TW: a little more blood and death but we are getting out now!

******
The strain of the stench and the sights in the medical wing wore on the group. They all needed some time to sit down and drink some water, but they didn't want to risk getting cornered by anyone. Enough raiders found their demise in the hands of these researchers and while they might not expect such a large group, Wooyoung rather pushed through now and relaxed once they were safe.

They followed the blood trails guided by Mingi and weren't shy about their noise. Anyone foolish enough to attack would get shredded with bullets, no questions asked. Not everyone in the group had become close, but they didn't wish the grisly demise under those medical supplies on anyone.

With his eyes trained on San's shoulders so he wouldn't look too closely at the beds framing the corridors with corpses, Wooyoung marched on. This place was sterile enough that the fungus didn't settle in, and the electricity worked when they hit a switch to battle the incoming darkness. After everything that happened today, they might need to spend a night to calm down before they searched for Seonghwa's computer. No one could expect such a gruesome scene at this place.

Once more, Wooyoung contemplated San's hand, but both of them had to carry their weapons. He envied Jongho, who hugged Seonghwa to his chest with haunted eyes. If this was how the research to help him got conducted, he didn't want its result.

The bloody tracks led to a series of rooms that had to have been office spaces once. Most of them were locked, and no sound escaped from inside. Only one other set of doors was simply wrung shut by a rusty iron chain. Mingi peered through the rectangular window.

"More researchers," he uttered. Wooyoung tightened his hold around his rifle.

"I see some more corpses that aren't hacked apart yet, but they don't look alive either." He stepped back so Wooyoung could lever his gun. Through the glass, he found the unbothered scientists, busy with their obscene and too used to the sound of fighting and screams nearby to mind today's disruption. If it had become this much of a habit, the lack of reaction was chillingly inhuman.

Wooyoung shot the first one and the sound of the shattering glass had Yunho pluck his lock pick tool from his belt. He kneeled to undo the chain while Wooyoung reloaded. For a split second, the second researcher stared wide-eyed at the barrel of the gun pointing at her. Then her head flung back.

Wooyoung didn't like doing this. Murdering human, he wasn't any better than those proclaimed doctors who also killed without mercy. But the dead flanking the corridors were lost raiders just like their group. If they settled down nearby, they would get ambushed in their sleep to meet the same fate.

No, it was better to kill them. And to put an end to the cruelties they committed in this place of healing. San was the living proof that the cure didn't demand victims.

Wooyoung leaned his gun against his shoulder as they marched inside. White curtains divided sections of the room into makeshift stations and while some were specked with blood, others were relatively untouched. Perhaps the communal space where the patients assembled before "treatment?" This wasn't one of the tormenting chambers, but the patients kept waiting here struggled against their bindings, and fought against the bandages covering fresh wounds.

With pale faces, the group wandered past. Most of these people were infected with primary stages of the fungus. Its splotches were still faint, similar to Jongho's. Although a bunch of them were dead, clipboards tucked to their beds to describe their condition and whether they had chunks bitten out of them from fouls or if the fungus seemed to spread from right at their nerve center without apparent wounds to enter them.

"What the fuck were they doing here?" Yunho uttered once more. They couldn't understand if this was a proper medical analysis or a sickening manifesto. Even if there were things to learn with these methods, how could they lure so many survivors in, only to kill them so cruelly? They all were chained to their beds. No one agreed to this.

"Watching the growth of the fungus, but too many of their patients killed themselves before they could find out more," Yeosang muttered. They passed a person contorted on their bed until their bones were broken and white foam protruded between their lips. Wide and terrified eyes hadn't been put under by obscure medications.

San had nothing to add. His community never went this far to see if they could cut the fungus out of him and keep him alive. If only these people had the antidote that San received. They might have been able to make a change if they found out how it functioned.

Cursing to himself, Wooyoung stuck to Yunho's side. His tall frame obscured the harrowing sights and spent some familiarity where everything else pained Wooyoung's guts as if digging in with sharp claws. He was ready to leave. If any other researchers came their way, he could kill them at their camp. Safety didn't matter if it came at the cost of going insane in this shithole. With those pictures in his mind and this nightmare right in the same building, no matter where they laid down to rest, he wouldn't get a wink of sleep anyway.

The others shared the sentiment. They quickened their pace to leave the room and its suffocating stench of death. This sector was finished and after another corridor, they should be out in the clear. As long as the misery didn't continue on the third floor, but fuck, that was a problem for tomorrow.

With swift steps, they made for the door on the other hand of the hall, ignoring the still bodies and the echo of their unjust and painful deaths. They had come so far, to this place of light and healing, but they would never witness what Seonghwa could do.

Had Jongho and Mingi come alone, this was where their journey might have come to a jarring end.

Yunho already pulled the door open to get them out of that shitty, cold morgue, but a scream had their blood chill in their veins. Yeosang darted left before Wooyoung, so he lifted his rifle to the right. Smoothly, Yunho appeared by his side, ready to defend.

Their trembling surgeon hid behind them as Wooyoung eyed the bathtub that startled him. In a pool of blood and with soaked clothing, a body rested motionlessly. Its limbs sprawled limply over the edges, so Yeosang must have brushed past a hand and startled himself.

