Anything But || OT7

The Psycho Pt. 1

KIM S.

It felt like I had been running for ages. My lungs were burning and my feet began to hurt, but I kept running. Shadows streaked past and around me, but I didn't have the luxury of sparing any of them a second glance. I had to keep my focus ahead.

I took a sharp right through the trees, hoping to find a safe spot. The snaps of branches and bright-yet-vicious yips of the foxes echoed behind me.

They were on my tail.

I saw a clearing for the forest, and prayed either someone was coming my way, or there was a place to hide and avoid being torn apart. I quickly looked left and right, and had I not done that I would have missed the gate on my left.
Wasting no time, I steered my body towards that direction.

Please don't be a fuck up. Please don't be a fuck up.

I didn't even slow down to open the gate, instead quickly and swiftly grabbing the top with one hand and leaping over it. I spotted a cottage a couple hundred meters ahead, and I knew that if I could reach it in time I would have a chance at survival. Still running towards it, I risked a glance behind me.

I instantly regretted it. I was met with the sight of two foxes hopping over the gate just as easily as I had, and the rest followed quickly behind.

"Fuck!" I screamed to myself as I pushed my legs to the max.

The first two foxes were gaining on me, and as I felt my legs start to give way I managed to reach the cottage. I ripped the door open and slammed it shut, collapsing to the ground and leaning all my weight against the door. I felt the it jerk violently against me a couple times until it was still once more.

I leaned my head back onto the dark oak, hearing nothing but my pounding heart in my ears and labored breathing. I closed my eyes for a few seconds trying to compose myself. Nausea and dizziness hit me like a train as I tried to stand, and I turned around and held onto the wall as I balanced myself. Black fog crept in the corners of my vision, white spots dancing around as well as I struggled to steady myself, my head spinning. "Holy shit," I breathed, still recovering from what had just happened.

I stayed leaning on the door for a while longer until I finally had the strength to walk around the place. However, as soon as I turned around, my blood ran cold. There in the sitting area was a fox, but it looked different in close proximity; more demented and twisted. I started to hear a voice in my head, as if it was coming from the fox. "Jin, why didn't you let those other foxes kill you? It would've made everything easier, I promise."

I shook my head in disbelief, "No, no no no," I chanted frantically. "Y-you're just a-a vision, nothing more." I grabbed at my chest, trying to keep my heart inside as it felt like it was going to burst. My breathing, which had begun to slow the slightest bit, picked up again. The fox tilted its head, the mouth contorting like it was smirking, taunting me. "Are you sure Jin? I could be real for all you know. But maybe I'm fake, just a vivid nightmare present in the waking here to haunt you."

My eyes filled with tears and my bottom lip trembled, I started to dig into my eyeballs with the heels of my hands as I screamed, "Stop! Leave me alone!"

A laugh bellowed from the fox, "Why don't you just end it all then? It's not like you have anywhere to go, no family to turn to. You're as valuable as dirt. Go on then, there's a knife in the kitchen waiting for you."

Sure enough, there was a steak knife in the kitchen. My mind raced as I walked up to it. I picked it up and examined it, wondering what it would feel like across my throat. Without thinking, I put it up to the side of my neck, next to my Adam's apple. The fox murmured encouragement as I pressed the edge of the cold blade into my skin, in a way enjoying the sting it caused as it broke the very top layer. It was a sick form of torture, where physical pain acted as a form of relief from my mental anguish. I pressed a tiny bit harder, and just as I was about to slide it across- "NO! STOP IT!" I froze, wide eyed.