Death's Door

Chapter One

SNAP! The small sound was all I needed to hear, I tightened my grip on the shotgun in my hand. My eyes scanned the surrounding area, the tall unmoving pines and still landscape, trying to find where the noise had come from. Slowly I stood up, making sure I kept my back to the tree so nothing could sneak up on me. "Tae...wake up..." I said well kicking his sleeping body softly with my foot. "Huh? What is it?" He said sitting up quickly, "I heard a something snap...we really shouldn't have camped out in the open like this it isn't safe..." I whisper-yelled at him well keeping my eyes focused ahead of the gun in my hands. "Alex, come on I'm sure it's nothing..." He said calmly, yet he still reached for the gun laid next to him, brushing off the fallen pine needles. "They said that about the water to ya know, and look what happened." I stated through gritted teeth. The water crisis that started all of this, that killed billions...that killed my family...and Taehyung's too. "Besides the sun will be up in two hours anyway, we should get a move on." He simply sighed, nodding his head, and started to gather up our supplies. This water crisis had started all of this, and had changed us both, and everyone, for the worse. It had started with a simple lack of rain, not just here in America, but all over the world. It was surreal, a global drought had never been heard of before, worldwide panic spread as clean water started to diminish. Then, as if things couldn't get any worse, people started getting sick and dying. The water had become contaminated from the disease and the disease increased with the lack of clean water. People dropped dead, water and food disappeared, and along with it the safety of those still left alive. People turned against each other, few were left, it'd be rare to see people and when one did they turned and ran for their life hoping they weren't seen. Taehyung was different though, he was starving when he came across me, searching through a destroyed gas station in hopes of finding extra supplies. Instead of avoiding me, he walked straight up to me, and put his hands up when I had spun to face him, gun pointed straight for his heart. "No harm, help please." He asked in broken English. He was from Korea, as I later discovered. I helped him, which was a surprise to even myself as I would usually have shot him down the second I laid eyes on him. I gave him some food and a few sips of clean water, and we eventually decided to team up, two brains are better then one even if it did come at the price of another mouth to feed. Before all of this had happened, I was the average high school student. The one chick that hung out with all the weird conspiracy nerds and somehow still managed to have good grades, looks, according to Taehyung, and I was a great fighter according to my friends. Taehyung on the other hand had been famous, he was in a group called BTS, a Korean pop group, they were on tour in America when all hell broke loose. Sense then we had become close friends, considering the circumstances, he had taught me some basic Korean and I had taught him some basic English. He kept me holding on, smiling, not becoming evil and corrupt like most of the people still alive. We had both made it out with our minds, and all our limbs, and were determined to keep each other that way. To him I was like a badass survivalist who needed to be kept sane, and to me he was a man-child, and also a reason to keep living through all of this, a true happiness in this hellhole. "So, we gotta keep heading north, there's a town a 15 miles ahead we can probably reach by nightfall." His soft accent interrupted my thoughts. "Yeah we should be able to find some supplies there to." I finished with a nod, throwing on my backpack, gun still tightly in one hand, compass in the other leading the way North.
He simply smiled at the back of my small figure, it still surprised him how tough I was and how I could easily fend for myself even though I looked harmless. Most the stuff I knew though came from years of petty fights and survivalist tv shows. He chuckled softly as he took long strides to catch up with me, once beside me he threw is arm around me and started singing in silly voices. I just laughed as a smile spread across my face. He's the best thing that had happened to me in a long time, if anything in this dark world could make me smile it was him. I slid my gun into its holster around my waist and took his hand off me, only to interlock our fingers and sang along. We both disappeared farther into the woods, farther north, oblivious to the dark figure trailing far behind. This time, careful not to step on any sticks.
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A/N: im also posting this on tumblr (@/mingrasschoi) n idk how often Ima post these but Ima try n keep them somewhat regularly