The Cataclysm {Stray Kids Chan}

Preparation

present day.

Morning comes and I actually manage to wake up before Chan for once, still wrapped up in the blanket and my head on his shoulder. I stare at him for a few seconds before yawning and standing up while stretching my arms upwards. I shake his shoulder gently, calling his name.

"Chan," I say again, patting his head. His eyes flutter open and he looks up at me, a smile immediately finding its way on his face. I grin in return, "Time to get up." He nods and stretches, groaning in exhaustion as he does so. We make our way to the other boys to wake them up and that's when panic starts to settle within me.

We're going to Barebrook today. We're going to save our families.

My hands tremble as I reach out to wake Felix up, my voice cracking as I call his name. I swallow the lump in my throat before continuing to awaken the other members, a hand on my shoulder stopping me before getting to the next person. "Ro, are you okay?"

The oh-so familiar voice rings through my ears. I crack a smile, "Of course. I'm just anxious about what's ahead of us. Today is actually the day, you know?"

Chan puts on a sad smile, "It'll be okay. Like you told me, let's focus on the present. We'll get through this," he drops his hand from my shoulder, the split second of warmth it held leaving, and we continue waking up the boys for our journey.

We all gather together and come up with a plan. The blonde leader speaks, "We all know what we're planning to do today, but hopefully with this I can explain it better. Here we are," he points at the map, "and here is Barebrook. Once we get into the gates of town, there will most likely be guards littered everywhere, leaving no space to get by unnoticed.

"However, I did some research and with the help of Seungmin, we found out there are underground tunnels leading to Barebrook, and every other town for that matter. We believe the government officials used them to either secretly help people escape or to bring new prisoners in. We'll use these tunnels to sneak into the base and it should open up right inside the gates, outside the actual building.

"At dusk, we'll make our way to one of the tunnels and we should make it past the gates right at dark. The tunnel is about a ten minute walk from here and will be covered up by a fake strip of grass, as I've already checked for. We'll move that and there should be a ladder leading us to the bottom, and we'll just walk straight until we reach the end. I'll be the first to enter and first to climb out to make sure the coast is clear and everyone is safe.

"Minho, please bring up the back. If there's any trouble, let me know and I'll find a way to handle it. Does everyone understand the plan?" Everyone nods and Chan clasps his hands together, "Alright then. Let's prepare and make we're 100% ready for this."

I exhale heavily and go back to my backpack, taking out a half empty water bottle, my toothbrush, and my toothpaste I packed when I escaped. I pour some of the water on the brush and squeeze out some toothpaste, reapplying a drop of water, and begin cleaning my teeth. Once I'm done, I spit out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth out with more of my water, swishing it around in my mouth and spitting again.

I decide to drink the remaining bit of the water and put the empty bottle back in my bag, zipping it up and walking over to Minho. I tap him on the shoulder, "Do you have any extra bullets? My cartridge is almost empty and I don't have another pack." He makes an 'o' with his mouth and searches around in his own bag, pulling out an extra pack of bullets for me. I thank him and reload my gun.