Chapter Text
It has only been a few years since the apocalypse started. Maybe one, two?
All Yoonchae remembers is that she was just coming home from school the day of her 11th birthday when everything turned into chaos in less than ten minutes: helicopters took over the sky looking like clouds, police cars filled the streets, and ambulances being the only sound her ears were processing in the moment.
She remembers she was scared, anxious, confused. She felt like a little mouse escaping from a cat, even though there was no cats. They were all mouses.
She ran home. Lucky for her she was one of the fastest in her class, always fit because of her love for sports.
Once Yoonchae reached her house, she immediately locked the door and closed the windows, all this while trying to find her parents. They worked at home, why wouldn't they be there? while struggling to breathe, she finally found them in the bathroom, but they were... different, to say the least. They had a slight purple tone on their skin, and their veins were a bit too noticeable, like their reddened eyes.
Luckily, she knew better than to approach. She backed up, things escalated, and now her mother, the person who raised her and took care of Yoonchae for her whole life, was on top of her, attacking. After that, everything became a blur. She grabbed the closest thing and swung it with full force- or as much strength as an 11 yo kid could have- to her head, and it worked. But her mother was dead. Because of her. She's a murderer. A monster.
She chose the smart option again, and ran, still wearing her backpack, a bit too big for her. Without really thinking, Yoonchae ran and ran, leaving her father there with her dead mother. There's this advice her dad gave her once: "if anything bad ever happens, go to the mountains. There's less dangerous people there.", so she listened.
Completely exhausted, the girl got to the closest mountain and hid, finally breaking down. She was confused, scared, and she fucking killed her mom. What was happening? Why were her parents looking like monsters? Why did her mother try to.. bite her? Why was everyone running in the streets? Was this the apocalypse?
Interrupting her spiral of thoughts, she saw a man appear. He didn’t look like he was rotting, and wasn't acting weird. He offers a hand to Yoonchae, and they talked, about everything. His name was Son, and he offered to take her to the USA, where he owned this house in the woods. It was a long trip and she still didn't know if the man was dangerous, but a fort is a fort. Yoonchae didn't even know how to come back to her city anyway, so it was the only option she had if she wanted a roof over her head.
Weeks later, Son felt like he was her father. Taught her how to use a gun to defend herself from zombies, cook food, make a comfortable bed, and even hide in the tiniest places.
But of course, luck wasn't on her side. She remembers this day perfectly. One time, Yoonchae stayed on the house while Son went out to get food, and hours later, he came back, looking like how Yoonchae found her parents that day, and raised his sleeve to reveal a bite mark. It was ugly, blood oozing from the wound, and veins turning black. 'Not again, not you', Yoonchae thought, backing up, eyes glassy and hands trembling. But Son was calm, and raised his arms slowly after handing her his gun. "Listen, sweet girl, i know you're confused, and i know this isn't going how we planned. But you have to stay brave, okay? I got bit by one of those things, and i don't believe i have more than minutes left, which is why i need you to gain strength and shoot." Yoonchae rathered dying before shooting him. It took a long time for her to point the gun at him, although her hands shook so much they looked like they'd fall. And with a deep breath, she pressed the trigger, and watched another parental figure drop dead to the ground because of her.
Since then, she's lived on her own in that same house on the woods. She's freshly thirteen, still with the baby face, but barely taller and even more skinny: ever since she killed Son, she doesn't dare touch a gun, so killing animals is harder, and she doesn't like killing things anyway, especially not animals or parents. She's been feeding herself with any fruit she can find, sometimes she didn't eat for days, so that also makes her shorter, smaller, and weaker than she should be, which is not good. She used to be healthy and fast and happy.
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"Come on, hurry up idiot! i swear i just saw a deer!" Daniela is running towards a forest that is closer to their house. She's been searching for an animal to kill with Lara for at least 30 minutes already, and they know that Sophia will kill them if they get home late.
"I'm coming, hold on!" Lara finally gets on Daniela's pace and they both freeze at the sound of a soft crunch. "Okay, it's close" Dani says in a whisper, causing Lara to elbow her "shhh!"
"ow, okay!" the girl groans while rubbing her side, where Lara just elbowed her.
Both pointing their guns to where the sound came from, they approach it, and discover that it didn't come from a deer, but a young girl on the ground. Apparently she fell on a stick and that caused the crunch.
