That split-second felt like an eternity.

As Seokjin fell backwards, Yoongi's scream resonated through the raucous atmosphere into his ears, ringing in the back of his head, pulling him into a myriad of memories, the most unforgettable moments of his life.

Those nine days, the last nine days of his life, the most strenuous nine days of his life was what flicked on in his mind, like a movie out of a projector.

It started with him getting on a bus to Busan, a trip that was meant to be a short one, one that would just blend into the plethora of memories he had, an insignificant one. The people he met on the bus were supposed to be the one in a thousand trivial side characters of that movie he called his life.

But fate had decided something different, something cruel. The trip became a journey between life and death, and six souls he met on the bus became the most important people in his life, of which some of them he only knew for barely two days but left an unfathomable impression in his mind, a deep scar on his heart.

He felt the air against his skin as he slowly moved away from Yoongi's stretched out hand, falling down into an abyss of darkness dotted by recollections, vague but crystal clear at the same time.

Seokjin saw the entire nine days in slow-motion in front of his eyes, the first time he met the ice-cold Min Yoongi, Kim Namjoon with his book, Park Jimin who was going to be a high school teacher, Kim Taehyung with his stupid grin, Jeon Jungkook who cried because of Iron Man's death and Jung Hoseok with his smile that could defeat a sunrise on a beach.

Everyone had imprinted something in Seokjin's mind. They were the last people he knew, the last people he had spent time with, surviving and persisting, through the abomination that was eating the planet alive. Even though they were the people with whom he had spent the smallest amount of time, their faces were the only ones that were sketched out in front of his eyes as death approached him slowly.

Yoongi's cries got farther and farther away as he felt his body thrashing against something hard and tumbling across a wall of bodies which were dead but alive. Pain spread across his body like an electric current, but he didn't care.

Screams and shrieks and rotor blades slicing against the air muffled Yoongi's voice down, but just before the black death wave engulfed him, he caught a glance of Yoongi's eyes, glossy and drained.

Yoongi was going to survive indeed, Seokjin had kept his promise, he felt at peace. Even in the face of death, he felt peaceful. He felt as if he had accomplished something before his end, he felt happy, satisfied.

The excruciating pain of teeth and nails sinking into his skin took over all of a sudden, he screamed in pain but nobody was there to hear. From the side of eyes, he could see that the helicopter had gone far into the skies, taking Yoongi away from him, but into safety.

He wished that he would die soon without having to suffer the pain, but he also wished that his body would become a part of the Earth and not roam about her, as a 'zombie'.

The darkness started taking over like walls closing in on him, suffocating him. He closed his eyes, he felt the pain slowly dim out, the sounds in his ears muffling, he felt peace.

He had reached the end of the tunnel and he could see the light.

All he felt was peace and happiness. No pain, no sorrow, no fear. His mind was serene, still and calm, no thoughts numbed his mind. He was floating, a warm blanket of comfort submerged him, pulling him into a swirl of colourful phosphenes.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his head and his body tumbling to the side onto something warm.

He opened his eyes.

June 25 | DAY 1
09 : 49 pm

'What is happening?' was the only thought running across Seokjin's mind.

He opened his eyes fully, blinked a few times to find himself in silent darkness. That warm feeling of comfort and peace had vanished and he found himself somewhere awfully familiar.

He figured that he was lying down and quickly got up to a sitting position, still blinking his eyes and squinting.

Slowly, his vision became clear and his heart stopped.

He was back on the bus.

Was this an illusion? That he didn't know. He looked around, he was indeed on a bus, the same bus he got on nine days ago to go to Busan, the same bus which led him and his friends to that hellhole.

His friends.

The thought lingered in Seokjin's mind until he whipped his head left to see Min Yoongi quietly sleeping with his head against the cold glass, unbothered.

"What the..."

Seokjin couldn't finish his sentence before he heard a loud snore from his other side. He turned and found Kim Namjoon, snoring peacefully with his book in his lap, snoring like sawing logs.

