Ttukseom resort, so he finally glued his heels to the ground trying to stop Jaejoong from running, and after a couple of seconds he finally achieved it.
"What!? Don’t stop now!!" Jaejoong turned to look at him and saw him breathless. He looked behind them and seeing they were alone he ran a hand through his hair, furrowed his brows and then tugged at the hair on his scalp "Fuck, fuck!! Now what!!? We’re fucking alone, shit!! There’s no way we can survive alone, damn!! Do you see what you’ve done, do you know what the damag..."
Yunho couldn’t stand it anymore and fell on his knees, retching violently. Only liquid came out, since he hadn’t eaten any food for over a month. He was scared shitless, he couldn’t understand a thing, he felt nauseous and sick and weak and desperate, and he felt tears running down his face, his breath coming out short, hard and painfully.
"... Ok" Jaejoong kneeled next to him "Ok calm down. I’m sorry." He put a hand on his back and patted him "It’s not your fault, I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine how you must feel waking up in this nightmare..." He started rubbing Yunho’s back comfortingly. Yunho started to breathe more calmly, but tears didn’t stop falling.
"What’s happening, what’s all this, what are those things, what..." He was talking too fast and too high.
"Shhh, calm down first." Jaejoong grabbed Yunho from under his armpits and made him stand up again, throwing Yunho’s arm around his shoulders and letting him lean against himself. Yunho really appreciated it, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own. "We’re going to find some place to hide, ok? Then we’ll rest and I’ll tell you everything, ok?" Yunho turned his face and found Jaejoong’s face really close to his, looking up to him calmly. He took a deep breath, then another, then swallowed and closed his eyes.
"Ok, yeah, sure" he whispered, not able to talk louder than that. Jaejoong sighed and held him closer.
"Great, let’s go to one of those buildings, ok?" With his free hand he pointed to some high buildings to their right at the end of the bridge "Maybe we’ll find some good hiding place.
They walked slowly north of the bridge, up Dongbugansondo street, Yunho leaning on Jaejoong. He noticed the soldier was shorter than him, but looked strong enough to carry him if necessary. Not like it would be too difficult, Yunho was really thin and weak after all that time at the hospital. They passed close to a Family Mart and Jaejoong told Yunho to wait for him. He gave Yunho a gun. Yunho looked at the gun wide eyed and then at Jaejoong. Jaejoong just pointed to the convenience shop.
"I’m going to check if it’s safe there, and it’s better if you wait outside. I’ll be back soon. If you see one of those monsters, just shoot at its head, ok?" Jaejoong pointed his finger to his own head. Yunho gulped, shaking, and nodded his head. Jaejoong half smiled and patted Yunho’s shoulder "C’mon, 5 minutes at most, ok? I’ll be right back." And with a jog he crossed the street, leaned his back against the wall next to the convenience store entrance, reaching to one of his vest’s pockets and picked up something that turned out to be a small torchlight. After looking through the broken glass door, rifle ready in his hands, he opened the door and moved slowly and quietly inside, disappearing from Yunho’s sight .
Yunho gulped and looked at his surroundings. It was dark, just the moon light illuminating the street. No other light around him, anywhere. He checked his watch and pressed the button for the background light. 00.43h. He felt exhausted, physically and mentally. And completely paranoid, checking every corner, every shadow, every noise. He looked at the store hoping for Jaejoong to appear already. He felt like he was dreaming. He wanted to pinch his cheeks but he somehow knew that no nightmare could look this real. He took a glimpse at his ankle, where the ‘thing’ had grabbed him. What was that? It looked like it had been human before, but surely it was no more. What the hell? Jaejoong had called them monsters... and a few names came to his mind. Undead, zombies, ghouls... but that was just science fiction, and this was real life, wasn’t it? He checked his watch again, Jaejoong was taking too long. 00.49h. Oh shit, more than five minutes had passed. Was Jaejoong all right? Did he find those monsters? Was he fighting? He put himself on alert to try to listen to any noise, holding the gun with a death grip. No noise could be heard apart from the river down the street. Maybe... maybe Jaejoong was dead already?
"Oh shit, no, oh no..." He whispered and trembled and closed his eyes, and didn’t know what to do, just grabbing his gun close to him.
He gulped hard, feeling like throwing up all over again, even if there was nothing else to throw out, when a noise and a movement coming from the store’s direction caught his attention. He pointed the gun there as an automatic reaction, but then saw the movement was a torchlight and slowly lowered his gun. Finally, Jaejoong emerged from the shop’s entrance, and Yunho let out a breath he’d been holding for too long.
"Yunho" Jaejoong whispered, waving his hand in the air to catch his attention "Come, it’s safe!"
