Darker Blood

Chapter seventy-four

"Why don't you get it?" Her voice raised, almost yelling in my ears while her lips barely parted to let sound through, the crease on her forehead and burn in her eyes conveying her frustration more than well. "Everything has to be the exact same as last time, or it'll never work."

"It'll work," I whispered, almost in a chant. This had to work. I couldn't lose another of my brothers because of my own stupidity. It wasn't fair to them, or her.

Sero didn't answer back, knowing when even a pure being of ultimate and no power simultaneously wouldn't be able to break through the stubborn barrier I'd sealed myself in. Her arms folded over her chest, and I could only watch while waiting for her to make a move.

"If you won't believe my words, how about we take a little trip down the memory book that hasn't been completed yet?"

I frowned up at her. What the hell does that mean?

The white that was everything around us darkened, filling into countless colours, before it focussed and we were placed in a dark street. My senses were screaming that it was the middle of the day, yet the sky was dark and the clouds boomed and shook the canvas of the sky. My body finally landed, succumbing to gravity, and I looked up at Sero, bewildered.

Her lips were clamped shut, body stiff as the very outermost layer of her form melted away like smoke. She let out a whimper at a particularly large wisp that departed from the back of her neck.

This world, this realm, it must be hurting her.

"Look around," she ordered, demanding my attention not be on the parts of her that were literally being eaten by the air itself. I did what she asked, I looked around, trying to figure out where we were, and why she had brought me here. The street was too dark to distinguish it from others, and only when I breathe deeply to sigh did I realise exactly where we were.

The river beneath us churned and crackled as the ice sealed over the topmost layer before the rage underneath broke clean through, and it never stopped, ravenous for more. I stumbled to my feet on the bridge, my sense of balance here not quite right. Leaning against an empty car for support, I tried to walk, senses overloaded.

I could smell dozens of individual tracks of blood, I could see the disarrayed parking lot the bridge had become, I could her the sky cracking and distant screams, I could taste the stench of death in the air. Every roof I touched to steady myself on crumbled under my fingers, the acidity in the air destroying everything.

Why bring me here to this?

"Right there," she pointed to the other side of the bridge where I could just make out a few heads struggling and tripping in the same gravity difficulty I was stumbling through. I moved faster though, limbs pumping with the fuel of desperation; I had to find my family, I had to find my love.

At last, I finally reached the downward stretch, and I glanced once at Sero who was beside me, walking calmly and collectively, completely unaffected by the lack of gravity. She looked faded, and I could only guess that she was only visible to me. I passed the last discarded car, and what my eyes landed on had my entire body frozen in horror.

My brothers, my family, were broken. I couldn't look away from how there were laying, eyes still open as if they were as shocked to meet their end as I was. I looked further, my ears just catching the light sobbing, and I cried out to her.

Her head shot up through her suffering, and her face contorted further into pain as she cried back. I started towards her, legs numb as they stumbled forward. She stumbled herself, practically crawling to meet me. I looked down at my brothers, and saw that only Taehyung, Namjoon, and Yoongi were collapsed on the broken pavement. I couldn't move forward, falling onto the ground as she cried, moving closer with a strength I never possessed. She fell right on top of my frozen form, tripping one last time over the dead and empty body of Taehyung.