The crunch of gravel under Sae Joon Hyun's boots was the only sound for a heartbeat after the engine died. He stood frozen, his gaze sweeping over the scene before the dust cloud from their sudden arrival had even settled. The massive, reinforced metal doors that had once sealed their sanctuary were now a twisted sculpture of broken hinges and torn steel, gaping open like a wound.

His voice, when it finally came, was low and tight, cutting through the heavy silence. "Huh? Charyeong? What are you guys doing here?"

It wasn't a greeting. It was a demand for an explanation, his eyes already darting from their anxious faces to the violated entrance, trying to connect the dots that all led to a very, very bad conclusion.

Jay practically stumbled forward, his usual composure shattered. "Hyeong," he breathed out, the title laced with a relief that was instantly swallowed by fresh anxiety. "We got a text from Minyoung. It was just... garbled. Said something was wrong. We came as fast as we could." His hand trembled as he gestured weakly toward the devastation. "But... we found this."

Before anyone could process that, a cry ripped from In-Ha's throat, raw and desperate. "Kaneisyeon! Mumma is here, honey!" She didn't wait, didn't strategize. She just broke into a sprint, rushing past them all toward the exposed interior of the base, her every fiber screaming for her child.

A weak, cracked sound stopped her in her tracks. It came from the jeep parked inside, the one that had been their secondary shelter. "M-Miss. In-Ha? Is—is that really you?"

In-Ha whirled around, her heart hammering against her ribs. That voice. She'd know it anywhere, even frayed with terror. She lunged for the jeep's door, her fists pounding on the window. "Yes! It's me! Open the door! Open it!"

The lock clicked, and the door creaked open just enough to reveal Mina's pale, tear-streaked face. She looked like a ghost, her eyes huge and swimming with a mixture of sheer relief and residual horror. "Miss. In-Ha... Oh, and Eunhye and the others," she whispered, her voice raspy, as if she'd been screaming.

"Mina!" Yon was there in an instant, his own fear channeled into urgent questioning. "What the hell happened here? Are you hurt?"

Mina just shook her head, a fresh wave of tears spilling over. "I... I don't understand," she choked out, her words tripping over each other. "How is that even possible? We—We..."

Sae Joon Hyun pushed forward, his own injuries forgotten. He gripped her by the shoulders, his hold firm but not harsh, forcing her wobbling gaze to meet his. "Mina. Look at me. Breathe. Calm down. You're okay. We're here. It's fine." His voice was a steady anchor in her chaos.

"Sae—" she started, but his name caught in her throat, dissolving into a helpless, shuddering sob. The dam broke.

From inside the jeep, more movement. Minyoung, Zera, and Yunha emerged slowly, like survivors from a shipwreck, their faces pale and etched with a deep, bone-tired fear.

"Minyoung!" In-Ha's focus snapped back. She grabbed the girl's wrist, pulling her forward. "Where is he? Where's Jeha? Is Kaneisyeon okay? Tell me!" The questions were rapid-fire, fueled by a mother's primal panic.

"Ah—Miss. In-Ha... My hand..." Minyoung winced, cradling her right wrist. She looked up at In-Ha, her eyes wide and nervous, like a rabbit caught in headlights.

"In-Ha! For God's sake, calm down!" Yon's voice was sharp as he stepped between them, gently prying In-Ha's frantic grip from Minyoung's arm. "You're scaring her. Let her breathe."

Minyoung just nodded, shrinking back slightly, rubbing her wrist.

Eunhye moved closer, her voice a softer, steadier contrast to the rising panic. "Zera. Yunha. Are you girls alright? Are any of you hurt?" Her eyes scanned them, checking for visible injuries, her medic's instincts taking over.

Both girls shook their heads, but the movement was heavy, weighed down by something far worse than physical harm. Zera hugged herself, her voice faint, almost a whisper. "Eunnie... it was so... unexpected. What happened after you guys left..."

Eunhye's brow furrowed. "Can you tell us?" she asked softly, though a part of her dreaded the answer. "Start from the beginning."

