Limbo

Oh, Darling

Major warnings on this chapter. This is basically 5500 words describing dissociation, gore, nightmares, and hallucinations. It's vivid. So, skip it if it's not your cup of tea, nothing significant actually happens in this chapter.

You've been warned. If you choose to continue though - Enjoy! 

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Flashing lights. Sirens. Screaming. Crying. Loneliness. Helplessness. Pain. Agonizing pain. He didn't understand. How could anyone understand in that chaos? There was so much happening all at once. People were talking. People asking questions. Ordering other people around. There was so much going on, he was lost in a storm. Where was he? Who was he? He couldn't remember anything but the immediate pain presenting itself all over his body. His eyes flitted around, painfully searching for something he knew. But the blurred, concerned, faces crowding him weren't familiar. The bright orange, red, and blue lights were blinding. He didn't know. He didn't understand. 

His eyes did lock on one thing though. There was someone beside him. He couldn't see through the blurred vision, but he could see enough to know that man's face wasn't how a face was supposed to look and dark blood covered every inch of his body. Who was he? Was he okay? Was he in unexplainable pain too? What was happening? He didn't understand. 

Minho's eyes opened, and he froze. His skin was hot, but he felt icy sweat coating his whole body. His head was spinning. His chest ached. But he couldn't see. It was too dark. Or was he seeing? Was he seeing bright flashing lights? Was he seeing unfamiliar faces towering over him, begging him to keep his eyes open? Was he seeing that man? The man coated in blood, unmoving. Or was it all in his head? What was happening? He didn't understand. 

He was stuck. Frozen in place by a fear so real that it hurt in more than just a physical sense to breathe. Something was holding him down. Was that real or was it in his head? Was he really paralyzed or was someone's arm just laid casually across his stomach? What? Why? How? He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Images of that man's bloodied face replayed over and over again until it was all Minho could see. Terror couldn't even begin to describe how he felt. He'd never felt like this in his life. Sirens. Flashing lights. Blood. Faces. Too much. It was too much. It was too real and yet not real at all. What was happening? Minho didn't understand. 

Instinctual fear, a primal desire to make himself safe, overcame the terrified dancer, and he threw the arm holding him loosely off his body and rolled out of bed. 

"Huh?" A voice grunted, but he couldn't tell who it was. The pain of landing on the floor momentarily blinded him. But he felt blind already. Terrifying images were flashing before his eyes, only skipping to scenes of darkness with a faint glow of light around the curtains covering the window. What was real and what wasn't real? "Hyung? Are you okay? Did I push you off the bed?" 

Minho stared up at the ceiling from where he'd fallen on his back and suddenly a figure leaned off the bed over him. Who? He had a sweet voice. He seemed innocent enough. Minho was fairly certain they'd been cuddling. But he didn't know. In the darkness, he couldn't see more than this person's figure, but his mind supplied features. Features that it wanted to haunt him with. The bloodied face of the man towered over him, and fight or flight took control of him. His body was trying to protect itself from his own mind and he didn't know what to do - stuck in the middle of the war without a single thought but of fear and panic. 

He crawled to his hands and knees and took off running out of the bedroom. He didn't know where he was going. Away. Away from the face haunting him. Away from the bright flashing lights and sirens. Away from everything. Safety. He wanted safety. 

He reamed his shoulder into a door and basically fell face-first to the floor. Pain erupted from his head and chest, but it was nothing compared to the adrenaline rush making his body move of its own accord. He kicked the door shut, locked it and scrambled into the bathtub, drawing the shower curtain closed as a last-ditch effort to hide from the face haunting him. But it was still there. It was everywhere in the darkness. He couldn't escape. He was stuck, paralyzed by fear.