A faded breeze carried sand across the bare concrete of the decrepit building. The rough grains wore it down with time, stripping it down to its skeleton of rusty metal cords. They lay bare where the walls crumbled, poking like ribs from a mass of flesh.

Wooyoung sat with his back to the empty window frame, blocking off the vicious bite of the sand on his dry skin. His gloved fingers fumbled through a dirty box, bending the thin plastic to expose its contents. The sound of his rustling seemed obnoxiously loud in the otherwise desolate surroundings. He prayed it wouldn't alert the fouls from their slumber and kept his ears strained.

The crate finally gave under his yanking. Quickly, he looted the contents. Later was enough time to figure out what was worth keeping. When his fingers closed around a bottle of water, delight rushed through his chest, momentarily distracting him. He buried the treasure in the folds of his worn jacket and stuffed the rest in his bag.

Metal groaned to his right. It bore the burden of the desert swallowing the building with every passing day. Wooyoung glanced its way at the wrong time.

A shadow moved to his left, dancing past the crumbled window. Wooyoung's hand flew to his gun holster at the same moment he twirled to his feet.

The nozzle of his gun stared at a tall man, and hands lifted in defense. A meek smile spread across his lips.

"Sorry 'bout that," he grinned. With a huff, Wooyoung took the gun down and crouched to pick up his bag. He dusted the sand off it - a fruitless habit - and jammed the gun back against his thigh.

"One of these days I will pull the trigger by accident and your feed the coyotes with your naïve brain matter," Wooyoung muttered. Yunho accompanied him outside into the perpetual gloom of the wasteland. The skies were brown to match the jagged cliffs that rose against the far horizon like a giant maw ready to swallow the sandy plains.

"I wouldn't want to die by anyone else's hand. I know you'd make it quick." Yunho's voice was light, easing the tension that wrapped around Wooyoung's heart like barbed wire. Safe by the tall man's side, he rolled the strain out of his shoulders. It wasn't night yet, and they hadn't stirred up any animals or fouls. Nimble steps brought them back into the desert, hunting down the other building nearby.

"Say it like that and I will come up with torment specifically for trying me. What did you find?" Wooyoung diverted the topic with a peek at Yunho's bag. His dark-haired companion shook his head.

"Just some rags and documents, nothing of worth. You didn't want to build a camp there?"

Shivering at the lonesome view across the barren land, Wooyoung shook his head. It was the same everywhere. It always had been. The world was empty apart from its hungry creachers and the occasional madman dumb enough to strive for survival.

"The second level didn't seem stable." And they both knew better than to sleep on the ground where the scavengers of the night could find them.

Yunho pondered the other building. This one was taller, a whole four stories high. Neither could tell what it was before the nuclear holocaust, but it must have been important. When they spotted it in the distance, they shared their hopes that it might have been a hospital or a grocery store. Though crooked with time and tilting into the sand, it towered proudly in the empty landscape.

They picked that one to go to last. It would make a decent camp for the night, but its size and position might have caught the interest of others.

"That one seems about right. It will get us through a night unless it crawls with fouls." Another survivor, they could barter with. But not the brain-dead, ravenous leftovers of the human race.

Yunho and Wooyoung traveled from the other end of the desert. They made their way across, hoping to find a permanent base, but little was permanent in this world. The sand swallowed everything that didn't crumble to ruins already and the fouls found the trace of everything living. Unless fortified into a castle, no home was permanent, and quickly ran out of supplies. The pair made it work for a long time, but they always moved on. Now, on new turf, they were trying to find a semblance of safety. But it wasn't out here, as far as the plains could see. They made easy prey. Yunho preferred the shelter of a forest.

This would be enough for tonight. Wooyoung equipped himself with his lighter and his knife, not wanting the noise of gunshots to bounce from these walls and alert others. This building was largely intact, though the tilted entrance hall was loaded with sand. All windows were shattered, but the concrete walls cast cool shadows over the corners.

Yunho stuck behind Wooyoung, watching his back as they scaled the stairs. Sand crunched under their heavy boots and made it hard to climb the tilted steps. Up in the second story, they swarmed out left and right.

Naked concrete engulfed them, all decoration eaten up by insects and age. Some plastics remained, useless technology that Wooyoung didn't know the purpose of. He opened one of those white cabinets that stood out in every building. Sometimes, precious food remained there in sealed containers. Wooyoung was lucky to find a can of peas and some cookies.

He racked the other cabinets and attempted the faucet. They never ran, but he never gave up his curiosity. It had become a running gag ever since he and Yunho learned they were supposed to spit flowing water at a hand's touch.

Water was most scarce. One could hunt animals and one could find safe plants to eat, but the water was gone. When the holocaust shook the earth to its core, gravity shifted. All water gathered in the air, trapped under the perpetual smog that parted them from the beyond. Wooyoung's parents owned a book that told the most bizarre of stories. Of water resting on the ground and of a yellow orb of warmth and a sky full of dots. The world before had been a marvel, but Wooyoung never got to see it. He grew up where the water floated and the dust clouds were their daily weather. Though he liked to imagine what had been once, there was no use for sentimentalities. The reality was that they needed water and that no stories about it flowing upon command could will it into existence.

