It wasn't until the next morning that the door to the quarantine room opened. Eun-hyeok entered, to which Mr Kim quickly scurried up to him.
"I'm really okay," Mr Kim said with a confident nod and smile.
However, Eun-hyeok ignored the man. "Cha Hyun-su. I need to speak with you."
"What?" Mr Kim gaped. "Why are you only taking him? What about me?"
Eun-hyeok continued to ignore Mr Kim and left the room. Hyun-su got up from where he'd been sitting and began to head towards the door, where Mr Kim grabbed his arm, stopping him.
"You're just being used," Mr Kim said to the boy.
However, Hyun-su showed no reaction and left the room, where Eun-hyeok shut and then locked the door.
Moments later, Mr Kim was banging on the door and trying to twist the doorknob. "Hey! Hey! Let me out, too!"
"It's vital the front gate be properly barricaded, but it hasn't been," Eun-hyeok explained to Hyun-su as they walked through the hallways. "And we only have wooden planks and chains
blocking the stairs. Monsters could get through at any moment. The same goes for where you were just now."
Eun-hyeok and Hyun-su stopped walking, and Eun-hyeok faced Hyun-su and crossed his arms. "Why do you think I took your side? I'll be straightforward. You'll be taking on all the dangerous work from now on. If you don't want to, then I can't help you."
"What do you mean?" Hyun-su asked.
"The guy in Room 1408," Eun-hyeok replied. "Can you bring him here?"
Hyun-su hesitated, unsure if he could. He still didn't know what had knocked him off the stairs the day before, but chances were it was still up on the 9th floor.
"If you're worried about going up by yourself, Sung-hyo already volunteered to go with you," Eun-hyeok announced, which only made Hyun-su's eyes widen.
"What?" he gaped.
ᶠYͧoͨᵏu
Hyun-su found Sung-hyo not long after he'd geared himself up. She was with Ji-ji in Mr Kim's store, grabbing some food and putting it in a rucksack that Ji-ji had let her use.
Hyun-su walked over to the girl as she exited the store, grabbing his arm. She turned to him, already having a feeling of what Hyun-su wanted to say.
"Say what you want, Hyun-su," Sung-hyo said before Hyun-su could even utter a word. "I'm going with you, whether you like that or not."
"No, I want you to stay here," Hyun-su shook his head. "Stay where I know you'll be safe."
"I promised those kids I'd come back for them," Sung-hyo protested, tying her hair into a ponytail. "I'm coming with you, end of story."
Sung-hyo sighed to herself as everyone nearby watched Sang-wook rip away the things helping to barricade the main door. He began walking up the stairs straight afterwards.
"If you aren't back by this evening, I'll come looking for you," Ji-ji said, standing beside Sung-hyo.
"Thanks," Sung-hyo smiled. "But I'll be fine. I survived three days up there."
Sung-hyo gave Ji-ji one last look of reassurance before waking past the large, green doors.
She didn't stop until she realised Hyun-su wasn't following. She turned around in time to see Eun-hyeok whispering something into Hyun-su's ear, and whatever he said made the teenage boy grow worried.
Sang-wook was striding ahead, already above the kids as they all walked up the stairs. Sung-hyo continued to see that Hyun-su kept slowing down, his mind clearly on something.
Sung-hyo stopped on the stairs, standing in front of Hyun-su. He stopped and stared up at her, quickly spotting the concerned looks she was sending his way.
"What's making you so slow?" Sung-hyo asked. "Is it because of what Eun-hyeok said? What did he say?"
Hyun-su answered immediately, "He said to leave the kids if things go south."
Sung-hyo was horrified, to say the least. However, she quickly regained herself and walked up to Hyun-su.
"You take care of Mr Han," Sung-hyo announced. "I'll make the kids my priority, okay?"
Hyun-su nodded, feeling a little better.
But he was still nervous.
ᶠYͧoͨᵏu
"Easy, easy!" Sung-hyo hushed Hyun-su as she supported the wounded boy against her. "I'm gonna set you against the wall, okay?"
Hyun-su nodded, in too much pain to talk. Sung-hyo gently but quickly set him against the wall, before then trying to find the wound and put pressure on it, but Hyun-su's hands grabbed her wrists, stopping her and making her look up at him.
"Don't..." Hyun-su let out. "I'm already healing, I can feel it. I'll be fine in a second."
Sung-hyo didn't like just leaving Hyun-su be while he was bleeding, but she also knew he was right, so she backed away and sat down opposite him, trying to catch her breath back.
