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— "you're crazy, little boy!"
FOUR YEARS PRIOR: KIM TAEHYUNG
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taehyung is numb.
he feels disassociated, like he's submerged in a bottomless pool of water. there's a strange, sharp feeling in his abdomen that he can't quite pinpoint the cause of, and a dull heat pulsates in his neck. why is he so tired? he's cold, aching, trembling: it's as if all of the energy he once had has been sucked out of him.
with all the effort he can possess, taehyung opens his eyes.
everything around him is swamped in darkness—not complete darkness, but rather the absence of any source of light he can physically pinpoint. it seems like he's in some sort of isolated, extremely vast by the way every noise he can hear echoes, and musty cave. but it's not a cave. taehyung sees a ceiling, halfway broken and allowing a thin stream of moonlight, maybe, to seep through from the night sky, and numerous racks, crates, and other packaging paraphernalia. clearly, he's in a warehouse: an abandoned, awfully large, and eerily unsettling warehouse.
as if on impulse, taehyung heaves a long, laborious cough, and a spike of pain shoots up from his abdomen in response. he groans, weakly pushing himself from the cold, wet ground and licking his lips dry of something metallic—blood, he realizes numbly.
it's so cold.
where am i? what's going on? where's mom and dad? where's jimin?
somehow forgetting the striking pain in his body, taehyung straightens his back and looks to his abdomen, his breath escaping. blood. blood covers his shirt, his pants, his hands; it's a miracle he's even conscious right now. is it all mine? how is that even possible? clearly, there's a wound, maybe even multiple, under his shirt—and clearly, they aren't minuscule. he doesn't exactly want to see them yet.
taehyung winces as he wracks his brain, trying to remember what happened. i was alone. the lights burst...mom's steak knife...the window broke into pieces...
and then, something growls lowly in the dark corner of the warehouse. taehyung's heart seems to momentarily stop, watching as something disfigured moves in the shadows. when another low howl echoes in the room, he collapses to the ground and closes his eyes on instinct. maybe it's to play sleeping (or dead), or maybe it's to shield himself from looking at whatever lurks there; he doesn't have the energy to decide which option it is.
the growling stops.
holding his breath for the next several moments, taehyung tentatively opens his eyes.
