Chapter Text
The world is dead. Drained of oxygen, hot and toxin filled. The ground can’t produce, can’t grow and heal due to the heat and the aethers that suck life from the very ground. Those of influence live in the sky, draining their home planet of the oxygen it needs to regrow. Those considered expendable, unimportant, were left to die. And many did.
The few that survive live every day in fear of the future. They live in closed communities inside buildings that can be sealed from the outside, preserving oxygen for a time and keeping the toxic air out. Most choose to give up, to accept their fates and let the toxins take their lives rather than waiting to suffocate, to starve, or to dehydrate to the point of death. His parents chose that route, they gave up on their planet, their hope, their son.
He doesn’t though. He can’t bring himself to give up, not when he is so young, not when there is so much he could try before giving in. He fights, he finds stores of food and water prepared by the fearful and left by the hopeless. He makes a map, marking each store that he finds, as he carefully makes his way towards the nearest aether.
He was not sure what drew him towards the aether. He knew it would only be more dangerous where the armed guards patrolled and shot indiscriminately. Perhaps he thought there would be less people hiding there, (perhaps he thought there would be more).
It turns out that he isn’t the only one drawn to this location, but he is the only one with means to survive.
The first he finds is a boy much younger than him. He’s wandering the ground floor of a large business center when he hears the sound of choked gasping and a body hitting the ground. He turns the corner into the building's front lobby to see a thin boy writhing on the ground. He runs to him immediately, and quickly drops down beside him. He hisses as he places he can feel the heat radiating from the boy’s body before even placing a hand on his head.
“Hey there, gods you’re burning up.” The boy whines, possibly in reaction to his words though he doesn’t think the boy has many wits about him in this state. “I’m Daeyeol, I’m going to help you, okay? When did you last have water? Can you drink?” He tries to prompt the boy to drink from his bottle, but the boy shakes his head.
Daeyeol thinks for a moment, he had already found a room that he thought would be a good place to crash - a small heath care center with a couch, some beds, and hopefully some still functional medical equipment. He saw cloths there, he could wet one and try to cool the boy down.
“Alright, come on.” He hefts the boy up, slinging one of his arms over his shoulder. It’s a slow walk but he gets them to the room and lays the boy on the couch before grabbing a rag and pouring water on it, very careful not to waste anything. He places the rag on the boy’s forehead but knows it won’t be enough, not even close.
“You really need to drink.” He tries again to coerce water into the boy’s mouth, but the little bit he can get to drip into his throat is coughed up as if he can’t figure out how to swallow. He shakes his head, he has no clue how to force the boy to drink without choking him. “Okay, no water, but I’m going to wet your shirt, try and cool you off a bit.”
He does so, using just enough water to permeate the front of the boy’s shirt. He figures that he had found plenty of water to sustain him for more than a year, two people for just a little less, so using some of the water to try and save the boy is a no-brainer. As he works to cool the boy down, thoughts of hope flood his mind. He had accepted a quiet, lonely life when he chose not to give in - he had never considered finding anyone to spend his days with. But in finding this boy he also found hope he didn’t know he needed, a hope that has him desperate to save the boy. He looks around the room for anything that could help but nothing stands out to him. He leaves the room, searches a few more, and comes across a few IV setups that still look to be in good shape.
“That works.” He mutters as he grabs one and rushes back to the room. He has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s seen doctors do it to his grandmother, how hard can it be? Find a vein, drip water into it. That’s how it works, right? When he gets back the boy doesn’t seem any better. His shirt and the rag on his forehead are already hot. Daeyeol wets both again before filling the IV bag with water and taking the needle in his hands. “I’m sorry kid, this is probably going to hurt. But it’ll help, I promise.”
