WHO ARE YOU?|ATEEZ FANFIC (In Editing Progress)

Chapter 64|Into the lions den

San was shaking. He stood on his feet, his arms wrapped around his body and slightly crooked, his head throbbing and aching and he felt as if he would collapse at any moment, which would probably mean nothing less but his certain death. He was standing up to his waist in a musty puddle of cold water that filled the ground floor of the abandoned shopping center he was in and made it smell like a pond. Moss stuck to the concrete walls and algae curled up around San, occasionally brushing against the blonde's legs and making him flinch in shock. If he were to lose consciousness now, he would drown miserably. The chains that connected him to the concrete pillars that held the building upright through a belt around his waist meant he couldn't move. He didn't know why the Halateez had chained him here. What good was it to them? They might as well have just killed him.  His blond hair was reddish brown at the back of his head and matted with blood that had come out of the head wound after he had been knocked down. He had woken up in the van they had kidnapped him in and brought him here. With the headache that was tormenting him, there had been no point in fighting them when they had dragged him out of the van and brought him to this building. He would have only gotten himself into more trouble unnecessarily and he had hoped that he would somehow find a way to get out of here. He didn't count on his friends. How would they know where he was? They had certainly noticed his absence, the day was slowly drawing to a close - which he could tell by the ever-dwindling rays of sunlight shining down on him through a hole in the tarpaulin above the open roof of the building above him - but they had no way of knowing where the Halateez had taken him. Even the dozens of cameras they had installed wouldn't tell them much except that San had been miserably knocked down and kidnapped.  They had only installed the cameras on the main street and although San hadn't had much time to look around on the way from the van to the building, he was sure that he must be in a completely different part of the city. Everything had seemed gloomy and even more deserted than the city already was. The atmosphere in this building scared the hell out of him. Water kept dripping from the walls into the puddle, scaring San. The wind, which tickled his neck unpleasantly, put a shiver down his spine. He was also freezing. Standing up to his waist in cold rainwater was certainly not the best thing for his already strained health. If he made it out of here, he was sure to get a bladder infection. He took a deep, frustrated breath and looked around. Except for the few rays of sunlight peeking through the tarpaulin, it was dark around him. He could hardly make out what it looked like around him. All he could make out was that the building was three stories high and the way up was a broken old escalator that was not far from San. If he stretched out his arm completely, he could probably just reach it with his fingertips. Unfortunately, that didn't help him escape. In general, he didn't see any chance of him escaping. The chains that bound him were too thick to weaken or even break by pulling on them and he didn't want to risk that if he pulled too hard, the concrete pillars, which were heavily strained by the moisture in the building, could break and cause the building to collapse.

"Fucking shit." He cursed quietly to himself and felt a shudder run through his whole body. He felt dizzy. He didn't know how much longer he could endure this. The sound of footsteps in the water made the blonde flinch in shock.  He turned in the direction he had heard the footsteps and strained his eyes, trying to see something in the darkness.

"Is anyone there?" he called. Nervous sweat ran down his forehead. Were they back? Panic rose in the blonde's chest. He stared tensely into the shadows of the building and felt his heart beating like crazy when he suddenly saw a figure step out of the shadows.

As soon as they arrived around the area they were headed too, the boys could feel why it wasn't listed on the official city map. Yunho turned into the streets behind the already creepy high school, when the streets started to look totally worn out and dirty. Paper sheets, dirt and trash was all around the place. It reminded them of when they first entered the city. Back then they made jokes about zombies walking around in the streets or ghosts haunting the city. None of them expected there'd be a part of the city to look even dirtier and scarier. Seonghwa gulped with an unpleased look on his face.