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Sunrise was her favorite time of the day. It was the only time that gave her the illusion of things getting brighter and better. The illusion of a dreamer as her squad leader would say, but she thought it was an illusion that gave her life a purpose.But then again then again she was one of the few fortunate that could remember a time before all of this mess. The younger members of the squad she had grown to love like family had never known a world with a ground that wasn’t trying to literally eat them alive. They never got the chance to just be normal kids for a day because of the world they were born into and that exactly was Minji’s motivation to get up every morning before her team to watch the sunrise and dream of a brighter future. She wasn’t driven by trying to just survive another day like her companions but by her “delusional dreams” as her leader liked to put it so sweetly.And said leaders voice of honey was it that snapped her out of her thought “Hey dreamer snap out of it we have to get moving!”“Coming!” She shouted and made her way of the rooftop she had watched the sunrise from.
The gathering room of their little save house was full to the brim with about 20-30 people of all age groups from teenagers that looked too young to have seen a gun up close in real life up until some older men in their late 40s or early 50s. The room itself was nothing fancy and only equipped with the bare minimum of furniture and luxury. The grey concrete walls were covered with some maps they had brought with them although she could see that a lot of them were already taken down so she just assumed they would be leaving this safe house again.They were always on the run. Always in constant fear of resting too long or leaving to many traces of their whereabouts behind. “The monsters” as they called them because they were simply just that monsters were always on the search for traces of human life so they also had to always cover up the traces of such life.“Unnie!” she heard a cheerful voice from the opposite cover of the room and saw her giant of a friend waving at her. She just smiled absentmindedly if one person could keep her spirits up in a situation as horrible as theirs it was Yoohyeon.“Hyeonie. Have you slept well?” she asked as she made her way over to her. “It could be better but at least we had a roof over our head so it was okay. How about you unnie?” but before she got to answer something along the same lines as her friend Chaerin cleared her throat loudly to get everybody’s attention. It never failed to amaze her how such a small woman that wasn’t even the oldest in the room managed to make everyone shut up by such a simple sound. Incredible.“As you probably noticed already we have to leave again. Minzy and her troop spotted traces of monsters not far from here.” She announced and earned a round of “and what now”s
“But at the same time we received an emergency signal from the capital.” She made a small break to let that information sink in and as she did so the whole squad started to whisper amongst each other.“How is that possible?” she asked herself. Seoul was lost and everyone knew that. Nobody had been there since the city got basically extinguished in the early days of the “dark age”. Nobody had dared to set a foot inside that city for almost 20 years and now their leader obviously considered returning to that hellhole.She could feel her eyes stinging with unshed tears and could almost hear the echos of those terrible screams of 1000s of horrified and innocent people as she tried to lock those dark memories away in a corner of her mind that she never dared to think about it.That the word “capital” could have such a strong effect on somebody…“I know that including myself most of us only have negative memories of that place but the signal has been sent on every receivable frequency and I think it would be stupid of us to ignore it. I can’t expect you to follow me nor am I going to force anyone. If you don’t want to come with me you’re free to leave whenever you want.” She finished her little speech. “Nobody’s going to judge you.” She added on and with that, all but a handful of teens and Minji and Yoohyeon were left in the room.“Cowards.” She could hear Yoohyeon next to hear mumble.It was actually completely understandable that so many of the older members left them considering that most of the now present were too young to have any real memories of that fateful night. She herself only had faint memories but they were enough to hunt her in her sleeps years later.She would be lying if she said she didn’t consider leaving. But she owed the woman in front of her everything. Chaerin had taken them in when they had nothing. When she was only barely 7 years old burdened with caring for her 4-year-old neighbor the teenage girl had taken them -two complete strangers- to live and survive with her. And she would forever be thankful for that so she stayed.And she could only suspect that the rest felt the same.“Thank you so much, guys. I could never explain to you how much that means to me.” The older woman spoke with tears threatening to spill.“You would do the same for us without even thinking,” Minji said suddenly a lot more confident in her decision to stay“We’re all in this together,” Yoohyeon said as she approached their Leader to give her a hug. One by one they all joined in on the hug and a few tears and encouraging words from their Leader they boarded the truck that was parked in front of the building and drove off.
Seoul was only a shadow of its former self. The city that used to be one of the most rapidly expanding cities and the center of South Koreas ever growing economy was now a city in ruins. Not even nature itself seemed to want to reclaim the ruins of her former home. No noise was heard in the “pile of concrete” as Minzy next to hear called it.The skeletons of the ones impressive skyscrapers towered high above them as they got off their truck weapons ready to defend the group against every possible threat.“Wow so this is Seoul?” she heard one of the younger ones in their small group whisper in awe. Her name was Jang Wonyoung as far as she could remember.“A lot has changed,” said Chaerin in a tone that spoke volumes about the deep pain that seemed to plague her at the sight of all their homes in ruins.
They weren’t that far away from their van when they suddenly felt the ground below them start to vibrate. At first, she thought a car was approaching but then she heard them. The monsters were coming. And possibly in higher numbers than ever before.“Run!” she heard Chaerin scream on the top of her lungs as the first black tentacle-like arm broke through the ground trying to grab for Minzy who just swiftly cut it of with her machete while she reached for two of the younger members to lead them back to their vehicle and hopefully to safety.She instinctively reached for Yoohyeon and tried to get her to move towards the van. But her taller friend seemed to be frozen by the sight of one, particularly horrible monster. It looked like it escaped straight out of a child’s nightmare with its deep black body and a creepy smile that seemed to be made of pure dark purple light while it’s gigantic tentacles tried to crush them to death.“Yoohyeon!” she screamed as one of the tentacles missed her by only a few inches which seemed to get her out of her daze.As she ran back to their car as soon as she could she took notice of their Leader’s absence.And when she turned around her heart almost stop to a screeching halt simultaneously as her legs. The creature had grabbed Chaerin by her leg and was now about to smash her into a nearby house.“NO!” she shouted and drew the word she always carried around with her since her 18th birthday and dashed towards the monster. She wouldn’t let that thing kill one of her best friends.But she had to watch in horror as her beloved leader was smashed into the house with such a force that she could basically hear all her bones break from where she was.And that’s when the switch flipped. She suddenly felt such a hot rage flood her systems like she had never before. Suddenly everything was so much more intense and almost more real than before. But instead of wondering why suddenly the city seemed to be ignited by a new glow she stormed towards the monster in blind rage and upon her and the monster touching her vision went white and she fell into a void of content silence.