Kim Yera's P.O.V

"We have to go after them," Seokjin said, his resolution strong almost as if he had a supernatural inkling as to where they might have gone. The road was nearly empty as the thugs either collected themselves or ran off solo. Which left the three of them stranded on the abandoned highway with nothing but a few half-empty magazines and a pathetic-looking vehicle on the side of the road.

The fight was over.

With the opposing side's leaders gone, the thuggish group had practically dissipated.

Yera couldn't help but dwell on the meaningless and utter waste of time the fight offered. Why had they even ended up fighting this group? And now they had to face the consequences; losing fifty percent of their gang.

"Slow down, hyung. We don't even know which direction they're headed in..." before Taehyung could even finish, Seokjin was already in gear making his way over to a lonely Nissan, dressed in scrap metal. Yera figured it was makeshift protection from the infected.

Now that she was thinking about it, considering the kind of ruckus the fight made, one would assume that it was more than enough to draw the attention of a large horde of infected. It was a hard-learned fact, that most of the infected roamed around in groups on the highway due to its popularity as a quick escape out of town as fast as possible. Seemed that anyone who knew of the infection had the same idea, the highway was the way to go.

Ironically too, so did the infected...

And just like that, Yera could make out the faint skid marks of burnt tires on the road going in the opposite direction of town, the direction they were initially headed before they were ambushed. She then looked back to where they were coming from and sighed. They were never going back, were they?

Just as she was about to turn away, something caught her eye.

A black mass blocked the road in the distance.

Yera squinted against the sun as she tried to make out its shape.

Was it the exhaustion catching up to her, or was the mass getting bigger with each passing second?

"What the hell?" she mumbled, catching Taehyung's attention who was in the middle of reasoning with the older boy who was deadset on turning that poor Nissan into a Formula 1 racecar to go after the other jeeps. Considering Seokjin's bizarre preference for driving like his ass was on fire if he ever got a turn at the wheel, it was a completely realistic scenario. As to how far the Nissan could keep up with Seokjin was a different matter.

Taehyung turned to Yera, noticing her concentrated stare, he followed her line of vision and furrowed his brows when the sinister-looking blob came into view.

What the hell indeed.

"Hyung.." Seokjin shrugged the younger boy's hand off of him as he tried to pry the handle of the car open.

"Fuck!" he gruffed out as he rubbed his palms together and yanked at the handle again, "It's like some idiot superglued this thing", his face turned red as he pulled with all his might. But to no avail, he lost grip and stumbled back a bit, panting.

"Hyung!" Taehyung's voice had suddenly grown panicked in a matter of seconds. Seokjin whipped his head around towards him with a look of annoyance but was silenced when he noticed the boy's nervousness.

Without an ounce of hesitation, he turned to look in the direction both Yera and Taehyung were fixated on.

It took four words.

Four words for everyone to grab at a handle and begin yanking.

"Get in the car.."

Whatever it was that was blocking the road.

It was getting bigger, which meant closer.

If they had learned anything within the course of events that had unfolded in the two weeks they had known each other, it was that anything that seemed out of the ordinary deserved a "fuck no" response.

Everything was fight or flight now, this right here was a definite flight moment.

The air was eerily quiet, except for the rattling of the Nissan's damned handles. The stillness on the road made it harder for them to think straight as their bodies buzzed with pure unbridled adrenaline at the thought of the black mass reaching them. Yera risked a quick glance at the mass and felt her stomach dropping like it had never before. Whatever it was had gotten so close she could now clearly make it out.

The revelation was worse than just treating it like a menacing black blob.

Her pulling at the handles grew frantic, losing any sort of rhythm as the act became completely chaotic.

"SEOKJIN!" Yera's voice grew shrill as she called out his name almost like a warning.

Both boys looked up mid-battle with the unforgiving Nissan, never once ceasing to yank at the door.

It couldn't be..

How?

How had it survived?

Yera's mind was lassoed back to the present with the sound of glass shattering, echoing along the stretch of the road.