He looked past Namjoon to find Park Jimin, awake in his seat, staring out of the window at the running trees.

A snivel and sob stopped his heart again as he turned around, to find Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook staring at a phone, with their faces lit up by the illuminated screen.

What was happening? Weren't they dead? Where are the 'zombies'? Wasn't he himself dead? Unless all of this was just a...

Dream?

Seokjin let out a high-pitched cry of excitement. He quickly jumped out of his seat into the aisle turning around to face his friends.

"It was a freakin' dream!", he shouted out in glee, waking both Yoongi and Namjoon up. Jimin, Jungkook and Taehyung looked at Seokjin baffled, their eyes wide as they can go. Even the lady in the red stared at him in utter bewilderment as Seokjin started laughing hysterically at the top of his voice.

The entire bus shook awake at Seokjin's shouts of enthusiasm, somebody in the front yelling at him to stop.

Seokjin suddenly realised that his sudden bursts of happiness could be taken as signs of mental instability by the others, so made himself stop his actions and sit back down, his enthusiasm still not dying.

"Dude, you okay?", Namjoon queried as soon as Seokjin sat down, he looked worried.

"Yeah I- I'm okay. I'm...I'm amazing. Oh my God.", Seokjin blurted out happily like a child high on sugar.

Yoongi on his side looked plain scared, like as if Seokjin would suddenly pull out a dagger from his backpack and kill everybody.

Seokjin noticed it and consoled him.

"I- I just had a dream. It's nothin'."

Seokjin still couldn't keep himself from smiling like an idiot. He noticed a few pairs of eyes fixed on him from different directions but he couldn't care less, he was alive. His friends were alive and that too without even a scratch. Even though he never knew them in real life, he felt happy that they were not 'zombies'.

Jimin stared at Seokjin as if he had a fish plastered to his face, so did Taehyung and Jungkook.

"Hyung, you alright?", Taehyung asked tapping on Seokjin's shoulders to which Seokjin nodded. He had calmed down after that momentary explosion of joy, he sat there breathing in and out to set his heartbeat back to normal.

As he inhaled and exhaled, he felt hints of that feeling from his dream slowly creeping up his spine, demolishing all his excitement slowly. His eyebrows furrowed as he sighed deeply, trying to forget about it but something kept on nudging him.

Wasn't all of this too familiar?

He looked outside, not a single streetlight had been lit. It looked darker than dark. He looked back inside and his breath quickened. He suddenly took out his phone and checked it.

No cell service.

The feeling had now rooted in his mind, he hated it and tried to console himself by thinking that this was all a coincidence. He laid back into his seat and closed his eyes, but something made his eyes shoot back open.

Jung Hoseok.

Or that man with the purple highlights, whom he had met in his dreams but never in real life. Was that even his real name? He didn't know.

Realisation dawned on him as he quickly shuffled out of his seat and scurried to the front of the bus, catching both Yoongi's and Namjoon's eyes again. They shared a worried glance after Seokjin left.

Seokjin reached the seat where the purple highlighted man was supposedly sitting in his dream, to find it empty. A sigh fell from his lungs, it was all just a coincidence.

Suddenly, Seokjin felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, that's my seat actually. I had just gone to the-", a voice spoke from behind as the bus suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

Seokjin turned around to see the owner of the voice, his face was not clear due to the darkness.

"Oh I'm sorry, I was just-"

The driver-side door clicked open.

Both Seokjin and the man looked towards the front and turned back to face each other again.

"Anyway...", Seokjin started, clearing his voice. "I'm Kim Seokjin. What's your name?"

He stuck out his hand in front as always, but he couldn't bring himself to smile.

Another sound of feet shuffling suggested that the driver got out of the bus.

Seokjin looked to the front again but suddenly turned back when the man in front of him clutched his hand tightly with his own.

"Oh... hi!", he smiled like the sun, his teeth shimmering due to an illuminated phone screen behind them, Seokjin's heart beating out of his chest.

"I'm Jung Hoseok. Cameraman."

The End