hiding, lurking » pentagon

10

❝ T E N ❞

━ who will you trust? not those you think you can, i hope

Shinwon thought about the time Kino won the art show at school when they were thirteen. Kino had been so nervous upon entering his photography portfolio ("I even called it something pretentious and stupid, why God?") and blabbered nonstop about it. Most of their friends were growing tired of hearing about it twenty-four-seven, but Shinwon mostly thought it was nice how Kino's eyes lit up and he smiled in a way Shinwon had never seen before - and when he won, he cried happy tears even as he questioned why. He couldn't understand why he won, and no matter how many times Shinwon told him ("Because you're talented and your pictures were good, stupid.") he couldn't seem to understand.

Then Kino moved on to dancing and took every critique harder than he should've, but Shinwon realized he was being harder on himself than he had to because he loved dancing so much. It was his passion. Photography was his passion, too, but he never quite threw himself into it the way he did with dance.

Shinwon was apathetic.

He didn't really have any hobbies. He'd never found something he loved that made life interesting (well, nothing besides his friends, but he would never admit this out loud). He just kinda drifted along for the majority of his time on this planet. Sports didn't interest him; he would try out and then not even show up for the first practice. He would try drawing or painting but give up when it became apparent how bad he was. He was a terrible writer. He also wasn't the best at reading, and his attention span didn't really allow him to become better. Or want to become better.

So as he walked through the woods, he thought of his friends. He thought of the murderer that could potentially be stalking him now. He thought that maybe his friends wouldn't miss him that much because of his apathy. Or maybe that was what he hoped.

He was half-thinking that if he didn't get jumped he would just disappear into the woods forever. Walk away from the strange tragedy that took place between these trees that the parents couldn't keep out of their mouths, walk away from the tragedy closer to him. Walk away from his best friend who had killed himself, walk away from his best friend who went crazy. They rarely talked about Yuto anymore, and this stopped him in his tracks.

They had all thrown themselves into The Yanan Issue so they could forget about the piece of them that would never grow back, just stay dead deep within their minds.

And as he stood there, pondering this, he heard something. His ears went on hyper-alert as acute fear sharpened his senses. He stood perfectly still, head tilted slightly as if doing so would help him discern the noise -

There.

A rustling.

And was that - breathing?

Definitely breathing. Ragged, getting closer.

For all his apathy, his heart sure as hell was racing in his chest.

Every rustle of leaves or snapping of twigs, imaginary or real, intensified in his ears, like they were rats running through a maze, or rocks being shaken in a metal bucket.

He heard something that sounded like a hiss; a distinctly non-human yet still real voice. The hiss seemed to be gearing toward a whisper and he didn't want to hear what it was going to say, so he bolted. He ran. The funny thing was, he didn't care where he was running, whether he was running towards the real world or not. The real world felt as unreal as the fact that Yuto was dead and Yanan was — Yanan was crazy.

"Not..." Came the whisper, tickling at the back of Shinwon's neck, dancing in the fine hairs that were standing up. He was tearing through the forest, crashing through trees and underbrush and getting scratched up everywhere, little tongues of fire lashing his body, but he still heard the whisper.

"...crazy..." Like a far off river, vowels slurring into each other, words running over each other. It was filling his head even as it spilled out his ears.

His foot caught on a root and his ankle twisted, sending him crashing to the ground like a star falling from the sky. He clawed at the ground, trying to get back on his feet despite the throbbing pain; dirt caking underneath his fingernails but he couldn't seem to get up.

Then he heard another twig snap, closer to him. After the sharp noise, that horrible breathing - sounding more unsteady, like whoever it was emanating from had been running, too.

Shinwon told himself that he was probably having some kind of anxiety attack and imagining things to cope with his grief. Or he tried to - as he forced himself to believe something he knew he never could, he was scrambling at the ground, trying to run on all fours. He was crawling, crawling, because he was so terrified and the only logical thought in his head was run.

But maybe that thought wasn't the only thing in his head.

Using a tree, he was able to pull himself upright and continue staggering through the forest. His vision was blurry; he realized he was crying. He paused for a second and poised himself to listen, straining his ears. Nothing. No whisper, no twigs snapping, no breathing. He dashed at his eyes and tried to calm his heart rate, but something like a sob burst from his chest, like a bird from a cage.

The sound startled him. His heart started hammering again, but then the hiss returned and his heart stopped.

"Why'd you...sssss...." It became unintelligible, and Shinwon was paralyzed by fear. Was it getting closer or was it his mind playing tricks on him? Was this whole thing a trick? "...t....cks....a gaaa....me....run." The voice started repeating that last word; run, run, runrunrunRUNRUN and Shinwon did, he ran, and as he ran, he had one very clear thought - the only clear thought he'd had since his stepped into the woods.

He was going to die.

He kept tripping and running into trees, almost like the trees were picking themselves up and setting down right in front of him; when he fell again, he went crashing to the ground as if he were a marionette who'd been dropped by its puppeteer. When he looked up, he saw a dark figure.

He stopped breathing. The figure was close; too close for him to try and run. It was hunched and skinny, shambling. A hood covered its head. A hand was stretched out -

"W-Who are you?" Shinwon's voice cracked. He wished the treetop cover wasn't so thick; he could barely see - but he didn't miss the flash of light off steel. The figure had a knife.

It sprang forward and grasped Shinwon's arms, tackling him to the ground. The hood fell down and Shinwon went limp with shock - the eyes staring straight into his were pure black, and he thought he could see angry scratch marks grooved into the flesh of the cheeks. But that wasn't what shocked him.

"Yanan?"

spicy :)

i listened to kill the clown by soley while i wrote this, so if you want to be really creeped out go listen to that song imma have nightmares tonight - the things i do for you guys ;))))))) will you guys have nightmares? was it even scary? idk man i tried

the story's pace took awhile to pick up, but i think this chapter is p much the turning point and everything after this one will be wild af. wish me luck bc i have all the fun horror stuff planned but not the in between stuff that's equally important, so this might be a mess