Rebirth; A New Age || seongjoong || ATEEZ

Chapter 7 : Three Shots, One Hole

Since there were no clocks or anything of the sort when they were out and about, they had to rely on ancient methods of telling time so they wouldn't get stuck in a tricky situation. They weren't supposed to stay out half dark, which Seonghwa was glad Hongjoong had at least a singular brain cell to him, because the dead were more active at night.

Jongho was estimating the amount of time they had left before the sunset, and Seonghwa found himself looking towards the sun and squinting his eyes to lessen the harsh light.

"About two fingers between the sun and the horizon, we have to get moving," Jongho dropped his hand and turned around, walking off to go to where the other men were filling up gallons of fuel tanks at an abandoned gas station just outside of the major city. It was about a thirty-minute drive from base, it really wasn't that bad of a drive, but since Seonghwa had been requested- forced- to go, it made it all the merrier.

Seonghwa followed after Jongho with a heavy sigh, picking up both his crowbar and rifle, and joined the rest of them. He kept an eye out, choosing to climb up onto a broken-down truck and sat on top of the roof, and checked the surroundings. Occasionally he would bring the rifle up to his face and look through the high definition scope when he saw something move in the distance but couldn't quite make out what it was. One time it was just a piece of fabric that had been caught on a poll and was blowing in the wind, and then all the other times it was just coyotes.

Other than that, it was a quiet evening. As weird as it was, they hadn't had any complications. They hadn't seen a single creature.

Granted they weren't too far into the city but they were close enough that they should've seen a few by now. It was eerie, and Seonghwa made sure to keep an eye out for those silent types- the mutated dead- that would try and sneak up on them out of nowhere. But the only noise was the steady wind and the occasional sounds coming from the men.

They had nearly filled up all the gallon buckets with fuel, and some of them had even begun to load them back up into the jeeps and secure them down with bungee ropes.

"We have a problem," Seonghwa distantly heard someone say, knocking him away from something he had been staring at in the distance.

He turned his head to look where the men had piled around one of the pumps. Jongho walked closer, breaking the small circle of men to see what was wrong.

"What happened? What's wrong?" He asked, peering down at the half-full jug of fuel.

A shorter man who held the nozzle in his hand, pulled the lever a few times and only a few drops of fuel came out, each time, less and less dripped out.

"It's run dry," he said softly, shaking the nozzle to prove his point even more.

Seonghwa sucked in a breath, subconsciously squeezing the crowbar tightly.

"Are you sure?" Jongho asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise as he took the pump in his own hands to test it out. Sure enough, the young man got the same result much to everyone's disappointment.

"How is it dry already?" The previous man asked, his eyes darting quickly between the pump and the half-full jug. "We've only been using this station for two weeks-"

He was right, Seonghwa was thinking the same thing. They had to keep finding new stations because they drained the fuel completely and with no trucks or workers to come in and replenish the fuel levels, there was nothing they could do. But usually, each station lasted them a few months before they had to move on. They had gone to nearly every fuel station in the city- this was the last that they knew of that was in a day's driving time and it was supposed to last them longer than two weeks.