DreamScape

PART 3: THE WAY GEMSTONES ARE MADE - IX

The medics still on scene took one look at the three survivors and started shouting for attention and respirators. With no ambulances left and waiting for more to return, they did the next best thing. They sat Yoongi and Hoseok down with a can of oxygen and two masks; started inspecting Hoseok's whole right side, which was littered in cuts and blood.

But it was Jungkook who worried them the most. They fitted the oxygen mask to his face, started taking his pulse and calling for shots of something that the rest of the group had never heard of. Jimin was sobbing, holding onto a catatonic Namjoon for dear life. Behind them, Seokjin was staring at the building with his heart in his throat and a stomach filled with lead.

Brother Future, under Fate's command, rushed into the collapsed gymnasium in Search of Lady Han, helped her faze through the rubble she had been buried under. As soon as she was out, she was screaming and spitting at them, demanding to know why neither Fate nor Future had seen this coming. But they were all silent, all unknowing, even Universe, who gazed at everything with a glazed look. He was he the Universe, yet something had happened here which was not supposed to, the Dreamscape around him was warped and damaged and bigger than ever; stronger than ever. He'd had no idea. And now he had no answers.

By the time the emergency team had managed to put out the fire and were getting ready to attempt an entry into the destroyed building, it was night time. Flashlights came on everywhere, and Jungkook was hoisted into an ambulance, Jimin refusing to leave his side and forcing himself into the vehicle.

But part of Jungkook remained.

With every breath of smoke-free air his body took, his ghost gained a little more opacity, until finally he could feel his feet again, and he could see. He could move.

He walked slowly, terrified, his ghost-like state felt like walking through water. Like the first time he had moved, at the campfire: impossibly slow. It took every ounce of focus to put one foot in front of the other. Couldn't bare the thought of finding Taehyung's body, but pushed forward nonetheless, clinging to any hope he could find.

He walked straight through the rubble, unaffected by physical materials, into the depths of hell and darkness. Instinctively, he lifted a hand and suddenly light poured out from his palm, spreading from his soul and illuminating every crevice. Indigo light which led the way.

Forward he went, knowing where he'd left his Taehyungie, mind obsessively playing the last second he saw him.

And he heard something, not in the chaos of reality, but in his own mind. Like an echo.

Kookie, Kookie, Kookie.

Mindless, he followed, controlling the DreamScape, going where his heart told him to.

And there he was, his Taehyungie, V, his soulmate.

He swallowed the whine that was bubbling to the surface, and forced his way forward. Until he was close enough to kneel, close enough to touch.

Threw his arms around the barely conscious man pinned under the fallen arch of a staircase.

"Hey Taehyungie..." he whispered. "I'm here now."

"Kookie?"

"Mhm," he put every ounce of his soul into making sure the other couldn't hear the tears streaming down his face.

"Hey Kookie, you know I can see you, right?" Tae whispered up at him, and when Jungkook looked down he peered into playful eyes.

He looked fine, Jungkook chanted to himself. He was fine, fine, fine. The firemen were making their way back inside; they'd be here soon. Nothing looked broken; no blood no injuries that he could see. But so why was Taehyung so pale under the film of soot on his face? Why was his breathing so laboured, his eyes so unfocused? Where was his scarf?