"It's fine. We are all on edge," Yunho muttered before Yeosang could apologize. Wooyoung was about to affirm that everyone inside here was dead anyway when his eyes fell on the male's features.

Wide-open, crazed eyes stared back at him.

"Shit!" Wooyoung reached for his handgun, too close to use the rifle. Those eyes weren't empty enough for his taste. Life gleamed behind them, even when it hung on a thread. Only now, he realized the lopsided grin on the man's features. It was upside down on his dangling head but broad enough to chase a shiver down Wooyoung's spine. Blood specked his teeth and gums.

"Don't shoot!" Mingi intervened before Wooyoung got to make sure he stayed down. The trader rushed over to investigate, but the man in the bathtub didn't move. Only his chest stuttered with the occasional breath as he watched them from vacant eyes. Little intelligence flamed behind them.

"He's alive?" San quipped, watching their backs as Yeosang hesitantly slinked back over. He peered over the edge of the tub when Yunho reached in to yank the shirt on the male open.

Wounds marred him over and over. Old and new, red straining against pale scars. They were cuts and nicks, some bruises where he fought against his tormenters. The fingers near Wooyoung's thigh were crooked; broken and never fixed. He was restrained in the tub by his feet, but he didn't look to have the energy to struggle. He only grinned into the room, high on painkillers and anguish.

"He might make it if he has no severe injuries," Yeosang speculated. He ducked closer to examine the man. Pale fingers twitched as if they tried to reach for him, but no strength supported his limbs. Yunho hovered by Yeosang's side, ready to wrestle the patient down if he needed to. When long moments passed and he didn't move apart from the occasional flinch, Yeosang regained his confidence. He tried to be careful with his excessive power as he searched him for injuries.

Distrustful, Wooyoung backed over to Jongho. San found a clipboard next to the tub, but they couldn't read it. While Jongho fumbled to free Seonghwa, everyone was temporarily distracted from all the death behind them.

Perhaps they could save one person. Just one.

Hoping, Wooyoung leaned over. Seonghwa had so many questions, wanted to see what disturbed them so much, but they didn't give him time to stall. Hastily, they offered the medical record.

"We found someone," San presented when Jongho had no voice. "Can you read this for us?"

Seonghwa's screen copied the sheet before him and zoomed in on the lines to show them what he was reciting.

"His name is Kim Hongjoong, 24 years old," he began. Wooyoung glanced over, but he doubted that scrawny guy had been a raider. Perhaps he was sold through shady means by people who owned slaves like Yeosang?

"He entered this place three years ago and has been acting as a blood donor ever since. The facility searched him for antibodies and tested various prototypes on him," Seonghwa continued. He was on edge with them, but they could spare him the sights.

"Poor bastard," Wooyoung muttered. The body in the tub was malnourished and weak, exposed to too many sicknesses. It was a miracle he was alive.

"They wrote he seems to have developed a partial immunity to the fungus, but only so far that it won't infect him, less so than curing him. So it acts as a vaccine." Seonghwa finished. Wooyoung didn't know what that meant, but he didn't have to care. He only wanted to get that battered guy out of his tub.

Yunho fiddled his bindings open, but Yeosang was reluctant to yank him up.

"I don't know if his neck might be broken. He hangs there so eerily," he muttered. It seemed Kim Hongjoong had a somewhat reasonable chance of survival if treated, and there were more than enough bandages here.

"Let's hope for the best," Yunho replied. He wrapped an arm around the narrow body in the tub and pulled it up. Hongjoong dangled in his arm like a rag doll, not fighting back but also not falling apart. He made no noise of pain, but he also didn't try to find his footing.

Wooyoung tugged Yunho's bag from his shoulder so he could carry the motionless patient. The grin was frozen on his features as he noticed something was changing through the veil of the drugs, but he didn't resist. Only a quiet, eerie giggle sounded from behind Yunho. His neck was fine.

Uncaring that he got soaked in blood, Yunho jerked his chin at the door.

"Let's barricade ourselves downstairs and see what we can do for him. I would like to pretend all of this isn't here."

The others couldn't agree more. Mingi went ahead to lead them and they checked the other corridor fleetingly, but it was clean. It must have been the researchers' quarters and, though there might be more around to account for this number of patients, nothing else moved within the facility. Wooyoung could only assume potential others went out to find new ingredients or victims.

Accompanied by Hongjoong's ghostly giggles, they made their way downstairs. Everyone sucked in a deep breath and lowered their masks once they left the harrowing sector behind those curtains. Wooyoung caught up with Seonghwa on the sights so he could understand why they dragged Hongjoong along. Afterward, he handed him back over to talk to Jongho until he returned to his senses.

They picked the cafeteria as their hideout and sealed the doors with furniture and some ropes. When Yunho lowered Hongjoong on the ground so he could find some bandages for him, their patient began squirming. He tried to shove Yunho away with his crackling fingers and raked sharp nails over Mingi's arm when he came to help. His wails were jumbled up, forming no sense or words, and Yeosang stood shell-shocked next to Jongho, who had tears in his eyes.

Somehow, they calmed Hongjoong down without too much force and left him his freedom to curl up. No one ventured too close so he wouldn't feel trapped, but Yunho surveyed him. Though it seemed pointless, they were determined to try saving him.