Nadir ◈ Seungjin

46 ◈ Azazel

Against his back, the gravel poked and prodded his shoulder blades.

The heaviness had long left him as he laid there against the pathways, rocks against his disturbed hair strands and a freeze seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt to ghost goosebumps along his shivering arms. The weight from that senseless cloud hovering over him slipping from his chest and his shoulders, crawling onto the dirt beneath him and working it's way down to the depths below where it wouldn't be seen again. It fell away as he watched the licking of the stars above him, hints of light against the endless painting of the night sky fogging his vision up. But that trudging bore slipped from his eyes too, soundless blurs that still remained on the corners of his dropping eyelids begging for rest as he watched the stars through the tops of those collapsing buildings. Fires which burned inside leaving him for dead.

Leaving his fingertips to melt into the gravel while they splayed wide, searching for feeling against the unforgiving bedding he found himself against. Nails to fall, muscles to decay, bone to be eroded while he slowly melted with the ground. The stretch of his arms turning to nurturing tree roots to reclaim the forest's lands seized by the cement clearance of that one thriving factory, the steady rise and fall of his chest turning to blades of grass sprouting between the river pebbles shifting to allow that verdure through, the strands of his hair rotting to blooming flowers of vibrant colors, slowly becoming the moss which clung delicately to the sides of trees and building walls as if those velvet flakes were a shy lover embracing in their last goodbyes. Becoming the fungus molding the daytime, the night crawlers inching beneath the dirt while worms spun in his decomposing corpse.

Honestly, that sounded more ideal than this.

In his frazzled mind and his worn-out heart, that's all that mattered to him. That's all Seungmin cared about anymore; Disappearing between the pebbles. Vanishing from this world. Slipping away, to leave all these foul monsters behind, all these... Villains. He didn't care whether or not the Naberius case or the Mimic case was solved. He didn't care if they continued their selfish lusts. He didn't care whether or not they would be tried, convicted, displayed with their crimes with those handcuff bracelets holding their diabolical hands from commuting anymore of those hellborne crimes. Hellbound. That's all any of them were, hellbound, and right now, Seungmin would've been glad to be the first to climb down that descending stairwell.

Seungmin wanted to stay.

Wanted to fade away against the gravel.

Wanted to continue watching the constellations as the sky's colors shifted darker and darker. Tracing those dots with the abrasive burning of the sandpaper grated eyes. Each movement like needles on his skin. Bugs scattering underneath, crawling inside, nipping and biting while he tried to focus on the stars. Tried to find their light amongst the darkness. But what was the point? What was the point of those guiding beams steering those who feared their nightmares from harm's way, what was the point of their brilliance grinning back to him like gemstones in a bottomless cavern, if all they did was look back? If all they did was, sit above him as if they were deities amongst the horizon, and tease him with their guiding beams?

It's all fake, isn't it? It's all lies. Fibs Minho told to make him feel better when he was at his worst, though he seems to have fallen even farther down now. The day comes again. The night ends. The day comes again. The night ends. He was lying. The night doesn't end. Darkness doesn't end. And there's no point to the stars if they never leave, if they never guide you back to the morning.

There's no point.

Why keep fighting like this?

Seungmin tried to outline the stars within his eyes again. Coming up empty-handed when he couldn't find their patterns in the ozone.