The Fantastic Eight: Abnormals

chapter seven: taehyung's gang friend

Taehyung walked down the busy streets of Seoul on his way home from school, the sky was a blinding blue colour as the sun fought against the clouds and the cool wind carded its fingers through his red hair. He sighed softly, he felt the sun illuminate his face like a pool of liquid gold. He turned the corner to a lonely alleyway that got him to his home quicker and checked his watch to see the time. 3:45 pm. It always felt as if the sun skipped this particular alleyway, it was dark and cold and it seemed dangerous. Not many people would turn into this abyss of a street when everywhere else was shrouded in light. But Taehyung didn't like to waste time and if there was a way to get to his house quicker then he'd take it.

Recently, he'd been feeling far more stressed than usual and was beginning to lose sleep more often than he would've liked. Taehyung was now getting the same dreams of the same people every. damn. night. He had tried to shake it off the first couple of times, passing it off as people he'd seen walking down the street or something like that. The brain didn't have the capabilities to come up with an entirely new face in your mind's eye. So, Taehyung must've seen them briefly before.

Yet, the people in his dreams always felt oddly familiar and the detail in their faces was far too specific to be some memory of some random person he saw on the street presenting itself.

So, to put it simply, Taehyung was stressed. He was also beginning to think he was crazy. The people in his dreams always said the same words to him, "Find me, help me."

Taehyung was continually lost in thought, walking down the alleyway with nothing but also everything on his mind all at once. He hadn't even noticed he had bumped into somebody until they said something. Or rather, yelled something.

"Hey, boy!" A man grunted, he looked incredibly angry and Taehyung almost asked the man who the fuck kicked his dog. "You better watch where the fuck you're going huh!"

Taehyung looked at the man's face and everything about him was average and bland apart from the triangle tattoo on the left side of his face, just under his eye. It was familiar, he'd seen it on the news many times. It was a gang symbol, belonging to a group of individuals called the "Triad", a dumb name if you asked him.

'He has to be even dumber to put such a recognizable tattoo on his fucking face.' Taehyung thought.

"What the hell did you just say?" The man barked, taking a step closer to Taehyung, who had just now begun to take his hands out of his pockets.

"I said, 'Sorry for bumping into you, bye!'" Taehyung swung himself in the opposite direction tried to walk away before he felt a rough hand grab his shoulder, turning him back towards the gang member.

"No, I know what you're scrawny ass said. You think I'm dumb huh?" The gang member sneered, pulling out a pocket knife and waving it towards Taehyung's face. "We'll see who's really dumb when I scoop out your brain through your nose!"

The man tackled Taehyung to the ground, the boy's head hitting the pavement with a thick thump. All the air in Taehyung's lungs seems to vanish as the man sits on his chest, he lifts his arms to keep the man away from him. The gang member pins Taehyung's arms together and raises them over his head and Taehyung feels as if he's about to throw up. Everything is happening so suddenly that he barely had any time to think, there isn't enough air getting to his lungs with the pressure he feels on his chest yet at the same time he hyperventilates. The man laughs as Taehyung tries to struggle out of his grip and when the man brings the knife to his face Taehyung feels sick to his stomach.