Deja Vu // Ateez

Eleven

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San was awoken by a hard slap to the face. His head hung loosely as his cheek started to sting from the impact.

"Wakey wakey sleeping beauty." A woman's voice said. San was having a hard time trying to comprehend the unfamiliar voice as he tried to get his eyesight back to normal. His body became tense and felt his hands go numb from being tied to a chair.

San looked up and visibly jumped at the sight, wishing he couldn't see again. The pieces of bird skull engulfed in her skin made San sick to his stomach. "Where am I?" San croaked out.

"You're in my territory." The woman smirked. "I'm still surprised by how many of you we found."

How many of you? San could've sworn it was just him and Seonghwa. His eyes instantly snapped around the room, finally landing on the group of familiar boys sitting against the wall all tied up.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" San tugged at the ropes, trying to get to his friends and lover.

"We followed you because we didn't want you to go alone." Yunho's tone was laced with anger, but in this situation, he wanted nothing more than to save his best friend.

San eyes then fell on Hongjoong who looked mad and upset at the same time, purposely not looking at San. "Joong, I'm sorry."

Hongjoong finally looked up at him. He wanted to be mad, he wanted to hate the boy for what he did, but he didn't. Hongjoong shook his head, trying to hold back his tears. "It's okay."

"We'll look at this! We get a free show before our meals, how sweet." The woman said.

The boys against the wall, except for Seonghwa, all had the same expression. "They call themselves 'Vultures'. They're basically a group of Jeffrey Dahmers." San explained.

"Ha! Well that's a new one." The woman laughed. "Who even are you?" Yunho asked. His eyes glaring at her, and his jaw set tight.

"I guess since you're about to die, you can at least know my name. My name is Harley." The bird woman, now Harley, said as she stood up straighter. "And you're in my home now, so we're gonna play by my rules."

"You're home? Aren't we in train tunnels?" San questioned.

"Everything that tunnels run through belongs to the Vultures. We call it the Underworld."

There was a slight pause for a minute.

San couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. Failing miserably at hiding his laugh. Harley moved closer to him with a dark look. "What's so funny?"

"It's just...Underworld? That's the best you could come up with-." He stopped mid sentence with another harsh impact to the face, this time being a fist. San groaned and spit some blood from his mouth. Damn she was strong.

"Before you kill me, can I at least ask you how you have a bird skull sowed to your face?" San asked. The best thing he could do is distract her before she eats him.

"Why? Are you interested in joining?" San couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

"It's part of the ceremony to be able to join."

"So a cult full of Jeffrey Dahmers." Wooyoung pointed out.

"Yes. A cult full of hungry Jeffrey Dahmers." Harley said and licked her tongue across her blood stained teeth.

"What happens in the ceremony?" San pressed further.

"For the people to prove they want to join, we take them out into the woods and perform a little ritual, then we make them pick where they want the bird skull to go, after they choose they have to cut into their flesh and eat it." Harley had a wide grin plastered on her face.

"Oh god, maybe I shouldn't have asked." San said and he felt his own stomach churn at the thought.

"Yes, well I already wasted too much time and now I'm really hungry." Harley pulled out a knife and grazed it along his cheek. "And you look very tasty."

San tried to move his head as far as he could to get away from the psycho. Harley chuckled and grabbed his hair and brought him closer. "There's no use. You're outnumbered and I'm hungry."

Harley lifted her hand up, ready to thrust her knife into his skin. "NO!" Hongjoong's voice echoed at the same time gunshots went off and got Harley twice in the head, splattered blood fell on San's face as she fell limp to the ground, the devilish smile never left her face.

San looks over to see Yuri and Yeosang on the other side of the room, still firing away at the Vultures. Surprisingly, they're weren't as many as San thought there was, but at this point he just wants to get out of here.

Yuri still had her gun up as the two walked over to them. Yeosang grabbed his knife and started to cut rope. "Fucking Vultures." He muttered. "There might be more of them so we need to hurry."

Once Hongjoong was free, he wasted no time and ran over to San. "I swear you're not about to get rid of me now." Hongjoong said as he untied San from the chair.

"I wasn't planning on it." Hongjoong snapped his eyes up at him. Then used his sleeve to help wipe off the blood splatter, making sure to get his cut too.

When San got out of the chair, he instantly pulled Hongjoong into a hug and ran a hand through his hair. Then a pair of long arms wrapped around both of them. San looked up and smiled at Yunho. Mingi couldn't help himself and ran over and hugged them too, finally accepting the family he made himself love.

"I-Uh hate to break this up but we have to go." Yuri said.

"How did you find us?" Seonghwa asked as they headed out the way Yeosang and Yuri came from, since the other entrance was blocked off.

"Yeosang and I heard the explosion go off. So we followed it and realized that you guys tripped one of the Vultures traps." Yuri explained. "When we saw that the tunnel was blocked we had to find a different way to get to you."

Yeosang came to a stop, making everyone else look at him confused. Yeosang then turned and gave a fake smile. "Which way did we come from?" He asked.

"That way- No- This way." Yuri shines her flashlight one way then the other. The beam shot through the dust a few more seconds, finally aiming it down the long tunnel.

"Great. We never explored the tunnels for this very reason." Yuri muttered.

"What reason?" Mingi voiced.

"We don't know which way we came in."

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sorry for the short chapters, I've been very busy with school and having some writers block :/

but it's okay because i'll just push through it lol