Doom, Death, and Destruction (A Tale of Superpowered BTS)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Yunghee sat at her desk drawing circles. Circle after circle filled her submission form, the questions and outline boxes were long hidden behind the indent of ink. The smell of ink was stinging her nose sending her gag reflex strong, reminding her that it did indeed exist. It had been six months of a boring desk job. Taehyung had thought it was funny, when he was still half-delusional, she never got to see him when he regained his full mental state. The point of the pen tore its way through the paper. Sighing she let go of the pen, letting it hang in the air before pathetically hitting her desk. Frustration filled her but it dissipated with a familiar chill. Her frustration always seemed to lately. Her fingers would pound out her mums number then a bitter smile would erupt. The anger would come, then the chill would crush it, leaving a new layer of ice in her soul. Her eyes burned, not for tears, no, the chill wouldn't let that happen anymore. No matter her feelings the tears refused to fall, they froze before they hit the skin leaving a burning ache in her soul and a chill on her skin.

  Rolling her shoulders Yunghee forced a smile on her lips, using her memories of cuddling her sisters as they whispered ferociously into the darkness of their makeshift tents to conjure the emotions related to happiness. "Sooyoung! I need another submission form, I made a mistake on mine!" Yunghee spun in her rolling chair to look at the cubicle behind her. The familiar greying head turned to send her a frustrated look.

  "You may think you can get paid by doing the least amount of work possible, but I guarantee that will not last long." The aging woman pulled a spare form from her drawer and held it across the small expanse. She was the closest hoarder and had a spare of every form the office had.

  "Don't worry, I am not taking anything for granted." Yunghee brushed her long hair out of her face before she grabbed the paper. She kept her stiff smile pointed at the senior worker before she scanned the summary sheet, pulling herself to attention for her current job. She did customer service and at the end of each day she was required to fill out a form detailing important events, things she had sanctioned, and points to improve on. It felt like a middle school emotion test that kids got slid their way. They had to grade their own performance and make notes on improvement, and so did she.


  "Miss Han, the boss wants to see you in his office." Yunghee looked up from her work to look at their bosses personal assistant. The man looked nervous and shifty, keeping his gaze away from her. Her breath caught in her throat and she went online logging into social media instead of getting up. "Miss Han? He's waiting for you, there's someone here to see you."

  "I'll be there in a minute." She logged into naver and typed in the words Taehyung had told her. She was scared, she knew what it meant. Somehow the villain the boys had whispered in her ears about had come for her. Little unimportant her. It wasn't much but they all checked the listing every day, the boys would see if the code phrase had a hit, they would run, they had to. The cold rested in her stomach when she looked up to see men walking down the stairs from her bosses office. Her pale fingers shook and she ran, she went as fast as she could but she could hear the men running after her, her the surprised cries of her coworkers and muttering between them.

  "Han Jaeyeon! Stop right there!" At their words she felt a coworker grab her arm and push her against the wall.

  "Don't do this! Please! They're going to kill me!" Yunghee tried to get past the older man, struggling against him. She was never strong, never exemplary, not like the boys. They were right, she didn't belong in their world, it scared her. They could push him away, but she was too small for that, too weak. She felt them, real tears. They pounding against her eyes screaming for exit, but they froze before they could leave, all the people around her could see was the fearful crazed look she had.

  "Thank you for your help." The Primatech worker congratulated the man then pushed her against the wall, forcing her cheeks against the plaster as he handcuffed her. She could hear the click of a radio, feel the wall growing cold against her face. Her ears rang as they pulled her out of her work building. She didn't know how they found her but she was being escorted to a van, it looked like it should belong to the government for prisoner transport, not civilians. But from what she remembered, Primatech worked with the government. She wanted to open her mouth when they pushed her into the back, she wanted to scream out her name, so her family would know she was alive. She knew the videos would go online, but her lips refused to move. They were stiff and unyielding, the cold was numbing the tender flesh reminding her that she was as much a prisoner to Primatech as she was to her abilities.

