Thump. Thump. Thump.

Head. Neck. Chest.

Bullseye. Each arrow was still shuddering, every head lodged firmly in the red circle. My arms grew sore as the quiver grew light, but each arrow flew straight and true. Altaïr and Ezio were there too. Standing. Watching.

I felt proud though. Strong. I felt the whip of the bowstring, the gust of each arrow, the strength of my muscles. I didn't notice the smoke that curled around my ankles until too late.

Suddenly the air was ripped apart by a blood-curdling scream.

The bow and arrow had vanished as I frantically whipped my head back and forth, but I couldn't tell where it had come from. Fear stole my breath and paralysed my limbs. The screams of those I couldn't see were surrounding me, but no matter how hard I urged my body to take a step forward, my feet remained rooted solidly on the floor. They seemed more animalistic now, less human, like the anguished howls of tortured beasts. Desperately I searched in every direction, but the blackness was too complete, too solid. My legs gave way at last, and I collapsed to my knees.

A voice joined the other wails, but this one, it was familiar to me. It tore a gulf in my heart, and I felt that I would go mad from the suffocating helplessness of my situation. I stifled my ears with the palms of my hands, and buried my face into my knees. Their screams vibrated through my entire body, but they were in my mind now. Each agony-filled wail became accompanied by a pulsating throb, like a white-hot hammer behind my temple. I could feel tears coursing down my cheeks, leaving behind hot, sticky tracks, but I forced my lips together to hold back the shuddering gasps.

The smoke overpowered my senses now, engulfing my nose and creeping down my throat like a stranglehold on my windpipe. It came from all around me, a deadly shroud of fragrant heat. The smoke did nothing to muffle the screams though. They were still the reason for the tightness in my chest and the pounding in my head.

A cool hand touched my back lightly, but I flinched violently away from the contact like a wounded animal. I turned my fearful gaze to Altaïr crouched beside me, fingers outstretched and a smile on his face.

"Help them," I begged. "Leave me, go help them!"

 That voice broke through again, intensified by anguish and suffering. A sob escaped from my throat, a desperate, pathetic sound.

"Apollo's suffering... Why aren't you helping them?... Apollo... He... You need to make it stop... Please..."

Altaïr just smiled back at me, but my instincts screamed at me to keep my distance. There was something wrong about his expression. Something that chilled me even more than the howls of agony.

Then Ezio was behind me, grabbing at my arms. I went wild with fear; grappling, clawing, kicking at the hands that gripped my body and pinned me face down on the floor. He was too strong though, and Ezio just pressed down on my back even further until the pain stilled my manic thrashing. I felt hot breath close to my ear and tried to jerk away, but a large hand twisted my neck and pressed my head sideways to the floor, exposing my neck.

"Don't worry, Ashen. This is for your own good," Ezio whispered into my ear.

Altaïr's disembodied voice floated above the wails and cries, eerily indifferent. "You should know how unique you are. Your destiny is different from theirs. Your destiny is special."

A single point of pressure on my neck, then my body turned into fire. I felt like someone had injected with me with molten lava; every limb and joint burned with a tortuous intensity. My screams added to the melange of voices as my body bucked and jerked from the foreign substance that filled my veins and coursed through my blood. 

The fire didn't fade, but gradually the pain extinguished any other feeling in my limbs. Even the smoke gently settled around my inert form like a blanket. My body shut down. My vision faded to white. Nothing was left except the dull beating of my heart to assure me that I was still alive.

Thump. Thump. Thump.
 
 

My eyes fly open, jolting me out of the nightmare. I'm lying in bed; body coiled tightly with my knees under my chin and the sheets bunched up under my fists. My heart's still pounding and my hair is drenched in cold sweat.

Tonight has been a bad night. The nightmare was more intense than usual, and I couldn't ignore the residual fear that leaked over from the world of dreams. It's always the ugliest things that rear their heads in the dreams, the things that I want to forget. Even after all the blood on my hands, what wakes me up in the middle of the night isn't the faces of those I've slaughtered without mercy or emotion. It's always the guilt over the night when my whole world went up in flames. I despise myself for letting such a petty little thing like regret reduce me to a sobbing, blubbering mess. I despise it for making me weak. No, that's not it. I despise it for revealing my weakness. For reminding me of my sheer ineptness that night, when I escaped and let everyone burn.

Apollo.

My mind informs me that there is no possible way he could have survived. That there's no need to pay attention to his screams in my memory.

But you found Minho, didn't you?

The treacherous thought surfaces before I have a chance to squash it. I try to silence that soft, insistent voice in my head, but it's not entirely successful. But I can bury it, deep in the shadowed recesses of my heart so that at least I don't have to listen to it. Speed, strength and stone-cold perseverence are all that need to be laid out on the path before me, bloody as it will be. Being enslaved to some fleeting emotion is not an option.

