Immunity (BTS Fan Fiction) | ABANDONED

Chapter 2: Friends New and Old

Jin frowned at the cages. Sorry, the cells.

...The cages.

The one closest to him held a girl who couldn't have been more than ten - she was European from the looks of it, and her wide green eyes blinked at him in confusion.

What was she doing in Korea? Had her family been on an ill-fated vacation, only to fall victim to the Sickness? She was found with her mother dead and her father dying, blood and bile leaking from his mouth. She was Immune, for when they ran their tests to find the hellish virus, her body had already fought it off.

Jin knew what that meant. He almost wished she was Sick.

His dark grey hazmat suit crinkled as he drew nearer to her cell. She had been crying - the tear tracks down her face spoke of otherworldly sorrow.

What a fucking mess.

Luckily, his only job with the girl was to bring her to the lab. He didn't have to do anything after that.

But he would this afternoon to another patient.

Shuddering, he crouched down in front of the door. The rust along its steel bars was a reminder that this was once a prison, but now it had been turned into a makeshift lab to study the Sickness.

This is for a cure.

Chanting this mantra, he opened the cell and reached inside. The girl shrunk away, her eyes wild with fear, and he sighed. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"But they are," she whimpered.

He couldn't respond to that.

"How are you feeling?"

The girl scoffed. "Not sick."

"Good," Jin nodded, though he knew in this place, that was far from good. "Come with me, please."

She almost didn't obey. He prayed she would - he didn't want to go through the protocol for those who didn't listen. Slowly, she stood, the ceiling too low for her to straighten fully, and stepped into the dimly-lit hallway.

This place was no hospital. Its bleak concrete walls were cracked and stained, aged from years of abuse. Evidence of its hasty remodeling echoed throughout the morose building - dark stains that Jin didn't want to think about splattered the walls from fistfights in the corridors and gang battles in the yard. Most of the toilets in the cells were broken, and those that weren't were too disgusting to use. Some of those farther along in the Sickness - those whose minds were wrought with delirium and hallucinations, and whose bodies chose to see just how quickly they could waste away - simply resorted to defecating in the corners of their rooms, never mind that they were trapped in tight quarters with no air circulation.

Jin didn't really blame them. They were dying a terrible, horrifying death. They had more important things to worry about than where they did their business. Considering that, he didn't mind hosing down the cells after each of them were inevitably sent to the crematorium.

"Where are we going?" The girl asked.

Jin didn't want to answer. And technically speaking, he couldn't. Not with the truth, anyway.

It was almost funny that secrets had to be kept even from those who were about to die because of them.

If the public knew how their governments were studying the Sickness, all hell would break loose. And why shouldn't it? It was murder, as far as Jin was concerned. But it had to be done. No one truly understood the gravity of the situation - a cure had to be found. If it wasn't, they'd all be dead.