He takes the boy’s arm and looks in the crook of his elbow for signs of a vein. He’s relieved that the boy’s veins are prominent and takes a deep breath to steady himself. He carefully sticks the needle in, angling it like he saw the doctors do so it would hopefully stay in the vein. “I’ll probably kill you if this doesn’t work.” He mutters as he turns on the IV to a light flow. He doesn’t see anything around the needle site to worry him, though of course there’s very little he’d know to be worried about. He continues to wet the cloth and the boy’s shirt while waiting to see if the IV would have any effect. About an hour later the boy stirs again and Daeyeol sighs as he feels that his skin has cooled, even if just a little.
“Hey there, can you talk to me?” Daeyeol asks as the boy blinks his eyes slowly, seeming very disoriented.
“ Wher-ow .” He coughs as he tries to talk, his voice raspy and dry.
“Okay maybe don’t talk. Can you try drinking some water for me?” The boy nods and Daeyeol holds a bottle to his lips, only tipping it enough for slow drops to enter the boy’s mouth, giving him time to wet his dry throat. As the boy’s throat wets he becomes greedy, trying to gulp water down quickly but Daeyeol stops him, pulling the bottle away and making the boy frown. “Slowly, kid, you’re so dehydrated that you’ll get sick if you drink too much.”
“So thirsty...” He rasps out, and Daeyeol’s heart aches for the kid.
“You can have more in a few minutes, we don’t want you to throw it up and waste it, right?” The boy nods and Daeyeol smiles kindly at him. “I don’t know if you could hear when I introduced myself. I’m Daeyeol.”
“Bomin.” His voice shocks Daeyeol as it is extremely deep, not matching his face, and Daeyeol is sure now that it’s not just because of his dry throat.
“Good to meet you, Bomin.”
“Thank you, for helping me. I really thought I was done for.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be nice to have company around here.” Deayeol almost shocks himself at how desperately he means it. Bomin, too tired to pick up on the emotion, just nods and sighs, his eyes drooping. Daeyeol checks his temperature and is happy to find it still decreasing.
“I don’t know how much I can give you in an IV… let’s wait a bit before doing more. I’m going to go explore, see if there’s anyone else.”
“Okay hyung” Bomin’s response is quiet as he’s already drifting to sleep, but it makes Daeyeol’s heart glow and hurt at the same time. How long has this boy been alone that he so quickly calls someone hyung? How is he still able to so easily trust someone? He shakes off the thought as he pats Bomin on the shoulder and leaves the room. If Bomin was here, there could easily be more, and he wanted to find them if there was.
It takes him all day and half the night but he eventually sweeps the entire building. He finds 8 more boys throughout his recon. Some alone like Bomin, others with friends. Some were worse off than others, all at different stages of starvation and dehydration. He takes each one back to the care center, helps them however he can, carefully asks for and remembers everyone’s name. By the end of the night Daeyeol is out of water and very tired.
“You should sleep, you’ve done a lot.” Sungyoon, who is the closest to Deayeol’s age, suggests when he has to catch the older boy before he can fall flat on his face out of exhaustion.
“No, we need more water. I know where to get it.”
“Everyone will be fine for a few hours, no one has the energy to go out for water yet, least of all you.”
“Bu-”
“No. Get some rest. I promise I’ll wake you if anyone needs anything.”
So he sits down and sleeps right there on the floor, the couch and both beds being taken by Bomin, Jibeom, and Youngtaek who had been the worst off. He falls asleep quick and hard, not needing any comforts when he’s this tired. He is extremely disoriented when he wakes only three hours later to someone shaking his shoulder.
“Wha- who- who are you?!” He lashes out at the person shaking him before he remembers the long day before and all the boys he had found and gathered together. As his mind clears he recognizes that it was Bomin who had shaken him and he instantly feels bad when seeing the shock and sadness on Bomin’s face.
“Oh, Bomin, I’m so sorry.” He stands, groaning as his muscles protest use. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah it’s Jibeom, hyung, he’s throwing up a lot. Sungyoon hyung took him to a restroom.” Daeyeol nods, understanding the worry.
“And you? How are you feeling?” He asks as he places a hand on the boy’s forehead, pleased to find it a healthy temperature.
