One of the men has a gun.

You realise this as the angry-looking boy ducks beneath a flying fist and slams an elbow straight into someone's face. He staggers and spits out a shard of broken tooth as his victim flounders backwards, clutching at the remains of his nose with one hand and sobbing like a child deprived of a toy.

The broken end of a beer bottle grazes your face, tracing a shallow, burning line of fire from your left cheekbone to your temple. Your mouth opens in a gasp as a black mass collides with your chest, sweaty fingers wrapped around your neck. A shout echoes through the room. You can see the milky-skinned boy trying to get to you, but your breaths are coming shallower now, and with more difficulty, and so you roll to your side and crush the man's wrist beneath your shoulder.

The man wails in pain – you hear the crack-snap of his bones – and then he lets out a guttural scream.

There's no doubt about it now; you've got his attention.

He rushes at you with his fingers jammed wide open – one of his hands is limp, like a sack of potatoes hanging from his forearm. You dodge a heavy-handed swing at your head and dance backwards. The blood from the scratch on your cheek is bleeding into your mouth.

You can taste it; bright, sour, coppery pain.

Ducking beneath the deadly shard of broken glass, you spare a quicksilver glance over your shoulder. Snow White is nowhere to be seen. Grumpy is wiping what looks suspiciously like blood off his bottom lip. "You," he says, breathlessly. "Cover my back." Suddenly, you can feel the broadness of his back against yours, and you smile as his hand pushes a leathery handle into your palm. His hand is warm. "This is yours."

"Kind of you," you mutter, flipping the blade so that it's not pointing forward but backwards. You raise it just in time to glance off the blunt sheen of a beer bottle. "Where's Snow White?"

Grumpy turns to look at the side of your head, planting his foot into someone's stomach and shoving them away. You hear them roll across the floor, groaning. "Snow White?" He snorts. "He's a princess, that's for sure."

You take a shirtful of sweat-drenched singlet and propel it towards the wall, jamming the knife's tip into the wood as bubbles begin to form in the corners of the man's mouth. "Let's play a game," you snap, jabbing your companion's ribs with your elbow. He coughs. "Finding Snow White."

"His name is Baekhyun. Byun Baekhyun. But Snow White is pretty close too –"

The click of a loaded gun draws everyone's attention.

The room goes still as the heavy breathing of the boy called Byun Baekhyun rises past the noise of the fight.

Queen.

"Don't move if you want your friend to live," the faceless man hisses. His arm raises to wave the gun at Grumpy. "Especially you. You're in need of some re-education, you insolent brat." The muzzle of the gun moves to press against Baekhyun's right temple. You're surprised at the hard dryness of his eyes. "Drop the knife, girl. We'll have our fun with you after." A greasy smile punctuates the threat as you take an automatic step backwards. Baekhyun's eyes refuse to settle. They're looking from you, to his friend, to the door, and back to you; slowly, as if he's calculating something. The man jerks his nose towards Grumpy and jams the muzzle of the pistol into the soft skin beneath Baekhyun's chin. "What's your friend's name? The boy?"

Baekhyun bites his bottom lip as the man pushes the gun deeper into his neck.

"Kyungsoo. Do Kyungsoo."

The man's black beetle-eyes flare in recognition. "Do Kyungsoo?" he lilts, a dangerous smile decorating his greasy, doughy face. "The musical prodigy? Why, what's a model student like you doing here?" One of his subordinates shifts into gear at the movement of his hand, sliding across the ground to pick up your dagger. A dull throb of terror – don't hurt them don't hurt them please don't hurt them – pounds against the inside of your chest like a second heartbeat as the sharp edge of the blade nicks Kyungsoo's collarbone. He goes deathly still as the man giggles into his sweaty elbow. "Won't your parents be disappointed, finding you in a place like this?" The up-and-down movement of Kyungsoo's Adam's apple teases the bloodthirsty steel.

The situation looks dire, does it not?

Seeker. Get them out of here.

A cold chuckle is all you get in response. This teaches you a valuable lesson, Queen. I am your Seeker. Do not disobey me, or there will be casualties.

