TROUBLE

"Here we are," Bruno announced as the truck slowly halted to a stop.

They both got out of the car and made their way past the parlor doors and toward the girl at the checkout point.

"Restroom?" Bruno asked the girl who was at the checkout point.

"Oh, it's an underground one, go down that narrow stairs, it's hard to miss." The girl politely answered with a smile.

"I will only take a few minutes, Senior."

Bruno's bright smile fell to a tight-lipped one, he prefers to be called older brother, rather than senior by Yuri.

"Yeah, be careful."

Yuri got out of one of the five stalls in the restroom, then walked to the sink to wash his hands with a small innocent smile adorning his lips. This scene consists of a normal college boy washing his hands, but the whole plot scene twists when a violent tremor is felt beneath his feet, violent enough to make him get thrown across from where he stood.

Groaning in pain, Yuri painstakingly got back on his feet with the help of the wall. His mind was in a frenzy, panic consumed him as the room's light flickered rhythmically with the pace at which his head was pounding, images of his ambushed home flashing before his eyes. He could feel a panic attack arising.

Reaching for the doorknob, Yuri limped his way out of the restroom and leaned his back against the door immediately he got out, wheezing for air.

This is not the right time to have an asthma attack.

Eyeing the foot of the stairs he used in getting to underground, Yuri was about to head for the stairs but paused when his ears caught a pulsing sound coming from beyond the brick walls, down the narrow hall. Taking a deep breath, Yuri decided to ignore what he heard and thought of it as a hallucination from the earthquake shock, but all caution blew in the wind when the pulsing sound grew much quicker like a ticking bomb.

Torn on if he should just ignore the sound, or find the source of the sound, Yuri let curiosity get the best of him. Limping towards the sound that was in the opposite direction of the stairs, Yuri felt this urge that pushed him to move faster, or else whatever was pulsing across the hall would possibly kill people in the building, and he had a feeling that he could stop that from happening.

The faster he limped, the faster the pulsing sound became. Now, he could even feel the vibrations beneath his feet.

Reaching the end of the hall, Yuri almost passed out from the view before him.

It was a gaping hole, no, more of a large dark smoke plastered on the wall, growing larger as seconds ticked. Yuri trembled and was surprised that he could feel the amount of darkness oozing out of the black ominous smoke.

'This is bad'

Moving forward with courage he would murder himself for later- that's if he got out of this, he reached his trembling hand forward to touch the smoke, and a gasp escaped his lips when he saw that the place he touched had its smoke diffused.

Acting out of impulse and adrenaline, Yuri started tapping around the black smoke, and was quite pleased with his work until he felt his hand go through the wall, and a hand tightly grasping his wrist, then pulled him. Yuri's eyes widened in fear as he reflectively placed his other hand on a smoke-free part of the wall, trying to desperately pull his hand out of the dark smoke.

He could feel that the person on the other side was gaining on him, even though he was not so sure of how he had enough strength to grapple with the other person for this long without being sucked by the dark smoke yet. He felt dread swallow him up, feeling the kind of fear that he had never felt, not even when he had his home ambushed.

'What made so much fear cloud his heart?' He thought to himself.

'He didn't feel this kind of fear when he was shot, or when he felt utterly alone, but why now?'

Right.

His seniors.

He always knew from the start that he had a certain type of attachment towards his seniors, but he never thought they would one day give him the will to fight, he never thought they would one day give him the will to survive, he always thought he would strive to survive on the notion that his parents told him to, but it seemed like he has found a new fight, a new family, a new home.

Snapping from his thoughts, Yuri could see that his whole arm and shoulder were already on the other side. With wide eyes he began to pull harder, resulting in an equal but opposite force from the other side. Again, he felt the person on the other side gaining in him.

'What was he to do?'

The faces of his seniors flashed before his eyes; their beaming smile, their ever-encouraging and loving gazes. Yuri began to smile at the memories but stilled when suddenly the smiley faces of his seniors turned forlorn and depressing.

'What is wrong? They were all smiling a moment ago.'

We can't lose you again, I can't lose you again.

He heard Chen Ling's words repeatedly echoing in his head.

Can't lose.... again.

With a newfound determination, Yuri pulled harder, but it was all futile. Just as he was about to be pulled to the other side, his eyes changed to a bright angry amber and a shrill scream escaped his lips.

A bright blinding light emanated from Yuri like he was the sun himself, immediately dissipating the dark smoke, and his arm became released. A loud explosive sound and a force that violently threw Yuri against the wall ensued, creating a domino effect that shook the ground within a ten-kilometer radius.

Yuri lay lifeless against the brick wall as little white light that appeared like fireflies came falling in slow motion around him, disappearing as soon as they touched the ground.