Wooyoung explored the next room. Papers and chairs were strewn about under a thin layer of sand. The air was dry enough that no mold climbed the corners. Perhaps people worked here once and wrote reports about the world that ended. Wooyoung couldn't imagine so many people in one place to fill all those chairs.

His boot dragged through the sand, launched it aside to find treasures buried below. By routine, he glanced outside the window when he passed. No stumbling figures. It wasn't dark enough yet for the coyotes to come out either.

"Ah-ha!" He heard from the other room. Giving up the broken plastic chairs, Wooyoung jogged over to find Yunho. Behind the splinters of a massive table, his companion kneeled on the ground. Long fingers fiddled with a lock of solid steel.

"Death, look, it's one of these things!" Yunho cheered, giddy like a child. He turned the little wheel marked by numbers, clueless as he tried everything out.

They saw a lot of those cabinets around. Most of them resisted the blast and withstood the force of nature. Though they always took a while to open, they held rare treasures, like weapons or ammunition. Some were stacked with useless flimsy notes with numbers printed on them, but they didn't even make good material for a fire. Wooyoung understood them as something worthy enough to get locked up in the old world, but he had no use for them. Only weapons must have been just as scarce.

Yunho fell into a frown when he concentrated, contorting his usually so merry face. While he was busy, Wooyoung weeded through the other rooms. He was halfway through the next floor when a hoot of triumph traveled up to him. He chuckled under his breath.

"Don't invite the fouls to our party," he scolded Yunho as he came jumping up the stairs. His long legs were swifter than Wooyoung's and he trailed sand behind him. The blinding smile on his lips softened Wooyoung's fond heart.

"They could get a first taste of this," he offered as he held out his finds to Wooyoung. Ammunition and another handgun, perfect. Both of them had one, but it was always good to carry a reserve. They quickly learned that there were many more gun types than they could fathom, so many ammunition finds went unused.

"Lucky guy," Wooyoung huffed as Yunho stored the gun in his bag and handed Wooyoung another round of bullets. Though they used their guns sparsely so as not to run empty, the feeling was always a relief. A couple more days of safety secured.

No fouls crossed their paths. The walls weren't dark and wet enough to lure them in, the building too airy. Wooyoung and Yunho ransacked through the other shelves. They found several bottles of disinfection gel, a pack of wipes, and another can of food. It was the best haul they had in weeks.

"Such decadence," Yunho noted as they finished on the third floor. They didn't dare go up on the roof, scared the sand covering its slant would make for a deathly trap. Instead, they huddled into a room with only one entrance, perching in a corner so they could keep an eye on the open entrance. Few predators would put up with the stairs to get to prey, so it was the safest hideout they could wish for.

It wasn't so cold that they needed a fire. The bleak dust cloud had its perks. Wooyoung didn't know why it was there and what science kept it from lifting. The world he grew up in had always been that way. There were no records to explain what happened a hundred years ago when humanity wiped itself out. Though survival wasn't as easy as some books that made it through the holocaust depicted it to be, it could be learned. Avoid the mushrooms, avoid anything trying to eat you. Find food, move on. People did it for enough years that it became instinctive.

Wooyoung and Yunho shared some of their rations and relished the cookies. Though they were stale with age, they lit a spark in Yunho's eyes. He liked sweets, so Wooyoung let him have another.

Afterward, Wooyoung spread out their jackets on the ground. Yunho fastened their bell string on the railing next to the staircase, the only way up to them. Once it alerted them, they would have enough time to aim their weapons.

Yunho stretched out behind Wooyoung with a huff. He adjusted to fit into the corner and made sure his gun was close for quick snatching. Then, he wrapped an arm around Wooyoung. His larger body was warm and lean with the strength of survival. When he buried his nose in Wooyoung's overgrown black hair, Wooyoung's lashes fluttered. They made it through another day.

Unwinding since there was nothing to fear right now, Wooyoung unraveled under the addictive blanket of safety. He turned his head and caught Yunho's eyes in the dim of the evening.

"Good work today," he muttered, tongue already heavy with sleep. Yunho leaned over him and the next moment, their lips found each other in a kiss of praise. They shared that relief and the warmth of life; a reminder that they were still here.

Wooyoung's head emptied to the soft clicks of their mouths. He turned in Yunho's arms to ease the strain on his neck and Yunho tasted of the cookies when their lips parted. With a sigh, Wooyoung let his head sink against Yunho's shoulder. They embraced each other, safe as long as they stuck together.

Wooyoung's boyfriend yawned before he curled around Wooyoung to hold him in the way he held him almost every night for the past eight years. Stifled against his chest was the safest of darknesses that assured Wooyoung it was okay to close his eyes and rest until the next day dawned.