The air in the room had turned thick and heavy, like soup. Every whispered word between Jaeyeon and Eunhye seemed to hang in the space between them, charged with a fear so potent she could taste it-metallic and sharp on her tongue. Eunhye's face was a pale mask of terror, her eyes glassy, welling with tears that she stubbornly refused to let fall. She kept blinking them back, her breath hitching in her throat in tiny, uncontrollable gasps. Across from her, Jaeyeon's usual detective composure was cracking. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek, and he was chewing anxiously on his thumbnail, a nervous habit that spoke volumes.

"By any chance..." Jaeyeon's voice was a low, hushed thing, barely more than a breath. He leaned in closer, the scent of dust and fear clinging to him. "Did the creature... did it get close enough to actually attack you? To touch you?"

Eunhye couldn't speak. The memory of those cloudy, dead eyes locking onto hers, the shambling advance, the smell of blood-it all crashed over her at once. She just nodded, a single, jerky movement. A traitorous tear finally escaped, tracing a hot path down her cold cheek. She swiped at it angrily with a trembling hand.

Jaeyeon's face lost all remaining color. He looked like he'd been punched in the gut. "Oh no," he breathed out, the words dripping with dread. "Eunhye Noona, this is... this is really bad news." He ran a hand through his already messy hair. "These things... they're not like movie zombies. They don't just mindlessly chase noise. They're hunters. They memorize the smell of the person they have a grudge against. They lock onto it. And then they just... they don't stop. They'll tear through anything, go anywhere, to find that scent again."

Eunhye's heart didn't just sink; it felt like it plummeted through the floor and into the center of the earth. A cold, sickening dread wrapped around her spine. Her hands flew to her chest, clutching at the silk of her gown as if she could physically hold herself together. "No..." The word was a whimper, stolen by the sheer force of her panic. "No. We can't... we can't die like this. Not here."

Jaeyeon surged to his feet, his own fear morphing into a desperate, frantic energy. He reached down, his grip firm on her arm, and hauled her up. "We won't. We have to think. We have to confuse it, throw it off the scent. Literally."

He started pacing, a short, tight path in the small space. "What if... what if I cover you up? With a smell so strong it masks your own? With perfume?"

Eunhye blinked, her brain struggling to keep up through the fog of fear. "Huh...? Perfume? Will that... will that even work? And do you mean to say...I smell?" It sounded insane. Like something from a cartoon.

"What? No. I-no. Please, I have no other way to explain this. We can't erase your... your aura, or whatever it is they're tracking," Jaeyeon explained, his words tumbling out in a rushed, urgent stream. "But we can bury it. If we douse you in perfume, it might be enough to confuse its senses. Make it lose the specific smell it's memorized. It's a long shot, but it's all we've got."

A sliver of hope, thin and fragile as a spider's web, pierced through Eunhye's terror. She grasped onto it. "Alright. But won't he react to the perfume? Won't the strong smell just draw him right to us anyway?"

Jaeyeon shook his head, a sharp, decisive motion. "No. These specific grave ups-the grudge-holders-they're different. They have a one-track mind. They only focus on that one smell. Masking it won't attract them; it'll just... baffle them. It might buy us time. But diffusion takes time, you'll have to bear with me."

That was all she needed to hear. Time. She nodded, her resolve hardening. "Do it."

Jaeyeon grabbed one of the perfume bottles from Yuri's abandoned stash. He didn't spray it gently. He shook the bottle and then unleashed a cloud of it, a choking, floral-sweet fog that filled the immediate air around Eunhye. He sprayed her arms, her neck, the back of her gown. The scent was overwhelming, cloying, making her eyes water and her nose itch. It was suffocating, but in that moment, it smelled like hope.

He kept spraying, moving around her, until the air in their little corner of the room was thick and heavy with the artificial fragrance, a stark contrast to the stale, coppery smell of fear. Then they waited. The silence that descended was heavier than any noise. It was a waiting silence. A listening silence. Every creak of the building, every hum of the distant generator, sounded like a footstep. Their hearts hammered in a frantic, syncopated rhythm, two terrified drums beating in the dark, praying their desperate, stupid plan would work.

The air in the supply room was stale and cold, thick with the smell of dust and their own panicked sweat. Shadows clung to the high shelves, deep and impenetrable. Sae Joon Hyun's back was pressed against a cold metal rack, his entire body tense. The pounding on the door was a relentless, thunderous rhythm, each impact shaking the frame. But that wasn't the worst of it.

The worst sound was the low, wet snarling coming from inside the room with them.

"It's a creature," Sae Joon Hyun whispered, the words scraping his dry throat. His eyes were fixed on the dark aisle where the sound originated.

Next to him, Yuri had her eyes screwed shut, her entire being focused on the doorknob she was white-knuckling, as if her sheer will could keep the door sealed from the creatures outside. Her breath was coming in tiny, terrified hiccups.

Sae Joon Hyun's mind raced, scanning the cluttered room for an exit. His gaze landed on the creature again. It was standing oddly still, its head tilted, as if... listening. Not charging.

A wild, impossible idea sparked. He forcefully pulled Yuri's hand from the knob, making her gasp and her eyes fly open, wide with betrayal and fear. He didn't speak. He just pointed a finger towards the creature in the room, then pointed at his own eyes, and slowly shook his head.

"They can't see?" he mouthed silently, the shape of the words feeling absurd.

Yuri stared, her brain trying to process through the fog of pure terror. She looked at the creature, then back at him. Her own head gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake. Then a hesitant nod. "Maybe". She clutched her bag tighter to her chest like a shield.

'Maybe he really can't see,' Sae Joon Hyun thought, the idea gaining terrifying traction. It was hunting by sound.

