Limitless || Mark Lee

Chapter 2

Mirae instantly hit the ground, carefully placing her basket on the floor next to her in order to not make a sound.

"Where is NCT? We know they were here."

Who in the hell is NCT? What is this?

She thought to herself as she carefully crawled to the end of the aisle, peering through the gaps in the shelves to see what was going on. There were about 8 men in the store, dressed in head to toe black. Her eyes widened as she noticed the guns in all of their hands.

"I-I don't know anything about NCT. I-I'm just the store clerk."

"Well either you find us the person who's been working with NCT, or we'll kill you right here."

She let out a silent gasp when the man, who seemed to be the leader, raised his gun. Slowly, she shuffled backwards away from the end of the aisle, hoping to go undetected.

She had backed up about 10 feet when she felt something solid behind her. Before she could even turn around, strong hands grasped her shoulders and yanked her to her feet, causing her to let out a terrified squeal.

"Hey boss!" The man holding her shoulders dragged her out of the aisle in full view of the other men. "I found this one lurking in the aisles."

"Excellent." She saw an evil grin on the mans face before she felt the cold barrel of a gun being pressed to her forehead.

"Please! Please let me go, I have no idea what's going on, I just came her to get some things!" She whimpered out nervously, staring at the supposed boss with pleading eyes.

"We can't have any witnesses, sweetheart."

"I won't say anything. I swear. I don't even know your names and I'll keep my mouth shut. Promise."

He simply shook his head at her with a smirk, the barrel of the gun digging harder into her head as the boss turned back to interrogate the clerk.

"It's a pity, you know, you're a cute one." She felt shivers down her spine as the man holding the gun bent down to whisper in her ear. Her whole body was shaking, panic flooding her veins while she screwed her eyes tightly shut in fear.

"Looking for us?" She heard the front door open and a male voice speak. Instantly she heard the boss stop yelling at the clerk, a laugh leaving his lips.

"Well well well, you decided to show up."

"It's us you want, these innocents have no part in this. Let them go." She felt like she vaguely recognized the voice but was too terrified to think straight, her eyes still tightly shut.

"That might be how your gang works, but for us, no one gets spared." The boss growls out lowly.

Soon a gunshot echos through the store, causing her to let out a scream. More gunshots ring out and then she felt the grip on her shoulders loosen and the gun fell to the ground.

She drops to the floor, cowering against one of the aisles as the gunshots continue to ring out behind her, followed by the thumps of bodies hitting the ground.

Her ears were ringing so much with all the loud noises that she doesn't even notice when the gunshots stoped, not daring to stand up from her position on the ground.

When she feels a hand on her back, she screams, flinching harshly away from it as terror overcomes her body once again.

"Hey, it's ok. They're gone, you're safe. You can stand up now." A soft voice speaks gently into her ear before the hand is removed from her back.

Slowly she stands, trying to ignore the smell of gunpowder and blood that floods her nostrils. She opens her eyes, her vision still foggy from the tears but there's no mistaking the large black silhouettes of bodies surrounded by the red blotches of blood on the floor.

She blinks rapidly, carefully rubbing the tears out of her eyes as her vision finally comes into focus. As she looks around the store, she sees the clerk cowering in the corner and 7 people still standing, all of them dressed in black.

They're all panting heavily and she noticed cuts and bruises all over their arms. Slowly she lifts her gaze to look at their faces and her heart stops.

"Jaemin?"

She stares in disbelief at the boy in front of her, a gun in his hand and blood splattered on his face. He pants heavily, meeting her eyes for a moment before turning away.

As she looks around the room at each of the 7 boys, she recognizes all of her friends plus one that she doesn't know who seems to be slightly older than the rest.

"Jeno... Renjun... Haechan... Chenle... and even you, Jisung? What is going on? What even is this?"

"Mirae we-"

Jeno takes a step towards her, extending his hands in front of him as she flinched backwards, staring at the blood dripping from his palms. He stops in his tracks, noticing her reaction with wide eyes and quickly hiding his hands behind his back.

"We can explain!"

"You-you guys are like them!" She gestures to the dead bodies on the ground. "You're... you're... you're criminals! Murderers! You killed them!" She cries out, the tears streaming down her face now.

"And you." She turns to look at Jaemin. "I was with you less than an hour ago and you left to- to do... this?"

Her eyes flicker wildly around the room from her friends to the bodies to the guns in their hand, the horror of it all filling her body with dread.

"All of you.... you ditched me to come out and kill people?!"

"Mirae, it's not like that-"

"Park Jisung do not even try to justify this right now. I cannot believe you! You're a 1st year! And all of you... you let him join you?"

The lowered their heads, not daring to meet her eyes as the guilt began to weigh on them. The one she assumed to be the oldest, the unfamiliar one, however, kept staring at her with a cold expression, watching her moves carefully but she didn't even take notice of him.

"I don't know who you are, but I want nothing to do with it." She ran towards the exit, carefully avoiding the blood and bodies as she approached the door.

"Mimi, wait-"

"Don't ever call me that again!"

She shook off Jaemin's hand that had grabbed her arm and bolted out of the door. She ran all the way back to her apartment, tears streaming down her face.

The second she got home, she ran to her room and slammed the door shut, making sure to lock for whenever her brother happened to find his way home.

She tucked herself into her covers and sobbed. She felt sick to her stomach thinking of the boys she thought she knew. Her friends.

She felt her heart break from the betrayal of it all. On her nightstand, he phone was buzzing like crazy with texts and calls from the 6 boys. She picked up the phone, silencing it, and threw it into the corner.

At some point she heard her brother come home, his loud footsteps stumbling around their apartment. He banged loudly on the door but she didn't even flinch, too caught up in what had just happened. The events played over and over in her mind.

They killed them. All of those men.... they're dead because of my friends. And they didn't even seem to feel bad about it. Who are they?

She fell asleep clutching tightly onto her pillow, trying to forget the memory as the tears streamed down her face.