The clock glows 4:41 am from across the room. Once I awaken from a dream, there's never a chance of falling asleep again, so I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The fingers that clench the pillows are still far too tight, and the tension still rattles around inside my body, raw and relentless. Some sort of repetitive exercise is what I need. Some sort of way to return me to myself.

Standing up abruptly, I make a spontaneous decision and grab the black bundle from a shelf as I stalk out of the bedroom. From there it's a right turn into the kitchen and to a cupboard in the corner. Thankfully, I had the sense to furnish and stock up the apartment when we first moved into it, so the space doesn't seemed to have been lived in for less than a week. Bending down and pulling open the cupboard door, I use the first one I see and prop it up on top of the sofa in the living room so that it leans back against the wall.

Satisfied with the position, I step into the middle of the room and turn so my back is to the television, with me facing the sofa. The bundle I picked up on my room unfurls like a banner in my hands, the end dropping to reveal the knives. They gleam oddly from the specks of artificial neon lighting of the karaoke business next door.

Once the pack of throwing knives is strapped around my waist, I visualise a target and begin to throw them, one by one with a single-minded ferocity. With the fly of each dagger, I can feel the ghost of the nightmare retreating further back into my mind. Even with my memory, dreams have always been the only thing I can ever forget. Right now, even if I do not forget, at least I can occupy my mind with something else. Over and over again, throwing the knives and then yanking them out, increasing in speed and accuracy.

A shuffle of feet gives away his presence, but I only ignore him and continue the exercise. A few more moments pass by before he speaks up, the low timbre of his voice made even huskier by sleep.

"Why are you ruining a chopping board at four in the morning?"
 

No good. His very voice crumbles my control, and it brings back the memories of my past, both bad and good. What’s more, he doesn’t even realise what he’s doing. Besides Ezio and Altaïr, Minho was one of the few who knew how badly the ‘special treatment’ affected me. He knew that it left scars. He just doesn’t know how deep they are.

But the fact remains that he knows they’re there. That’s why I can’t face him tonight, because he’s in a position to understand why I’m hurling daggers into a kitchen tool in the early hours of the morning. Who knows what will happen if I become dependent on another person?

Before I can raise my arm to throw another knife, Minho grabs it, his hand warm on my wrist. I try to shake him off, but his vice-like hold indicates otherwise. Unwilling for this to turn ugly, I force a deep breath and let my arm fall to my side, with Minho still attached to it.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“So what does target practice have to do with your insomnia?”

“It calms me…”

Silence passes between us. I’m still facing away from him and in such deep thought that I almost don’t register it when Minho pulls me into his arms.

My body freezes up, unable to react to the warmth of another human being. It’s so sudden that the stream of memories comes to a stuttering halt. In another part of my mind that seems detached from my current position, I realise that this is only the second time that I’ve ever been hugged for purposes unrelated to a mission. Before I can relax into his embrace, Minho’s arms loosen around my waist, but instead of releasing me, his hands linger on my sides. He gently manoeuvres me to face him, but my head is still tilted downwards so that I’m staring at his chest.

“Jiyeon, look at me.”

His whisper is so low and tender, in a voice I’ve never heard, that I glance up into his face before I can stop myself. The expression on it is foreign to me; it lacks its usual confident smirk, and has been replaced by a soft, compassionate smile that makes him look years younger. The look in his eyes is so understanding and honest that for a moment it jolts me back to myself.

No. Out of everyone, you’re the one whose pity I abhor the most.

Perhaps he just doesn’t see the panic in my grey eyes, or he ignores it because what he does next ceases all my body movement again.

With a slow, almost hesitant ease, Minho closes his eyes and begins to lean in. For one terrifying moment, I can’t decide whether to bolt from his arms or stab him with the throwing knife still clutched in my whitening hand. It’s almost a physical relief when he does no more than rest his forehead against mine, his steady breaths mixing with my laboured inhaling.

 “Are you calm yet?” he breathes on me.

Opening my grey eyes to his brown ones, I nod. The movement of my head is slight, but it closes the distance between us and our noses kiss each other delicately. With the same expression of complete sympathy, Minho draws his arm away from my waist and slowly separates us. Every lingering caress is gentle and chaste, like he's handling a piece of the most fragile china with the utmost care.

Long after the click of his bedroom door I'm still standing there, knife in hand and utterly bewildered. Although the ghosts of the nightmare are distant from my mind, I'm not sure if the confusion that's replaced it is much of an improvement. Even as the first rays of sunlight trickle in through the window, my thoughts are no clearer than when I awoke from the dream. Once again I'm left alone, the mind at war with the heart, but now it's because I'm unable to decide if I wanted him to continue holding me, or if I wanted to erase the entire experience from my memory.


 

Ooo-er, what was that all about? (; I think I deserve a slap for not updating for so long OTL

30.05.12