hiding, lurking » pentagon

22

❝ T W E N T Y T W O ❞

━ never expect anything because i'll always be right and you will be wrong

The nightmares were miserable. Wooseok kept seeing Kino, crouched over Jinho's body, but it wasn't quite Kino; it was some distorted, unnatural Kino that left nausea swirling in his stomach when he woke up.

His friends never once reached out to him. He festered in his bedroom, plagued by nightmares, regret, and bitter longing for the beginning of summer, when things were normal and his friends were still the people he'd trust with his life and still alive. His parents tried signing him up for therapy, but he refused to go, and they got mad at him but he didn't even care. He knew nothing would help him, and he was sure that he'd be the next to die, anyway; he was an easy target now. He was everyone's enemy.

Sometimes, when he woke up from another nightmare and couldn't fall back asleep, he'd stare at his ceiling and feel pathetic because not even Hui had tried to contact him. He'd never see his friends again, he was sure. He wasn't sure, though, if it was worth it--stay alive and lonely, or apologize for being right and put himself at risk again.

Maybe if he just never left his room again and died, the demon would be satisfied. Maybe if he just never left his room again and died, his friends would be happy.

Only a week of radio silence had passed when the demon evidently grew bored of Wooseok's moping around. The nightmares began to stop, only to be replaced with hallucinations of the Kino creature that drew closer and closer to him every night. He was terrified that it would touch him, terrified of what would happen.

When he woke up on the morning the demon possessed him, he did not know that the possession was going to happen. Of course, he had a pretty firm idea that it would happen because the night before, the Kino creature had tried to kill him. Because it was only a hallucination, it did nothing but scare the shit out of him and make his paranoia extremely bad. He had lain awake after it happened for hours, ears hyperactive and creating noises in the dark, creating monsters in the corners where the darkness gathered and his eyes couldn't make out.

So when the demon possessed him, he was half-expecting it, but the feeling of it invading his mind and having complete access to his entire body and self was sickening. He felt like his insides were being scooped out and he could do nothing about it. It was almost as if he was standing outside of himself, watching from afar. Watching a person walk straight into the path of a speeding car, unaware, somehow, of the impending danger and not being able to stop them.

He watched as the demon made him pick up his phone and select Kino's contact, opening up old messages from before. He watched as he composed a new one in which he said that he apologized for lashing out and wanted to meet at Kino's house to truly apologize in person. He watched as he sent the message, as it went through; for some reason, Kino was the only person who hadn't blocked his number after he threw everyone out of his house.

Twenty minutes later, his phone pings with Kino's reply, a simple okay, but it was more of a death warrant. He tried to text Kino, to tell him that he wasn't himself and that he was possessed, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even lift a finger. He tried hard enough and long enough that his nose began to bleed. The demon let the blood run over his lips and down his chin, made him watch in the bathroom mirror as a single drop landed in the sink and swirled down the drain like abstract art, like paint and not blood. Then he began to feel dizzy, eyes locked on his reflection. As the spots in his vision consumed his sight, he saw himself morph. He saw his skin turn gray and diseased, saw sores erupt on his face and then burst, oozing pus and tiny black bugs with legs, so many legs, that tickled his face. He watched his hair fall out, land in the sink among the last pink remnants of the drop of blood. He watched the skin fall off his fingers and the bone emerge.

And then he fainted.

When he woke up on the floor of the bathroom a couple seconds later, his head ached. He stood, unsure if by his own volition or not, and inspected the fast growing bump on his head. It wasn't bleeding, thank God. Then he thought, What does it matter if it's bleeding or not? The demon wouldn't care. Blood from his nose was still caked on his chin when the demon made him leave the bathroom and go into his room. For a second, the demon let go of him and the crushing restriction of its hold lifted and he quickly wiped the blood off his face before lunging for his phone, attempting to text Kino and warn him. Before he got that far, the demon invaded again and the pressure, so dark and claustrophobic, settled inside him once again. He froze with the phone in his hands before the demon made him drop it. And then it was making him leave his room, grab his car keys from the hook by the kitchen light switch, and go outside. Somehow, the entire day had passed. Wooseok wasn't sure where the time had gone, but the moon was still rising and in its crescent light, he saw himself reflected in his car window. He looked perfectly normal, aside from the reddish-brown stain on his shirt sleeve.

As he got in his car, he felt his army knife in his pocket. Suddenly, he felt trapped in his own body even as his foot pressed the gas pedal and he drove to his best friend's house to kill him.

oof its lowkey reaching the finale guys. a lot of shit happens at once so um yeah

my goal has been to finish this before i go back to school, and i came up with that goal like in the beginning of summer when i assumed i wouldn't be busy but it looks like i might actually meet that goal and im!! super pumped!!! about this!!! guys i'll be so proud when i finish this story :,)

also i was trying to find serious gifs of kino but hes too much of a sunshine so instead i made myself sick looking at bug gifs