TW/CW: Graphic descriptions of violence
It's not your fault. It never was; this could've happened to anyone. Anyone in the world could've been in your position, but it's like they all say- you were just at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
And now you're being carried on the back of a murderer, along with his friends of infamous serial killers, your mind fading in and out of consciousness. For the little time, you are awake, the world is spinning and all you see are the blood-stained shoes of the boy behind you. The only thing you can hear is the crunching of leaves and twigs under their dark boots, and the obnoxious croaking of the crows circling above the group. Every time you stirred awake you felt sudden drowsiness take over you once more. You dangled off of the first boy's back, arms restricted as your hands were tied to your back.
You groaned slightly, but even that took so much energy to do, you couldn't fathom thinking about screaming for help. The world around you was deathly quiet, the solemn breeze pushing lightly against your face and your hair tickling your cheek. A couple of feet away from you, someone was humming in a direction you could not see. The song was unfamiliar, but the voice behind it was.
⤜⚘⤛
"That's it?" Asked the girl at the front desk. You nodded, digging out the credit card you had in your back pocket. The cashier put the things into a plastic bag and slid it across the counter to you, printing out your receipt. You took it and left immediately, not willing to dwell any longer.
You had things to do. You debated even getting out of bed to come here, but you decided that your common cold wouldn't stop you from enjoying the perks of staying home today. You had taken the day off because you rarely got sick, and now was the one time you could use the excuse on your boss. Today, you planned on focusing on yourself. Life had been suffocating you too much lately, you deserved this.
And hence why your appearance had little to no effort put in. Literally, you were wearing sweatpants and a crop top under an oversized hoodie that ran down to your thighs. Your hair was carelessly thrown over your shoulders and you wore a face mask, an attempt to show people that today, you truly were not to be fucked with.
It wasn't a very busy day, most adults were at work and teenagers were at school on this lousy Tuesday morning. Looking around, the only people you could see were retired elderly or stay-at-home moms, only the occasional middle-aged person sprinkled among the crowd. It was a bright day, the windows at the tip of the ceiling let in a lot of natural light.
You had not gotten 20 feet away from the store when a chorus of synchronized gunshots and screams echoed throughout the small mall. You turned your head and looked in horror at the figure of a tall man dressed in all black holding up a pistol. He was standing over a dead body, the gun in his hands still pointed at the corpse. Even from where you were standing with his back turned from you, you could tell he held a crazed smile.
You turned again and looked around the scene, the calm before the storm. There had to be at least four of them, all wearing black with guns in their hands, though, some of them wore black masks to cover their face. After another moment of stillness, they turned and started shooting any witnesses that moved.
It was a massacre, people were screaming and running, mothers trying hopelessly to protect their families as the men started pacing around, pointing the weapons and pulling the trigger, not once wasting a bullet.
Having watched too many shows and read too many books, you knew you had to make a choice. Stay and help the people around you fight to their deaths, or run and save yourself.
As gunshot after gunshot rang in your ears, you didn't get to decide. Instinct stepped in and saved you from hesitation, you dropped your shit and ran. Not towards the exit; you were too smart for that. Like hell they'd leave an exit unguarded, the last thing they wanted was a survivor.
No, instead you ran to the small store to the right of you. Even if it was little in size, the columns and columns of useless newspapers and postcards gave you exceptional coverage as you decided to hide. The small postage store was perhaps the most useless and deserted in the mall. It hardly got any business anymore, not once had you seen anyone in here besides the employee. If money was what they wanted, they wouldn't find it here.
The postal store was attached to a small room that was also connected to the store next door. It was a small antique vinyl shop, where only occasional tourists or hippies would go. Still, you couldn't risk it. You leaned your head against the wall and closed your eyes, a pounding migraine hitting your head as you breathed heavily. Your body was not in the right state for this shit- your nose was stuffed, so unless you wanted to alert the whole world where you're hiding, you had to breathe through your mouth.
You moved your head to look around- there was still absolute chaos outside, but it was quieter, you could even hear the sobs as people begged for their lives before they were forever silenced. You felt tears sting your eyes but you knew this wasn't the time to cry. You had to get out of here alive- you had to tell the story. Policemen have been trying to catch these bastards for months, but they never left any leads whatsoever.
No cameras ever caught them. No gun was ever left behind. And most importantly, no survivors either. They were notorious for their precisely planned attacks and clean getaways.
Now was not the time to dwell, you needed a plan. You ran a hand through your loose hair strands and struggled to think clearly.
"Pst." Your heart leaped out of your chest and turned to the direction of the sound. It was a woman your age; she held her lip up to her mouth and motioned you over to where she was. She sat underneath the checkout counter, her small yet plump features looking at you behind the corner. You paused and contemplated your options. It was risky to move across the room to her since the desk was right next to the door and the wall was mostly a window, but you decided it was worth a shot.
You slid across the floor soundlessly and appeared next to her. You never thought you'd find comfort seeing such a stranger, but once you took in her dark complexion and her beautifully thick hair, you felt just a tad safer.
"I pressed the button," She whispered to you, her voice shaking ever so slightly as she pointed to the button above your heads, under the countertop. You recognized it as the security button. "The policeman should have been alerted but..." You saw her gulp audibly. "He was shot a few moments ago."
Your breath hitched in your throat. "What should we do?" You asked, trying your best not to sound more scared for her sake. You could hear quiet murmurs and thought that there were enough people dead for the killers to speak to the others now.
