The Survivors | Taekook [✔]

1

Taehyung crouched behind a clump of bushes. Its tangled branches broke up his view of the morning patrol as it trekked down the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Watching them was sickening. Each one wore a perfectly clean, white hazmat suit. Each one followed the one before it. Each one marched in perfect unison with the rest- right foot forward, left foot forward. Never stumbling. Never stopping. Completely unresponsive to all things other than their patrol's leader.

It was hard to believe they were human.

But they're not. Taehyung told himself. They're not human anymore.

Or maybe it was just easier to convince himself as much. Maybe it was easier to believe that they were dead, never coming back. That they weren't trapped in their own bodies.

The young male waited until they had turned the street corner, disappearing from sight. Their footsteps, which echoed eerily through the empty city, got progressively fainter. The sluggish drowning of sound, until it was only background noise. 

Taehyung prepared to stand up. Suddenly, he sensed movement cross the street. The crouching male froze. Could it be another patrol? Why would they send two so close together? He squinted through the bushes. What he saw was not another patrol, rather a young male with messy, dark brown hair and torn up clothes. The boy slipped quietly behind an abandoned building. 

Taehyung had seen this boy before. After weeks of watching this mysterious other, Taehyung had determined for certain that this was another free willed person, who, like Taehyung himself, had escaped somehow.

Taehyung waited until the boy disappeared from sight to make his own move. Carefully scanning the area around him, he stepped lightly over the shriveled grass and into a jumble of trees. Adjusting himself, he crouched in between its roots and slipped off his backpack. The first food item he saw in it was an orange, which he snatched from his bag's clutches and began peeling back the skin immediately. At first exposure of orange flesh to air, he sank his teeth in, letting juice run down his hands. He devoured the fruit like a ravenous predator, eating its first catch in days. In a matter of seconds, he'd eaten every edible piece, buried the peel, and was wiping his hands on his pants. Safe. 

Or not.

BANG

A force shook the ground. The foul stench of burning asphalt hit Taehyung's nose. Quickly, the male turned to see that one of the explosive traps had been set off. The charred pieces of concrete lay scattered about, along with the burned body of some small animal, which lay to rest a few meters away from the explosion site.

Taehyung cursed as he slid his bag back on, preparing to evacuate the premises. The ones without free will would be arriving shortly. But he glanced back at the road. Thank god for that glance, because in his line of sight he caught a mangled lump in the road. The other boy had been trying to cross the intersection about forty feet away from the explosion site. The impact wasn't enough to kill someone from that distance, but undoubtedly knock them out cold.

Taehyung stared at the boy, who was lying on his side in the middle of the shattered asphalt. He had to do something, right? It wasn't even the poor kid's fault. He might even be the only other person left with free will. Taehyung couldn't just leave him there. He couldn't just let the only other survivor fall into the hands of their tormentors, only to become a soulless face among the crowd of skin and bones.

Taehyung made a decision. He clenched his fists as if he held that decision in his hand, refusing to let it slip, refusing to hesitate. He sprinted over the broken concrete to the boy's side. With no time to lose, he picked the boy up, bridal style, and ran into the woods.