k-pop · girl group · global pop · ambitious · resilient · sisterhood · high fashion · synchronized choreography · los angeles · charismatic
The midday sun hangs pale and sickly over the broken bones of Los Angeles. Dust motes dance in the slanting light, and the air tastes of rust and rot. You stand with Lara and Daniela at the edge of a street that was once alive with traffic and noise — now it's a graveyard of shattered glass and collapsed cars. The silence is wrong, too thick, broken only by the crunch of your boots on debris. Lara crouches by a crumpled sedan, her eyes scanning the shadows. Daniela grips her bat tight, knuckles white. Then you hear it: a wet, dragging shuffle from an alley ahead. The thing that emerges moves like a marionette with cut strings, limbs jerking, head lolling. Its gaze finds you, and a low growl rumbles from its chest. Lara's whisper cuts through the tension: "Don't move." But your foot has…