"You know, you didn't have to do that," Sung-hyo sighed, setting her knife down beside her on the floor. "I knew he was there. You didn't have to shove me out of the way."
"If you get hurt, you'll take longer than me," Hyun-su replied.
"I'm not using you as some human shield, Hyun-su," Sung-hyo scolded. "Getting hurt is human. I can handle an injury."
Hyun-su didn't say anything. What could he say?
Sung-hyo was so determined about Hyun-su's safety and protection when she was the one who needed it more than him.
But it was also because he didn't want to see her get hurt.
A few minutes passed before Hyun-su was back on his feet, good as new. The teenagers continued their journey to Room 1408, with Sang-wook walking behind them.
Sung-hyo felt it was quite odd that Sang-wook was now walking behind the pair instead of striding far ahead of them.
Perhaps he didn't want another kid's blood on his hands?
Or were they now his shields?
"I think there's a monster here," Hyun-su suddenly announced.
Sung-hyo couldn't hear any beeping coming from the earphone in her left ear, so she turned around, intending to ask Hyun-su why he thought a monster was nearby.
She stopped when she saw Hyun-su's pure black eyes. Sang-wook stopped too.
"Let's kill it," Hyun-su announced with a smile. "We can kill it."
Hyun-su opened the large green doors next to them and walked through, before then turning back to face the pair.
"You're scared, aren't you?" he whispered.
Sung-hyo couldn't help but feel that was aimed at her, especially as her grip on her knife tightened.
As Hyun-su walked back through again, Sang-wook grabbed the boy and pulled him back to the stairs, where he punched Hyun-su in the stomach. Hyun-su let out a loud gasp, coming back to his senses and coughing to catch his breath back.
Sung-hyo then saw that the hallway Hyun-su was going to walk into was on fire, but before anyone could say or think anything, a large hand reached out, grabbing Sang-wook by the face and pulling him into the fiery corridors.
"Sir!" Hyun-su shouted, immediately chasing after. Sung-hyo followed, continuing to look back. She couldn't help but feel that they were being watched by someone.
As the two ran into an area where the corridor split into two, a strong force suddenly knocked Hyun-su to his feet. Sung-hyo immediately pulled her knife out from the sheath, her eyes darting around the room.
She soon spotted the monster. It was dark brown, wore destroyed, raggedy clothes and the area around his heart was glowing red.
'That's bound to be his weak spot,' Sung-hyo thought.
Sung-hyo prepared herself, holding her knife at the ready as the monster charged at her. However, an arrow landed on the monster's back, somehow making the monster catch fire. It ran away, most likely to somewhere safer.
Sung-hyo turned back to Hyun-su as she put her knife away. He was using the wall as a support to help him stand up. His face was bleeding and his leg hurt.
"Are you okay?" Sung-hyo asked, wrapping her arm around the boy's waist to support him.
Hyun-su nodded, his left arm going over the girl's shoulder. "I'm okay."
"Are you trying to burn down the whole building, sir?" a voice said. Female, and she sounded older than Sung-hyo.
"We can put out the fire later," a second voice said. Sounded like an older man. "You're so harsh."
"It will take ages to get to the first floor," the woman's voice came again.
"My goodness," the older man grumbled. "I'm not sure anyone will still be alive by then."
Sung-hyo couldn't help but feel a little bit of relief to hear those two people. More survivors.
Sung-hyo started pulling Hyun-su and herself into the view of the survivors, who seemed to be surprised to find other survivors.
The two teenagers then spotted the monster they must've seen earlier. Sang-wook was lying against the wall, next to an open door. In the room were tons of bodies and on the other side of the wall was the monster, though he seemed to have been trying to escape when he was still human.
The woman bent down before Sang-wook, finding a pulse in his neck. This shocked her. "He's alive."
"The monster left him alive?" the elderly man gaped.
Neither Hyun-su nor Sung-hyo said anything, both staring at the bodies in the room.
"What are you doing?" the woman asked the pair. She then motioned for one of them to help her carry Sang-wook.
Hyun-su started to move out of Sung-hyo's grasp. Sung-hyo went to protest, but Hyun-su beat her.
"I'm fine," he reassured her, whispering so the others couldn't hear. "It doesn't hurt anymore. I'll be fine."
Hyun-su walked over, helping the woman lift Sang-wook and they started to carry him back to the woman and elderly man's apartment.
Sung-hyo heard something rip slightly under her foot. Looking down and moving her foot a little, she spotted a notebook, with words written all over the open pages.
"Sung-hyo, come on!" Hyun-su called out to her.
Sung-hyo quickly bent down and picked up the book before running to catch up with the others.