Continuum

終わり

"You guys," Yoongi said. His heart hurt. He didn't want to let this happen. But Taehyung was disappearing right there. They had succeeded, hopefully. They'd finished what they had said they would do.

The two looked at him with wide eyes. Their hearts, one healthy, one sickly, were pounding with fear, though they tried to keep the expression off their faces. They'd known what they were getting themselves into, but it didn't make the knowledge that they were going to die any easier. Especially now that their fates were sealed. But if the were going to die, then they were going to die on their own terms. They nodded, then left knowing that they would never see their friends again.

They got out of the building as fast as possible, then once out in the open air they began sprinting as fast as they could, the angry gray buildings blurring around them.

"Fucking tracker!" Jeongguk shouted, tearing at his arm with his fingernails.

"Too late to think about that now, c'mon!" Namjoon yelled back, grabbing the boy's arm and running even faster. Their head start wouldn't get them very far, and they regretted that they didn't drive to the laboratory.

They ran, and ran, and didn't stop until they were in front of the door of their cabin. In the quiet forest, the sounds of their ragged and fast breathing sounded like paper being torn into pieces. Before, time had been flying by. Now, it seemed to pass far too slowly. With shaking hands, Jeongguk unlocked the door carefully, methodically.

It would, after all, be the last time they would enter. Maybe the last time anyone would. They entered in silence, the only sounds their feet on the wood floor.

They looked around their home in a way they had never before. They saw all the pieces of them that had collected over time, and all the little pieces of the other boys that had collected there. They saw these things that had once been white noise the way that an archaeologist might: as a place where people once were that needed to be examined, not a place where life was. Where people lived.

"What now?" Jeongguk whispered.

Namjoon sighed. "What would you like to do?"

The words sounded so easy when said, but they were so heavy.

The younger boy breathed in the brisk air. "The library."

"What about it?"

"If those soldiers get their hands on those books, they'll just sell them for money. I don't want that. They mean too much."

In one single fluid motion, they looked into the kitchen at the oven.

"Got it," Namjoon said. "Are all the windows closed?"

Jeongguk nodded but walked around the cabin checking all the windows anyway. Meanwhile, Namjoon went to the gas stove and turned it on all the way, making sure it was working. He turned it off again. Then he went to one of the kitchen drawers, found the sharpest knife he could and cut the gas cord. It hissed as the sulphuric gas leaked out into the cabin.

"How long should it take?" Jeongguk asked, his voice quiet.

"I don't know," Namjoon answered. "A minute, I suppose?"

The boy with black hair nodded sadly. Just as well. There was no reason to wait and maybe give the soldiers enough time to get there. "Okay then."

Namjoon stood up, thinking. "I'm not dying with this damn corset on," he declared, then proceeded to pull off his shirt and the ridiculous device that had always annoyed him, letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor.