Shadow Dancing | K.TH

Nightmares and Respect

If only I could scream.

I can feel the rough hands clamping the metal mask over my lips, the sharp ends digging into the skin of my neck. My voice is like water— and darkness.

But silenced.

"Are you ready, Tzuyu?" My father says over my hazy vision, and I don't even have the strength to glance up. Violent shivers wreak havoc on my fragile body, making countless waves of pain and fade sweep from my head to the tips of my toes.

Did he really expect me to say something in this stupid muzzle that he'd put me over me like I was some kind of animal?

But even animals were treated better than this.

I keep willing for my face to fade away, to get this freaking mask off of me. It was choking— suffocating the air out from my throat. I wonder how long I would last— the minutes, the seconds.

I hope, like every single day, that this day is my last.

The only way to suspend me is with energy— nothing of physical matter. My body would go through metal and any other substances too easily.

My father never told me what he was going to try next. He was just so full of ideas that I never, for once, believed that he would spend a precious day thinking. A precious day for me to just be left alone, crying what I could on my cold, hard bed.

Was it wrong to say that was too good to be true?

My eyes are still closed when iciness surrounds my entire body— so cold and so unforgiving I instantly know what this experiment is going to be about.

There was only so much I could guess from icy water and me.

And as I learn later, electricity.

I wake up with my forehead sticky with perspiration, my breaths heavy and rushed. The inside of my mouth is dry and tastes of metal— like blood. As if the dream had left its trace as taste.

"I heard screaming."

Only then I realize that seven shadows surround the vicinity of my bed.

"Holy freaking—"

My hands barely cut off the curse from my lips as I push back onto the hot mattress, the pillow moist with my perspiration.

Oh my dear heavens, please let this be a dream.

But the intensity in V's gaze is too real and too intense for that to be true. Unable to take the silent interrogation I was going through, I quickly flip the blanket over my head so I couldn't see their faces.

What did they think of me? Was I screaming that much?

You had to be kidding me.

My body flickers, making the blanket go through empty space that had been me just a second ago. Which means, concealing myself with a blanket while I was fading wasn't going to be an option.

Dammit.

"Are you okay?" Hoseok pipes up, breaking the heavy silence between me and the seven of them. Its pretty clear that he knows I'm not, but I appreciated the effort, at least.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Completely fine. T-thanks— and uh, good night?"

Why in the freaking heck is my voice glitching?