The thumping of its limbs against the tarmac blended with the crash of glass on the floor, almost symbolizing a song of death in Yera's ears.

Yera focused on the door...

Seokjin's elbow was now inside the car covered in shards of the shattered window. He reached inside and unlocked the door, swinging it open and throwing himself inside into the driver's seat.

All of a sudden Taehyung, who was on the other side of the car, was beside Yera, grabbing hold of her arm and dragging her over to the open door. In a matter of mere seconds, all three of them were inside of the car as Seokjin desperately coaxed the engine to life.

Taehyung slammed the door shut and turned around to check on Yera who had gone as quiet as a mouse. The girl was a shivering mess as her eyes stayed locked on the figure closing in.

The engine roared to life, eliciting a ring of celebratory curses from Seokjin who struck the wheel hard with relief.

"OH FUCK- SEOKJIN MOVE!" Yera shrieked from the back as she dove into the space between the front and back seat and shielded her head from the window, almost as if bracing for impact.

Seokjin was thrown into autopilot.

With one hand on the wheel, Seokjin grabbed onto the gear, wrenched it back, and slammed his foot on the gas with such force, that the car jolted forward, its tires screeching as it skid against the rough road, tendrils of smoke spreading out from under the wheel.

Taehyung held onto the ceiling handle for dear life, his legs taught on the dashboard, absolutely atrocious profanities escaping his lips like a prayer.

Just as Seokjin let go of the brakes, like a slingshot, the Nissan flew forward, barely missing the large arm that battered the very spot they were parked.

A piercing roar cut through the air, discouraging any possible acknowledgment of victory, primal and guttural, the sound reverberated louder than the Nissan's engine, instilling a feeling of pure fear within the trio. It was clear that the sound had a traumatic impact on them, so much so that the hairs on their arms stood up at attention even as they drove away from it.

Seokjin glanced at the rearview mirror and refocused his concentration on the road.

His jaw clenched.

"What? What is it?" Taehyung's panic-stricken voice alerted Yera as she looked up from her huddled position.

Taehyung angled his body in one quick motion out the window, still holding onto the ceiling handle as he tried to catch a glimpse of what Seokjin had seen.

"OH SHIT-" Taehyung instantly recoiled from the window, his body instinctively withdrawing as if he were ducking away from something just in time.

At that very second a massive tree sailed over the Nissan, its branches thrashing against the wind wildly as it hurtled in front of the car before crashing into the ground with a splintering boom.

Taehyung whipped his head over to Seokjin with a look of absolute horror.

"IT'S THROWING FUCKING TREES, JAVELINE STYLE-" the boy was barely able to get the sentence out before his entire body was thrown to the side of the vehicle as Seokjin wrenched the wheel to a hard left.

The tires screeched in protest as the car swerved a sharp left, narrowly missing the fallen tree.

"It's following us!" Seokjin yelled over the noise as another tree, slightly smaller this time, soared right past the driver's side, battering the side view mirror in the process. Shards of glass were sent flying in every direction, causing the boy to dodge to the right side of the car on instinct, whilst still holding on to the wheel, jostling the car in that direction as a result.

"HYUNG, DRIVE STRAIGHT"

"I'M TRYING HERE" Seokjin roared back angrily, stressed out of his mind as he desperately tried to avoid the trees hurtling towards them in that moment. The sound of its bitter screeching only elevated the danger of the situation as it meant that there was barely any distance between them and the creature.

It was gaining up on them.

Wasn't that the only reason they were able to escape the warehouse?

Because it couldn't run?

But now it suddenly could?

Was this it?

Would they be able to escape with their lives before this car possibly ran out of gas?

Was there enough gas?

These questions swam around chaotically in Seokjin's mind as he alternated between looking at the rearview mirror and the road ahead of them.

"Incoming!" Taehyung announced, tightening his grip on the handle.

"I'm going to hurl.." Yera quietly mumbled in the back.