Perilous {Doyoung // NCT au}

two

F L A S H B A C K 
Five months prior

• • •

Tamsin jolted upright in bed, gasping in a heart-pounding state of emergency. Trying to steady her breathing, she reached for her throat, gently rubbing at it. Only seconds ago a hand was tightly wrapped around her, ready to take her life.

Another night, another nightmare. She might have escaped the haunted house, but it hadn't stopped haunting her.

Tamsin winced at the feeling of the phantom hand that remained on the skin of her neck. She let her hands fall to the bed, sighing heavily as she felt the drenched bedding beneath her palms. Looking to her left, she was grateful to see an empty spot next to her. Although she preferred sleeping with Taeil these days, as a result of not wanting to be alone in the dark, she didn't want him to lie in her sweat either.

Not feeling like going back to sleep, Tamsin got up and removed the sheets from the bed, dropping them in the laundry basket on her way to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and undressed herself, leaning against the cool porcelain of the sink to look at herself in the mirror.

"You look like shit," she muttered to herself and ran a hand through her hair, staring at her brown roots. "And you're in desperate need of a dye job."

Sighing, she hopped into the shower and washed off her sweat. The warm water felt nice on her skin and made her relax, averting her thoughts from the nightmare she'd had. Instead, she was thinking about which color she wanted to dye her hair, eventually deciding to stick with the strawberry blonde.

She returned to her bedroom a few minutes later, grabbing her phone from her nightstand to text Jungwoo and ask him to help her with her hair. As she unlocked her phone she saw that there were a dozen missed calls and texts from Crystal. She had never called her before. Whatever was going on had to be important, or worse.

She grabbed her phone with both hands, worried she'd drop it otherwise as she was shaking so badly. Instead of calling back, she opened the texts and read them one by one. Tamsin felt herself being sucked back into the panicked-state she had woken up in. Nothing had happened yet, but something was going to. And it was bad.

Really bad.

• • •

The same people that had entered the haunted house together on Halloween had gathered at an old magic shop in the outskirts of the city. It was owned by Chenle's family and served as one of the Chinese coven's meeting places. Chenle happened to also be the reason why the group of friends were asked to assemble as soon as possible.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a dream?" Yuta asked the young boy.

Chenle was only 17 years old, one of the youngest witches in the coven, but he was sure of his power. His visions came to him at random, even in dreams, but he knew exactly how to separate one from the other.

"For the third time, yes. I am sure it wasn't a dream," Chenle replied, annoyed with Yuta's question.

"He's never been wrong before," Renjun chimed in, backing up his best friend. "He's the one that led me to you when—" Renjun stopped himself from finishing his thought, knowing the others didn't like talking about what had happened a month earlier. "Well, you know."

"So then, we're fucked." Taeyong stated. It was clear he didn't want to be involved in any way, but he also knew he couldn't just leave either.

"Maybe. Maybe not," Renjun said, thinking out loud. "Sure, we don't know when it's happening, but we can prepare ourselves. Right? We can increase our powers and you guys could—"