Twenty-Four Hours || k.hj

sixteen. 0 hours, 0 minutes

Four minutes... He thought. An incalculable amount of moments.

He felt taller than usual, as if his mind left his brain and glided along the surrounding cliff's edge. As if he was watching the world spin from above.

He felt weight cloud his limbs. Like someone running, pushing for the finish line, he could feel every movement of his flesh.

In his calves and shins, up his spine and to his forearms, he felt muscles buzz with growing electricity.

He looked to the ocean: across the sand, past the waves, under the stars, and he saw figures silhouetted against the dark.

"Mama?" He whispered. "Appa, Yeosang?"

He walked forward.

The body which had been his for over twenty five years suddenly seemed peculiar to use. Yet, even though the path felt strange, he ventured forward with precision.

Memories suffused his mind, memories he thought had long passed away in the wind of life.

Every pre-dawn moment, as light was just beginning to seep into the sky, presented a theater in his mind. He treasured - adored - those moments of silent Earth, of seeing her rise again at the break of each day.

The first of his childhood years - the ones which felt to be another life - flooded back to his consciousness. The people who held him, who smiled at him, who cared for him when he was defenseless, their faces caught his attention.

Eomma, of course, held him the most with careful hands and worn, loving eyes. Appa, too, was right up in second place: and as his father's tender eyes gazed into his soul, the feeling was rather unknown.

His birth, then, came to mind; his first glimpse of light. Artificial light, that is, which he came to realize was an entirely different thing to sunlight. One was cold, the other warm; one hurt his eyes, the other healed; one anesthetized, the other rejuvenated.

As - in his memories - he passed through the waters of birth, ocean waves brushed over his feet.

He pushed forward against the sea, taking step after step farther into the ocean's current.

The water would've been like ice on a winter night, but he did not seem to even notice. Warmth, again, shot through his core, permeating his body till he could barely feel the waves through such heat.

Water rose past his knees, up to his chest, and then, his feet lost their grip on the sand. Nevertheless, he pushed forward. The figures he was chasing morphed into one, and the closer he swam, the more features he could make out.

That black hair, tall frame, and thin, stern eyes; waiting eyes, as if the man could not touch him until the time was at hand.

And then, his head fell below the waves. He did not feel the sting of salt in his eyes, nor the unnatural pain of water flooding his lungs and ears. He allowed himself to be still, to stop fighting, and he saw that man below the waves with him.

Quiet.

Everything was so quiet.

Like the world had stopped spinning. Like the ocean was frozen. Like creation was consumed in an inescapable night.

"Hongjoong," the man spoke, incredibly soft, yet he could easily be heard through the silence.

He held out his hand, and Hongjoong, with his final breath, grasped it.

This, of course, would line mausoleum walls as the final memory of the boy who traded his soul.