There have been none yet. Help them.

No. There will be casualties. I am never wrong.

What do you mean?

Your question is duly answered as a wave of crippling pain sets the backs of your pupils alight. Kyungsoo's hands clench into fists so tight you can see the blood staining his palms as you double forward, gasping. That familiar lukewarm tang drips out of the corner of your mouth. A scorching agony erupts into life in the deepest pit of your bottomless stomach as a spurt of red coats your tongue and spills out onto your palm. Through the translucent haze of red shielding your eyes, you catch the stifled fear clawing at the men's faces. The solid wood of the ground bumps against your knees.

"What's wrong with her?"

Queen. The Awakening from before is taking its toll on you.

"I don't know. I don't know. She – maybe she's just sick. We can deal with her later."

Your body is beginning to shut down. Remove yourself from that place, or risk the consequences. Do you understand?

"She's coughing blood. Oh, man, I didn't think..."

Leave them. They are of no significance to you.

One of them brings his hand across the others' face in an open-handed slap. "Forget it. We deal with these kids first." His tongue – a wet, pickled, pink slug – flicks out to dampen cracked lips.

Are you listening to me, Queen? Leave, or I will leave you to fend for yourself.

Baekhyun's eyes have gone impossibly wide.

You retch. Another wave of wracking pain arrives hand-in-hand with another mouthful of blood that washes against the backs of your teeth.

Fine. Go.

And then Seeker is gone, and for the first time in a long, long time, you are truly, truly alone.

Baekhyun's ghostly hand moves to reach out to you.

How odd it is, that someone would offer their hand to you.

The gun fires a warning shot at the ceiling.

A plume of dust rises from the ground as shards of shredded plywood flutter to the ground.

Kyungsoo shuts his eyes and clenches his teeth as the starving metal rides the strong line of his jaw.

"Please," you manage to gasp between bloodied lips. Your voice comes out so quietly that it fails to reach your ears. "Don't hurt them. Please." It feels like someone's digging a screwdriver into your face, plugging it into a generator and trying to turn your face on. Your consciousness begins to flicker in and out of focus like a blurry camera lens.

"Let them go. I'll cooperate. Please."

The last word comes out on a dwindling breath – on borrowed air, because someone's dropped a block of lead on your chest and it's getting hard to stay awake, to take that breath in, to take that breath out, to keep fighting against something that can't be won against.

The men glance around at each other, sleazy, squalid smiles lifting each of their slippery faces like a row of dirty, cracked light bulbs. Kyungsoo slumps forward, face tipped towards the ground and his sleeve held to his neck in an attempt to stem the blood. The one holding Baekhyun in a headlock lets the boy slip out from beneath his arm. There's a circular mark branded into the side of Baekhyun's head from the muzzle of the pistol; you see it as he falls to Kyungsoo's side, mouth moving inaudibly. "Look at these kids, scurrying away as soon as we show a little tooth." A roar of laughter circulates the suffocating chamber.

"You two better get out of here, unless you want to see what happens to your girl friend here."

For some reason, you think that they'd stay.

You think they'd stay for a girl whose name they didn't even know.

Please stay. 

And for a moment, it almost looks like they would.

Almost. 

It's an awful word; so saturated with misguided expectation.

Because then – because then – Baekhyun averts his eyes, slings Kyungsoo's arm over his shoulder and leaves.

They leave. Just like that.

And you wonder why you had let yourself hope.

The living world hasn't been so much of a joyride for Queen, huh? (ಥ﹏ಥ) idk, i think i have a habit of making my characters miserable...

...hopefully I can salvage some happiness for our heroine, aye? ☆⌒(≧▽​° )

AND OMG YOU GUYS YOU UPVOTED ME I'M SO HONOURED AND HAPPY AND AUUUUGGGHHHHHH

☆*:.｡.ლ(>∀<)ლ.｡.:*☆

anyway thanks for reading and I hope you guys have an awesome week full of awesome things and awesome people and okay sorry i'll stop i just love you all (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

- Yukarin