“Much better.” Bomin smiles softly and laughs when Deayeol returns the smile and musses his hair.
“Good. We need to get more water. Jibeom needs an IV and we can’t do that without water.” He looks around the room, quickly checking on the rest of the boys. He’s unsurprised to see several sleeping, and is happy to see Seungmin and Joochan awake and laughing as they get to know each other. “You two, how are you feeling?”
“Hungry, but good.” Seungmin responds with a shrug and a chuckle.
“It’s amazing what a little water does.” Joochan laughs with a very airy tone he finds contagious. The boys had been so lifeless mere hours ago, it’s heartening to see them so lively.
“You know, humans can survive weeks without food, but only a few days without water.” Bomin says, brows furrowed seriously, and everyone nods.
“Alright, I need some help. I know where to get water from, is anyone up to going with me? The more who goes, the more we can carry back.” Seungmin and Joochan both stand from the chairs they were in.
“I can go.”
“I feel fine.”
“I can go hyung.”
“No, Bomin, you’re going to stay. I don’t want you to start fevering again and have to carry you back.” His voice is firm even with Bomin’s pout. “Do you know where Sungyoon took Jibeom?”
“Yeah.”
“Go tell him that we’ll be back with water in an hour.”
“Yes hyung.” Bomin’s voice is bright as he is given something to do. He heads out as Daeyeol instructs the other two to grab whatever they can find that they think would be easy enough to carry water bottles in.
It takes a little longer than he expects to get to the closest store of water because of the need to find buildings close enough together to get from one to the other without having to breathe in any toxic air. Seungmin and Joochan are also slower than he hopes but he can’t blame them for that, he wouldn’t have asked them for help until they were more hydrated but with nothing to hydrate with he had no choice. When they return just over two hours later everyone looks extremely concerned and Bomin rushes to them to hug Daeyeol even before he sets down the water he was carrying.
“We thought you were lost or something.”
“Sorry, just a slower trip than I expected, we’re fine.” Daeyeol pats Bomin’s back and then moves further into the room. He can see Jibeom laying still on the closest bed, Sungyoon asleep next to him on the floor. “How is he?”
“He passed out in the bathroom not long after you left, Sungyoon brought him back… he won’t wake up.” It’s clear that Bomin is very worried and Daeyeol again thinks about how quickly this boy cares for people.
He walks over to the bunk bed, pulling an IV stand that they had prepared over and filling it with water. Sungyoon startles awake at the noise.
“Hey, you’re back!”
“Yeah, I’m going to start an IV for Jibeom, like I did with Bomin… hopefully I can get it right twice.”
“Do you want help?” Youngtaek asks from the other bed, starting to get up.
“Can you help?”
“Yeah I’m feeling okay, though if I could get a sip of water first that’d be nice.”
“No I mean, do you know how to start an IV?”
“Oh, yeah, I am… I was a nursing student, I got pretty good at IV’s.”
“Thank goodness, I would much rather not have to do that ever again. I got lucky with Bomin.” Daeyeol sighs, handing Youngtaek a bottle of water. He’s prepared to remind Youngtaek to drink slowly like he has to the rest of the boys, but the younger is careful and not greedy with the water, only taking a small drink before handing it back.
“Yeah, you got really lucky.” Youngtaek laughs as he kneels next to the bed and swiftly, properly, inserts the IV while Daeyeol and Sungyoon watch with admiration on their faces. “Done. This much water over two hours should help, so we can set it at this drip rate.”
“Sure, whatever you say.” Daeyeol chuckles, happy that they have someone knowledgeable about healthcare things in their newly formed group.
Over the next few weeks the boys all regain their health, get to know each other, and set to work securing the business center as a long-term place to stay. They move from the health care center to a more hidden and defensible basement room they suspect had once been for overnight guards due to the lockers and bunk beds. They learn that Seungmin is a good tinkerer, Jibeom is skilled with technology, and Joochan and Donghyun make very good scavengers. Everyone is dedicated, hardworking, and eager to help build a life for their newly found family. Daeyeol teaches them how to make safe runs for food and water and shows them all the store locations. They are careful to ration the food and water that they find knowing that there is a very finite quantity.