Zera took a shaky breath, her eyes losing focus as she stared at a point on the broken concrete floor, traveling back in time.

---

**[Day Thirteen - Three Days Ago]**

{Zera's POV}

The silence after the bus left was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. It was just us. The students. Jaeyeon seonbanim, and Yuri. The base, which usually felt cramped with everyone, suddenly felt vast and empty and... wrong.

We stood around for a bit, just looking at each other. Minyoung finally broke the quiet. "So... what do we do now?"

Yunha shrugged, hugging her arms. "Wait, I guess."

It was Jaeyeon who answered, his voice gruff with exhaustion. He was already slouching towards the driver's seat of the jeep. "We do nothing. You kids stay out of trouble. I'm catching up on sleep I never got thanks to all the... everything." He practically fell into the seat, turning his back to us.

Yuri offered us a tight, polite smile. "Perhaps it would be best if you all waited outside for a while? Let him rest."

So we did. We filed out, and the heavy metal doors groaned shut behind us, leaving us in the main chamber. The three of us—me, Yunha, and Minyoung—just stood there, lost.

"This is stupid," I muttered after what felt like an hour of pacing. "We can't just stand here. Sae Joon Hyun Seonbanim would have... I don't know. Done something."

"We could check the supplies," Yunha suggested, ever practical. "Make sure everything's organized. Count it all again."

It was busywork, but it was something. We dragged all the bags and boxes into the middle of the floor. We counted every can of beans, every bottle of water, every bandage. Twice. We sorted the meager weapons, checked the batteries in the flashlights. We even folded the spare clothes.

And you know what? Even with all that pointless dallying, it only took a few hours. By the time we were done, the oppressive silence was back. The air felt thick with it.

Night started to creep in, the light from the high, grimy windows fading to a deep grey. The shadows in the corners of the base seemed to stretch and grow.

"I don't want to sleep out here," Minyoung said, her voice small. She was right. The vast, dark space felt exposed. Vulnerable.

"The jeep," Yunha said. "It's safer. It feels safer."

We all piled into the jeep. Jaeyeon was snoring lightly in the driver's seat. Yuri was in the passenger seat, staring out the windshield into the dark. Mina was curled up in the back. We squeezed in, our shoulders pressed together. It was cramped and uncomfortable, but it was a shell of metal around us. It felt like a shield.

Yuri turned around. "Try to get some rest. Just sit yourselves to sleep. We'll be okay." She said it like she was trying to convince herself.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, a sharp, quiet gasp jolted me awake. It was Minyoung. She was frozen, her face pressed against the cold glass of the right-side window, her body rigid.

"Minyoung?" I whispered. "What is it?"

She didn't answer. She just slowly, slowly sank down below the window level, her eyes wide with a terror I'd never seen before. She clamped both hands over her mouth, as if to physically stop a scream from escaping.

She scrambled over us, shaking Yuri first, then Jaeyeon. "Wake up," she hissed, her voice a terrified rasp. "There's someone out there."

Jaeyeon was awake instantly, the sleep gone from his eyes, replaced by a sharp alertness. "What? Who?"

"I don't know. A man. I heard a noise... a clinking. Metal on metal." Minyoung's words were tumbling out. "I looked... and I saw him."

Yuri peered cautiously over the dashboard. Jaeyeon did the same from his side. I saw their postures stiffen. They saw him too.

"What did you see, Minyoung?" Eunhye prompted gently, her voice pulling Zera back to the present.

Zera's voice dropped, becoming hushed, as if the man might still be listening. "Chains," she whispered. "She saw chains. Attached to a cage. They were dangling from his hand, just... swinging carelessly."

A collective shiver went through the group listening to her.

"She pressed her face closer to the window to see more," Zera continued, her own hands beginning to tremble. "And she saw him. A man. He was just... walking. Like he owned the place. Then he went to the very back of the room, to that corner where the shadows are deepest." She pointed a shaky finger toward the far wall.

"And then..." Zera took a shaky breath. "He just... opened the floor."

Yon's head snapped up. "He what?"

