"if we get killed in the game, we don't wake up."
↳
wake up.
nct (ot21).
published: 20/06/01
completed: 21/06/01
contains strong language, violence, death, and other mature themes.
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THE CARNIVAL
CHENLE
༄
> it happened within a blink of an eye. chenle had been separated from hendery and lost track of him when he was suddenly hit and knocked to the ground.
"let's make this easy and end it here, shall we?"
what he saw looming above him was a beast he couldn't even describe. it had the voice of a human but the appearance of a demonic mammal with a protruding jaw of sharp teeth and long claws that curled into the dirt beneath them.
somehow, its lips curled into a sinister cheshire smile.
"i wonder what your friend is seeing... he ran off without you. isn't that just miserable?"
once he stood, its arm shot out towards his head. instinctively, chenle dodged it and its hand crashed into the tree behind him, wrapping around it and squeezing until the trunk became crushed. chenle started running just as the tree toppled over.
everything blurred together. the grass before him seemed to form into a stone path, the trees grew taller and slimmer like skeletal silhouettes watching him silently. the sky also shifted, and instead of a pink wash of clouds he saw a vaulted ceiling with wooden planks lining the architecture. he passed a golden chandelier and looked ahead of him.
an open balcony was at the end. from there, he was met with the view of the carnival from afar, sitting in the middle of essentially nowhere with a mass of forest stretching out as far as chenle could see.
there was nowhere to run, so he was left with no options. as soon as he turned around, the beast had taken a hold of his throat and lifted slowly, strangling him.
chenle couldn't tell if he was hallucinating, but in its large eyes, he saw the image of a pier and a ship floating in the waters beside it. the figure that stood in the scene was jisung, he could see his face clearly with every detail. and for some reason, he felt like jisung was waiting for him.
at the last second, the beast turned into yangyang. the smile remained all the same as his hands continued to wrap tightly around his throat. a realization came over him.
"w-why," chenle struggled to get out. "why... d-do you hate me... s-so much?"
yangyang loosened his grip for just a second, but it was the most relieving second of chenle's life. "you had everything i didn't. how could i not hate you?"
