fear ↜ hjs

ꕥ three

"Joohyun! Help me!"
"Stop them, please. Help me—"

Joohyun looked left and right, it was too dark. She needed light to see. She squinted her eyes as she walk forward, she stepped on something sticky. It was only then she realised she was barefoot and dressed in her pyjamas. Her right arm outstretched, and she felt the hard concrete on her side, the wall.

Using the wall as her guide, she walked towards the voice. Her hands travelled until she reached the end of the wall, only then there was a dim light coming from up front. She realised that she was outside, down an unfamiliar road. Jogging, she headed towards the light. The voice had disappeared but she believed this was the direction the person wanted her to go.

"H-Hello?" She called as she stood down the street lamp. But there was no answer, she needed to hear that faint voice again. How did it know her name? Why was it asking for help? She looked at her surroundings, it was an unfamiliar place but it had a typical setting, like a normal downtown.

"Joohyun! Help me, please!"

Only then she had her senses tingled. She hadn't heard that voice for a very long time. It was awfully familiar, she missed it so much. Tears started welling in her eyes, she needed to hurry.

"Jaewon! Stay where you are, I'm coming!" She yelled as she started running towards the direction of the voice. However, as much as she pushed herself to run faster, her body just won't cooperate and slowly, she felt heavier and weaker.

"It's too late, you didn't care about me."

The voice was haunting her, she felt suffocated. Out of nowhere her foot was stuck to the ground. She looked below and liquid was flowing down the streets. It was thick, she reached out a hand to touch it. Under the light, she saw the liquid dripping from her fingers. Blood.

——ꕥ——

Joohyun gasped as she sat on her bed. She glanced at her alarm clock next to her bed, it read 3:25 AM. She placed a hand over her heart, it was accelerating and sweat formed on her forehead. It had been a long time since she had a nightmare.

Her insomnia, it was coming back.

She had trouble sleeping before, mostly because of stress and constantly haunted by nightmares. Joohyun got down from her bed and walked towards her dressing table. She pulled the drawer and took out a bottle of pills. It was something that used to help her to sleep. Guess it was time to start taking it again.

As she was heading to bed, she noticed Jisung was missing. Growing curious, she decided to check if he was in his mini studio but cancelled it since she thought he probably didn't want any disruption.

She went back to bed, trying to get an eye shut. Praying that the nightmares would not return once she drifted off reality.

——ꕥ——

Jisung had left early that day as he needed to get some work done before tonight and so Joohyun was left all by herself. She had started a little bit with the objectives of her project, but by noon she was worn out.

She felt bored as well, Jisung wasn't home so she had no one to fool around with. Jisung always had something motivating to say. She checked the time and it was five minutes past 2. Sighing, she decided to head to the public library. She might find something there as her eyes were irritated from the constant staring battle with small fonts on her laptop.

Upon reaching the library, it was unpacked as usual. She placed her notebook on a table at a corner, near a large window, her usual spot.

She headed to the biology section and started looking for books regarding the human anatomy. However, instead of gathering three books regarding her project, she only had two and one book about mythical creatures.

"Werewolves, huh?"

Startled by the voice, Joohyun almost let out a shriek but luckily she managed to regain her senses not to. She eyed as a familiar face sat next to her. "Don't do that, you scared me." Joohyun sighed and continued reading where she stopped.

"You were the only familiar face here, I can't help it." He chuckled. "Of course, Hyunjin." She smiled down the pages. She kept reading although she could tell the guy next to her was obviously staring at her face. "What brings you here?" She started a conversation without bothering to look at him.

"The Internet in my house sucks." He said and placed his chin on his palm as he sneaked a peek at what she was reading, basically sharing the book with her. "Did you know that werewolves choose their mate by a single touch?" Hyunjin spoke, his face was near to her ear.

"What do you mean?" Joohyun asked, moving to the side a bit. She felt weird by the sudden closeness. They were classmates but they weren't actually close. Hyunjin and her always sat next to one another in class but they never actually hang out. Probably because Joohyun had a boyfriend which made guys to retreat from courting her.

"Back in the folkloric days, werewolves were terrifying. In their wolf forms, they're pretty much vicious and hideous so no one likes them. But these lonely creatures need company too so what they did was when they were in their human form, they would have physical contact, for example a simple touch of a hand." He said and placed his hand on top of hers.
"—with any females and if they were fated both parties had a similar some kind of mark on their bodies." He explained.

"Fated?"

"Well not really, the werewolf gets to choose. The human has no choice." Hyunjin shrugged. "Where did you read that?" Joohyun couldn't help to ask. "Uh, Wikipedia?" He grinned sheepishly.

——ꕥ——

🐾Hyunjin is here! I love him too much 😭