Home; I Found With You // Ryeji FF

danger.

Ryujin knelt in the grass, tending to the graves of the boys she had promised to visit. This time, she came alone, knowing the others had already made their visits while she hadn't been ready—mentally or emotionally—to come sooner.

That night after they returned from the lookout, Yuna had been the first to greet them. Ryujin felt a knot of unease tighten in her chest when she saw her, but Yuna quickly lowered her head, apologizing for the harshness of her words. Ryujin knew Yuna hadn't meant to lash out like that, and forgiveness came easily, though the weight of those words still lingered.

As her fingers combed through the few stray weeds on top of Yeonjun's grave, her mind spiraled back to what Yuna had said: They're dead. There's nothing you can do.

She knew Yuna was right. No amount of tending or guilt would bring them back. So why was she still here, trapped in the same cycle of grief? The guilt still clung to her, stubborn and suffocating, but Ryujin made a silent vow to herself—one day, she would free herself from its grip. Not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but one day, she'd find the strength to let go.

A sudden flurry of movement in the trees startled her as a flock of black birds took off, scattering into the clear sky. Ryujin glanced up, her eyes narrowing—birds didn't usually take flight so abruptly unless something had spooked them.

And then she heard it—a deep, rumbling roar in the distance. Semi-trucks, their engines thundering through the streets. It couldn't mean anything good.

Her instincts kicked in. Without a second thought, she shifted her weight and sprinted behind Yeonjun's old Integra, pressing herself low to the ground, trying to make herself as small and unseen as possible.

The ground trembled beneath her feet as the trucks thundered through the desolate streets, their presence impossible to ignore. Ryujin dared to peek up, her eyes catching the sight of three massive semi trucks rolling by, their trailers shrouded with tarps.

She hadn't seen anything like this since the outbreak, but every instinct screamed that something was terribly wrong. The trucks themselves felt like a warning—a neon sign flashing Danger in her mind.

Her suspicion was confirmed when, through the roar of the engines, she caught faint, guttural screams—undead cries—echoing from the trailers as they rumbled past.

Once the trucks had disappeared, Ryujin sprang to her feet, squinting into the distance, trying to make out the direction they were heading. But they were already too far gone. Despite the loud warning bells ringing in her mind, urging her to retreat to safety, her hand was already reaching for the car door. The engine hummed to life as she started it up without hesitation.

With a tight grip on the wheel, she veered the car onto the road, keeping a safe distance behind the trucks, following them without fully knowing why.

The streets were familiar; she had headed down these roads before. They were going to the junkyard.

She parked the Evo a bit further down, enough to stay out of sight but close enough to see what was unfolding. The trucks halted, their trailers lifting with mechanical precision. Dozens of bodies spilled out onto the ground, lifeless and decaying, piling up like discarded trash.

And then it clicked. It all made sense—the hordes she'd seen, the corpses scattered around the junkyard, and how it all connected to the loss of her friends.

Her hand instinctively shot toward the gun resting in the center console. In that moment, the urge to avenge her friends surged through her. These bastards wouldn't know what hit them.

"Ryujin... Coming home soon?"

The sound of Yeji's voice pulled her back, the weight of the gun in her hand grounding her thoughts. She exhaled deeply, the tension in her chest unwinding slightly, before she traded the gun for the radio and brought it to her lips.