ᴘᴀʀᴀɴᴏɪᴀ | ꜱᴋᴢ

limbo

"Seungmin? You there?"

"Oh. Yeah, sorry I don't know what came over me, I was just spacing out I guess.."

"Well come on, let's go sit with the others," Minho gestured kindly. "It sounds like there's some type of game going on out there and I wanna see if someone rage quits."

"Alright then, I'll follow you." responded Seungmin with a hesitant tone as he felt something something very odd just happened but couldn't exactly remember.

The two boys walked through the short hallway from the kitchen into the living room, an uneasy silence befalling them for the small moment, but that silence came to a quick end as they reached the cozy space where everyone else was hanging out.

Jisung and Chan were sitting on the floor, playing an intense game of Uno. They had asked Felix earlier if he wanted to join in, but he sheepishly declined as he didn't have much luck in the last few games he played of it, which they would sometimes jokingly tease him about. 

"I swear this game is rigged, how do you keep getting pick up +4 cards-? I'm gonna have like 100 cards eventually!" Jisung whined in defeat as Chan was almost down to his last card, resulting in a win obviously.

"It must just be luck I guess," Chan shrugged as he put down his third to last card. "Also someone may have not shuffled the cards since the last time we played, but that's not important."

"I demand a recount! This is literally so unfair, nobody even shuffled the cards!" 

As Jisung started to get a little more upset, Minho gave him an intimidating warning glare, immediately calming him, seeming like his memory was erased. But this didn't go unnoticed. Everyone realized how weird that was, and both Seungmin and Hyunjin were especially disturbed for some reason. In Minho and Jisung's perspectives, that moment only lasted 2 seconds, but in reality they were staring at each other for a full 30 seconds saying absolutely nothing, and nobody dared to break the silence as they were too worried to do that. Except for Changbin.

"Is just nobody questioning this right now, or is this the new normal behavior for you guys?"

The both of them suddenly turned their heads to look at Changbin, and still said nothing, making the whole room more eerie and full of tension. They didn't even move. Not one muscle. Jeongin peeked out from behind the book he was reading on the couch, slightly concerned and decided to step in the problem and interrupt the unusual limbo.

"Hey you two, what're you doing? Sit down, you're acting very strange." Jeongin stated, and instantly Minho and Jisung went back to what they were doing before, like nothing even happened, while everyone else but Jeongin exchanged dismayed looks at each other, then traveled their eyes to the boys who were out of it just a second ago, then over to Jeongin who casually went back to the psychology book he was reading. Not many of them knew why he would be interested in a book like that, in fact, most of them forgot that he was fascinated with it and the immense studies of the human mind and even became a psych major a while ago.

"I think I'm gonna go take a walk or something," Changbin mentioned as he was already grabbing a black jacket and putting his shoes on at a quick pace. "This is getting a bit too weird for me.."

"Wait, we'll both join you," Hyunjin and Seungmin said in unison and both put their shoes on and exited out the door with Changbin, leaving everyone else in a very awkward silence.

~

~

"So uh, Seungmin..yesterday when you and Jisung were hearing voices..what exactly were you hearing-?" Changbin had anxiously asked as if he was hinting to something.

"Well why do you ask..?"

"Just because..I think I hear it too. When I first woke up, when Minho came up to me today, and earlier when that weird thing happened." 

The 3 of them stopped in their tracks for a minute, feeling an unexpected strong breeze on their faces which shook some leaves off the tree they were standing under onto their hair.

"Ok I can we can all agree that at this point, something's definitely wrong. First of all, hearing voices obviously isn't normal, second, the way that Minho and Jisung are acting? Like what the actual hell happened with them? Nobody just stands and stares at each other for 30 seconds or whatever and say nothing, and then Jeongin randomly tells them to sit down and they act like none of it even happened? They might as well be possessed..."

A realization had come over them instantly as Hyunjin finished his sentence, and they all knew what the current thought was between all of them, but no one really wanted to continue that thought.

"So to answer your question Changbin, the type of stuff I was hearing was-" Seungmin tried to complete what he was saying but his voice got caught in his throat. Still he went on to tell him. "Stuff like 'One down, seven to go..' "

Changbin's eyes widened in fear at those very words. "If you heard that right after MInho started acting up, then..we may have something more serious on our hands. Unfortunately, we don't know what."

The trio began to walk once again, but now heading back towards their house. But why? After all they've seen, you'd think they would never want to go back. That is unless....

something made them go back.