Lara was the one who spoke first this time. "what the..?", but before anyone can say anything else, the kid starts backing up and starting to get up, which causes Daniela to raise her gun at her "stay still.". The girl freezes, and Lara looks at her friend confused "Dani, she's a kid, what are you doing..?"
Without losing sight on her, Daniela mutters to Lara "She might be infected, we have to take her to the group". That seems to make Lara understand. With a swift move, Lara knocks the girl and lifts her up, easier than it should be "Okay, lets go".
They walk for five minutes until they reach their house, knocking the door with the funny rhythm they made to recognize each other, and someone opens the door. Megan.
"Heyy, yall took your sweet time, didn't ya? Come in, Soph’s pissed off, and- what the fuck." Megan pushes Daniela inside and steps right in front of Lara. "Is that a fucking girl?"
Lara rolls her eyes "yeah. We found her in the woods, so we brought her here to check any bites."
"Well then let me go call Soph and Manz, they're on their room doing their little.. games" Megan says the last part with a grin on her face.
As if on cue, The two oldest appear, and Sophia does not look happy "Where were you? it's 10 pm already." How does she manage to know the time with no clocks around? she's like a magician, Megan thinks.
"Wait, is that..?" Manon approaches Lara to see closer the passed out girl on her arms
"Yeah. We thought we saw a deer, but when we got closer it was this girl."
"She looks young. Lay her on the couch, I'm gonna take a look at her" Of course, like Manon is the oldest at 21, they put the doctor label on her.
Once the girl is laid on the couch, the five girls hover closely over her.
"guys, back up so that the bit of light reaches, idiots." everyone listens, leaving space for Manon but still staying close.
"She's.. really young. probably no more than 15."
Megan gets closer "Good style tho."
"Not the time, girl"
"Sorry"
Like Manon said, the girl is young. She has long black hair that looks really soft, but none of them want to touch her yet just in case she attacks them like a zombie, even though she's asleep with no signs of waking up. The girl has asian features, especially Korean. She has pale skin and big eyes, and looks way too skinny to pretend its healthy. What Megan said about her style was true though, since the kid is wearing baggy camouflage jeans (that look handmade but cool), a white tank top and an oversized jacket, the type a dad would give you.
Manon turns to Lara "Did you see any bites?" Lara shakes her head "at least on her neck no"
at that answer, Manon hesitates whether to touch the girl or not, but she decides to do it, slowly taking the jacked off her to check the arms, which are clean from bites, but the size is sickening. Manon could probably close her hand around the girls forearm and still have space left.
"Poor girl." Sophia says
"I know, i wonder how she even survived by herself, or wait- she was alone, right?"
"Yeah, don't worry. the place was empty besides her." Daniela answers
"Okay, good," Manon finishes searching for bites and stands up. "all done."
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Today was Son's birthday. Yoonchae knew, because the man had taught her how to know the time based on the sun, and because of that she has an easier time knowing which day it is, somehow.
She misses him. She misses her parents, friends, teachers, her cat, her city. It's been two years since the apocalypse started, Yoonchae is barely surviving, and she's aware of that. She needs to do something with her life, because its currently going nowhere. Starting with actually searching for food.
The girl is far away from Son's cabin, still haven't found food. She feels like she's going to faint, but she's used to it. It's also night, so she's tired and cold. This jacket has stopped being useful months ago, but she won't dare getting rid of it, not when it was Son's.
While walking mindlessly, she suddenly freezes at the sound of a girl yelling and tries to hide, but trips on a fucking stick, slightly twisting her wrist, but luckily not breaking it. it hurt as if she did tho.
She sees the girl approach, but they're two. They look young. There's a tall girl with dark skin and long black hair. Next to her, there's a slightly shorter girl with blonde-dyed curls. This was probably the girl Yoonchae heard, but she's now pointing at the young girl with a gun, and yells something in what Yoonchae believes is english. At the sight of a gun, she freezes immediately with her hands shaking and her chest pressing down letting no air come in. She tries to get up, maybe grab her little knife, but she is met with another gun to her head, not to shoot but to hit and knock her, which worked.
She's now laying somewhere. A bit uncomfortable, but soft. Her head is throbbing, and she's never felt weaker. Slowly opening her eyes, Yoonchae's met with the sight of five girls, although her vision's blurry.
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"Okay, i think she's awake" Megan mutters, which causes Lara to look at her, "Yeah, no shit."
Sophia shushes them "Guys, shut up."
