swallow me whole; pjm

1 - memento mori

Memento Mori lat.(trans.): "Remember that you must die"

"Shadows can't exist without light. The dark, however, can swallow the light whole."

   A NORMAL SATURDAY evening. I watch him walk around  the block and into the small convenience store by the park. His face  looks glossy and red from crying. That's all he's been doing lately.  Crying, crying, crying. Sometimes he's sobbing so badly he chokes on his  breath and doesn't find it again for a few seconds. I get worried when  that happens. I shouldn't, but I do. His hands find a cup of ramyun. He  pays quickly and then he's walking back to his apartment again. Usually,  he would eat the noodles in the convenience store. He doesn't do that  anymore. From far away I spy a familiar silver gleam in his swollen  eyes. At home he sets the kettle on the stove and heats up the water for  his ramyun. When the water is boiling, he pours it over his noodles and  goes to draw himself a bath. Something seems odd. He returns to his  noodles and eats them slowly, almost painfully slow. Next thing he's  standing in front of the bathtub, his face without expression. Without  hesitation, he sits down in the water, still fully dressed, and dunks  his head underwater. On the bathroom floor lies the suicide note of his  best friend Yoongi and a lighter also belonging to his late friend.  After a while he takes both into his wet hands, the paper soaking a bit,  and lights the note on fire. I can feel the vibration of his thoughts  in the air. They've never been louder before. When the paper is done  burning, the expression on his face remains the same, but his thoughts  get even louder. From across the room it feels like they are trying to  lure me in. To pull me down the same path he went down. But I can't. I  can't. I won't. I pity him, I worry. And I shouldn't. But such a thing  as human sorrow is the one thing I can't allow myself. Never in my  eternal life. If I feel it with him, if I start to pity myself, if I  fall in love, then I fall. My thoughts are interrupted when the  vibrations in the air stop. There's complete silence in the bathroom. My  head turns to look back at the bathtub. His head is underwater again,  his body unmoving. I panic. Yet I remain still. Of all the things I  cannot do, this is the biggest taboo of them all. You may not interfere  with the lives of humans at all costs. My feet move closer to the tub  until I'm staring down at his face. His eyes closed, mouth open  slightly, he looks almost as if he were sleeping. The beat in my head  gets slower and slower. I stay where I am and wait. Wait for death to  come and take him. I can't interefere. I cannot. A strange sensation  fills my body as I hear the last of his heartbeats. I know I'm crying by  the time he's dead. And I feel him falling, falling, falling. The only  problem is I'm falling, too.

•••

   My body feels sweaty and heavy by the time I wake up. Overhead I can see the night sky with it's thousands of stars.

   "What... was that?", I hesitantly ask Jin, who sits  against a tree not far from me. "A memory... of sorts," he replies with a  sad smile. 

   "Mine or yours?"

"Both," he answers. My eyebrows knit  together and I stare at the grass between my fingers. If Jin and I both  share this memory, it means we both knew this person. This boy who  killed himself and became a sinner in the process. "Who is he?", I ask  hesitantly. The question startles Jin. "He's... someone we loved.  Someone we   all   loved. But losing them... it was too hard on him."

   "What do you mean by that?"

   "They all gradually died one after one. First came  Taehyung, then came Jungkook, then Hoseok, then Yoongi, lastly Jimin.  Namjoon gave up on life a short while after that. We both fought. But we  lost, too, in the end," Jin explains. "Then why are we here and they  aren't?", I demand. Somehow, I don't want to know more of our tragic  mortal life, but curiosty gets the best of me. Jin gets silent for a few  seconds and just looks up at the stars. With his eyes still focused up  above he says, "They were selfish. That's why they're down there... with  him. An why we're up here with them." "By selfish you mean... they all  took their lives somehow?" He nods.