Cut the strings and set me free

Part 4- if the strings snap will you let me float away?

They said that in your last moments, as you took your final breaths you'd see your life flash before your eyes and it rang true.

As the water rose higher and higher up my body, welcoming me in with its encompassing embrace, my body sank lower and lower and all I could see were Minnie and Tae, could see every moment of their growth, their closeness, their love, everything that was simply them pass through my mind. As the waves, cold and numbing, swept against me, drew me in further and caused me to stumble and fall forward, all I could remember were the amount of times the two had stumbled and fallen- always seeking me out to help bandage them, insisting that a princess' kisses always made it better. 

And it was a gift and final torment to hear the ghost of them brush against my ears, a tender intimate call of my name that send tingles to brush against my skin.

And before my head lowered under the surface, I saw that the horizon blurred, that my breath caught and for a moment it was like time had stopped- suspended between living and dying, body stiffening up and lungs crushing with the realisation that I'd never see the horizon with them again and the tears that fell mingled with the salty waves of the sea that swept me under.

That took me away from a life that had always shunned my desires.

Here I was finally welcomed.

JIMIN POV:

The agonising wailing shrieking that seemed to ring in my ears recedes to a background sound, an almost distant roar as my soul battles with the realisation of what's happened, as it weeps and shrieks and begs for it not to be true.

And my mind, my mind refused. Refused to believe that (Y/N) would leave like this, that she would leave us without saying a word, leaving her betrothed of all people with a letter that bore her final words. My mind screamed that she wouldn't be so reckless, so stupid and so incredibly foolish to sacrifice herself like this even as a part of me turned silent at the thought. Because she was stupid and reckless and foolish- she was reckless girl and to take such a decision, to have felt pushed to such an extreme, such a point made me question whether I had the right to call her mine, even in the confined privacy of my heart.

And my ears rang, rang with her soft tone, filled with agony and pain and defeat- the words she'd penned in her letter spoken to me in her voice, firm and gentle- no mistaking the strength in it, because it took immense strength to reach such an ultimatum, it took every bit of you to decide that you no longer wanted to live, and as my hands grip tighter at the bridle, knees digging in from the side into one of the palace horse's flank, my eyes blur as the wind cuts sharply into my face, the tears I'd tried to hold back, spilling over with only the sky, the land and Tae as witness.

I urge the horse to go faster, the sound of the heavy quick galloping almost taunting, cruel in how despite its quickness seemed to keep me eons, lifetimes away from (Y/N), kept us from getting to her. How the harshness of my breath, quick and rushed and sharp, is a painful reminder, a painful taunt that I didn't know whether (Y/N) had any breath left in her, whether the air had left her lungs or not. Whether she was alive.

But I had to keep going, I had to know, I had to find her and stop her.

Whatever it took.

I felt a mad desperation grow inside me, a blinded weeping grieving beast whose screeches tore the fabric of my world, the air of that world turning thick, toxic and suffocating, the ground tearing open to reveal a deep jagged chasm and any second it felt like I would be tugged in, felt as I'd be consumed by my molten rage and panic.

Rage because I'd sat back and watched her wither away day by day, had seen that under the makeup, the fine gowns and elaborate words and gestures was someone who grew weaker and duller- the beautiful gem that was her heart and soul, losing its shine, its glow, splendour. The delicate breeze of fresh air she was in my life, getting swept away by the sharp raging winds of a storm that blew in and uprooted everything we'd known, had tugged us out of our tied roots and torn us apart.