"There was a door," Yunha spoke up, her voice quiet but clear. "Carved into the tiles. So perfectly seamless we never would have noticed it. Not in a million years. He just pulled it open like it was nothing and walked down into it."

The horror of the revelation settled over them. Someone had been living beneath them. The whole time.

"We were just pondering who he was, whispering, trying to understand," Zera said, her story gaining a frantic pace. "Then he came back out. And he was pulling those chains again. And this time... this time the cage was full. It was swarming with them. Those... things. A whole cage of zombies, right here in our base."

A choked sound came from Eunhye. Sae Joon Hyun's jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.

"We were terrified. We were sure he knew we were here. How could he not? He lived here!" Zera's voice cracked. "Jaeyeon, he... he acted fast. He told me, Yunha, Mina, and Minyoung to hide. To get under the seats in the very back. 'If he doesn't know how many of us there are, it's an advantage,' he said. So we did. We scrambled down there, crammed ourselves into the footwells, trying to make ourselves small. The others... Yuri, Charyeong, the rest... they stayed up. They had to."

She swallowed hard, the memory vivid and painful. "It was only a few minutes later. Maybe less. A furious BANG on the jeep's window made us all jump. We heard Jaeyeon roll the window down, his voice all fake sleepiness. 'Who's there?'"

Zera mimicked the cold, commanding tone of the man, her voice dropping an octave. "'Come with me.' That's all he said. No greeting. No explanation."

"'What the heck! Who are you?' Jaeyeon argued back. I could hear the defiance in his voice."

"Then we heard it," Zera said, her eyes wide with the memory of the sound. "The loud, sharp clang of metal on metal. He must have swung those chains. And immediately, from the cage... this... this snarling. This horrible, hungry snarling just erupted. It was a threat. A perfect, clear threat."

She looked down at her hands. "The arguing stopped. Jaeyeon must have put his hands up. We heard him say, 'Alright, alright. We're coming.' The jeep doors opened. We heard their footsteps on the gravel as they got out. We could only just... witness. They walked away, toward the back of the room with him."

Zera's voice faded to a near-whisper. "Mina was the bravest. She risked a peek through the bottom of the window. But she couldn't see anything. Then she heard it... the dangle of those chains again, getting closer. She dropped back down and hid with us. She was trembling so hard I could feel it."

She finished, the words hanging in the air. "We heard the sound of an engine. A bus's engine, roaring to life. There were voices, muffled, we couldn't make out the words. And then... that sound. The sound of metal tearing. He just... drove right through the doors. And they were gone."

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the ragged intake of someone's breath.

Eunhye was the first to find her voice, it was thin and disbelieving. "What? There was someone here? All along? All this time, we were sleeping right on top of..." She couldn't finish the thought, her eyes darting across the floor tiles as if they might open up again at any second.

Yunha, looking pale but determined, led them toward the back of the chamber, stopping at a seemingly ordinary section of the tiled floor.

In-Ha's voice was a broken thing. "Jeha? Where is my Jeha?" The hope was gone, replaced by a dawning, horrific certainty.

Minyoung looked at the ground, unable to meet her eyes. "Jeha? Oh, right... We... we didn't see him. I think... I think he must be in the bus too. With Jaeyeon seonbanim and the others..."

"What?" The word was a punch of air from In-Ha's lungs. "Then my child... my daughter is also..." Her legs seemed to give way, and she sank to her knees, her face in her hands.

Yon's voice was hard, forcing himself to focus on the practicalities, the numbers, anything to keep from drowning in the fear. "Eugene? Is Eugene with them?"

Zera just nodded, fresh tears spilling over.

"How many?" Yon pressed, his voice rough. "How many cages did you see?"

Zera shook her head, overwhelmed. "I don't know... I only saw the one he brought out. But it was so full... and he went back in. It was definitely more than one... more than two..."

Yon's face went grim. He looked from the broken doors to the hidden hatch in the floor, and finally to the shattered faces of his friends.

"More than two cages," he murmured, the words a death sentence hanging in the cold, still air.