In the Dead of Winter || •PJM• ✔️

In the Dead of Winter

Day 860

The night sky is a curse right about now. Jimin blows warm air on his freezing hands as he navigates the halls of the school. Namjoon left him be, and no one else is in his path now. It seems as though the only thing between Jimin and his visitor is the walk to the front gates. And that's both a terrifying and exciting thought.

Jimin would be lying if he said he isn't excited. The 'visitor' is very obviously Jihyun. Who else would it be? So there's Jimin's confirmation that Jihyun survived the attack, and the odds are a lot of the Ranglers did too. But that's also bad news if Jihyun decides not to give up on his foolish quest to conquest others. Jimin prays his little brother learned his lesson by now, but anything's possible.

He goes to the front and sees the grass. The gates are in sight, but Jihyun isn't there. Instead, he's already inside, sitting at one of the picnic tables and keeping his hands folded together on the wood. Jimin goes to his right, to the table Jihyun's sitting at, and sits across from him without a word. His eyes remain ahead of him, Jimin on the other hand keeping his gaze on Jihyun. No eye contact is made, and no one speaks for several moments. That is until Jihyun raises his voice.

"The flamethrowers worked. The Howlers were fast and took out a lot of my men, but the flames did work eventually. We've been studying Howler blood, and after we mixed it with your boy's blood, we got this." Jihyun reaches into his jacket's pocket, Jimin tensing on instinct. Jihyun frowns at the sight, then places a tiny glass jar on the table.

"And this is?"

"A prototype of a cure."

Right away, Jimin's skin goes a shade lighter than before, Jihyun sliding it over to Jimin's side. He picks it up, observing the golden liquid awaiting him. It looks like any other medicine he's seen before. Like those gross liquids his parents gave him when he was a kid. Although it makes him mentally grimace, physically, he sets it down and slides it back over to Jihyun's side. However, the man only pushes it right back.

"What are you doing?" Jimin asks, Jihyun tugging on the sleeves of his jacket before answering.

"It's yours. Have your scientist friend look at it, study it. See if it's right. It's not foolproof as far as I'm aware, it's still a prototype and not guaranteed to work, but it's close. Close enough that a new era of the apocalypse can happen. The era where we fight back and start human life again. The zombie pandemic can stop, and we can live again."

Jimin rubs his fingers together, then takes the glass and decides that keeping it is much smarter than deciding not to trust Jihyun. He has reason to lie, sure. He could be pissed about the whole siege, and he'd have every right to be. Only Jimin has a scientist, and none of them have to take the prototype if they don't want to. Jimin sees this as a token. A symbol. A symbol of peace.

"Do you... do you know how Ves is immune?" Jimin asks, Jihyun sighing.

"It's complicated. We have a theory. Being immune doesn't just happen. So he wasn't born with it. Our working theory is that he developed it over time. You know how we're all infected no matter what since the infection is airborne?" Jimin nods. "It's possible other people are immune, we just haven't seen it yet since we think it's a death sentence when we're bit. So we either chop it off or kill ourselves. But there's a chance our immune systems develop a means to fight it. Like Ves's body did."

"Wait, so other people can develop the immunity?"

"It's possible, yes. We believe him being young is a factor too. The apocalypse started over 2 years ago, so he was even younger then. We're taking our youth's blood and seeing if that has anything to do with it. You should have your scientist look into other young people too, if you have any."