Forget Me Not | ATEEZ Zombie Apocalypse!AU

20: When God Wanted Trouble, He Made You

The biggest mistake an empire could make is believing they were to be eternal.

Seonghwa's mind had been circulating around that thought for a while now. And with every second, every minute, he came to think of it, the ever-pressing realisation only continued on dwelling in his mind. It unravelled, like the petals of a flower in bloom slowly opening up to the world with each newfound piece of evidence he gathered. But even such delicate and beautiful flora were destined to wither, and the sanctuary had already passed summer.

Gone were the overbearing, overheated days of sweat and filth. Not that he minded much. Seonghwa found that inside the compound's walls, the heat tended to stick around much longer than it needed to be. It went everywhere, and most nights he spent laying around in a damp layer of sheen, praying that the weather would be kind to him over the day. It wasn't, of course. But it was addicting to hope. Still, the sun kept on blazing, shining down even the deepest of cracks in the stone walls. The trees had tried their best to keep the flares at bay, but even that was to no avail. Summer was cruelling, especially so when faced with the end of the world.

Fortunately, much like all other things, all was destined to come to an end. June had perhaps been too late for him, but he was first in line for September. The first few days made hardly any difference though; still bearing the striking heat and humidity all around the area, sticking to his damp clothes during the day while patrolling, having to shower almost every evening. It seemed like the world was stuck in a never-ending saga of long hours and suffocating warmth.

Until something else took place.

Around mid-September, the rain started.

It plummeted down onto the roof, the stargaze, the walls. Outside, the ground was meddled with water flowing about from all sides, up and under – the mud that formed had become close to a pest. If there was anything else Seonghwa hated more than sweating through his clothes, it would be bringing in heaps of grime and dirt into the sanctuary wherever his feet carried him. In fact, at times, he often caught himself thinking back to the summer days, though he'd quickly eradicate those thoughts. Whereas the sun had scorched almost everything to a crisp, at least the rain was merciful for the crops.

The heavy downpour was, to put it bluntly, relentless. The sound clattered all throughout the building, even during the night. As a result, Seonghwa often found himself comforting the little children who had become frightened of the rain, and when thunder would stroll around, it made the task all the more challenging. Not that he minded; he loved soothing them; telling them stories of tales and legends he came up along the way. It felt healing, distractive from a world he wanted to ignore. Yes, the season had turned around completely, but he was glad it did. A simple sign that things were alive, despite all he had seen before. The rain, in all its mercilessness, was a reminder that nature, just like the many empires before, could not be tamed or predicted. It would do as it pleased.

Still, it wasn't as relentless as what followed.

Fear was a catalyst for problems, but unrest was the birth of destruction.

As of late, the sanctuary seemed to be all but filled with it.

He could hear it all around, see it wherever he went. The incident of the hanging man had hardly left anyone's mind for that matter, and that was an issue in of itself. Seonghwa hoped that it would at the very least quiet down, that people would find a means to get back to how they were before it happened, but hardly anyone had done so. It seemed it had only grown worse. Many of them would come up to him during his patrols, simply to express their desperate concerns for their rather uncertain future. They were frightened for what last month meant for them, their well-being, and he understood but all too well. He had looked into that very same fear as well, and he knew it was only a matter of time before that dam would break.