So Yunho walked as fast as he could, being as silent as he could to where Jaejoong was, and grabbed his wrist searching for some kind of safety. Jaejoong chuckled, but said nothing more, leading Yunho inside the shop. As soon as they were inside, Jaejoong moved some huge shelves to block the door and the windows, and put a lot of stuff on the ground in front of it, like cans and plastic bags and candies. Yunho looked at this display silently until Jaejoong turned to him, turned on the torchlight and raised an eyebrow.
"Surviving skills pal. I’ll teach you, you‘re lucky to learn from the best" he winked an eye to Yunho and told him to move to the back of the store. "I grabbed some food and drinks that weren’t expired so we can eat something. I have energy bars with me too. There’s a high window on the back that leads to a closed courtyard from the building next to this one, where we can run away in case we’re attacked." When they entered the back store he closed the door behind him. Then walked to the window and opened it, letting as much moonlight in as was possible.
Yunho sat down on the floor and put his head between his legs, finally able to breathe a little. He heard Jaejoong moving around, moving stuff and preparing things whatever they were. After some time he finally heard him sighing contentedly and felt him sitting next to himself. His warmth was really welcomed, even if it wasn’t cold at all.
"Ok, all ready." Yunho looked up at him and found him looking back, small smile in his lips "How are you feeling?"
"Like shit."
"Then you feel like you look, so it’s all ok" Jaejoong chuckled and grabbed a water bottle, he opened it and passed it to Yunho, who happily accepted it and drowned more than half of it in one go, feeling thirsty and wanting to get out the bad taste from his mouth "Wow, thirsty, huh? Drink all you want, there’s plenty of water in the shop. There’s a lot of ramyun too, but we shouldn’t boil water here at night, the fire makes too much light... I found chips and chocolates and a lot of kimchi. Weird mix, but at least it’s something." He was passing packages to Yunho.
"I’m not hungry..."
"Sure you’re not, but after waking up from a who-knows-how-long coma you need to eat, more in the situation we’re now!" he started opening packages for Yunho.
"Seems I’ve been unconscious for a little over a month..."
"Oh, wow. So you were awake when this all started? Then you should know th..."
"No, I don’t know. The last thing I remember was me going to class. There weren’t monsters, or the army, no empty Seoul, no disappeared family, no guns, and ..." he was getting all worked out, breath coming out fast and shallow again.
"Ok ok man, calm down! I’ll explain it all to you, ok?" Yunho breathed deeply and exhaled, relaxing himself, and then nodded. "Ok, where to start..."
Jaejoong got the water bottle from Yunho’s lap and drank from it, then got one of his energy bars and bit it fiercely. He hold a pensive look on his face, then swallowed and turned to Yunho.
"Ok. So like, I don’t know everything since at the beginning I was at my hometown out of Seoul, and I’ve been out of the army for some months, practically a year, so well..." huh, so that explains the long hair and the piercings thought Yunho "What I know it’s that at the ends of May I received a call from the ROKA, soliciting my services here in Seoul. I already saw the news of the accidents and the weird stuff happening up here, but I didn’t imagine it was THIS big..." The dark haired man took another bite, Yunho finally doing the same, hoping not to throw it all up again, his attention fixed on the young soldier "Well the thing is, I arrived at Seongnam base on the 24th of May, and instead of receiving orders to go to the battle point or something, we, as in me and the other guys you saw back there, received orders to form a special squad." He looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to relocate his thoughts "Well the thing is we were trained specially for all this shit."
"And what is ‘all this shit’?" Yunho asked after swallowing some energetic bar. Jaejoong looked at him in silence before he started talking again.
"The zombies’ invasion." He said it totally serious, but Yunho choked on his own breath.
"Z-zombies? Like... really? Like in the movies?? What the fuck??" He furrowed his brow, almost angry, even if he didn’t know exactly angry at what or who. Maybe just at the whole situation.
"You’ve seen it, haven’t you? What would you call the thing that almost took off your leg?" Yunho swallowed. "Call it whatever you want, but those things bite you, and eat you, and they were human before but turn into those monsters, so... if they’re not zombies, I don’t know how to call them."
"... where do they come from? Why here?" Yunho was talking in a whisper, having a hard time digesting it all.
"Nobody’s sure, but it all points to North Korea."
"What?? How??" He looked up surprised at Jaejoong, who had an angry scowl at his face.
"Seems they’ve created some kind of virus... I really don’t know much, we’ve only been told they came from North Korea, and that they’ve bombed this virus around, and that we must kill them all and clean Seoul once and for all."
