Park Jimin Oneshots

Flicker

The candles were your friends. Your lifeguard, your safety. The wax and wick were a pillar for you to lean on. The hypnotising flame that was always alight when you went to bed, accompanying you as you slept. The neighbours thought it was a pity, for they assumed you were obsessed with candles, decorating every corner of your bedroom with the pale wax that glowed when lit. Idiots. They only assumed what they didn’t know.

The small fragile, orange flame kept your ultimate fear away that manifested in the darkness of evening and night. Your fear that bore the form of a man whose aura was a clouded black as if it could engulf you. The shadow that stood in the corner of your room when night fell. Your fear, whose eyes glowed red, accentuating their narrow and heavy-lidded shape, whose plump lips spread into a wide and predatory grin that sent unwanted shivers down your vertebrae. Your fear that watched.

That’s why you covered every corner with your candle friends. It just so happened due to the unstoppable ticking of time that those candles had dwindled to opaque, solid puddles, no sign of a wick to keep them alive. Now you were down to one simple candle that sat in its rustic holder on your bedside table.

But at least when your candle burned, the monster’s eyes seemed dim in comparison, and his smile dissolved into a stern straight line. He wouldn’t go near you when your friend was alight and the cockles of your heart welcomed the warmth of the small blaze. You didn’t seem to mind the angular and looming shadows that the candlelight created, only his that darkened with resentment towards the flame that kept you safe. 

Yet he loved to see the flash of terror in your eyes when your candle seemed close to going out.

Every flicker of the flame would send your body into intense fight or flight mode, because every flicker was accompanied by his devilish and musical snicker, the chilling syllables mimicking the movement of your candle friend. The flame that threatened to disappear also threatened to hand your existence over to the demon in your room. Sometimes it felt like the candle itself was mocking you for putting faith into something so delicate, something that could disappear with a light blow. It was these moments that had you really questioning if you were really in control.

The answer? You weren’t in control. You were never in control. The candle never kept him away, he chose to stay away because he enjoyed watching a silly human put their faith in an inanimate object. Whenever you slept, the sinister shadow emerged from the corner of your room and loomed over your figure that lay as close to the flame as possible. He smirked at your seemingly absolute confidence in your brittle candlestick whose wax was diminishing each night and whose flame he could easily suffocate between his fingers.

But now he was starting to get bored. Now he wanted to see the orange glint leave your eyes only for a black hopeless abyss to replace it. He wanted to see your serene, sleeping figure erupt into goosebumps when his cold fingers touched your skin. He wanted to see you tense and recoil when your eyes fluttered open, only to realise that your worst nightmare sat right in front of your face. He wanted to see his blazing red reflect in your wide shaking eyes that were glossed with tears, your body paralysed with fear beneath his. He would delight in your whimpers like they were a song. And he would relish in the hiss of your pathetic candle when he extinguished it between the pads of his finger, mere centimetres away from your faces while he stared relentlessly into your eyes for extra effect. Your body would fall slack as you recognised your impending fate, and as the smoke tendrils wrapped hypnotically around his face, he would chuckle before speaking words of finally facing your fear.

But not yet. Maybe he’ll watch for a little longer, because maybe in the end he’ll miss observing and torturing you. That’s what he thought when he blew a puff of air that was strong enough to agitate your flame, and he laughed watching you panic again at another, and possibly the last, flicker of your candle friend.