Cursed Hearts | ATEEZ

028

My vision was blurry and unfocused from the searing hot pain which burned through my veins, clouding my thoughts as the voices and pleas seemingly coming from everywhere around me momentarily faded away only to resurface in full colour and strength as I felt the warm touch of a shaky hand cup my cheek.

"Please," King Hongjoong's voice was weak, barely more than a whisper as it left his lips, "Don't leave me- Don't leave us," he bit his lip as he fought to hold back tears, "Not like this."

I was unable to answer him, wanting, more than anything, to comfort, to ask, to demand, to cry, to kiss, and to hold the male but I was powerless to do so. My gaze drifted to the others behind him as they shuffled closer, The Eight Kings of Haelan looking foreign and broken, like ghosts of the men I had come to know, to care for, to love, as they took me in with raw devastation and desperation in their colourful eyes.

Night turned to twilight and then to dawn as the stars disappeared in the warm glow of the rising sun in the distance, the light turning blinding, burning hot, as its rays reached the blood-soaked ground beneath us, revealing what had happened under the veil of darkness with as much horror as the kings themselves had felt.

Every breath rattling through my broken chest hurt, brought tears to my eyes, as the midnight within me deepened like an infected cut, bringing me further and further away from the warmth of the King of the North's touch.

I gasped for air as the sunlight intensitifed, feeling guilt washing over me as realization set in and I fell further into the last shadows of night stretching behind us, clenching my eyes shut through the tears as cries of pain cut through the horribly silent dawn, only opening them again as the ground beneath me rumbled.

Horror settled within me as I watched the Kings of the East and Spring stagger back, the drums of their heartbeats intensifying for a moment as they clucthed their hands to their chests the moment mountains began to rise in the distance, shooting up from the ground itself as it split.

Blood, sweat, and tears coated the charred grass beneath us as the Kings of the East and Autumn copied their actions, Hongjoong clutching my hand a little tighter as Wooyoung crumbled to the ground with a pained sound, trying his best to get up, to get to me, only to collapse as utter silence followed the sun, the sounds of drums halting as it finally rose of the tops of the newly-formed peaks of devesation and punishment, watching the kings' horror-etched faces with teary eyes, unable to do anything, unable to help, or to take away their pain.

Seonghwa slowly let go of his chest, his bloodied hand falling limply to the ground as he shook slightly before hurrying over to my side, Yeosang staggering back at the same moment, a mix of terror and turmoil within his strikingly green eyes the colour of endless forests during springtime.

Hongjoong's breath caught as he tightened his grip on my hand, his own shaky and dirty and scarred against mine. Except it wasn't my own, I realized, feeling the darkness within me grow with every pained breath.

No, the hand was dark, the colour of midnight, so dark it almost seemed as if it had been made from the night itself and shaped from endless universes of stars and moons. So dark against the King of the North's melanin skin, touched by the very sun which was now punishing him with its burning glow overhead.

So dark, like the midnight within me which had now wrapped itself around my heart, forcing the last beat of drums in the silent morning to finally still as tears once again filled my eyes the moment they fluttered shut, and stayed shut.

The broken sounds of Hongjoong's echoing apologies faded into the darkness along with me as one last broken breath escaped my lips, a soft smile settling on them as I died in his arms.