  Yunghee lifted her head to look at the soldier in the back of the van with her. The door was slammed shut leaving the two alone together. Her eyes stared at him hopelessly, pink with emotion, clear of tears. Her lips parted slowly as she forced a breath to escape her. It scared her how he looked at her, she felt like she was in a movie, in a dream. She had no idea how to process the way the man was looking at her. Her mind knew the answer but it hid it from her, scared she would breakdown from the weight of the truth.

  The man's lips twitched as he pulled a gun out from his costume, his suit coat. He looked young, maturity had only just started to set in, he looked confident, no doubt did well with however he was taught. His gun focused right on her, no other target was probable. "Disgusting, having to be in the back carting someone like you around." His words were thick, coated with emotion. She knew what, but the answer was a whisper away, hidden behind a mist of cold in her mind. "Let me tell you, I don't care what they do to me, if you so much as flinch I will put a bullet right through that pale little head of yours." The soldier poked her forehead with a grimace, his lips curling in that emotion.

  "I won't feel it." Yunghee felt the words slip past her lips, her breath no longer warm on her dried lips, rather it was cool as if she had chewed on fresh mint. She wished she tasted the leaved on her tongue, so she could pretend it wasn't her fault she was like this, not her abilities fault. "I'm too numb." She dropped her eyes, wondering when she had started feeling as though her body was a corpse, cold and gummy to the touch. Perhaps that all she was. She had lost everything. Her friend and family, her school and future, there was nothing for her anymore. She couldn't do anything that chanced her being videotaped or photographed. Her world had dried into a frozen crisp, only to be tossed into a bin by the dreaded company.

  Instead of answering the soldier scoffed and leaned back against the wall of the van. They were lucky, their first catch of the day wasn't far from the faculty, they would be there within an hour. It had gone by slow for both passengers of the back of the van. The soldier had started shivering within the first thirty minutes, disturbed by the lack of tears the girl had. Every time he thought she would cry her skin would pale and her head would tilt down, leaving her hair to hang in the air, brushing her arms with each bump of the van. He felt like he was left with a doll, whoever held her strings was being slack, letting their creation hang in the wind with no destination.

  When the doors were opened he couldn't be out soon enough. Yunghee however felt it was too soon. Fearfully she descended out of the van, complying with each request they had. Her skin pricked with each rub of the handcuffs, each bump of their guns against her back. She was scared, she just wanted to be home, she just wanted to cry and feel warm tears on her cheeks for once. She didn't want to be following in the soldiers past tall gates, she didn't want to enter the facility and see the pristine white walls the boys had described to her, closing in on her. With each step down the hall she took, she found it harder to breathe. They didn't tell her a lot, what they did tell her was enough to instill a healthy amount of respect towards the men with guns. She didn't want them to shoot her. So she willing followed them into the room they guided to her. She could taste the blood on her lips, the chill she had, it had already dried the skin to the cracking point. Yet she still let the guards uncuff her and force her to sit down. She let them tie the rough leather her skin until it turned pink and bloated. She said nothing when the a man walked in with a much different kind of gun, but she whimpered when she saw the needle at the end of it. Yunghee remembered seeing the tattoos the boys had tried to hide, the numbers etched on their skin. She didn't want to join them, she wasn't strong enough, she wasn't able to cope like them. She wasn't made for their life.

  "Don't worry, this won't be the worst thing you will have felt." The man smiled at her thinly and she smiled back, weakly, scared. He pointed it to her skin and her eyes burned with frozen tears. She could feel the ice building behind her eyes, she could almost see the shine sparking into her vision, she could almost imagine a wall of ice encasing her, protecting her. She didn't notice when the man screamed, his hand wrapped in chilling ice. She didn't notice the skin of the men around her blistering from cold, darkening from hypothermia. Yunghee could only feel the energy seep out of her as her eyes unfocused. Her lips parted as the darkened, her twitching fingers turned an unhealthy blue as they crackled into place, the ice stopping them from moving. Her eyes slid shut as whatever tears she had left froze her lids shut. She drew in her last breath and released it with faint mist.

  By the time reinforcements came, they didn't see any breathing body.