Witch in the Woods

Chapter 7:

(A/N: Sorry for missing TWO uploads, I've been bombarded with homework and projects galore. And to top it all off, I've got a terrible cold. I can't breathe, my throat hurts, and I sound like a 70 year old smoker who smokes 20 packs a day/a prepubescent teenager...life's great👍🏻)

P.O.V Jin

It smelled of old parchment and the midnight oil. The insistent flipping of pages filled the otherwise silent night. The said room was lit only by a single candle, the burning wick illuminating the exasperated mien of a certain priest. The haunting image of black and red wings burned permanently onto his eyelids. Sleep alluded him, but the pull of curiosity and fear kept him awake. The fear of the unknown, the fear of all the possibilities of what could happen, what this could mean.

So, until then, he kept flipping.

''''''''''''''''''

Jin didn't know how long he had been down there, in the archives. In the church "library" that conveniently no one knew about. All for good reason of course, after all, ignorance is bliss.

The walls and floor were made of old grey stone, an ancient rug thrown haphazardly on the floor in a sad attempt to make the room seem more inviting. The lack of comfortable furniture and fireplace only further extending its cold appeal. The room was large, yet bare save the dozens of old wooden bookshelves that twisted and turned like some sort of musty timber maze. Dust danced through the room, as shadows danced on the walls from the longstanding encased candle.

Jin sat in one of the two uncomfortable arm chairs posed in the middle of the archive. Feet folded beneath him to warm his cold toes, a blanket draped over his shoulders to fight off the evident cold of the church basement.

He flipped through book after book, read page after page, searched through dozens of letters and documents. Nonetheless, nothing on the "topic" he was looking for. There were plenty of magic related (illegal) documents that talked about the basics of magic, all the way to complex rituals and summonings. Just nothing on tattooed runes...absolutely nothing. 

It didn't seem like a very common practice, maybe even a lost one, considering no one has written anything about it anywhere. Jin was starting to run out of patience, he had spent the whole night and probably even the entire day trying to find out something about Jungkook's condition. Yet, nothing.

He was about to resort to violence, and start throwing random books in frustration. When a sudden rush of cold wind swept through the room, whipping around the bookcases and wrapping around Jin's body. It only lasted a few more seconds before subsiding, although the familiar feeling of being watched fell upon him in the form of a heavy gaze.

He bored holes into the page he was reading, too frightened to look up, frozen in place by those wandering eyes. Sadly, being the curious priest he was, he had to do something.

He slowly closed the book in his hands, setting it down carefully on the stack of discard books to the right of him. Jin took off his reading glasses, glancing up as he scanned his surroundings. Only to find that he couldn't see into the dark abyss around him with the pitiful candle he had, Jin couldn't even see more than 5 feet in front of him. Only the looming figures of dozens of old bookcases, and long abandoned torch sconces jutting out from the walls.

It was like this for a while, the ever-looming heavy gaze of some unknown creature, and Jin sitting still, not knowing what to do next. He was in the middle of debating whether he should call out to the stalker, or make a run for the spiral staircase on the far side of the archive. When there was a sudden thud, then another, then another. Each one increasing in volume, the thuds closing in around him. Until a book dancing on his edge of his field of vision fell off the shelf, seemingly on its own. It was quiet, until a book off the top of Jin's discard pile was slammed against the small coffee table on front of him.