The smell of mustiness and metal filled your senses as you moved in and out of consciousness. The feeling of cold metal stung your back and you arched your spine in a lazy and tired attempt to get away from it, but blinked open your eyes when you discovered that you can't escape it- that you were tied to it. You moved your muscles in your arms, but with no response. You were tied to something metal. Your arms were wrapped around it like a backward hug, the length of your arms too short for your hands to find each other.
You blinked again, this time patiently letting your eyes adjust to the darkness, but it was still way too unlit to see anything. You made a noise with the back of your throat as you moved back closer to the pole and straightening your spine once more. A rattling noise put you on high alert, and your senses suddenly came back better than before. You shuffled the farthest away from where the noise came from and watched the inky black space in front of you.
Horrifyingly slow steps started towards you, and you couldn't tell how many people there were in the room. Your head screamed at you and begged you to go back to sleep but your adrenaline kept your mind wide awake.
"No, no, no-" You whispered as they started to near. "S-Stop... don't fucking touch me." You glared at them from your spot on the ground and watched as someone squatted down in front of you. His arms rested on his knees as he tilted his head to the left a little bit, admiring your fearful expression. You recognized him as the man who put you to sleep before. You could barely see an outline of a smile on his face.
"Hey," He said, his voice calm and soothing. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you right now. I just wanna talk."
You felt like your ability to speak was ripped away from you. "What? What d-do you want to s-say?" You didn't think speaking clearly could be so difficult, but your voice was trembling so much you had to put effort into it to make it audible.
"Do you know why you're here?" He questioned and reached a hand out to touch your greasy, tangled hair. You flinched slightly but were unable to push his hand away. Instead, you remained focused on his eyes as you shook your head.
"No." You gulped. Why didn't they just kill you?
"Aren't you happy to be alive?" He asked and tilted his head again, this time to the other side. "Aren't you thankful for a small hope for life?"
You didn't speak, tearing your eyes away from his and looking at the ground in front of you, dark silhouettes that were too far away to see were watching in silence.
"You shouldn't be," He scoffed and stood up, walking around the metal post you were tied to while examining your situation. You gulped once more and listened to the sound of his taunting footsteps.
"Life is cruel, and it's better to just give everyone a sweet escape to death." He grabbed something from behind you, and it made a small clutter sound against the floor. "So let's keep you alive, shall we?"
You watched as he kneeled down towards you once more, this time a dirty wooden bat in hand as he looked at you, his face only inches from yours as he smiled at you kindly.
"Will you try and escape me, sweetheart?"
Your throat ran dry as you looked at him in panic. Your eyes felt engulfed by his stare and you rendered yourself speechless. He took that as his answer and stood back up, stepping back just in time to swing the club forwards towards your leg.
You shrieked, your voice cracking as the harmless baseball bat made contact with your skin, snapping the bone of your ankle and crushing your skin. Your own screams sounded so foreign to you, and it was a pain you had never dealt with before. The killer in front of you seemed unphased as he continued repeatedly, blow after blow, utterly destroying the length of your calves. It only lasted a minute, but after that, the damage had been done. You were shaking and sobbing, your throat erupting in a pain that couldn't even compare to your feet. Your vision was blurry, but even through the tears you could see your bloodied legs, and the bat he had used had been dropped to the ground. He was out of breath and looked at you with an emotion you couldn't place.
"Please understand, sweetheart," He kicked the bat aside and out of your reach, it rolled and hit the wall with a small tap. "It's just a precaution."
You watched as he and his men retreated further into the darkness with tears in your eyes. You sobbed and cried uncontrollably, feeling completely pathetic and weak. You were crying harder than you could ever remember, your moans and hiccups filling the room with inescapable loneliness.
You wish you could say that you stayed strong and got over the pain quickly. But as the memories came back and you remembered the lives that were lost in front of your eyes, the weight only felt heavier. You could only stay awake for so long before you blacked out once more.
⤜⚘⤛
Hongjoong left the basement, immediately walking away from the group of boys who watched after him silently. He needed space to clear his head and just... breathe. He could feel his head throbbing and ambled to the kitchen to pop a painkiller. He took the small pill from the plastic container on the counter and swallowed it dry, only using water to wash it down when it got caught in this throat and he started to choke on the aftertaste.
A taller male slowly approached him from behind, he knew something was off with his friend. Never had they ever kept someone hostage, especially after the stunt Hongjoong pulled off at the outlet mall when he showed her off as a means to get away.
He stayed silent for a moment more before speaking up, his voice low and cautiously gentle.
"Why did you keep her?"
The shorter male swallowed the rest of the drink before placing the empty cup down with a small clink. He wasn't ready to let him know everything just yet, so he had to bluff. "We can't kill her. And she can't be released because she will report us to the authorities."
"Why can't we kill her? Why did we bring her here?" He had so many questions but he didn't want to agitate him with an interrogation.
"We can't kill her just yet. She has something of ours." He turned to face the man, his back leaning against the counter and his legs crossed in a relaxed manner. "Who's watching her right now?"
"San... he's taking first watch, but she's close to passing out, so I don't think he'll see anything important." As if on cue, a sob was heard from downstairs, and the blue-haired male looked off to the side on the ground.
