Meridian ◈ Seungjin

10 ◈ In the Cold Below

Hyunjin stirred. For the first time in a long while, his head wasn't throbbing. His throat wasn't burning. His nerves weren't frayed from entrancing nightmares trapping his consciousness in inescapable scenarios weaved from his fears. But, there was one fear he couldn't escape from even in this waking world. One that held a heavier consequence than the demons convulsing as they slithered through the metro tunnels of his veins, a more resounding stench etching itself into his nostrils than the sweetness of his never-ending melancholic dreams.

Actually, those dreams might have been a better world to exist in at this moment. He could at least escape what pictures he was presented within them. Or remind himself they weren't entirely real, even if he had to remind himself it didn't belong in that moment. Chant that what currently filled his vision wasn't the absolute truth. Only this time, it was.

His fingers curled around the bedsheets as his nerves shredded with a nauseating adrenaline. A panic, building with each second he regained sentience and came to stare with wide eyes at the wall running adjacent to his bed. He could feel a tremble begin to rattle his lungs in earthquake inducing tremors.

I could have killed him.

He forced his hands to steady themselves as his mind was flooded with images; Bleeding, ripping, a choked scream, the mirror shattering with the force of the other's back tossed harshly against it, and all of it only causing his stomach to churn uncomfortably with a queazy nausea. None of it felt real. As if it were all a dream; All he saw were clouded memories, a haze developed poorly in chemical dizziness and presented to him through a scratched looking glass. No matter which way he would try to tell himself it was fake, it wasn't real, the ache in his nerves and the unsettling paranoia in the back of his mind told him every second of it was real. Those were his own hands, his own thoughts, his own words, his own fangs that committed a crime.

Hyunjin breathed deeply, the air inflating his lungs sweeping a few dust specks of terror off his pounding heart. He slung an arm over his face, the weight of it pressing his eyelids close and shielding his face from an unusually intrusive light from outside.

"Did we disturb you? You can go back to sleep," Someone's fingers pinched the soft flesh of his palm, them holding the skin for a few beats as they wiggled it vehemently back and forth, as if they were mixing up the intrusive nerves jolting through Hyunjin's clammy palm and through to his arm, to his shoulder, into the hurricane of worries jostling around in his awareness to render it useless. He immediately pinned the familiar voice as belonging to Chan, this notion only being reinforced when he slapped the older away with a grunt and sent a firm scowl his direction.

His friend laughed teasingly at him as he backed away from the bunk bed, the smile on his face hurriedly turning grave as he informed, "So you know, Seungmin was attacked in the dance room yesterday evening. Classes are canceled while it's being investigated. If you go back to sleep, we'll wake you if there's any updates."

Hyunjin nodded gently as he tried to fake a surprise at the "new" information, hair bunching up on the pillow below his head as he watched his roommates fall back into their conversation most likely of the most recent events to grace the school campus. They might not have known he did it, but it was only natural they would quickly find the scene. It was only natural they would investigate. Regardless, his hands continued to tremble as he let himself become hypnotized by the otherwise normal serenity of his roommates. Despite the fact they were discussing something that anything but that; Serene. Tranquil. Nothing about the slideshow of memories he was given even hinted at a chance for a peaceful quiet at the magnitude they were exhibiting such.

Changbin was sitting backwards in the chair with his legs straddling the cheap backrest and his spine propped against the invasive edge of the dorm room desk. His fingers tapped a simple rhythm on the thick sides of the table, his elbows propped on the surface to provide an extra degree or two to the angle he sat it. As he trained his gaze after the older wandering around the room, he probed, "What are the chances of them finding who did it?"