pumped up kicks

laughing it off like an adult, crying like a child

There's a girl in the storage room.

It's as if time has stilled, the air gone stale. There's no sound in their surroundings, save for the faint, muffled sound of gunshots in the distance, thanks to their friends.

There's a girl in the storage room.

Hyeon's index finger hovers next to her rifle's trigger, though the barrel has already lowered, aiming towards the ground instead. The light from Sucheol's flashlight from behind her shakes. Hyeon can hear her heartbeat in her ears.

There's a girl in the storage room.

There's a girl in the storage room, Hyeon has to repeat to herself as she stares, mouth agape, into the small opening of the room. In the darkness of the area, she sees a figure curled up into the corner of the place. That figure is a human, Hyeon belatedly realises, the acknowledgment derived not from any visible human-like features - there are none - but the quivering. Hyeon feels like choking.

The human- the girl's hair is dishevelled, tousled over her face with strands sticking to her cheek and in her mouth. There's a glimpse of white as her head inches upwards. The white appears and disappears rapidly. Hyeon thinks the girl might be blinking.

"-ve me..." A low, almost-inaudible grunt shatters the silence in the room.

Hyeon feels her fingers trembling. She hears Ilha take a sharp gasp.

"-lease... a-ve... me..."

There's a sting to Hyeon's eyes.

Hours later, she will mentally smack herself over the head for her blunt response, but at this moment, all she can focus on is the clump of blood over the girl's knuckles, dried and dark; all she can hear is the whirring sound in her head, not dissimilar to when she was in the abandoned town, in the classroom after that, and then on the courtyard. Almost unconscious of her own movement, Hyeon feels the coolness of the metal rifle on the pads of her fingers as it slips through her grip.

"Okay."

--

The body of Hyeon's firearm is swinging behind her back, bumping against it with every step she takes. A warmth is slung over her shoulders, and the source of that same warmth is clutched tightly to her side.

Back in the apartment when Hyeon had leaned forward to reach for the girl - Lee Jimin, she had managed to make out from the tattered name tag on her chest - she tried not to react when Jimin flinched away from her advancement, retreating back into her crouching posture. Now, Hyeon's right uniform sleeve is scrunched up, wrapping tightly around her upper arm: Jimin has the fabric clenched in a death grip, her front curled up against Hyeon's side. The pressure is a little painful, especially with the way her sleeve stretches around her skin, but Hyeon keeps mum and keeps her eyes on the road in front of them, making sure that the other girl's vague figure is in her peripheral vision at all times.

The asphalt surface before them is empty, with not a silhouette in their vicinity. A living, breathing one, at least. Jimin tries her best to suppress recoiling at the sight of bloodied, slumped over corpses in military uniforms. Hyeon tries her best to pretend that she doesn't notice the way Jimin trembles and pushes herself deeper into Hyeon's arms. Ilha and Sucheol flank their front and back respectively, and Hyeon can see how the former glances back at the two girls every few seconds though he never locks gazes with either of them.

"Kwon Ilha!"

As they pass another alley, a voice calls out, causing the four of them to whip their heads around to the direction of the yell.

They're met with the sight of Jangsoo, Wootaek, Soonyi, Heerak trudging towards them, an unknown boy's arms hoisted over the former two's shoulders. Hyeon has to forcefully swallow down the bile rising in her throat when she recognizes that the boy's state mirrors Jimin's - bloodied knuckles and cheeks, rumpled uniform, unkempt hair hung over his soulless eyes.