Isolated | Taekook

zero

zero

__________

Maybe he was overreacting, but Jungkook was pretty sure that when someone tells you to run and hide, something bad is going to happen. He can hear his mother screaming from the living room as he runs down into the tornado cellar with his older brother. He's crying for several reasons - his brother's grip is too hard, it's the middle of the night, he doesn't know why there's sirens sounding outside or why there's flashing lights. They hurt his eyes and he feels dizzy. He nearly trips going down the stairs. His parents are still shouting and he wants nothing more than to hide in his mother's arms but he can't. Instead, he lets his brother pull him along into the safety of the cellar, and shut the world out.

He wants the noises to stop and they're slightly drowned out when they make it into the cellar and his brother shuts the door above them. It's below freezing down there, and Jungkook wished he could be back upstairs in his bed where it was warm, dreaming about robots, and flying to the moon. Things kids are supposed to be doing at one in the morning.

Jungkook's old enough to know that hiding in the cellar means something bad is happening. But he's old enough - and smart enough - to know that this isn't a tornado drill, because his parents would have rushed down into the cellar with him. Jungkook isn't old enough to comprehend the severity of what is happening though - their parents stopped letting them watch the news. His father always told him that it was important for them to know what was going on in the world, but for the last several months, they'd been ushered away whenever it came on.

They're hunched in the corner, shivering from the cold. There was only one blanket in the cellar, and it wasn't big enough for the both of them. His brother had wrapped his arms around him, trying to help fight off the cold, but nothing was working. His toes were numb, he didn't have the time to grab socks - another indication that something wasn't right. If he didn't have time to grab anything, then something terrible was happening in the world above them, and Jungkook wasn't sure he was brave enough to want to find out. "Want mommy," he whimpered through chattering teeth. Jungkook could see his breath when he spoke. Was it really that cold down here?

"I know, but mommy's busy," his brother murmured in his ear. "We have to stay put,"

Jungkook did not want to stay put. It was miserably cold down here, and even though the ringing of the sirens had faded and were almost nonexistent at this point, his head was still pounding. He wasn't a fan of the silence either. He couldn't hear his parents anymore. There was something wrong with the silence.

"What's happening?" he asked. Jungkook was conflicted. He wanted to know what was happening, but at the same time, he didn't want to have nightmares about it tomorrow night. He had decided against asking for only a split second, but he was ten years old now, he could handle it.

"Don't worry about it okay, Kookie? Nothing's going to happen to us,"

Normally, Jungkook would have bugged him about it, demanding that he tell him or else, but when he peered up in the darkness at his face, Jungkook let it slide. It was obvious in his eyes - and in the tone of his voice - that he didn't know what was happening either.

Jungkook lost track of how long they waited down there. Was it minutes? Hours? He wasn't good with time. But it felt like an eternity to him.

When he awoke, he was shivering. The sirens had long gone, and it was dead silent in that cellar. His parents were nowhere to be found, and neither was his brother.