Holding his breath, he began to shift, moving with agonizing slowness to his right, away from the door. He gestured for Yuri to follow. Every rustle of their clothing, every scuff of their shoes on the concrete, sounded deafeningly loud. The creature's head twitched, following the sound, but it didn't move from its spot. Its milky, dead eyes seemed to look right through them.

"Let's go," Sae Joon Hyun mouthed, tilting his head toward a high window on the far wall. It was their only shot.

Yuri nodded, her face a mask of pure terror. She moved like a ghost, each step precise and careful. She reached the wall first, her trembling hands finding the cold metal of a storage rack to use as a ladder. Sae Joon Hyun gave her a boost, his hands under her foot, pushing her up towards the window sill. She scrambled through, disappearing into the darkness beyond with a soft rustle.

Now it was his turn. He climbed onto a stack of cardboard boxes near the window. They wobbled precariously under his weight. He launched himself toward the window, grabbing the sill and hauling himself up and through.

The boxes beneath him chose that exact moment to give way.

They tumbled over with a crash that seemed to explode in the silent room. Plastic and metal and paper spilled across the floor in a chaotic, roaring cascade.

The effect was instantaneous.

The pounding on the door stopped. The creature in the room let out a guttural shriek and lunged toward the source of the noise-toward him.

And from the corridor, the door finally splintered and gave way with a sickening crack of wood and metal. The horde from outside poured into the room, their snarls merging into a single, horrifying wave of sound. They were surrounded.

The runway stretched out before them, an endless sea of cracked, dark asphalt under a sky choked with clouds, the sun a weak, smudged thumbprint of light. Sae Joon Hyun's heart was a wild animal trying to beat its way out of his chest. He didn't think, he just acted, his hand closing around Yuri's wrist, and then they were running. The warm air burned his lungs.

But the window behind them disgorged a nightmare. One, then three, then a dozen twisted figures, spilling out onto the tarmac after them. Their movements were wrong-a lurching, jerking sprint that was somehow faster than it had any right to be.

"We have no choice! Run!" Sae Joon Hyun's voice was ripped away by the wind, a raw shout that was more feeling than word. They sprinted, their footsteps echoing too loudly in the vast, open space. But the horde was gaining, closing the distance with every second.

Then Yuri cried out-a short, sharp sound of pain. Her foot caught on a seam in the asphalt, and she went down hard, her hands splaying out to break her fall. The rough pavement scraped the skin from her palms. She pushed herself up, her eyes wide. They were completely surrounded. The creatures fanned out in a ragged semicircle, closing the trap, their hungry snarls the only thing she could hear.

Sae Joon Hyun skidded to a halt, spinning around. His breath sawed in his chest. He looked from Yuri on the ground to the closing circle of monsters, and for the first time, a cold, final certainty settled in his stomach. There were too many. No fire extinguisher, no clever plan. This was it.

From the safety of their window, Eunhye and Jaeyeon watched the scene unfold below like a horrifying silent movie. Eunhye's voice, when it came, was a thin, broken thread of sound. "Oh god! Now what? We only have a pole with us. How do we help them?" Her fingers were clamped onto the cold windowsill, her knuckles bone-white. She felt utterly, completely helpless.

Jaeyeon's eyes were wide, frantically scanning the runway, the car, the horde. His mind, trained for action, was calculating odds, discarding options. There was no way to fight through that.

His head snapped toward Eunhye. "We don't," he said, his voice strained but decisive. "We can't. Let's run. Now. To the runway. To the passenger car." It was their only hope. If they could get the car, they could... what? Plow through them? Create a distraction? He didn't know. But it was the only move left.

He didn't wait for her agreement. He turned and bolted from the room, his footsteps echoing in the hollow corridor. Eunhye followed, a sob catching in her throat, her legs moving on pure instinct, fueled by adrenaline and the primal need to not be left behind.

As they ran, Eunhye's mind raced, grasping for straws. "Can't we call for help?" she gasped out between ragged breaths, the hope pathetic and desperate even to her own ears.

Jaeyeon's answer was grim, tossed back over his shoulder as he ran. "You think me and Yuri Ssaeng never tried?" The memory was clearly a fresh wound. "They said they'd come. And they did. And then they got bitten. When we called for backup... they refused. They were too afraid." The finality in his voice extinguished that tiny spark of hope.

They burst out onto the tarmac, the warm air hitting them like a physical blow. Jaeyeon's arm shot out, finger pointing. "There! I see it! The passenger car!"

It was parked near the edge of the runway, a dark, boxy shape that looked like salvation. The irony wasn't lost on Eunhye. "It's easy for us to be loud and run with no second thought since all the creatures are surrounding the other duo," she panted, the observation morbid and true.

Jaeyeon didn't answer. He wrenched the car door open and threw himself into the driver's seat, his hands fumbling under the dashboard for the wires. The engine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life with a vibration that shook the entire frame.

"Hop on!" Jaeyeon yelled. Eunhye scrambled into the passenger side, her heart in her throat.

He slammed his foot on the accelerator. The tires screeched, tearing at the asphalt, and the car shot forward like a bullet, aiming straight for the seething mass of creatures that had surrounded their friends.

Sae Joon Hyun heard the furious roar of the engine cutting through the snarls. His head whipped around. The car was coming, a missile of light and noise. The horde, distracted, turned toward the new threat, their collective attention shifting away from the two trapped figures.

"They are coming!" Eunhye screamed from the passenger seat, bracing herself against the dashboard as the car hurtled toward the nightmare.

Jaeyeon's mind, frozen a second before, snapped into hyper-focused clarity. "Grab anything you have and throw it at them!" he yelled.

Eunhye didn't need to be told twice. She clambered, half-standing, through the sunroof, the wind whipping her hair into a wild, stinging cloud around her face. She raised Yuri's heavy bag they had managed to bring into the car, her arms straining.