Sempiternal: • Contaminated • || BOOK 3#

20. In search of what is necessary

"I don't know if you have the same feeling that, genuinely, no one has been through here."

"Actually, I do. It's like it remains ghosted since it evacuated. Because they did evacuate here."

Yoongi and Jungkook find it somewhere between surprising and anomalous that everything is so empty in terms of people. Sure, there's the occasional Yagtalja out there. That's par for the course. However, they can say for sure that this is the least affected area they've been to. No crashed cars, no devoured bodies, no walls full of blood. They have barely been moving for half an hour, so it may well be that they have not yet reached the area conducive to such misfortunes.

At the same time, Yoongi is quick to point out that they have a small empty territorial zone. One where in the next few days they can bring in more people to help explore. He folds the map and puts it in his coat pocket.

"Let's walk another four blocks. If it goes well, we split up and point out every store we see." indicates Yoongi and Jungkook nods. Satisfied that he will have his alone time.

Moving forward, they find what they expected: some car accidents, frozen and half-decomposed corpses on the ground; Yoongi marks a crater on the ground and that several buildings are destroyed. It means that there was also bombing in this area. Just not as catastrophic as in Seoul.

The usual. The capital will always look worse thanks to being an overbuilt metropolis. They travel the agreed road and despite the slight worsening of the environment, there is nothing that screams danger. At most that some cars have suspiciously broken windows.

"Okay" Yoongi looks at the watch he is holding and then at the sky. He doesn't know if the clock is on time or even moving according to how it should. Beaten and quite broken. "We leave here in two hours to come back. If you take something, you do, but not too heavy preferably. It would take us a while to get back."

"As you say."

"And Jungkook."

"Umm?"

"Look for other shoes. These make you walk funny."

Jungkook smiles uncomfortably. It's not that they make him walk funny, it's that they're so heavy. He starts to get used to them. The best thing about them is that they are such thick boots that he doesn't have to worry about having wet feet. Yoongi goes down the street on the right and Jungkook on the left.

His search for any long-distance communication device gets longer. His time limit to go to the meeting point is approaching and he, cursing through his teeth at how little he accomplishes on this first outing. He wanted at least one store or warehouse with communicators and such. Even if it was just one place. The only thing "relevant" was that two convenience stores were empty. There were hardly any items left inside them. Whoever looted them came close to taking the boards off the shelves as well.

Frustrated and not wanting a bad moment with Yoongi for being late or having him come looking for him, he enters the last store in the abandoned mall, being a pet store. He is struck by hearing noise. Faint and tender. He adjusts his gloves and picks up the pistol he has tucked away. He leans his ear against the door and opens it at the suspicious sound.

"Oh."

He lifts the pistol and plays with it on his finger. On the other side of the door what he finds are Nine? Students. All wearing their uniforms despite being torn. You can tell they are cold. There's a bag of garbage in one corner and a calendar scratched to the hilt. He gives a whistle, realizing the sound wasn't them.

They are animals.

Little birds in cages, hamsters, mice, even a cat.

"And you guys since when are in here, are you from the...?"