Daeyeol hopes they will be able to find more stores of food left by the hopeless, but over the weeks they only find two small stashes, not nearly enough to prolong the inevitable any significant amount of time.
“Hyung, look here.” Jaehyun points to a pad of paper and calculation he’s been working on. Daeyeol groans when he sees the number.
“That’s it? Where’d we lose two months?”
“The store you sent Sungyoon, Joochan, and Donghyun to yesterday had been raided already, they only brought back about a tenth of what you thought was there - and the nutritional value is not very helpful.”
“And what are these?” He points to numbers kept separate from the ration list.
“Expected loss.”
“For?”
“If something goes too rotten to eat, or bugs somehow get in something, or someone gets sick and needs a little more than their ration that day.”
“Ah, I see.” Daeyeol is impressed with the younger’s analytical skills, grateful to have him to work the ration numbers because Daeyeol knows he’d never have thought about planning for losing some.
He stands straight and runs a hand through his hair, thinking about the very distasteful number on the paper. Five months. That’s it. If they didn’t do something significant in the time they had they’d run out.
“Guys, look at this!” Daeyeol turns to the door as Jaehyun looks up and they see Jangjun and Youngtaek rush in. Jangjun slaps a large map down on the table with a bright smile across his face. Daeyeol looks at it and raises an eyebrow.
“A map?”
“A secret map that we stole from another unused bunk room we found.” Youngtaek adds as if it should be obvious. Jaehyun ponders over the map and notices an odd addition that he wouldn’t have expected.
“What’s that?”
“We were curious too, so we went to find it.” Jangjun’s excitement is building as if he’s about to explode. “It’s a secret passage to the aether, there’s a couple actually, but when we looked it appeared to be abandoned, like it was made and then decided it wasn’t needed anymore? It goes through those big containers out there that we thought was just storage.”
“And,” Youngtaek adds, “this one,” he gestures to another path on the map, “goes right into their storage room, which was luckily unguarded when we peeked in.”
“You opened a door into an unknown place without thinking about the possibility of getting shot?”
“Oh, we thought about it. But curiosity, you know.” Jangjun laughs at Daeyeol’s reproachful look. “Look, it seems to be a room they don’t frequent, like it’s storing stuff that they don’t need to look at all the time… like plans that they have memorized?”
Daeyeol looks like he was hit in the face when he finally got what Jangjun and Youngtaek were so excited about.
“You want to steal plans, you think the answer to shutting off the aether is in there?”
“I think it’s possible, everything has a kill switch right? What if we can find out what and where it is? What if we can shut it off?” Jangjun’s excitement finally seeps into Daeyeol and his grin is now just as bright.
“We can try, what’s the harm in that?”
“Just killing a bunch of rich people who left us to die, no big deal.” Jaehyun says sarcastically, his face revealing his enthusiasm.
“Well that’s a dark way to look at it.” Youngtaek pouts for a moment before shrugging. “If that 5 months on the paper there is what I think it is, I’d say we’d better decide quick and get moving.”
“Let’s do it, let’s turn off the aether.” Daeyeol says with a tone of finality, and everyone in the room cheers.
Over the next four months they steal plans, blueprints, encoded books that mean nothing to them, Bomin even manages to find and steal two unused oxygen tanks and masks left unattended by aether guards. With all their thoughts constantly on their goal they eventually figure out the code they are most certain will work if they ever get the chance to enter it. Daeyeol and Sungyoon, being the oldest, often talk alone of what the future may hold for them. Daeyeol appreciates having Sungyoon to confide in when some thoughts just won’t leave him alone.
“We’ve cut rations again and everyone’s getting irritable.” Sungyoon brings up one night when they're out walking alone.
