Cursed Hearts | ATEEZ

019

It was dark and I was running out of time. I bolted through the forest, wet hair billowing behind me, whipping back and forth with each step, the drenched suit clinging to my body as the cold seeped further and further through the material.

The roars behind me were getting louder, closer. I couldn't breathe. Namjoon's voice rung out over the invisible speakers once again, counting down the last seconds of the trial. I couldn't breathe, risking a single glance back over my shoulder as the darkness enveloped me.

I screamed, sitting straight up in my bed as shaky breaths rattled through my lungs, my throat burning, my eyes unfocused as I glanced around the dark bedroom, the stars glinting faintly on the other side of the windows opposite me. The silence was deafening except for the sounds of my irregular breathing. I was bathed in sweat.

I shakily ran a hand through my hair as I stumbled out of bed and headed for the shower, closing my eyes after fumbling around with the temperature of the water before stepping underneath the steady stream of droplets falling from the ceiling, closing my eyes for a moment as I tried to get the images out of my head, out of my mind.

"Calm down, Yuna," I whispered to myself, taking a deep breath, "Calm down," I said, repeating the words over and over again like a mantra. I hadn't even seen the beast making those sounds, summoning those roars, the beast that had taken Wonwoo, killed him. I hadn't even gotten hurt before I reached the city, reached safety.

"Calm down," I mumbled again but the words didn't offer me the comfort I had hoped for, and I shivered as I stepped back out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel and drying off before tiptoeing over to the closet to find something else to wear, rolling my eyes at Nari and Jinae when all I could get my hands on was another light nightgown which left very little for the imagination.

A shiver ran down my spine as I walked back into my bedroom, wrapping my arms around myself as I stood still for a moment, feelings of discomfort and fear wrapping tighter around me by the second like invisible tendrons of darkness.

I let out another shaky breath, about to repeat the words again when a sound in the night made me jolt and immediately bolt for the stairs,d deciding that I needed to find somewhere else, anywhere else, to calm down as I made my way into the empty hallway and briskly headed further into the Palace of Atlas.

As I walked around aimlessly through the grand halls and past the intricately sculpted columns lining them, I couldn't help but twitch and jump slightly at every little sound, despising the endless oceans of night and sky and stars reflected in the polished floors of marble beneath me that I used to admire during my midnight trips.

I hated everything that brought me back to the first trials, brows furrowing slightly as I kept on searching, looking for something I couldn't quite place before I suddenly found myself in front of a pair of grand doors covered in intricate details of gold and marble, hesitantly reaching out for the handle before pushing one of the doors open just enough for me to slip inside.

I was met with yet another landscape of darkness though there was a comfortable sort of warmth within the room which made me furrow my brows, my body instinctively relaxing as I padded further into the space, squinting to get a look of the interior with the stars outside the grand windows as the only source of light, seeing an enormous bed at the other side of the room, raised on a sort of dais and framed by a set of heavy curtains.

I immediately realized that I was intruding, that I should probably leave whoever was sleeping in here alone, but the fear that still clung to me and the nightmare that lingered just out of my reach made me hesitate, slowly taking another step towards the bed, and then another, and then another, carefully tiptoeing through the grand bedroom, a strange feeling og comfort, of safety, pulling me towards the bed, something at the back of my mind telling me that if I just reached that bed I would be able to rest, be able to sleep and forget the horrors of that day.