Rebirth; A New Age || seongjoong || ATEEZ

Chapter 3 : Warm Touch

Downtown was the hotspot of all activity. Everyone knew this. Even if you weren't someone who was very intuned with the whole zombie apocalypse thing, you knew that it was best to stay away from the heart of the city.

Seonghwa knew this. It was engraved into his mind since he first watched his first horror movie. You moved to the outskirts of town as quickly as you could, you got away from the heavily populated areas so hopefully your chance of survival would be a lot greater.

The only reason he was still in the city itself was that he hadn't been able to scout out the edges of the city. He had been too weak, barely fending for himself enough or being able to find enough supplies to keep himself going. He had no car, no form of transportation besides his own two feet, and it would be at least a few days walk to get to the outskirts and then have nowhere to stay the night.

So the question Wooyoung had thrown at him about why he was still there when he had practically scolded the younger male about the same thing, had really thrown him off. He was just trying to survive on his own, and there was already a lack of resources already, but he couldn't help but feel embarrassed about it. There was a part of him inside that told him he would be okay where he was. He would be okay with the crowbar he had as a weapon and the small amount of canned food he had stored. A part of him was scared to venture outside of the little safe haven he had created, and maybe that really was the true reason he had not gone out.

He could risk it, he could find a place to stay the night that wasn't as secure as he needed it to be. In reality, he knew that was his only way to truly survive the end of the world- he had to keep moving. But there was a part of him that was still holding on, a part that was too scared to leave what he had behind. To venture out into a place of the unknown.

But that was before he met Wooyoung and Yunho.

That was before he had found two others that hadn't left either. It was before he had found two men that were just as scared as he was, they just had an easier time showing it. Having them by his side, watching his back so he wouldn't have to every second of the day when they walked through an abandoned store to look for resources, was a feeling he would never be able to forget.

It was weird at first, they had set out early the next morning with both Wooyoung and Yunho looking much more alive, and made a trek to the downtown store that Wooyoung had told him that still had the supplies they needed. Seonghwa didn't expect anything from them, he couldn't. Not when he had just saved them from dying due to exhaustion the day earlier and didn't know where their loyalties truly were. He didn't know how well their heads were screwed on or if they had lost some of their sanity or how they would act face to face with the undead.

So he simply just expected the worst from them in any sort of situation. He also half expected to lose them that day, knowing that the place was already overrun with the walking dead and they had little to no weapons or means of protecting themselves and were on the brink of starvation and dehydration.

But as soon as they got there, seeing the little convenience store that was a few blocks down and where all the zombies have gathered around, making their noises that haunted Seonghwa in his sleep- Seonghwa was met with a pleasant surprise.

Seonghwa knew that Wooyoung had said the two of them were resourceful- which the oldest knew they had to be to a certain degree- but it hadn't clicked with him that the youngest wasn't kidding until Yunho had picked up two giant rocks that had come from the rubble and started throwing them as far as he could down one of the alleyways close to the store and had successfully led the dead away from the door.