Currently book work in progress

Shoutout to my dreams that still isn't ready to let go of Enha in dystopian scenarios, so you'll get this dream I had the other night, written down all for you!

Looking out the window of the borrowed schoolbus it was clear a car was making its way down the same road as us, just in the opposite direction.

"Get guns ready in case they're gonna attack," Heeseung barked out down through the bus, towards Millie and Xia sitting in the back of the bus, both girls immediately getting to work on whatever guns we still had amunition for.

All five of us up in front kept a close eye on the car nearing, watching it come to a halt as Jake did the same with the bus.

"No one gets out," Sunghoon calmly spoke, a hand laying itself on my back as the door to the opposite car opened and a woman stepped out, hands raised above her head and a scarf covering the bottom half of her face.

"I'm looking for an alliance deal!" the woman yelled out, only audible to us due to the small crack Jake had opened the window on.

"Hyung..." Jungwon immediately looked at Sunghoon, who immediately pursed his lips and knitted his eyebrows together, trying to decifer whether or not it was a good idea.

"We'll have a gun ready up here if she tries to do anything," Xia assured as she ran through the bus with the guns she and Millie had prepared, the other girl following close behind.

"Be careful," I whispered to Sunghoon as he straightened up and his hand on my back disappeared.

Sunghoon only gave a small nod before gesturing for Jake to open the doors of the bus. Once they did Sunghoon immediately pulled up the scarf on the bottom half of his face, trying to protect himself from any sort of infection he could catch out in the deserted land.

My eyes closely followed Sunghoon as he walked out in front of the bus and looked over at the woman, seemingly withholding a conversation with her as he did so, once in a while his eyebrows would knit together in a frown.

It was only a little over a year ago since the world changed. It started out as a small pandemic, no more than a flu. It escalated quickly, reports of people getting infected and after having a center in their brain shut down began appearing. The center in the brain is supposedly the center where most of basic human decency is located, at least it seemed by the behavior of the infected.

After the first reports of brain damage in infected patients surfaced the disease spread like wildfire, cities were left abandoned to the insane patients, others were forced to run away due to increased chances of getting infected. 

We still don't know how you get infected. Sometimes it seems that just being close enough to infected people is enough, othertimes they harm you and you get infected, a whole other case is through breathing in the air outside. We never know. 

When Jay got infected he swore he hadn't been near any infected people, he had just been out changing the tires of the bus. Sunoo had been another case, his kind heart had been the death of him when we had encountered an old woman hitchhiking, poor boy had to be left behind on the side of the road once the woman had ripped his arm off. I still feel bad about leaving him there.

I watched as Sunghoon walked back to the bus, stepping inside once again. First pulling off the scarf around his face when Jake had closed the doors behind him.

"Seems peaceful. I say we follow them to their hideout, wait and see what happens. Keep the guns ready in case they attempt foul play," Sunghoon declared and Jake just nodded, "there's a kid in the car with her, they both seem harmless."

"The kid could just be to speak to our common senses. Don't forget Sunoo," Heeseung warned and Sunghoon just nodded before looking down through the bus.

"Matter of fact is that we need a permanent place to call home, they can provide us with that," Sunghoon declared.

"Look I love you guys, but Heeseung hyung having to give noona a goodnight kiss is on the verge of making me gag every night," Jungwon commented and I simply snickered as he scrunched up his nose.

"Just follow the car Jake," Sunghoon urged before Jake nodded and set the bus back into motion once the car had turned around to lead us the way to their hideout.

I kept my place of quietly leaning against the back of one of the seats, keeping an eye on the car in front of us. Sunghoon immediately walked over to stand beside me, returning a hand to my back as I moved closer to him.

"A permanent base will be good for us," Sunghoon commented and I just nodded in agreement.

"But at what cost?" I questioned and I could see him turning his head to look at me, through the corner of my eye, "last time we though we had a base we lost Niki. Sunoo was too kind to an elderly lady when trying to help her. Who will be the next?"

"No one is gonna be next," Sunghoon softly assured and I just hummed before frowning as the car drove into a small town and up to a yellow house, "no one is gonna be next Sieun, I swear."

I only hummed in return as Jake parked the bus. Once we all got outside everyone had their scarves up over the nose while the kid in the other car went to unlock the door to the yellow house.

"I swear to God Sunghoon if we're gonna be held hostage now, I will smother you," Millie commented as the girl was struggling to open the door.

Before any of us could react something hit me in the back of the head and everything went black.