"I..." She looked down at the floor. "I don't w-wanna die..." She mumbled before putting her face in her hands, shaking slightly as you saw tears drip down her arm. You rubbed her back, not entirely emotionally available to comfort someone at the moment.
"Hey, it's okay... we'll be okay." You said and hushed her quietly. You seriously needed to get out of here. "Where did he die?"
"The guard?" She asked sniffling, and you cringed, afraid of being too loud. "J-Just outside, I saw h-him..."
"Okay, listen..." You shifted your weight onto your other ankle. "I'll get us his gun, okay?"
"Are you crazy!" She whisper-shouted, her eyes wide and panicked as she looked at you. "You'll get killed... they'll kill you too!"
You chewed the inside of your cheek. You knew that, but you couldn't think about it. Or else you might not ever get a good chance. Just as you opened your mouth to speak, the voices became clearer and hushed you both.
"Any more survivors?" Asked one, apparently not afraid of being heard.
"There's no way to know for sure," You heard a shuffle and a thud, presumably a corpse. "They could be hiding, but we got Mingi on cameras so he'll know if something's up."
"Wooyoung?" Asked a warm voice as you both heard rapid footsteps approach the voices. The girl beside you reached for your hand, and you squeezed hers assuringly as you continued to eavesdrop. "What's wrong?"
"Sirens," He answered breathlessly. "Sirens. I can hear them, they're approaching fast."
"Someone must've fucking called the cops." Said the first one, and a clatter echoed through the now empty mall as he probably dropped something, presumably a weapon.
You turned to the girl beside you and let go of her hand, holding a finger up to your lips as you looked from behind the counter and into the main hall of the indoor shopping plaza. Bodies littered the ground as you saw five men standing off to the side. After a few moments, you decided it was safe enough to slowly crawl to the body of the sheriff. He was lying in his own personal pool of blood, his gun in his hand and his taser still in his pocket. You gave one last look to the fearful girl behind the counter before mouthing to her, "I'll be okay. Hide."
You got on your stomach and crawled ever so slowly to the corpse. Now you were in plain sight. You had no walls to protect you, no aisles, no nothings. If you got low quick enough, you could probably be passed as a corpse.
You kept crawling and shuffling. You were so close, you could see the details of the sheriff's face. His unshaved face, oily pores, and the whites of his eyes. His dead, lifeless eyes.
You just needed the gun. That's it, that's your only chance. You reached out your fingertips for it. Holding your breath as you waited. Your mind was blank. You didn't notice the way their conversation stopped. You didn't notice the way one of them turned his body towards your direction. As you reach out, you felt like you had a chance.
Until a curdling yelp reached your ears and you jumped from the daze you were in, just in time for a cold hand to grab your wrist and twist it painfully. You cried and looked up at the source of the evil voice, and you saw a tall figure smiling down at you.
"Hey princess," He said, continued to turn your wrist, causing you to shout a pained groan. "What'cha doing with that, hm?"
You sat up and started to kick at his body, pulling your throbbing wrist away but he had a grip of steel. His cat-like eyes watched you as he so effortlessly muscled through your fighting.
Your eyes widened at the sound of another scream, and you turned to where your ally was hiding. A tall figure you could see through the window had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He leaned down and grabbed the girl by the neck, pulling her up and off her feet, choking her ruthlessly. Her legs kicked from under his grip, and the strong man slammed her against a wall, her cries interrupted by thuds of the cement hitting her skull.
"Stop!" You cried and pushed your attacker away, but the boy wouldn't let you go. You screamed and kicked and pushed, but he wouldn't release you. Instead, he grabbed your chin and made you watch, putting his chin on your shoulder.
"Isn't it exciting?" His voice asked through a crooked smile of his, his cheek barely touching yours. "How she screams and screams, but can't get out from him?"
You watched in utter horror at the sight. The man wordlessly killed her in seconds, using his bare hands and a wall. You watched as she dropped to the floor, drenched in her own blood as her attacker wiped his own mouth with his bloody hand. He turned to the rest of the group, who seemed unphased by his behavior.
She didn't deserve to die. She didn't want to, all she wanted to do was help but you got her killed. You didn't know how much of this you were saying out loud, apparently, you had been choking on your own sobs the whole time. The boy next to you chuckled curtly before dropping you to the ground, knowing you'd be too weak to stand up on your own.
The ringing in your ears drowned out the voices of the males in the room. You could only hear a few words; "bullets", 'police", "storm", and "time". Moments later, the sound of glass breaking broke you from your hole of despair, only to find out they hadn't killed you yet.
No, instead, you were being held in front of them, facing a wall of policemen and SWAT members as they held their guns up to the killers behind you. Someone new was behind you, shorter than the person before, and from next to him you could see the blue hair he had neatly tucked under his hat. But still held the same crazed look as the one before.
"Shoot us, and she goes too." He said, shoving the face of the gun deeper into your now bruising neck. He was out of breath. He had you in his grasp and was slowly backing away from the barricade of armored men. "You wouldn't want another innocent to be killed, would you?"
Everything was a blur, one moment you were inside the mall with your wits held together by threads, and the next you were thrown over someone's shoulder, running in the pouring rain where you couldn't comprehend anything.
The body you were draped over was strong and obviously held a lot of strength. You felt a hand grip your hair tightly as the man pulled your face up so your eyes could meet his.
"Sleep now," He said lowly. "You're exhausted."
And that's when you blacked out.