Dreaming Alone | taekook ✔️

t w e n t y - e i g h t

It feels like I'm paralyzed, and I can't
Escape from the prison I'm living in

paralyzed
~ atc

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"No!"

Jeongguk ran.

He scrambled to the shore, watching in pure terror as the pendant hit the waters with a plop and was consumed.

Gone.

No no no no—

He could've went in and saved it. He could've went in the saved it like he could've saved his mother. He had prayed for a second chance for countless of nights. Yet there he stood motionless, staggering back when the waves surged forward and made his blood run cold.

Was it the fear of death? Or the fear of failure? Perhaps both. He couldn't tell.

In fact, Jeongguk could tell nothing apart when everything began spinning. His hands made grabby, frantic motions towards his chest, towards the area where the pendant usually rested.

The only thing that kept him sane for months, the only thing that calmed the storm in his mind and settled his breathing, was now out of reach.

Gone.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

Jeongguk could almost feel himself being swept away. He could feel the water flooding his lungs and turning his skin blue as he sunk to his knees.

His breathing became labored and ragged, thoughts accelerating in his head. He tried desperately to slow them, to somehow make sense of them, but all that left him with was a cacophony of self-loathing colliding with sheer panic.

The pendant. The pendant.

Where is it— where—

Breathe. I can't breathe.

His heart hammered in his eardrums, overtaking his senses. Heaves sounded from the bottom of his diaphragm. Jeongguk's throat swelled, closing his airway, and his chest tightened, like someone had bound rope around his ribs and pulled.

Mom. Pendant. Where—

He clawed at his chest, clawed at his skin— skin that didn't feel like his own, writhing in gasps and gags.

He didn't need to look back. He knew Carter was gone. Of course he was. Of course he left him to fend for himself. He abandoned him the same way Jeongguk did to him.

So who was that muffled, far-away voice he heard, calling out his name?

"Jeongguk!"

"He's over there."

"Shit— panic attack." Taehyung observed in alarm.

Within seconds, someone dropped down in front of the ravenette, and Jeongguk had to force his head up to see who it was.

"Jeongguk." Seokjin whispered, his voice calm, "I want you to breathe with me, okay?"

Junseo took a step forward, closing in on them with eyebrows knitted together. "What is my son—"

He came to a sudden halt when Seokjin raised a firm hand in his direction and glared, shaking his head.

Ahnjong understood immediately, gesturing for the man to back away. "Don't crowd him. It's claustrophobic. He needs space." She informed Junseo from under her breath. "Jin is a psychology major. He knows what he's doing, don't worry."