---

I woke up with an intense headache leaning against something cold. It was first when my eyes opened that I realized I was leaning against an iron pole... which I just happened to have my hands tied to.

"Great, the sleeping beauty is awake," Xia commented from my right and I immediately turned to watch her look at Millie, who was waking up as well.

"Sunghoon I'm gonna fucking kill you," Millie murmured as I looked further down the line, past Xia, where the boys all sat tied to iron poles in the samme manner as us girls.

"That is if you get the chance," I reminded her and she glanced at me.

"Touché," Millie hummed in return before letting out a small sigh, "you know this isn't how I expected to spend my Saturday."

"It's Tuesday, get your shit together," Heeseung corrected, a small laugh immediately escaping Jungwon and Xia.

"Alright, listen up," the woman Sunghoon had spoken to outside the bus walked up in front of us, probably only getting disinterested or disgusted looks from any of us, "who's the leader?"

"I am," Sunghoon spoke up calmly, making me immediately look down at him.

Sure Jay had asked him to take on the leader role after he got infected, but Sunghoon never really used it or addressed himself as the leader. Sure he often took the final decisions for us, but he didn't rule in the way you would suppose a leader would.

"Alright pretty boy, here's the deal. My daughter and I are alone here. We give you a room and a place to stay. You gives us protection and help provide food for all," the woman stated, pointing a baseball bat towards Sunghoon.

"This could've been done much more efficiently over a simple meeting," Sunghoon remarked and the woman snorted at him.

"Safety precautions," the woman excused, "you had weapons on you."

"Safety precautions," Sunghoon simply reasoned with a small smirk, "alright, listen up. All we want is a safe and permanent place to stay. We can provide sufficient protection, but collection of food is a group effort. You work for food, we work for food," Sunghoon clarified and the woman squinted her eyes at him.

"Untie them," the woman directed to her daughter, who quickly rushed to untie the boys before hesitating with us girls.

"Why isn't she untying them?" Sunghoon questioned and nodded towards us girls.

"You would be the main leaders, they have more places to hide weapons. Safety precautions," the woman simply replied and I glanced over at Millie, who simply rolled her eyes.

"I'll have you know my second in command is still tied to an iron pole," Sunghoon remarked and I glanced over at Xia, who sat and muttered something to herself, completely disinterested in the whole conversation happening in front of us, "you can first get a sealed deal when all seven of us are untied."

Instead of waiting for permission Jungwon just walked over and started untying Xia before moving down the line and finally untying me, helping me up on my feet as the others followed after the woman down to another room.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Jungwon whispered and I frowned over at him, "something's off... I think her daughter is infected."

"But she-" I started and he just nodded at me.

We quickly rushed up to the room the others had entered. All finding a chair to sit down in around a table.

"For you guys to be able to stay here we need to get a few rules straight," the woman spoke as Jungwon closed the door behind him and I.

While the woman began getting out something from a drawer I rushed over and patted Sunghoon's shoulder. His hand immediately flew up to hold onto my hand and look up at me with big questioning eyes.

"Jungwon has a bad feeling about this," I leaned down and whispered to Sunghoon, who immediately turned in his seat and looked at me with a frown, "he thinks the daughter might be infected."

Sunghoon quickly glanced over at Jungwon, who looked over at Sunghoon and I visibly gulping down nervously as he nodded his head to the girl standing at the side of the room and seemingly spacing out every once in a while. Her eyes seemed a bit too distant and she had yet to say something to us.

"Can she talk?" Sunghoon murmured and I just shrugged before he glanced over at the girl, "can I ask your name?" Sunghoon questioned the girl, who slowly looked over at him.

"It's Ari," the woman replied for the girl, immediately making a frown appear on Heeseung's face as he looked over at Sunghoon and I.

"Listen," Sunghoon quickly stood up and turned his back to the woman, towering over me as he quickly thought long and hard about what to say, "we still have a few infection tests out in the bus, go out and get one. Try and take a test on her whenever possible."

"Okay," I whispered with a small nod.

"No wait... Jake will go with you. I can't let you go out there alone," he realized before looking over at Jake, "go with Sieun, will you? She needs some medicine out in the bus," Sunghoon lied, as to not drag attention, "be careful, okay?" he questioned as he turned back to me and pressed a kiss to the knuckles of the hand he still was holding onto, "both of you."

Jake quickly stood up and nodded for me to follow after him as I just gave Sunghoon's hand a small squeeze, quickly following after Jake out to the bus.

If Jungwon was right about that girl being infected we had to get away fast as possible hoping no one had gotten infected.