King of the Darkest Stars (EXO Kai ff)

Chapter Thirty Four

Death is a lot more boring than you would think.

It was darkness and occasionally you would hear something inaudibly. The sound of a voice too distant and muffled to hear. The bright red light of something just out of eyesight. I was trapped in a place that had to be Hell.

There were no gardens or mansions here.

Only darkness and occasional flashes of light.

I felt completely alone and watched at the same time. It was an odd uncomfortable feeling that isolated me into complete and utter stillness. There was one time when my brother, Ji-woo, had shoved me into my wardrobe and tied the doors shut. I had felt alone and scared in the dark, too young to know how to get out or get help, yet my brother had been right outside. I was alone but someone who could save or destroy me was just beyond my vision.

It sort of reminded me of that.

I wondered if my mother had her own corner of darkness to cry in. I did not want to think about her.

That was the worst part.

I was left completely alone with all the time in the world to think.

To think about the darkness. To think about the pain. To think about everything I should have done better in my life. To think about everything I could have done if I'd lived longer. To think about the pain I'd caused in leaving so soon. To think of all the comebacks I could have used for every single argument I'd ever had. To think about thinking. To think about thinking about thinking. To think about thinking about thinking about-

It was Hell.

It had to be Hell.

The voice was gradually getting louder and louder.

The flashes of light were getting brighter and brighter.

The pain in my shoulder was still there and sometimes it would burn in complete agony and other times it was as if I had no body at all and I was an unattached spirit drifting around in the darkness.

That too was agony.

It was all worth it upon two conditions.

One. Wherever my father was it was worse.

Two. Kai was safe.

Kai.

My thoughts always came back to him. He had shown me what it meant to live. I was raised to think I was always going to be forced into obedience and as a result searched for every way possible to detach myself and rebel against figures of - what I deemed - authority in my life.

Kai was my husband.

Kai was not a figure of authority in my life.

I was his equal in every way and when we overcame our differences he saw that and respected me. I had never been respected before. It was new and excited and so painstakingly short-lived.

A thousand lifetimes would not have been enough with Kai.

I couldn't even have one full one.

I was angry at the darkness around me. I was angry with the universe. I screamed into the oblivion, cursing it and me for wasting away and leaving behind everything I had loved and needed so badly.

I screamed and screamed and screamed until my throat was dry and coarse and soar and there was no voice left in me to scream.

"Please," my voice was nothing but a rasp of what it had been. "Please."

I wasn't quite sure what I was begging for but I knew I wanted him. I wanted to be near him somehow. In some selfish, death-defying way.

A blazing white light started to engulf the darkness.