Phoenix: Blow a spark || ATEEZ

18| Predicted event

Wordcount; 1,300

Guilt filled him with regrets of so many things that he couldn't stay present at the moment. The words that Hongjoong had said just before he left them had done more to him than any other words from past conversations had done. Suddenly a realization had initiated new meanings of the situation that encircled the friend group and earnestly hit him hard.

"Jongho are you-"

"Yeah, yeah I'm okay, don't worry about me hyung. I just think that the magic swallowed my last amount of energy," the youngest outburst with raised hands to stop the worries from colliding with him.

Jongho inhaled slowly when his ribs took damage from his racing heart, but his eyes were no nearer from observing the three others. His senses were too cloaked to even realize how his feet tried to keep up with his swaying body that Mingi too much wanted to sit down before he would hit the floor by himself.

"See you tomorrow, I have to go now," Jongho mumbled and hurried up the stairs in a different way than Hongjoong just had done.

His feet moved all by themselves and his hands reached for the door that just had been slammed close. The sound still echoed for his ears and blended with all the words that drove around again and again. He smelled an awful amount of smoke and burnt trees when he entered the kitchen and his eyes ushered him to continue out of the house before things would get even worse. But Jongho couldn't even imagine how terror would break loose if San's parents saw this mess they had caused. Instead, he struggled with containing his concentration at the pavement beneath his feet.

The sun had gone down a couple of hours ago, but he still missed the last stray of warmth. The park had been so calm earlier today, that this occurrence didn't make any sense to him. The boy chewed a bit on the inside of his cheek, not because of a habit but because he wanted to taste iron. His teeth sunk deeper and deeper, like the furrows in his forehead. Nothing happened.

He gasped shortly when his feet tripped across the pavement and he suddenly had to keep the balance from falling. A rush of adrenaline rounded all his veins in a matter of seconds and then, he finally was awake, though he still swayed from side to side. Jongho turned down at the next side road that would lead him to the main road where he would take the bus the last reach home. It wasn't fully dark given the lights lit in the houses along the road, but his guts had already started binding knots, telling him that something was off.

When blood spilled from Jongho's mouth, he lost his breath and the magic suddenly found its way back to his body. His olive-green eyes with the cat-like pupils shone under the light of the lampposts and the tingles unfolded in his palms. The Phoenix turned paranoid around at his heels as he glanced around the quarter. He didn't wear a wristwatch today, but right now he really felt the need to find out what the clock was saying. His heart was definitely beating faster than the time right now.

And he was right.

Jongho saw the shadows moving in the corner of his eye. He hit the hard ground and scrambled forward without looking back again. When his feet finally found a firm grip on the earth, he leaped ahead on a string of flowing magic. His focus on the surroundings was thrown away as instincts interrupted his before state of deep self-reflection. He had to get away. He crashed down at the main road where cars roared back and forth without thinking but only fearing the monsters coming closer. He had to get away from the dark magic that was chasing all his worst nightmares away.

Noises rang in Jongho's ears when he felt the cars hit him before he even saw them. He had been crossing the road at 7.13 pm. Glass clattered around him, as he heard multiple other cars hit the brakes before they would take part in the collision. Silently the bus passed the accident, and Jongho never got home.

A woman stepped out of the car that had hit Jongho when not a single other car moved. Her nose bled as she had knocked it against the window when she had stopped that sudden after hitting the boy. Her hands were shaking too much to pull a phone out and call an ambulance. Other people got out of the car and commotion was pressing the atmosphere into chaos. When help came, the boy was moved away from the bloody asphalt and into the car. The medicals were rushing around him while they monitored several pieces on him in the last minute of keeping him alive.

A man that was inserting the last medical drop suddenly retrieved his hands when he burned himself.

"What is this...- He's burning! The boy is burning!"

Surprised outbursts swirled in the ambulance when flames were licking up around the injured boy's body. Another medic searched for a thick rug and threw it upon the flames to extinguish them before they would spread. He widened his eyes when the flames continued spreading downwards instead and at some point around the thick rug. Suddenly the flames tumbled the stretcher to the floor of the ambulance and the flames broke out into a fire in the vehicle.

_____

The heels clicked lazily against the floor when the woman and the man followed the nurse along the long white walls.

"Hurry up, please," the woman sneered at the nurse and right after felt a calming squeeze around the hand the man was holding.

The young nurse rolled her eyes without the couple seeing, "I am, I am."

Then she turned around and made eye contact with the fuming woman, "But ma'am I have to inform you of something before you enter. This case isn't just resolved, yet. Your son was in the middle of a fire in that ambulance after the accident, but he was the only one who wasn't affected in the slightest by the heat. Only him and the driver survived."

The nurse's eyes went droopy for a moment before going back to look at the couple. They hadn't been told of the fire before now, and the information seemed to make them tense.

"How so!?" worded the man convincingly shocked, but before the nurse had any given time to answer, the woman disrupted with her taunting temperament.

"How dare you tell me that I have to know this before seeing my son, who almost was killed! This case is closed indeed when I see that my son is still alive. And you will be the one forcing it to close or I'll have you jobless in a matter of hours!"

The nurse became silent as the woman's threatening behavior convinced her not to do any more counteracting.

"Good, now you show us to the room or I'll make you pay for the hospital bill too."

The nurse didn't say anything while she walked them to the room and as soon as she could, left them as well. When the woman saw her son lay unconsciously in the hospital bed she sprinted to his side to caress him.

"Jongho! My baby, you can't just make your parents this terrified."

The man sat down at the other side of the bed and gently stroked his son's auburn hair until every knot was brushed out. He continued while light healing energy embraced the boy in his slumber and the woman soon had kissed each cheek at least a hundred times.

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