"... why would they do that?" Yunho asked in a tiny voice. Jaejoong snorted.
"Why? They’ve always been kind of trying to destroy us, haven’t they?" Jaejoong's voice was full of sarcasm. "Damn! I hate them all, how could they create such a thing? War is a thing, but cowardly doing this, turning innocent people into monsters that kill each other..." The soldier clenched his fist in pure rage, and was silent from there on. Yunho just looked at the ground, his energetic bar already forgotten.
They stayed in silence for a while, until Jaejoong drank some water and stood up.
"Ok, so no need to sulk now. You eat that, you need energy and you’re going to need it more from now on." He pointed to the energy bars and chips and other stuff around Yunho on the ground. "I need to contact my team..." The soldier was basically mumbling to himself. He took a small black talkie from his belt and turned some buttons until some static noise came out of it. "Black Panther to Phantom, copy me?" more static "Phantom, here Black Panther, do you copy me?" The static noise continued. "Damn" Jaejoong touched some buttons and turned a small wheel. The static became louder, higher in pitch "Cleaners, Black Panther here, does anybody copy me? I repeat, Black Panther here, Cleaners, anybody there?" After some seconds of waiting the static persisted "Fuck!!" He clenched the radio on his hand, as if wanting to break it, and turned from Yunho’s view, showing his back to him.
"... what’s up?"
"Nobody answers. Damn, we’re totally on our own." The black haired man was talking in hushed tones, his head down, his shoulders down. "…ok..." He suddenly looked up and turned to where Yunho was sitting "Ok! No matter if we’re alone or not, we’re going to get out of here, ok?"
"Ehh..."
"Ok!??" his face looked like someone you don’t want to mess with.
"Ok ok!! Sheesh, calm down!"
"Great! I think it would be foolish to rush out now" Jaejoong started pacing up and down in the small back store room, arms folded over his chest "We should stay here for a while. I mean we have food, we can warm water during day and eat ramyun, we have drinks, we have sugar... yep, it’s all good. The place has an easy escape so it’s also good in case of attack. Now you..." He looked down at Yunho.
"Me what?"
"You need to do some exercise. You got tired too easily..."
"Hey, I just woke up from a coma, what did you expect, tsk" Yunho was indignant. Even more when Jaejoong looked at him with a smirk on his face.
"I know man, I know, but that’s exactly why! If we’re going to be running around Seoul you need to be in shape. I’ll teach you a couple of intensive exercises that will make your muscles sing in joy!"
"What? Wait, wait a second!" Yunho stood up looking down at Jaejoong’s eyes "Running around Seoul? What? With those... zombie things out there?? Oh no friend, don’t count me in."
"And what do you want to do, stay here?" Jaejoong looked kind of pissed off, but Yunho wasn’t going to change his mind. He was a soldier, great, but Yunho was a normal university student! He had done the military service, yeah, but that didn’t mean he could run around a zombie infested city!
"Yeah?? Someone is bound to pass by sometime, right? Squads are around killing zombies and cleaning the city, didn’t you say so?? You were one!!"
"We were the only squad with that task, that I know" Jaejoong’s voice was really low suddenly.
"WHAT??"
"You heard me. Don’t ask me why, I also would like to know, but this is how it is. Nobody is going to come around. And if you stay here alone, be sure zombies will come after you, my friend. They’re kinda slow and can’t open doors or walk up stairs or whatever, but believe me: they achieve to be everywhere."
"..." Yunho swallowed. "You would leave me here alone?"
"I don’t want to die here, hiding. If we work together we can get out, Yunho! I’ve been trained for this, trust me." Yunho looked at him in silence, not knowing what to do "Really, we can stay here until you’re healthy enough, I’ll help you. And then we’ll go to Seongnam, to the central base. It’s pretty far away but sure we can find some vehicle on the way? ... What do you say?" His big black eyes looked up at him with some kind of shining hope? Yunho couldn’t understand it, did a soldier really need his help? And did he really have to go out?
"Aish" He sighed "I suppose it’s the best option" He ran a hand through his hair. "Ok, Mr. Soldier, take me out of here."
Jaejoong smiled and stretched his arm, grabbing Yunho’s hand and squeezing it with strength.
"Sure I will! You can trust me, I won’t leave you behind!"
And, somehow, Yunho did, completely.
_______________________________
a/n: This is the first time ever that I write anything '_' and english is not my first language! This has been betaed and all, but sure there's still mistakes and badly written things so, please, forgive me m(_ _)m
The fic is practically finished, I'm writting now the 5th and last chapter, so if you like it, leave me some comment and concrit! I promise I won't make anybody wait too much with the updates ^^
Hope you liked it!