Long Journey || ATEEZ

Deja Vu

With the captain in the lead, the ATINY's crew marched along the tunnel, the sunlight getting brighter and brighter with each second. Soon it became a blinding glare – just like the summer sun, just without any of its heat – and the pirates had to shield their eyes from it as they reached an opening. The tunnel yawned open into a gaping cave, the ceiling perhaps miles and miles above, and the source of the sunlight came into view.

Treasure.

Heaps and heaps of it, all arranged in neat little piles like a bundle of friendly hills – except these hills glinted with a quiet malice, as if they were watching with beady hidden eyes, waiting for the eight to let down their guard so they could swallow them up and shamelessly deny the fact that they ever existed. Golden coins and glittering jewels galore; pearl necklaces were draped carelessly over the mountains, and a variety of gold – pure gold – swords, helmets and plates of armour were dotted about the place. It was almost blinding to look at. Shards of sunlight radiated from every single surface, flashing and dancing in the pirates' eyes, creating little spots in their vision every time they blinked.

And in the middle of it all, causing ATEEZ to blink in confusion rather than adjustment to the onslaught of light, was a girl.

She was small; scrawny, even. Her ebony hair was tied into pretty little braids, tied up into one ponytail at the top of her head, barely reaching her shoulders. Her skin was a rich, deep brown and her complexion was bright, vitalised – as if the sunlight emanating from the coins actually transferred vitality. She watched the eight pirates enter with wary steel-blue eyes and pure-white pupils, her stance hunched and low. Like a panther about to pounce.

Or a deer ready to run away.

"Uh, hello," Hongjoong said almost reflexively, out of surprise. "What are you doing he—" He took a step forward and the girl's reaction was visceral. She hissed, taking several steps backward onto the hill of gold behind her. Coins should have been displaced from her sudden and violent movement, but they stayed eerily in place, as if they had been glued there. "We're not going to hurt you—" Hongjoong said, walking forwards with his hand held out in front of him, as if to pacify a cornered animal.

"Don't come closer!" she shrieked suddenly, all hostility gone and instead panic lacing her voice. She put out her hand to try and stop him, but then drew it back almost instantly, as if shocked. Fear curled at the edges of her strangely shaded pupils.

Hongjoong was struck by how this girl reminded him of San when he had first lost control of his Dark Energy in front of him. That panicked look in her eye, it was less out of fear but more out of concern; she didn't want to hurt him accidentally – whatever that implicated. Just like San.

The demon in question definitely seemed to feel it too, raising an eyebrow at the captain as he turned back to glance at his crewmates.

"Please. Just don't," the girl said, breathing heavily as she took a few, less animated steps backwards. "You don't want to be anywhere near me." There was such animosity in her eyes – aimed at herself – that Hongjoong obliged and fell back to where his crewmates stood.

"Why...?" Hongjoong breathed.

The girl sat down cross-legged.

"I'm cursed," she said simply, playing with her hair and avoiding ATEEZ's eyes, as if this curse would somehow activate if she met eyes with any one of them. Then before Hongjoong could open his mouth to ask about it, she continued talking, as if she had seen the question coming. "Eterna's blood did this to me." She spoke the goddess' name with resent, spitting it out as if it didn't deserve to be held sanctuary in her mouth for even a split-second.