Five.

The putrid smell of the basement’s desiccating walls pulled me to my senses, almost as if someone was holding smelling salts right under my nose. I gagged, but there was nothing coming up. It felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. Barely slept as well, constantly pulling in and out of consciousness. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was because of the hunger or the throbbing pains all across my body. And the saddest part? I had almost become immune to the darkness around me. I succumbed to it.

At the beginning, I prayed. Silly, really. Jongin and Sehun especially, would laugh at me if they knew. I didn’t believe in any god, always making fun of Sehun who diligently went to church every Sunday.

And yet, I prayed. Maybe it was to hold on to whatever memory left I had of the outside world or maybe I realized that never believing in “the heavens” has put me in this situation today. I prayed furiously, with all my might, with all sincerity. Sadly, to no avail. It seemed the gods must hate me. I accept it, surely I would hate myself too.

“You grab her.”

“No way man, she stinks. Plus I can’t see a thing down here. You put her in the corner so you go and drag her up here.”

There was a shuffling of steps before two rough hands grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me unwillingly. Of course I smell terrible you idiots, you’re the ones that never let me shower! The words were screaming in my head but I had no energy to even utter a single letter of it. I didn’t even have enough spirit to care where they were taking me. Slowly, I felt myself fall back into an unconscious state. Back again into the darkness…

------

Present day

They had been at this for half the day already. Jongin couldn’t get the knots out of his back from being crouched over his computer all day trying to figure out how to locate the transmission signal of the kidnapper that had taken Krystal. It didn’t help the fact that he neither had any experience hacking into other people’s IP addresses nor did he remember the little computer programming skills he had learned in his university days.

And Sehun? Well, he couldn’t quite feel his legs because he had spent the day walking like a crazy person around the neighborhoods trying to find out if anyone had seen something suspicious in the last few days. But after about the fifth round, he had almost given up hope that anyone would know anything about Krystal’s kidnapping.

But neither was willing to give up.

Sehun decided to continue questioning all the workers at the gas stations, supermarkets, and boutiques across town; while Jongin had already started calling anyone he knew, regardless if they hadn’t spoken in years, to see if they would be willing to help with tracking down these cruel people.

It had been 18 hours since the kidnapper last contacted them. He had ended the call with only telling them that this was going to be a “game”. Both guys sought to abolish the idea that something terrible had already happened to her, but somehow those thoughts faithfully managed to creep back inside their heads.

They were scared. And rightfully so.

It was unfair. Jongin had so