Yoonchae finally becomes aware of the situation and tries to push herself upwards immediately, but she feels a sudden pain on her wrist from when she twisted it, so she ends up frozen, not sitting but not laying down either. There are the two girls she saw before, and there are three more: a girl with braids and brown hair, another with dark hair and lighter skin that looks filipina, and lastly, who would seem the tallest, there's another girl with black hair and asian features.
Suddenly, Yoonchae realizes that she's a bit colder than before, and notices that her jacket is missing. Son's jacket. Fuck no.
Manon seems to realize that she's panicking, and she hands the jacket to the younger with a soft smile. "Hey, it's okay. I'm Manon" She approaches Yoonchae slowly, but when she sees the young girl brace herself, she stops, and turns around to look at the girls, "Guys, maybe you should go to sleep so that i can talk to her. Sophia, you stay?" In response, the girls nod and go to their rooms, but not without muttering "gayy" before leaving because of Manon's request of having her "girlfriend" with her.
Now with just two of them, Yoonchae seems to be less tense, although she's still scared as fuck, and its notorious. Sophia grabs flashlights and puts them around the room to illuminate. Then, they both sit close to Yoonchae, creating a little triangle.
"Hi. You okay?" Sophia talked this time, with a sweet voice and a pretty smile. She's the one with dark hair and light skin, and Yoonchae recognizes an accent, Filipino, maybe? Yoonchae doesn't really understand english, but she studied it in school, so she knows the basics. She knows that asking "okay" is like saying "how are you". so she nods softly, which causes the girls to smile.
"Im Sophia, and she's Manon. We're like.. the parents of the group." The last part of what she said turned into a blur, she hasn't reached that level of english yet, and the way her head hurts isn't helping. But she understood "parents", so she tensed up. She also got their names.
With a whisper, she talks. "Yoonchae.." The girl shyly points at herself.
Sophia sits a bit closer, testing the waters. "Your name is Yoonchae?" She nods. "And i'm guessing you're Korean, right?" Another nod.
Manon speaks up. "So... are you fluent in english or are we confusing you with all this talk?"
In response to that, all Yoonchae does is tilt her head slightly, confused. That causes Manon to laugh softly, and now Yoonchae is asking herself when was the last time she laughed.
"Okay, um.. can i ask how old are you?" The young girl thinks for a bit about how to say her age in english, so she just surrenders and puts up one finger on her left hand, and three on her right.
The girls eyes go wide "You're... thirteen? You're literally a baby!" Yoonchae blushes a bit at the comment, but remains quiet, now looking at her hands, fidgeting with the hem of her- Son's jacket.
"And wait.. if you're from Korea, how did you get to LA?" Sophia asks, out of pure curiosity, but it causes Yoonchae to immediately tense, eyes going slightly blurry. "Hey, hey, it's okay. You don't have to answer if you don't want to." The girl relaxes at the reassurement. She doesn't want to talk about how she killed two parental figures in a matter of weeks.
Manon stirs awkwardly "So, it's pretty late. Tomorrow you'll meet the girls if you want to, um, stay. But you don't have to decide now, don't worry."
Yoonchae considers it. "Um.. think." Manon smiles softly. "You want to think about it?" The girl nods.
"That's okay. But you should go to sleep, you know? to be strong when you wake up." Yoonchae can't help but roll her eyes a bit, she does not like being treated like a kid. She tries to sit up, but once again, she's met with a sharp pain on her right wrist. She forgot about it.
The girls notice. "Woah, okay, slowly, it's okay." Manon gets closer and hesitates, but gently puts a hand on her shoulder to help her sit up. Yoonchae tensed immediately, but let herself be helped anyway. "Are you okay?" Yoonchae nods, but then freezes. Is she okay? Her wrist hurts a lot, and these girls are nice. So she shakes her head.
Manon nods slowly
"Where?"
"..Wrist."
"Okay, let me see." She sits on the couch next to her and gently holds her wrist. the size difference of their hands is crazy, Manon wants to melt at the size of Yoonchae's little hand. She traces Yoon's palm with her fingers, which causes the girl's fingers to twitch softly. Manon smiles, she's so cute.
The "doctor" turns Yoonchae's wrist a bit, and comes to the conclusion that it was just twisted.
"Okay, it's nothing deep. I'll just wrap it in a bandage, okay? to make sure you don't move it that much."
After gently wrapping Yoonchae's wrist, she leans back and looks at her fondly.
She can't help but think about how similar Yoonchae and Sophia look, like mother and daughter.
But... who would be the father?