CYPHER | BTS

45: NIGHTMARE

- F O R T Y  F I V E -

August 17, 2020
Monday

📍Japan

༺❀༻

Choi June

Terror ripped through me as the feeling of demanding, intruding hands gripped my shoulders down against the hard and wet floor. My hands were bound behind my back, useless against any force from being held by a pair of filthy hands.

A helpless cry passed through my lips, strangled and broken and unlike any painful noise I've ever made before.

It hurt. Everything hurt. From the force in which they held me to the ground, almost as if they'd wished I'd sink into it, to the force in which they used me for their own wicked desires. From even the way in which I'd catch his eyes staring at me from next to me on the floor—those big, soft, powerless eyes—full of nothing but the same helplessness I possessed. The same pain, but without the physical.

I drowned out every grunt and curse with my own screams of pain. I'd endured a lot of horrible things so far on this wretched tour, but this one... this one was perhaps the worst.

My sobs left my head aching when they finished with me, discarding my body against the cold concrete of the boats engine room knowing that I'd be too weak and too pained to do anything. To fight back.

Hoseok watched me with the kind of sorrow that could not be faked. There was a promise in his eyes as he bled out from his shoulder. He was going to bring justice to me. He was so fucking sorry he could do nothing as they broke me. He was going to make it up to me, somehow. Someday.

"It is your turn to watch."

The gunshot echoed against the pipes and forgotten bombs of that engine room, leaving behind a wake of ringing in my ears and agony so brutal in my chest.

Hoseok fell limp.

There would never be a someday.

༺❀༻

I sprung awake drenched in sweat, my breath stolen from me as I flinched against the sheets. My chest fell in deep, agonizing breaths, each one more difficult than the next. A prickling fear coated my fiery skin and I ripped the blanket off of me and sat up.

The room was filled with darkness, each soul too deep within their sleep to notice my common nightmares. Good. I needed time to breathe. Hoseok's face often invaded my nightmares, but the familiarity of it never made each nightmare easier.

My stomach cramped and I struggled to breathe as I climbed out of bed and nearly fell to the floor trying to reach for the door. My hand grasped the frame of the bunk bed as my knees wobbled. I could barely breathe. What was happening to me? There was this unmistakable pain shooting through my body—this unbearable abdominal pain that somehow blurred my vision.

It was different than the usual fear and sweat coating my skin after every nightmare. That pain usually settled deep into my chest—rattled my bones. This different pain, it hurt almost as badly as that night on the ship. Almost.

I reached the door and twisted it open. The hallways were empty, no more people lining up for the bathrooms this dead into the night. I stumbled for the closest one, my hands dragging along the walls and my bare feet against the floors as another wave of pain hit me. I panted as if I'd run a marathon and finally reached the bathroom door.