pied piper

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It was blue, placid turquoise blue, the kind you'd wanna imagine and try to sleep. With tiny creeks helping light sneak in, it was like the spectacular view of the ocean from deep beneath. So deep but so undeniably peaceful.

I swam like a whale, feeling freedom in all shades and ways. It was a magical combo of lucid, laid-back and lovely.

Suddenly I stopped, a massive cage entering the range of my view. I fumbled to change my course, turning back just in time to escape. But to no avail, the cage only grew in size, making me feel suffocated despite the huge gaps in between. Trying to calm the growing panic, I struggled to escape but once surrounding me in place, the cage began shrinking.

I screamed until my throat ached but nothing came through. Fighting against it, the sharp claws of metal began piercing through my skin. The pain was unbearable. I begged and cried, still unable to digest the confusion and panic.

And just as I was about to die.

I woke up.

Oh thank God…

My eyes wide and teary, I panted for air, feeling sticky with sweat all over my quivering form. Only when I lifted my hand to wipe the tears did I realize another hand lifted on its own. Either that or… they were tied together.

With counting breaths, I swallowed but looked down at the zip tie holding together both my hands in a firm knot. My gaze wandered down my legs, beneath the thick blanket that I kicked off, fright not taking long to register when, once again, both of my feet lifted together at the motion.

"Mmph!" my heart fell deep into my stomach, making me consider if the gruesome death in the nightmare was the easier way out compared to this sickeningly grim reality…

My shrieks and hollers were deafened by the duct tape plastered across the entire span of my lower face. After multiple unsuccessful tries to free myself, did I finally fall back to the soft mattress, the thick but delicate blanket still on me, only increasing my temperature significantly.

Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Take a deep…

Taking multiple deep breaths, my eyes automatically wandered around, taking in the hotelesque environment of the room before… wait a second. Why are the rooms plastered with so many pictures… multiple pictures of…

Me?!

I closed my eyes shut as tightly as I could, preventing myself from instigating my mind into a film of terror and everything as such but took another whiff of deep deep slow breaths. Slowly as I found my heartbeat falling to the normal range, I opened my eyes, not taking everything at once but one by one.

First thing to catch my eye was a plethora of pictures pinned to the board beside the bed, squinting to have a better look, somber golden lighting doing nothing to aid but channeling a sense of calamitous tragedy. Those pictures varied from me simply waiting at the bus stand everytime I missed it to studying in the classroom to going to restaurants after class alone. They were all at least a year old photos, taken even before I knew someone named Jeongguk even existed.

It couldn't be related to him. Wait up.. Has someone been stalking me even before Jeongguk's arrival? Who didn't have anything to do with the whole Mafia mess but simply fuck with me? Did I have a hater who held personal grudges against me without any further connection? But I don't even know enough people for them to hate me…!

Feeling my breath shake, I grazed my eyes over yet another picture of mine, this one as big as the size of a poster, outside of school hours during a field trip. It looked as if the cameraman stood right in front of me… as if I consciously posed for the camera…