Finding Safe Haven ⚊ &Team Nicholas

nine

"I've seen how dark the world can get, but there's always a reason to keep going. It's the smallest things that give us the strength to fight on." - Jungwon

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The starlight seared through the black coating of the asphalt on the highway, their only light as they drove down, eyes searching the sideroad for anything. Zombie, human, animal, and the one they were looking for, already a few days now: a place to sleep and hide from the captors of their friends.

The world was as quiet as the soft heaving of the little girl's chest in the back seat, her hand clutching a small knife instead of a teddy bear, holding onto it like her life depended on it. The driver of the van hunkered down behind a demolished truck, stopping the engine and resting his head on the steering wheel.

He needed to sleep. He wanted to sleep and forget everything else. He'd like to wake up at the mansion again to see his friends. Safe and sound.

Although the only one who seemed safe was the girl beside him. She hadn't talked to him since their getaway from the government. She was focused on looking out for the little girl named Aecha, and now that Aecha was asleep, she was busy wandering her eyes around the area they stopped at.

He waited for her to say something. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes... the clock was winding down. Ten minutes. He decided against his own volition and leaned against the space beside them, pressing his hand on her shoulder to make her look at him.

"Hara, this is no time for you to ignore me. We both lost too many," Jungwon said, eyes sparkling with tears. "I am not even sure if Daniel is still alive there with the rest of the Force."

Daniel. Sunoo. Sunghoon. Yoonwon. Taeyeong. Heeseung. Jay. Jake. Along with Y/N and K. Who else would he lose?

Hara looked away from the window, sniffing quietly as she soon looked into her best friend's eyes. "I am scared. How can we go from being too safe together and now we're scattered everywhere?"

Jungwon touched her face. Cold cheek, warm tears. The familiar laugh was gone. "It's this new world doing this to us, Hara. Every person is now going down to hell."

Hara shook her head, her mouth quivering in fear of the inevitable. "And we can't run away from it, right? No matter where we go or hide, it will always comes for us."

The two of them got silent after that, both looking out their own side windows. There was nothing left to say. There was a lot to say, but all of it would lead back to the reason why they were out there.

The apocalypse.

For whatever reason, they both looked down at the little girl who had woken up from her nap. She was smiling. She was picking up something from her baby pink shoes, and her small hands stretched up to their faces. Then they saw it. A small, shiny thing glinting in the moonlight outside.

It was a key with a pendant of a smiling sunflower.

Jungwon and Hara's eyebrows came together. He looked at her. She looked at him. Neither of them said anything, though the same question was running through their minds: What was it for?

Then Aecha sat up from the back seat, smiling brightly like the sun for the first time. Her teeth were pearly white. The window glass shimmered beside hers, and in the light against the darkness, Jungwon thought this as a sign.