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— we control nothing.
OCTOBER 21: KIM SEOKJIN
==
seokjin runs.
he doesn't care where, or about the way the back of his too-tight shoes are digging into his heels, or about the way someone screams distantly and something—one of haewon's pieces of tech, maybe—falls to the ground with a deafening shatter. he just runs. back at the hospital, he remembers how they had all planned how to approach a situation like the one at the cemetery: "run away from the monster. don't worry about the others for the moment: they can take care of themselves. you can find and help them later. every single second matters. every moment determines your chance of it catching you or not. don't hesitate or lapse into shock; that's the worst thing to do in the situation. just keep on running."
and so seokjin runs. stumbling over uneven ground and sprawling weeds, he continues deep into the surrounding forest, now void of what lush flora would have been there during earlier months. under the pale moonlight, the winding tree branches are black snakes, casting shadows and obscuring seokjin's already limited vision. twigs and thorns scrape at his arms. his breathing is shallow—for now, his adrenaline is fueling him, and the fatigue of sprinting hasn't caught up to him yet.
something shifts to his side and seokjin turns, seeing the sharp profile of haewon running next to him. she must have ran the same direction he did. acknowledging her presence with a single nod (talking exhausts energy that seokjin can't afford to waste right now), he continues on, mind completely focused only on one thing: running away. his stoic, fixated mindset is soon broken, however, once a monstrous shriek resounds through the air, all too familiar to what seokjin has heard countless times. he'll never get over it: never forget it, never completely suppress the way his arms well up in goosebumps the moment he hears it.
seokjin takes the momentary risk to turn around. he can barely see the dark silhouette of abraxas, gangling and powerful, leaning over its extended claws and roaring into the air. the cars near it almost shake in the severity of its voice, and abraxas turns up to face the sky, long tongue hanging limply down the hollow cheek of its face.
and then seokjin sees it for the second time.
out of its broad, misshapen back, talons dripping with black blood extend from the thin, almost translucent skin. thick, large nails sprout from its arms, longer, longer, longer—until they almost seem to look like wings. wings not with feathers and colors, but with jagged bones and obsidian blood. wings not of beauty, but of pure evil. just like all those days before, when they grew from the back of a boy with a torn white shirt, billowing black pants, bare feet, and a lopsided winter hat.
