Different

10

The second day there had to be the worst. All throughout the night I kept waking up and falling back asleep. Seokjin was right, it burned. Over and over again it felt as if my head was catching on fire and no amount of cold water would stop it. Taeyong was sleeping on the couch in the room, apparently, I couldn't be left alone at night. The next time I woke up it was twelve, or so the clock said. Multiple men were standing over me staring but I couldn't speak or hear them. My limbs wouldn't move no matter how hard I screamed at them to. A sleep without sleeping is what I'd Call it, and nothing could get me out of it. Moving my eyes and swallowing were about all I could do. They let me lay on the bed and do nothing anyways. Sometimes I'd watch their mouths or look at the wall, I still couldn't hear what they were saying though.

Remembering what happened was out of the question, I simply couldn't. One minute I was placing my burning head under the cold water of the facet and the next I'm sitting on the bed, unmovable. They had a nice girl who took care of me. She helped me into new clothes and into a bath every other day. Or at least, I thought it was every other day. I found myself often recounting the happy days I'd spent with my old friends, before life decided to throw it all down the drain. The one I particularly liked was from when I was about ten or eleven years old.

*Ten Years Ago*

The grass made the softest most inaudible sound as it swayed, touching each piece as if passing words down a line. It itched a little though as I lay in it, but the sounds were so magical that I didn't want to move. I could hear the babble of the brook and the clapping of the leaves further in the distance. Reminding me of the playful summers in which the heat was so intense that the creek felt like heaven. The sound of laughter causing me to sit up I watch as someone runs towards me. He runs like a gazelle, hopping over every section of grass he could. I tilt my head to the side and see another one following in his footsteps. "Taehyung, Jimin!" I say happily as I run towards them too, in the same hopping manner. We meet somewhere in the middle and all of us topple onto the ground in a big heap, laughing until our stomachs hurt. Jimin pushes us off of him and sits up, pouting his bottom lip out. "You could have smushed my sandwich." He says as us others place our hands on his shoulders. "We're sorry, want to eat now?" I asked him. His smile returned, and his eyes followed the curve of my arm to where it touched Taehyung's shoulder. His frown followed after that. Nothing had ever made me more upset than to see that frown and so I disengaged from the contact. He leapt up from his seat and grabbed my arm, launching us into a sprint towards the picnic tables, Taehyung following closely behind. "Wait up guys!" He yelled making Jimin giggle. We made it into our seats first, forcing a frustrated groan from Taehyung when he caught up.

Back then, a lunch of any kind of sandwich and Oreos was the best meal there could be. We'd lick the white frosting out of them and then eat the cookie, sometimes leaving the cookie for the birds. Jimin always peeled the crust off his sandwich and gave it to me, no matter how much Taehyung whined for it. I split my spoils with him in which I earned a smile where Jimin earned a tongue. We were immature, brats, trouble makers, and all the things that come with it. But we never failed to have fun and become closer as friends. Taehyung and Jimin would never have been friends without me being in-between them, but over the years, they became like brothers.

I remember the time that Taehyung's dog died. He was so upset, and he had always been closer to me than to Jimin that I was sure he would come to me first. When Jimin told me that he found out before I did, I was pleasantly surprised, until I found out that Taehyung only didn't tell me because he thought I couldn't handle the truth. Sometimes the two of them together isn't the best thing. They find ideas together that they most likely shouldn't have. Like the one time they thought that angling the fireworks at the house would make them more visible when they detonated them. Let's just say that the house didn't recover so well from its injury. I mentally sigh at these memories. I thought I'd forgotten all about them, but they've come back in stunning resolution. I also wonder if Jimin always had powers, or if my childhood connection to him was just very strong. Whatever option it is, that connection no longer exists between us. Any chance of that was ruined when he humiliated me for life in high school. And not just on any day, on the first day of ninth grade. The absolute worst day in the history in my life, he just made it worse. I push that thought away, imagining my hand being able to shove as hard as it could at it. Clawing at it to break it out of my mind.

At this point, sleeping is what I do best. Sarah can take me to my bath and change me all she wants but I can still sleep. Sarah is what I decided to Call her since she didn't give herself a name. Well, she probably did but I didn't hear it. I sometimes counted how many times I ate and what hour the clock said it was, but at this point in time it could have been 3 pm or 3 am for all I know of. I liked to stare at the couch where Taeyong never failed to sleep, that's how I usually could tell if it was day or night. They placed me to sleep in a sitting up position where my view of the couch would never be disrupted. No one had even thought to move the straps that he cut off my wrists, so they still sat in the same spot on the floor. They usually captured my attention most days. I couldn't feel anything, or move, but that didn't stop certain feelings from rising inside of me. I couldn't tell you what day it was, but I knew that it felt like another one of those burning sensations. Instead of it coming from the outside of my body it came from somewhere within. That day, or night, I moved myself once. A guy was feeding me something and I moved my head to face him.

I wasn't trying to, but something inside said that he could help. It said that if I could just pull him closer than I could satisfy this sensation and the burning would stop. Feeling then started returning to my senses, it started in my chest because that's were the burning started. The skin on my chest felt so cold, yet the inside burned worse. Whether he did or didn't see me move wasn't the point, the point was that I wasn't going to tell him if he did. They might have lowered my security if they thought I couldn't move, therefore increasing my chance of escaping. The burning started spreading soon after that, it caressed its way down my arms and all the way to my fingertips, giving me movement in those areas. Later that day, it moved itself down my hips and through my legs, so I could feel them. But I wasn't sure about walking. I only started moving them when I was in the bath tub and Sarah wasn't there. That night, I think Taeyong could sense that something was off.