pirate king (pirate!au) ➵ ateez ✔️

hurricane

You sink.

The impact from the waves knocks all air from your lungs, and then you're enveloped by the cold, wandering fingers locking around your ankles, dragging you beneath the surface. You try to move, dazed, reaching for the little sunlight that manages to pierce the waves, but the warmth doesn't reach you in the least.

Your lungs start fighting for air, heart fluttering wildly like the wings of a desperate bird in its dying throes. You open your mouth to breathe, but only water enters your lungs and the world around you spins, shades of black and blue and then nothing.

It's silent.

Lonely.

You're going to die alone.

This is the end, you think, hopelessly. There's no pain, no sadness, and the cold of the sea feels nothing more than a comforting embrace you're returning to. You'll die here, a speck in the infinite ocean, just like you were always supposed to. It was foolish of you to try and go against the way of nature.

Vaguely aware of the fact that you're still sinking, your eyes close, and uncontrolled streaks of colour flash behind your eyelids. The silence is suddenly drowned out by noise, and you strain your ears to hear the sounds more clearly.

"Chin Hae!"

The voice is urgent, laced with desperation, familiar. Who's that? You wonder dazedly to yourself, sinking deeper and deeper into the blessed warmth. Who are they calling for?

"Wake up! Fight!" The voice resounds in your ears, a begging plea, but you shake your head, unwilling. What's so bad about the situation you're in right now? You're just tired... and you want some rest. You'll just close your eyes for a while longer... and then...

"Choi Chin Hae! You can't die! You promised me!"

Something hard and cold presses into your hand, sharp grooves digging into the skin of your palm, a painful memory. Your promise?

Promises.

You've made so many of them.

You must keep your promises, even if you have to move the entire ocean to do it.

Your fingers tighten around the cold steel in your palm. There's a tug in your chest, like there's a rope tied to your heart and someone is yanking at the other end. It aches, but you remember now.

I promised.

And the sea explodes.

>>>

Hongjoong doesn't know how long he's been screaming.

He can't seem to breathe. The world seems to move in slow motion, tiny cogs turning at a sedately pace, the ripples on the ocean surface swallowed up by the waves. His legs carry him forward, nearly throwing himself over the side of the ship, but something yanks him back.

That man is saying something, a small part of his mind registers, but he can't find it in him to care. His throat is raw with agony, but he can't feel it. All he sees is the surface of the ocean, and what he knows lies beneath it, out of his reach.

You.

He'd failed. He'd broken his promise to you, to his crew. He'd watched one of his family get thrown into the waves helplessly.

And he had done nothing.

You're gone.

Something in him snaps.

"Captain, the sky!" One of the ship's crew screams, and the quartermaster looks up in surprise. His surprise turns into shock, then into horror. Previously a shade of summer blue without a cloud in sight, he sees dark grey rolling in from as far as his eye can see, so thick that it blocks out the sun. Day turns to night, and the air hums, dropping in temperature and the smell of ozone rends the sky itself.