outbreak | bts

043

Spinning around on their heels, Jaehyun and Jungkook were quick to usher Namjoon and Ms Ryu away from the door they had entered through, leading them around the clerk's desk in the corner of the store and through another doorway that only had heavy plastic slab curtains covering it. Pushing through, the four found themselves in a medium sized storage room filled with boxes and shelving units.

Wasting no time, Jeahyun made a beeline for a relatively large window at the far end of the room. It was the only one in the space. Speeding up, he made the small jump to reach the sill and gripped the handle, turning it and pushing the window open in on fluid motion. Peeking out, he noted that there didn't seem to be any zombies roaming about nearby the pharmacy but there were some walking across the street near a main road, their backs to the building.

Cautious of this, he pulled his head back into the storage room. He pointed to himself, then one of the tote bags he carried and motioned climbing out of the window. Jungkook nodded at him and took his other bag as Jaehyun pushed the window further out.

Carefully, he leaned forward so that he was crouched rather precariously on the ledge with one foot dangling down into the storage room. Assessing the distance to the ground to be much further than he had assumed as the road behind the pharmacy sloped down a hill, he lifted his head and decided to go up onto the roof instead.

Jungkook's eyebrows furrowed as he watched Jaehyun's figure, wondering why he didn't go down to the ground when that would be the easiest way to get back to the others, but the faint sound of heavy footsteps from beyond the room quicky distracted him.

Exhaling sharply out of his nose, he urged Ms Ryu to hide behind a stack of boxes near the window and got Namjoon to hide behind a separate stack of loading boxes that formed something of a small wall against a corner of the room, crouching ever so slightly behind him, listening.

It sounded as though someone had managed to open the side door to the pharmacy and was combing through the store. A sense of dread filled Jungkook's gut. What if they were zombies being directed by an abornormal? The memory of Jimin and Jaehyun talking about the zombie that tried opening a car door when they had been scoping their escape route came to mind.

It would only be a matter of time before the zombies noticed the doorway in the corner of the wall and came through to check. Swallowing, Jungkook crept over to where Ms Ryu was hiding, Namjoon watching him with alarm. Pressing his finger to his lips, he widened his eyes at her to stay silent, much like how Jimin had when they had found Yerim. Nodding, she watched him closely as he gestured for her to rise to a low crouch and align herself beneath the window.

Kneeling beside her with his eyes trained on the doorway, Jungkook indicated that she was to use him as a launchpad to get onto the window sill and go up to Jaehyun on the roof. Ms Ryu's neck jutted out in disbelief. Surely he was kidding? Did she look like a young rabbit who could jump around like that?

Jungkook looked at her with serious eyes and squatted down, ready to lift her up. Swallowing, she cast a flitting glance at the doorway, then to Namjoon who was just barely visible from where he peeked behind his box fortress. Nodding, she pressed her lips together tightly and breathed hard through her nostrils, determined not to make any undesired noise this time.

Slinging her tote bag more securely onto her shoulder, she pressed a foot onto Jungkook's sturdy leg and hoisted herself up with effort. Reaching out, she grabbed onto the window sill and held on as Jungkook lifted her legs higher.

There was a singular, rather fatal problem which neither Jaehyun or Jungkook had determined in this short panicked period: Ms Ryu lacked the same agility and balance as Jaehyun, so when she observed the drop beneath the window, she could understand why Jungkook had told her to go up, but she was physically unable to do so. Her harsh exhales began to tremor as the stress began to get to her and she slipped, letting out an agonised gasp as she fell.