"You're keeping something from us, right?" He looked at the shorter man across from him and crossed his arms as he tried to decipher his emotions.
"Seonghwa, what could I possibly be keeping from you?" He smiled, now making eye contact with him once more. Seonghwa was filled with confusion, fear and just a little bit of distrust.
"It's her, isn't it?" He questioned further. "There's something about her you're not telling me."
Hongjoong didn't confirm or deny it, which was enough for the older male. He spoke again,
"She's one of us, isn't she?"
The atmosphere turned dead silent, just the two of them in the room, staring at each other. Seonghwa's expression was stoic, lined with just a dash of concern. Hongjoong on the other hand was slightly amused, the shadow of an approving smile on his lips.
"...How'd you know?" He questioned, and neither of them moved, the world was still. Hongjoong's smile grew as he felt the worry grow in Seonghwa, so much that it overcame the fear he was once feeling.
Seonghwa's eyes fell to the ground and Hongjoong immediately lost the connection. "Because... we're the only people you wouldn't kill. You wouldn't protect someone if they weren't one of us."
"...And yet she is one of us." Seonghwa finished his thought and looked back up at a smiling Hongjoong. "Why are you smiling?"
"Because you figured it out, I'm impressed. I didn't know until I looked into her, and yet you did it without any ability."
"It's only because I know you well enough. I know you're very picky with who you save."
"We all are," Hongjoong said as he put a hand on the taller male's shoulder. "And that's why I'm asking everyone to avoid hurting her. She's too valuable to discard."
"Do you know what ability she has?" He asked quietly, his voice just above a whisper.
"I have an idea, but I'm not sure. I'll need to toy with it a bit more..."
Seonghwa nodded, trying to process everything before he looking at him once more. "Then... what happens now?"
It's been too long since they have talked to someone that wasn't a part of their group, let alone a girl. It was difficult to predict how everyone will react to someone new being introduced, and how else things will change. The future was unknown that scared the oldest male, but he was ready to do what he had to protect everyone. "Surely not everyone is going to agree on keeping her." He mumbled.
"We can vote. I'm sure some of them want to kill her, but I don't think all of them do. If the majority doesn't have a problem with her, then we'll keep her."
"And if not?"
"We will have to keep her alive anyways. I'm positive that most of them are curious about having a girl around. But for the ones that do vote against her, we just have to keep an eye out when she's around them. Understand?"
"Yes." Seonghwa nodded, it made sense to him.
"... do you want to kill her?"
He looked up at him for a second, meeting his eyes. "I...I don't think so."
"Good," He said. "You shouldn't."
⤜⚘⤛
You groaned outwardly and opened your eyes. The room around you was dark and the humidity caused your clothes to stick to your skin. Ignoring the tiredness in your muscles you lifted your head, which caused multiple popping sounds to come from your neck.
The shadows around you were hauntingly dull, which caused you to only see a vague outline of the things around you. You tried to move your knees closer to your chest only to discover the flaring pain that surged from your ankles all up to your shin. You hardly noticed the inhumane cry that escaped your throat as tears stung your eyes and poured hotly down your cheeks. No pain that you have ever encountered could compare to the amount of hurt your body was under right now.
It took you a bit to gain control of your breaths- your eyes were squeezed shut and your hands were shakingly holding the area of your injury. The most pathetic thing of it all was your crying. Never had you thought that you would be in such a terrifying position such as this, but you couldn't think like that now. You shouldn't pity yourself or else this really will become a living hell.
Somehow you got yourself to fold your limbs so your legs were off to your side, you leaned against whatever it was that was behind you and looked at the ceiling. You couldn't even see what it was made of, that was how lightless it was. If tears were streaming down your face, you wouldn't be able to tell. It felt like all your senses went numb.
A few minutes passed and you heard a distant sound. In a panic, you closed your eyes and pretended to be unconscious. Your ears could pick up the quiet footsteps that were traveling towards you. There was a pause, a small plat, and a swish before the footsteps resided. There was no hesitation on the owner's part for there was no intention to linger.
Your eyes opened once the person left and you tried desperately to focus on the thing in front of you. You saw two orange dots, one perfectly round and the other seemingly messier. They were both surrounded by a ring of light grey.
After a few moments, you finally deciphered what it was. Two eggs, sunny-side up, placed on a paper plate. You pushed away at the confused thoughts that came to mind as the primal instinct to eat took over.
Miraculously, you used the little bit of flexibility you had to grab the piece of plate with your teeth and yank it over closer to you. You had assumed you were alone, so you messily ate the food without the use of your hands. You had tried to wiggle free of the restraints but they were tied so tightly your arms went numb.
Seriously, why give you food if you had no way to eat it? There's no point.
And why keep you here if they plan to kill you? Just to suffer?
You felt like a mess. You were sweating, your hair stuck to your face and your arms were starting to go numb once more, you were panicking every other minute or so. The hole in your stomach was being filled, but it still hurt. You were unsure what bloody mess was happening below your knees, but whatever it was it hurt like hell. The floor had been stained with your blood and it was a disturbing sight all in all.
You closed your eyes and prayed it would all end soon.