ethereal | park jimin | ✓

chapter 21 the dying garden

"Eden you have to calm down, I know it's scary but we have to stay quiet," Jimin pleads, gripping my arms tightly. He draws near me and closes the space between us with his body.

My mouth is gaping in horror, unable to stop my heart from racing. My scream fades from my mouth and echoes off the walls of the greenhouse. I shake my head at him. I bite back the words, "You don't understand," when I know darn well he's one of the only people who do.

"Can't we reverse it?" Jungkook asks, wide-eyed. "They did it for Taehyungie, can't we do it for Eden?" He sits at Jimin's side and watches me intensely as if I were something strange. Something different.

That's because I am.

I force myself to focus on anything besides the fact I am turning into a hybrid. I turn my gaze outward and take in the scenery around us for the first time.

We are sitting underneath a dying tree in the far corner of the greenhouse. A circle of cracked stones and dirty bricks keeps us near each other. The stone paths that once led to this limp tree are covered with old mulch and dried leaves.

The greenhouse plants appear to have grown and died a thousand times over. The pale stems of ferns and wilted flowers droop over the metal tables spread around the large, glass-ceiling room. The ground bursts with dried vines and damp weeds from years of neglect. Once organized pots and plant holders have cracked open from suffocated roots and desperate plants yearning to spread their arms a little farther.

The once plentiful garden is turned into a graveyard of rot and ruin in the pale shadow of the morning light.

Taehyung sits against a crumbling white stone bench with a pained expression. He looks at me through the corner of his eye. "She is transforming too quickly. It's too fast."

"But you—" Jungkook attempts to argue but Taehyung cuts him off.

His deep voice reverbs through the empty air. "The doses they gave me worked slowly. Even now, I'm still part hawk in my eyes and other senses. Just because they ripped off my wings doesn't make me free of this."

Hoseok and Yoongi sit close by us. Yoongi has fallen quiet and watches in sympathy as I work to calm myself. Hoseok keeps a firm hand on Yoongi's shoulder, comforting him or reassuring him that he is near. They don't deserve to deal with this; they shouldn't even be here. Another regret to add to my amassing list of mistakes.

Despite the terror I feel, I can't help but regret my immediate reaction to becoming a hybrid. Not only am I surrounded by other hybrids who suffered more than I have, but we are also currently in danger of being caught.

I shouldn't have screamed.

We have to be silent until we find a true way to escape without being caught again.

The greenhouse is made of thick glass panes meaning if we shatter one, we will alert the guards of our location because this place has a bad echo. Not only that, some of us are in no condition to run all the way to Yoongi's car. That is if they haven't discovered his car yet.

"I don't have my phone," Hoseok comments, keeping his voice low. "They took them away when we were unconscious. Yoongi, did you call the police?"

Yoongi hesitates before shaking his head. "No, my phone is dead."

The roommates begin brainstorming on a new plan of getting us out of there without being caught when Jimin nudges me.

"Eden? Hey, can you hear me?"

I snap out of my daze and focus back on Jimin, still gaping into the empty space between us. "Huh?"

Jimin swallows hard and holds my wrists tighter. "Are you having trouble hearing me?"