"All I ever wanted to do was leave this town and create a better life for myself and my family...If it weren't for the blackout, I never would have realized that my best life was living next door to me all along."
...
After an unexplainable phenomen...
Dim: emitting or having a limited or insufficient amount of light
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....
"Oppa!"
Taehyung groggily awoke to Eonjin aggressively shaking him. He immediately knew that something was wrong. His sister loved to tease him by dropping the use of honorifics. If she was calling him 'oppa' she was about to say something serious.
Taehyung abruptly sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Eonjinie, what's wrong?"
"It's Jonggyu," Eonjin sobbed. "It's all my fault." Taehyung was out of bed and pulling on his pants and boots in a flash as his sister continued to explain. "Something was disturbing the animals outside. Skewer wouldn't stop crying, and Dynamite was neighing really loud. He woke me up to tell me, but I brushed him off. Told him it was probably nothing."
Taehyung grabbed his gun and pulled on his coat, already knowing what Jonggyu had likely done. "He went out to the barn to check on them, didn't he?"
Eonjin nodded. "He stroked my cheek and told me he'd take care of it so I could sleep. As soon as I realized what he had meant, I went to stop him from going out there alone, but he was already gone."
Taehyung sighed. "It's probably nothing. Maybe an animal or-" A sharp scream from outside caused the words to die in his throat. "Stay with eomma!" he instructed, running out the back door.
Fear crawled over Taehyung's skin as he ran towards the barn. Many things could spook their animals; weather, stray cats, wild animals...it was the last one Taehyung was worried about. As Jonggyu continued to cry out, he cursed the barn having been built so far away from their house. Jonggyu resented being the youngest; always thought he had to prove himself capable for more. Taehyung made a silent promise to himself to pay more attention to his little brother in the future.
A loud gunshot suddenly cracked through the air. Taehyung felt his stomach drop to his knees. Jonggyu didn't have a weapon, and a wild animal certainly wouldn't carry a gun. His fear only grew when he realized that his little brother's screams had ceased.
"No," he whispered to himself, pumping his legs harder to run faster.
When he finally reached the barn he could barely breathe he was so out of breath. The first thing he saw was that the barn door's latch had been sawed off. Fearing the worse he ran inside the barn, where he collapsed in a fit of exhaustion and relief. A wild boar laid dead on the hay covered ground in a pool of it's own blood. Jonggyu ran over and wrapped an arm around his brother's neck; his face covered in fresh tears.
"Sk-kewer is g-gone!" he wailed. Taehyung looked to the left and saw that the cow's pen was indeed empty.
"It's okay," he whispered. "Skewer is just a cow...and part of our livelihood, but we'll deal with that later. You're okay." Taehyung felt tears spill down his own cheeks as he hugged his brother tight and repeated, "You're okay."
