blinding lights || k.mn. × s.yq.

blinding light

Scream.

The man shoves Minnie out of the way, and she gasps as the air gets knocked out of her lungs when her body hits the brick wall. Everything completely stops for a moment – no vision, no sense of hearing, no perception of surroundings – nothing. It lasts for about a few seconds at most, but it feels like at least a century has already passed before she manages to take in a short, sharp breath.

She looks up just to see Yuqi struggling against the attacker, who's got his hands wrapped tightly around her throat, choking life out of her.

Adrenaline.

With the newfound bits of energy from her rage, Minnie jumps up to her feet and lunges at the attacker, making him lose his balance and fall to the ground, letting go of Yuqi in the process. She stumbles towards the wall, cradling her aching neck in both hands and gasping for air. Minnie straddles the attacker's chest to keep him pinned to the ground, then attempts to knock him out by throwing direct punches to his face with her bare fists. Her knuckles get easily scrapped after just a few hits, but so does the attacker's face, even though it's covered by a mask. It gets messy pretty quickly, to the point where Minnie doesn't know whether the blood on her hands is mostly the attacker's or her own.

"Run!" Minnie shouts Yuqi's way when she feels her movements become sloppier because of the energy loss and pain from her knuckles.

"No, I'm not leaving you!" Yuqi chokes out, shaking her head rapidly, then starts coughing uncontrollably.

Blinding light.

Minnie averts her eyes from the attacker for a mere second, literally just to quickly check on her wife who's feeling a lot worse than she assumed, and that's when the attacker strikes back, aiming a flashlight at her eyes to blind her for a moment, just enough to get the upper hand. He then punches her in the throat and easily knocks her over. She doesn't even have time to react properly before he takes a suspicious bottle out of his pocket and sprays its content into her eyes.

Pain...

"Minnie?"

So much pain...

She screams as she feels the burning sensation in her eyes, making it feel as if they're melting. The pain is unbearable.

Shattered glass.

Yuqi falls to her knees helplessly when the attacker picks Minnie up from the ground and smashes her head right into the side mirror of one of the cars that are parked by the sidewalk.

"Honey, can you hear me?"

Darkness.

Minnie jolts awake with a loud, breathless gasp, then starts coughing violently because of how dry her throat is.

She can't see anything, can't hear anything.

Can't feel anything.

Yuqi instantly rushes to her wife's side, squeezing her hand tightly as she rapidly presses the button on the remote to call the nurse over.

Minnie tries to take a breath of air into her lungs, but it burns to do so, and the only thing she can do is scream in agony.

She doesn't feel Yuqi holding her hand, nor hear her helpless calls for somebody to help. She's unaware of all the monitors going crazy, the doctors and nurses rushing into the room, surrounding her.

She can't hear Yuqi's cries as she begs her to just hold on, despite one of the nurses pulling her away by the arms and leading her out of the room.

____________________

"Please help her, oh my god..." Yuqi sobs into the nurse's shoulder as soon as they step into the hallway.

"They will. I need you to calm down now, okay? Can you do that for me?" the nurse asks gently as she helps Yuqi sit down on one of the chairs and crouches down to be on the same eye level as her. "Breathe in, breathe out. Follow me, alright?" the young woman smiles encouragingly, stroking Yuqi's arms up and down to soothe her.

It takes Yuqi a while, but she eventually manages to calm down with help from the nurse who's not rushing her and just waits patiently.

"Thank you." Yuqi whispers when she finds the courage to speak again, then literally sinks into the chair out of exhaustion.

The nurse sits down on the chair beside Yuqi and puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"No need to thank me, really." she offers a generous smile Yuqi wishes she was able to reciprocate.

"Just accept it, please." Yuqi sighs and closes her tired eyes just for a moment.

"Okay then. I accept." the nurse bows her head politely. "Do you need anything? I could take you to your room."

"No, I want to stay here. I need to be as close to her as possible." Yuqi shakes her head, rejecting the offer, then wraps both arms around her own body for more warmth and comfort. "I'm really grateful to have you here, though. I'm sorry I'm only asking this now, but... may I know your name?"

The nurse smiles gently at the woman beside her, who's gone through so much in the past 48 hours and is yet to go through a lot more. The thought breaks her heart, but there's nothing she can do other than offer support and comfort.

"Park Chaeyoung."