“We’re running out.” Daeyeol sighs, running a worried hand through his hair. “We’re going to have to search farther for more, we’ve hit all the stores I knew about and more, but we’ve been everywhere that we can get without being outside too long.” Daeyeol's extensive stores had dwindled far, far faster for 10 boys then they would have for just him, but it never even occurred to him to regret it.
“We can use the tanks to go farther.”
“Sure, for a trip or two maybe. But what happens when those run out? Or if we still can’t find anything and also end up with no oxygen?”
“What are you thinking?”
“We need to turn them off, we need to stop this.”
Sungyoon chuckles, though there is no joy in the sound. “That’s the plan, hyung.”
“I mean, soon. The plan is going to take too long.”
“We still don’t know how to get past the guards.”
“We know their schedules, we know where the drones fly, if we’re careful we can get through.”
“And what if we’re caught?”
“It won’t matter.” Daeyeol’s tone causes Sungyoon to stop, looking straight at the elder now. “Sungyoon, I can’t watch you all die.”
“What?”
“In a few weeks everyone will start getting sick again, and one by one we’ll stop breathing. I already saw each one of you on the brink of death, Sungyoon, I can’t watch that again. I can’t just wait for a perfect plan to appear and hope it isn’t too late.”
“There’s really no other option?”
“I don’t think so. We need to stop this now. If we fail, we still die, but at least we tried.”
Sungyoon sets his jaw, “Alright hyung, I trust you. Let’s do this.”
“Don’t tell anyone else, I don’t want anyone trying to stop us or follow.”
“When do we do it?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
Sungyoon nods and they head back, new purpose in their strides. They’re both scared, neither fully trusts their plan, but Daeyeol is determined and Sungyoon knows he’s right.
The next day they send everyone off on their daily rounds, making sure no windows have broken, no doors been blown open, keeping the building as safe as they can. Last week Jangjun had developed a cough which was only getting worse each day and Daeyeol is reminded of it as he watches him leave with Sungyoon. Donghyun had complained of a headache all the day before and he couldn't help but to let the younger have a sip of his own ration of water as the boy heads out. He hears arguing as Jaehyun and Jibeom leave last, angered bickering fueled by their hunger he can’t help.
Daeyeol stays behind, looking through the maps and timetables they have made of the guard schedules again and again to memorize them. As he does, he can’t stop thinking about how he found each boy. Starving, dehydrated, weak, fevered, unresponsive, scared, hopeless. He could see each scene like it was only yesterday, not nearly seven months ago. He’s antsy, can’t sit still, can’t control his thoughts. He takes a piece of paper and a pen and writes a note.
Sungyoon,
I can’t wait. If I fail, try again, do it better. I trust you to keep their hopes up, don’t let them give up even if I fail. I have a good plan, I think it’ll work, but I probably won’t make it back. If I succeed, please build a new world, find other survivors, and live well. Maybe I’ll see you soon, maybe not. Please don’t be mad, I’m doing this for you, for them, for everyone.
Daeyeol
He takes a deep breath, leaving the note folded on the table with Sungyoon’s name written on the outside. He looks at the code one more time, steeling himself for what he’s about to attempt, and drags one of the oxygen tanks off the table. He doesn’t notice the note fly off and under the table when he removes the tank.
He follows the plan exactly, getting out of the closest door to the aether easily, waiting exactly where he needs to and for as long as he has to to avoid drone detection. He’s nearly caught once as he slips into the spot they had planned to hide in until the guards change shifts, but he’s certain the drone just missed him.
He breathes deeply, trying to settle his racing heart as he waits - shrunk as small as he can into the corner he hides in. He waits for the guards to leave, to give him a mere two minutes to get to the panel, punch in the code, and pull the lever. Two minutes is plenty of time, he can do this, he has to do this. He counts to fifteen once the guards pass him and then he runs.
He can see the console.
He can feel victory at the tips of his fingers.
He’s going to save them. His newfound family is going to live.
And then he hears something he didn’t expect.
“ HYUNG !”