Apocalypse | BTS

Chapter 17

Seconds after Taehyung's seizure had ended, his body had completely given out and fell limp against the floor as his brain rendered him unconscious. His breathing was regular and steady thanks to their quick action, but it was only enough to lessen the effects of the poison rather than rid his bloodstream of it completely. He had fallen into a coma-like state, and wouldn't come out of it until more sanberries were available. However, keeping a close eye on him was very important because his state could still deteriorate while the diluted poison circulated inside of him. It was looking pretty dire.

Jungkook had wordlessly pulled Taehyung into his arms, allowing the brunette's head to rest in his lap as the others tended to him. Jungkook didn't know what it was, but he'd felt a sudden and random connection with Taehyung, and to have him practically dying in his arms gave him the painful sensation that he was losing it, a dull pain in his chest that refused to be lifted as he cast his eyes over Taehyung's unmoving features. All of them were currently trying to calm themselves down and lower their adrenaline levels once they knew that Taehyung's condition was stable, the fact that it was sudden and unexpected not making it any better.

"That's was too close." Hoseok sighed, standing up and running a hand through his hair. Yoongi, on the other hand, had a furious look on his face, and he growled in frustration as he sat on the sofa nearby with his head in his hands.

"What the fuck was he thinking?! Was he just not gonna tell us?" Yoongi snarled, his narrowed eyes throwing daggers at anyone he looked at. Leanne just sighed and finished dressing Taehyung's wounded shoulder.
"I think he was just scared. He wouldn't have wanted to use up our emergency resources because he knew that we were looking for sanberries too. You can't tell me that you'd trust a bunch of strangers to not just kick you out or kill you on the spot if you were to tell them something like that. We all know how brutal some people are nowadays." Leanne said with a frown, the others agreeing understandingly apart from Yoongi who just rolled his eyes.

"I wish he'd told us sooner though, we could have caught it faster. That must have been terribly painful." She added through a sigh, casting her eyes down towards Taehyung's motionless form. Hoseok looked over at Jungkook and frowned as the younger just stared at Taehyung in silence.
"Jungkook, you okay?" Hoseok asked softly, Jungkook not lifting his head as he nodded and replied.

"We need to get moving... now. The quicker we get to the camp the better chances he has." Jungkook said quietly, the others failing to see his expression as his raven-hair hid it like an opaque curtain. He'd seen people die from the aliens' vicious attacks. He'd seen other squadrons at South Camp coming back with less people than they'd left with, and he never wanted that to happen to one of the others. Experiencing it first hand only made it more terrifying; it wasn't something you could get used to.

Hobi took Jungkook's words as an instruction, and spared one more pitying glance towards Taehyung before he made his way back to the front and started the engine. Yoongi followed suit, falling heavily into the passenger seat and pulling out the map once more as they began driving in silence. Kwan took some persuading that she had done her job, and eventually left Taehyung's side to go and sit by Yoongi's feet, falling asleep after a hard day's work.

"Jungkook, he'll be fine, okay?" Leanne said reassuringly, bending down towards the younger as she noticed that his expression was kind of lost.
"I know. I'm not worried... it was just a shock." Jungkook replied in a mumble, and Leanne sighed and checked Taehyung's pulse.
"Do you want me to stay here and monitor him instead?" She asked, somehow not surprised when Jungkook denied her offer.

"No, I'll stay. But thank you. It would be good if you could keep watch upfront." Jungkook said, Leanne smiling and nodding as she left to do as she was told. Jungkook just sighed and looked back down at Taehyung's peaceful face, brushing the hair gently away from his closed eyes as he studied his sleep-like expression. He couldn't figure out why seeing Taehyung have a seizure had shaken him up so bad.

He'd nearly lost squad members before, or had seen them faint or become severely ill, but nothing hurt him quite as much as this did.

Two hours had passed, and although they were tired, they knew that there was no chance of resting now. They were currently driving past what seemed to be an old railway station, it's rusted tracks and crumbling tunnels looking like something straight out of a horror movie. The buildings towered over them as dark silhouettes, looking as if they could cave in or collapse at any moment if they were fortunate enough to still be standing.

"Where from here?" Hobi asked, and Yoongi concentrated on the map for a second before looking up.
"Left here." He said, Hoseok following his instruction and turning down a narrow one-way road. At least traffic was not something that existed anymore, especially not in infested abandoned cities, but of course there were always other things that you could bump into.

"Damn! It's a dead end." Hobi groaned loudly, causing all attention to be drawn to him and the road ahead. Looking out of the front window, you could see that the road ahead was completely blocked off by the rubble of an old building that must have recently fallen. Yoongi pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried hard to think of an alternative route.
"There's no way that we can turn this thing around on the narrow road, so we're gonna have to reverse back out and take a detour at the last left turn." Yoongi explained, Hoseok sucking in a deep breath and nodding.

"Um... guys?"

Leanne's worried voice from the back caught their attention and they turned towards her to see that she was pointing at the back window.
"We have company!"
Sure enough, in the dull glow of the vehicle's back lights, shiny red scales glimmered in a large wave that approached ominously from behind. A sea of glowing green eyes accompanying it confirmed that a cluster of at least twenty borgs was coming in their direction.

Jungkook took this as a serious situation, carefully taking Taehyung's head off of his lap, before picking him up and placing him comfortably on the sofa. Borgs were slow, lizard-like humanoids that would either walk on two or four legs, and were the easiest to defeat of all of the heptoid species. Yet they could quite easily devastate a camp or a building when grouped together in large numbers like this.

"Okay," Jungkook said, swiping an assault rifle from the weapon store and checking the ammo, before looking up at his team.
"Leanne, stay with Taehyung and keep your katana at hand. Hoseok, when I say go, you press your foot down and reverse as quickly as you can. Do not stop until I say it's clear, understand? Yoongi, you're with me."

With that, Yoongi slipped his pistol into his belt, grabbing an extra handgun just in case as he follow Jungkook to the front of the RV.
"If I give you a boost, you're gonna reach up and push open the sunroof to climb out. Okay?" Jungkook said to Yoongi, who simply nodded. He stepped on Jungkook's thigh, successfully pushing open the sunroof, before hopping out with some difficulty.

"Be careful!" Hoseok called up to the two of them as he watched Yoongi disappear onto the roof, followed soon by Jungkook who hopped up after him.
"So," Jungkook said, taking the safety off of his gun, "you ready?"
Yoongi narrowed his eyes and grinned.

"Let's shoot some aliens."