penumbra

Chap. 27 - After The Fall

Cold. Frosty. Gelid.

The back of his head hurt. He must have hit it when he lost consciousness. His throat burned from vomiting.

"Oh, god..." He heard a familiar voice choke out from not very far.

Then hurried steps ran in his direction.

"Hwa?"

He was listening, yes. But moving... His body wasn't quite responding.

His toes and fingers prickled in the worst fucking way. When he shivered from the cold he realized that that was mild frostnip throbbing.

It was getting dark and his whole body felt heavy and limp. When had he even opened his eyes?

What he saw from the balcony flashed in the eye of his mind. He remembered the deep red splatter. The twisted, broken limbs.

"Hwa, please, stay with me."

He didn't want to. So he gave up consciousness.

Next thing he knew it felt like he was moving, but his body was very much numb and still, heavy, and his eyelids didn't want to respond to his will to look around to understand where he was. Was he inside a car? There were two blurry seats in front of him. He was in a car, right? He was laying on a leathery seat.

"Are you sure it was a good idea?"

A brittle voice managed to catch his attention.

"He'll take a while to reanimate, and being in the trunk will guarantee no one sees his state."

The answer came firm, but with restless undertones.

What was happening? He was at home just now, wasn't he? Everything was so dark and hazy, it was so hard to keep his eyes open...

He went under again.

In the end, it didn't even fucking matter.

But something was different all of a sudden. It was so soft, where he lied, and warm and pleasant and snuggly.

He stared at the ceiling as awareness took its time to grant his mind any type of awareness. His whole body felt lethargic and weak.

There were voices distantly echoing around in his head, tones and words scattered in his brain so messily he would never be able to tell where they were truly coming from.

"It's enough, right?"

Wait a minute. Was that... Minjoon?

"Thankfully, it's just frostnip. The towels should do for now."

And Siwoo?

Towels?

That's right... He could feel it now. Small, damped in warm water towels were wrapped around his hands and feet. It did ease the discomfort on his skin.

"I'll go find Yeosang. I need to know how Hongjoong's doing."

Wait.

"H-Hongjoong...?" His voice was hoarse and his speech was slurred.

Seonghwa turned his head a bit, believing to have found the source of the voices and blinked repeatedly to get his vision to focus on the two figures standing by the door in the dimly lit room.

"Hwa" Wooyoung immediately rushed to the bed and crouched down.

San followed and remained standing next to him.

"Y-You said... something about Hongjoong..."

"Yes" Seonghwa still couldn't see properly but he swore that his friend's eyes were getting bleary. "Yes, I did..."