Love In A Sinking Realm ⊰BTS⊱ Steampunk

CHAPTER 9 ✑ For Namjuniel

⊰🎩⊱ Author's Note ⊰🎩⊱

My dear readers and fellow authors, I apologize for taking so long. But life and duties delayed me.

I want to thank those who offered their sympathies for my loss. Those who supported me and pushed me to continue. Friends, family and strangers alike.

Thanks to you, we've almost reached the end of this story.

⊰᯽⊱┈─╌♚ ♕ ♚╌─┈⊰᯽⊱

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: The music does not belong to me nor the YouTube channel. Please credit the sources themselves
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⊰᯽⊱┈─╌♚ ♕ ♚╌─┈⊰᯽⊱

Dogs barked indistinctly from afar. The howling of the wind announced the arrival of rain clouds, which in turn feasted on the sun's dying breath. Time froze in a glacier of sorrow, cursing earth and sky with premature darkness.

How can a human body endure such pain? Such suffocation? Clawing for breath, her mouth hung wide open, eyes flooding with scolding tears. But she couldn't utter a sound. Her mind spinned in a whirlwind of incoherent thoughts, aching with doubt and disbelief. Her heart, as if dipped in acid, was impaled, and scarred with a gash of a for ever missing piece.

They were late.

Jinghim stripped the paper from her fingers, uttering a shill cry over her shoulders. The rest of his brothers bulged their eyes incredulously.

"No...i-it can't be...", the prince managed to stutter, his voice cracking, "N-no...no, no...! Oh, please, no..."

He fell on his knees, sobbing like never before. Jihmm, Hosea and Jun surrounded him and shared his tears. Yoon stood erect, fists clenched like iron, with a single tear flowing down his cheekbone. Taehberius hung his head on his chest, his hand reached for Selenya's shoulder. She jerked it off violently and turned to face him.

"He...He was alone...He...He faced everything alone...", she said breathlessly, "He...he died...He died alone...!"

"I know...", muttered Taehberius.

"Oh, God...We...We should have known...", she cried agonizingly, the lump in her throat choking her, "We should've known, Taeh...!"

She wailed in silence, bending her torso by nausea and dizziness. She felt like fainting. Taehberius caught her in his arms and they both teared up on each other's shoulder.

There were no words of comfort that could assuage the weight that had befallen upon their souls. Namjuniel's pain was theirs, his every cough was their cough, his every tear dropping on the pages, tarnishing the ink of his pen was now like a thorn inside their skin. Their every thought, every idea would lead to a dead end.
An unrealistic, impossible solution that could repair the irreparable. The irriversible. The unrecoverable.

Namjuniel was their guide in life and now in death. He was their moral compass. His path towards his solitary end carved a ravine of guilt and hopelessness. Marking the end of the road.

Jun roared ferociously and thrusted the chair of the tiny cornered desk with the heel of his boot. The loud bang rang like a deafening cannon fire, wooden parts spurted around the floor.

Jinghim gasped as if someone was struggling him. He sat up staggerly and faced his brother Yoon.

"We...w-we should look for him...," he whimpered spasmodically, "H-he may still be alive...M-maybe we can still save him...Yoon. Yes?---"