She could feel her limbs being hacked off ruthlessly and thrown out into the darkness, could feel the blood spilling over her skin. The shadows were choking her and her body was burning from the inside. Two eyes, two familiar eyes, they looked at the girl coldly and she heard a laugh. The voice was familiar as well.

"Umma!...Umma!" she pleaded, screaming though her lungs gasped for air. The pain was intolerable and the fear...it knawed through flesh and bone, engulfing the soul.

-o-

A bloodcurling scream pierced through the silence, making Kwangmin nearly fall off his seat.

"That looks violent." Minwoo said, staring with widened eyes at the piece of mirror that the shriek had come from. It was from a girl, a girl's nightmare.

The six boys crept up to the mirror, curious and shocked. A couple of them simply dropped their books to the ground, rather intrigued by what had happened. They'd seen many dreams, perhaps some nightmares but this one looked different and it really did seem like the teenage girl was in pain, even if it were just a dream. She kept screaming and screaming, as if in real torture.

"Wait... Is there a figure connected to those eyes? It looks slightly like a woman, right?" Kwangmin peered into the mirror.

Jeongmin squinted, "Yah. Looks like an outline of a lady. What's the girl screami-"

"Umma. She's screaming for her mother. But it doesn't really seem like she's asking for help, right?" Youngmin muttered.

The boys stood there, staring at the mirror and growing uncomfortable.

"It's as if...the lady who's torturing her..." Hyunseong whispered, eyes wide.

"Is her mom. But it's not like we can do anything, anyway." Donghyun said coldly then turned away from the mirror, picking up his book and pretending not to notice the screams. One by one, the boys followed suit, Minwoo being the last, eyes still as wide as ever. It wasn't the first time they had a nightmare show in one of the screens but it was a rare occurrence. Most of time, all they got were happy or meaningless dreams. This was the first in which someone had screamed that loudly and that much in pain.

They attempted to return to reading their books -the simplest way of letting time past- but the screams kept increasing in volume. Soon enough, Youngmin found that he couldn't take it.

"Can't we-"

"You act as if you've never heard a scream before. " Jeongmin muttered, "Like we never actually made others scream that way, in pain-"

"That was a long time ago." Kwangmin interrupted. His eyes never left the book in his hand but his posture had stiffened.

Jeongmin ignored the younger twin as he continued, "...Like we never made people cry...all that agonized screaming? All the blood ruthlessly and selfishly splattered onto the floor?"

Minwoo laughed bitterly, a sound slightly out of place when fit with such an innocent face. But the boys had long accepted that as the norm. After all, none of them looked like the type to commit the wrongs that they had. They could even form a boyband, if their previous ambitions hadn't already laid elsewhere.

"When did you get so poetic, hyung?" Minwoo asked, making Hyunseong laugh.

"From all the reading and this pointless existence, obviously. Or is it better I call it "non-existence"? Then again, perhaps we're in the middle of both?" Jeongmin questioned. No answer.

"Umma!" The girl shrieked again. Donghyun winced. He glanced at the book at his hand and in a split second, threw it harshly at the mirror showing the girl's nightmare.

"Shut up!" he exclaimed, frustrated. The screams were picking at memories he rather leave locked up at the back of his mind.

They gasped when they realised the impact of the book had cracked the glass. They'd tried with chairs before, tables even...but they had never left a mark on the mirrors. It was incomprehensible how a simple bound paperbook could break that mirror.

"Did it just- What's going to happen?" Hyunseong asked, standing up immediately and rushing towards it.

"Hyung, what's going on?" Minwoo asked as well, facing Donghyun. The mirror was starting to glow...

-o-

"Umma!" She cried again. She knew she was hated for what she had done but this was too much to withstand, unbearable. There was blood splattered all over and what was left of her flesh was crying out in agony, weeping as it burned. But she couldn't faint. She couldn't die. And she needed to.

All of a sudden, she found herself wrenched out of the darkness and... staring at the frantic faces of 6 teenage boys. It took a few moments for her brain to register the change in place and to vaguely realise that what had happened in the darkness, the pain and the blood, had all just been a nightmare. The girl felt awake now, though still shocked at the sudden presence of light and feeling very, very lost. “Who are they?” She thought. She didn't know these 6 guys, had never seen them before in her life. If what had happened before had indeed been a dream, then why hadn't she woken up in her bed? Where in the world was she?

"What the f-" The boy with the blonde hair began but was cut off by the oldest-looking guy who was, however, probably only slightly over twenty.

"Who are you?" He asked, seemingly shocked.

"I-I- Who are you?" she cried, "And where in the world am I?"

The boys looked at each other, dumbfounded. Then one suddenly smirked and turned to face her directly. For a moment, she found myself caught in his gaze. It was piercing yet playful, serious yet carefree. On the surface, it gave the immediate impression of coldness...but something about those eyes seemed to say that it was meant for happiness, for squinting when laughing too hard and for pretending to keep a straight face when telling a joke. Though it seemed like it'd been sometime since it last did that...And they were pretty also. Not huge like the two twin boys' ones were but pretty. He had pretty eyes.

"Stuck in the middle of life and death, existing and non-existing...That's where you are." He said, still smirking. With a flick of his hand, a sharp knife suddenly materialized out of thin air. He threw it upwards, watched it spin and then caught it back again. "Care to join us?

She fainted.

~

Ahh, Jeongmin (this story's Jeongmin, anyway), always the theatrics, eh? Heh. Hope you enjoyed reading :) Ppyong!

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