[CONTENTID1] The Shadows [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2] “What is good?”

“What is evil?” [/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

Is this real? I can’t believe that any of this is happening…

Stumbling across a dark corridor, I start to tremble. Why am I here? Why is this happening to me? What am I doing? A gust of wind barges through the cracked windows and it howls a name in my ear. "Taeyeon, Taeyeon, Taeyeon..."

Is Taeyeon my name?

Shivering, I reach out for something to hold onto and grip tightly onto the edge of the wall beside me. I keep myself balanced and feel a tiny bit calmer. Staring at my feet, I place one foot in front of the other; I’m walking slowly to a dim light at the end of the corridor. Tearing my eyes away from my feet, I watch what’s in front of me only to sense someone behind me. 

I turn quickly, but there is no one else here but me. 

“Where am I?!” I shout out. No answer. I close my eyes, picturing my "happy place" and all I see is him. He’s stuck in my mind and all I can think of is did I do it to him? Did I make him like that? I grasp my hair in my shaky hands and pull it tightly. I start to screech and bawl…

…It all ends.

***

“Taeyeon! Taeyeon, wait for me!” Jiyong shouts behind me. As he catches up to me, he walks beside me whilst out of breath and sweaty.

“Stop acting as if we’ve just ran a marathon and come on, the house is not far away,” I say to him, nudging his arm before sprinting off and leaving him behind again.

“Jerk!”

After around ten minutes, I myself am not able to run anymore. I place my hands on my knees as I try to catch my breath back before sitting down on the hard floor. I begin to gaze at the stars high above me and smile to myself. So peaceful.

“Why do you do this to ME? Every single time!” 

Hearing people shouting and arguing near me, I stop smiling and turn my head to where the voices are coming from.

“Do what? Oh, you mean this?”

Screaming pierces my ears and I have to cover them now with my hands. What is happening?! I squeeze my eyes together and try to imagine myself anywhere but here. I can’t. Even though everything is muffled, I still hear that person in agony, I still hear them getting tortured. 

Tears slip out from my eyes and I feel myself shaking.

Someone is shaking me.

“Taeyeon! Taeyeon, open your eyes!” 

In surprise, I take my cupped hands away from my ears and quickly flutter my eyes open.

“Baekhyun?” I respond, shocked to see my new roommate here in front of me at this time.

“We’ve got to get out of here, Taeyeon. Now.”  Baekhyun tells me as he urges me to my feet.

How did I not realise that the screeching stopped? It's silent now.

After getting up of the floor, I wipe my warm tears away with the back of my hand and run faster than ever before. 

Something's not right though. I feel like someone's behind us, sprinting towards us. No I know someone's behind us, sprinting towards us. As my eyes flit to Baekhyun, he has his glued forward. That's until I get knocked to the ground as a man runs past us and now Baekhyun's full attention is on me. 

“Move out of my way!” the man curses under his breath as he disappears as fast as he came. Wait.. I recognise that voice! It's the same voice as the one I heard before all the screaming!

“Stop!” I cry as loud as I can even though there is no one there anymore. 

He never looked back. I didn’t get to see his face.

***

Am I a witness? What did I hear? Was someone murdered?

“Please stop pacing, Taeyeon.” Tiffany whispers to me. I look over at her and her eyes are still scrolling along the words in her book: “The Shadows”. It’s as if she had been reading that book forever.

As her chocolate brown hair falls over her face while she reads, I sit down next to her and put one hand on her shoulder. I tuck her hair behind her ear with my other hand, and then look away sighing heavily.

She faces me so I look back at her and see her dark brown eyes twinkle. “What’s wrong?” she asks, examining me.

“Nothing.” I lie, causing me to fidget stand up to turn the heating on.

I feel her frowning at me without having to look at her. “Okay. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to tell me. Just remember that I’m here for you.” 

Turning around to face her, she smiles at me and my face softens in front of her. I nod my head before responding with “I know… Thank you.”

***

I take a step closer to the sobbing girl in a corner. Everything’s dark and I can’t see where to place my feet. I trip over a tree branch that’s on the floor and fall on my face.

She rapidly spins around, her eyes wide. 

“You’re hurting!” she shouts, pointing to my forehead. Staring at her for a couple of seconds, I see that her face is blotchy from crying. 

I touch my head and my hands come away red. The liquid that’s on my hands, and my head, is sticky and warm.

“You’re hurting just like me!” she says, smirking at me.

My head starts to spin and my vision becomes blurry. There's so many voices in my mind all at once. They scream, cry, shout, and they all do it because of me. 

“I can't take it anymore!”

I start to screech and bawl.

It all ends...

***

Making breakfast for Baekhyun, Jiyong and Tiffany, I switch the radio on...

“Now today we have some very sad news for you all—”

My heart sinks, it’s as if I know what's coming next.

“In the most peaceful city in the world, London, 2025, there has been a murder of a twenty year old called Kim Taehyung.”

I look down and start sobbing quietly. It was true. He must have died there and then...

“The police are reported to be at the crime scene now. We’ll be sure to keep you all updated once new information emerges.”

There's a small pause before a song starts playing, surprisingly cheery.

“Taeyeon! How long does it take to butter some toast?” Tiffany calls from in the living room.

Quickly drying my eyes and starting to continue with what I was doing, I answer her, “Oh! I'm coming now!”

When I give her the food and she bites into it, she pouts and crosses her arms. “I said I wanted butter, not margarine. You never make mistakes, what’s gotten into you?”

I’m a little taken aback but apologise and leave the house to go get some butter. All I hear from behind me is “Hey! I was only kidding, where are you going?!”

***

As I look at people around me, guilt eats away at me already. I don’t know what to do. I want to keep quiet about all this like I know Baekhyun is doing, but the right thing to do would be to tell the police that I was there when Taehyung was getting murdered. Then I stop in my tracks.

Taehyung... Taehyung? I’m sure I know a Kim Taehyung!

I scan through my memories and then recall seeing him around school and I remember him resembling Baekhyun a little bit. This makes me cry again, but this time even harder.

I have to go back home. I can’t stay out here any longer!

Sprinting back home, I crash into the front door of the house and fumble around in my pocket for my keys. I need to get into this house now and I need to ask Baekhyun about what we will do. 

“Baekhyun are you home?!” I ask as soon as I enter.

“We're in here!” I hear his voice echo throughout the house. It came from the living room.

Catching my breath after sprinting for like five minutes, I head towards the living room only to get spooked by police in there, on my sofa. Tiffany is nowhere to be seen.

Police?! Panic.

“Don’t worry, Taeyeon. I called them,” Baekhyun tells me, grinning.

Despite hearing this, I still don’t know how to react. I don’t know what to say to them or what this feeling is inside of me.

“Hello, Taeyeon. We'd like to ask you a few questions about the death of Kim Taehyung. Would you please sit down?” a policewoman says. Her words are calm and caring, but her face is different. It's like cutting the head off one teddy bear and stitching it onto the body of another. It's complicated.

“I'm Sooyoung. This is Seohyun.” she informs me, pointing to herself then her co-worker when she said their names.

I just sit there and nod, eyes still not a normal size as I’m nervous about everything. Baekhyun gives me a "well say something" look but I ignore him. 

“This morning, at 5:00am, two young males found the body of Kim Taehyung. He had wounds to the head and chest. Baekhyun called us here today and informed us that he was there with you at the scene.. Could you please tell us what you were doing yesterday night?”