Apocalypse | BTS

Chapter 45

A chorus of lousy clicks and groans from the cave above them signalled that their suspicions were right, and so they knew that being extra careful and quiet was a necessity. With some simple waves of his hands, Jungkook sent everyone off in different directions leading away from the cave, all nine of them creeping around the entrance as carefully as possible.

Even when they were out of sight of the cave, each of them couldn't let their guard down for even a second. Simply because the originally volcanic mountain could potentially be filled with cynoids, replacing what once could have been lava with something even more terrifying. This meant that the one cave opening that they had discovered was likely not the only one, and one wrong move could cause the cluster to erupt from the rocky mountain face and leave them with a very big problem.

It's not like they could drop back now. If they were to go back down, they'd lose time and end up travelling in the dark, which would leave them at an even bigger risk of being attacked. The cynoids in the mountain would wake up to hunt, and what would happen next is rather self explanatory. And in order to stay on the trail and stick to the plan, they had to make their way over this mountain and into the woods on the other side.

Having planned to meet at the bottom of the mountain, everyone went off in their pairs, apart from Jungkook, to scale the mountain through their different routes and hopefully move quietly enough to avoid any encounters.

But fate had other plans.

After about half an hour, Taehyung and Leanne were to be the first to reach the base. Out of breath and tired, Taehyung pulled Leanne up on a grassy ledge beside him for a quick break, groaning as he sat down with his tired legs hanging over the side.
"My God, this is harder work than I thought." The firefighter panted, Leanne pulling two flasks of water from her bag for the two of them.

"Not too far to go I guess." She said, taking a moment to catch her breath and Taehyung shrugged and nodded beside her.
"The others should be-"
"Wait, be quiet."
"Excuse me?"
"Shh! I heard something." Leanne said in a hushed voice, cupping a hand around her ear and furrowing her eyebrows. Taehyung frowned and tilted his head, trying to listen out for whatever had caught her attention.

Then they both heard it.

"Help! Fucking anyone!"
Taehyung widened his eyes, jumping up and quickly pulling Leanne up with him.
"That was definitely Jimin." Taehyung said through gritted teeth, swiping his rifle from the floor and slinging his bag over his shoulders, Leanne doing the same but her katana at hand instead.
"Come on! It sounded like they weren't too far from here." Leanne ushered, the two of them running quickly along the side of the mountain, thanking their lucky stars that the region they were at was more flat than steep due to it being near the bottom of the mountain.

It wasn't long before the problem came quickly into view. Cynoids swarmed the air above two people, one standing on a ledge with a gun between his shaking hands and the other crouched on the floor behind him in obvious pain as she held her daggers above her face. Taking aim on an alien that was about to swoop on Jimin's vulnerable form, Taehyung allowed his finger to land against the trigger, successfully shooting the creature from the sky and making it tumble into the trees far below.

"Jimin, duck!" Taehyung shouted to the blonde, Jimin immediately doing as he was told and cursing under his breath as two more cynoids were shot directly above his head.
Unfortunately, Jimin and Yuri had both stumbled across a weak point in the mountain, a small opening giving hungry cynoids access from the caves and to the open once they had heard footsteps from the surface. The opening was rather small, and Jimin had used his quick thinking to roll a nearby mountain boulder over it with Yuri's help, preventing any more from escaping. However, just under a dozen were now targeting the two, making them incredibly vulnerable to the intelligent creatures' attacks.