A knock on the door. The knocker heard no sound. “Come on. You got to eat something!” No response. “I’ll leave the tray on the floor. Please have some food.” Minho sighed as he placed the metal tray in front of the locked door. He stared at the doorknob, wishing for it to turn and the door to open. He could easily break down the door but that would be a bad idea at the moment. Shaking his head, he turned and walked down the hall, needing to get ready for his next schedule.

The girl inside the locked room had her knees drawn to her chest. The wolf lounged in the sun’s rays that were coming in from the window. It had been a little over two days since her attempted escape from the mansion and her escape from death by fire. She cringed and buried her face harder into her knees to the point that they were hurting her eyeballs. But that didn’t stop her from imagining Jonghyun touching her face in a manner that melted her skin off. Far from a warm caress. Her nails dug into her calves as she tried to drive the images from her mind.

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She dreamed of the days before her abduction.

She brought her pen down on top of Jonghyun’s head. “Stop teasing Taeminnie, you big meanie!” Jonghyun pouted and stuck his tongue out at the brightly smiling Taemin when the girl turned around.

“Nuna! Look! I have pictures of my brother’s kitten! It’s so cute!” Taemin took out his camera and rushed over to his nuna.

He stood behind her and shoved the camera into her sight as she tidied the papers on the table in front of her. “Umm….Taeminnie, isn’t that a lion cub???” The girl asked. She turned her head to the side to look at the younger boy questioningly, but she found herself looking at his head of hair. She shuddered as she felt him her neck and then bite down on her shoulder. Jumping back, she looked at Taemin with surprise. “What the! I know you’re a demon and whatever, but what the heck was that?!” ‘Wait? Taemin is a demon?’ Her brows furrowed. “Demons…”

“But you’re so delicious Nuna.” Taemin his lips and stared at her like she was a piece of Korean beef sizzling perfectly on a grill. “I want to play a game Nuna!”

“Oh me too!” shouted Jonghyun who she had forgotten was there. “Let’s play frisbee!” Her eyes widened as he created a disc from flames that spouted from his hands. “Catch!” It came at her and she jumped out of the way. “What was that?! You’re supposed to catch it!”

“You’re crazy!” She shouted, breathing harshly. The fluorescent white lights flickered and turned into dim, hanging lamps that glowed weirdly. As they swung on rusted hinges, they squeaked and groaned. The leveled checkered tiled floor stretched and transformed and it looked like an endless optical illusion to her.

“She’s right. You are crazy! Why are you playing frisbee? You should be playing soccer! Pass!” Minho pulled his leg back and rocketed a ball of ice at her. It hit her in the gut and she was thrown back a few meters. “You at sports Nuna.” Minho walked over to her crumpled form. “That’s okay. I still love you.” He patted her shoulder and she screamed as ice encased it. “Aw…your screams are so cute.”

All went black as if someone flipped the lights off. Then someone turned them back on but she was in a completely different setting. The sky was a grayish red with clouds that looked more like smoke. The trees were all dead and black. Vultures flew in circles overhead. The ground felt slick and she looked down and saw bloodstained grass. All around her were bodies. One of them got up and she recognized Rin who had pasty white skin except for the red marks around her neck. A guy that was unrecognizable with his crushed in face and brains dripping out of his head dragged himself towards her. A faceless woman who only had one arm limped towards her too. A form that was burnt to a crisp followed. They descended upon her and she was stricken with fear.

“Get away from her! Why don’t you just die already!” shouted Onew and the monsters became dust around her.

“That’s right! You’re not allowed to hurt her!” Kibum shouted as SHINee strolled towards her with hands in pockets, wearing heavy black boots, and various styles of dark clothing. Kibum crouched in front of her and held her chin. “That’s our job.”

Her eyes became wide as SHINee’s innocent brown eyes turned an evil, glowing red, their perfect smile teeth turned sharp and they laughed like hyenas. She screamed as she awoke from her nightmare and sobbed into a pillow.
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It had been a week since she locked herself in the room. Her stomach had finally stopped rumbling, having given up any hope of being satiated. Nobody had knocked on her door for the last three days. Was it three days? She lost track of time. Or maybe they did try and coax her out of her hole but she didn’t notice. She still had nightmares, but she had enough awareness in her dreams to know that they weren’t real. The real SHINee were the real scary ones. Her mind and body were in a mess, so she had forced herself to sleep for hours, waking up only to shut down again after a few minutes. It wasn’t healthy for her, but it probably did keep her alive longer by conserving energy.

Luna lifted her head as the human girl slowly fell back into hibernation. The girl involuntarily shuddered and hugged the pillow tightly. She drew her knees up. Luna couldn’t take it anymore and climbed onto the bed to lay by the girl’s side. The human was too weak to even refuse. As the girl’s eyes were curtained by darkness, the wolf laid its massive head on its front paws and stared at the mirror with its molten gold eyes. Or at least, it looked at where the mirror was supposed to be. Currently, it was covered by the blanket that would normally cover the girl while she slept. The heavy comforter was hanging like a veil pinned to the wall by knives the girl stole from the kitchen before she holed herself away. The wooden chair (also taken from the kitchen) that she had used while she was tacking up the blanket was now shoved underneath the doorknob.

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It was the next night now. Kibum knocked on the door and called her name, but she was dead asleep. “Come on! You have to come out of there! I know you haven’t been eating!” He finally had time to check up on her. SHINee had an unbelievably packed schedule now, and none of them had enough time to drive up to the mansion. Kibum had finally been able to sneak away. He was the only one that could get into the mansion and back to the studio within an hour (the length of their current break). He poked at the cold, untouched food tray on the ground. The pantry and fridge in the kitchen was just how he had left it too so he knew she hadn’t ventured into it to get her own food.

“Don’t you have to go to the bathroom or something?” He sighed. He went to make a fresh tray of food and then returned. “Yo, wolfy! You know she has to eat.” He heard growls. “Don’t you growl at me. I’m not being unreasonable or anything here.” He leaned back against the door and crossed his arms, tray at his feet. He smiled as he glanced at a mirror panel in the hallway. “Good choice.”

“Oomph.” ‘How the heck was she able to dig those knives that deeply into the wall?’ He brushed off imaginary dirt from his clothes after putting the tray on the dresser. Luna had used her teeth to pull back enough of the blanket to let a little light reflect off the mirror. It was enough for Key to put his hand through and push past the comforter into her room while balancing a tray with food and water on it in one hand without a noise. Well, besides his small ‘oomph’ at having to put that much effort into a process that was supposed to go smoothly.

He placed the tray silently on the bedside table while the wolf watched him with sharp eyes. He paused, looking at her still form. She looked frailer than he remembered, and he frowned at the dark circles that he could see clearly even in the dim light. His hand reached to touch the paper thin skin under her eyes but he jumped back as the wolf jumped between him and her and gleamed white fangs at him. He put his hands up in defense and backed off. “Sorry. Sorry,” he whispered. He turned around and scowled at the wall where the mirror was blocked and left the room the way her came in.

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She lay on her side and blinked for the hundredth time at the tray of food that was on the bedside table. Somebody had gotten in last night. The chair was still securely underneath the doorknob so it had to be Key. She thought blocking light from the mirror would render it useless. No light, no reflection, no mirror. Maybe it didn’t block it out enough. Luna lay over her cold feet.

She flipped over to her other side, not wanting to look at the metal tray that gleamed at her as if it mocked her. Her feet started to sweat and she drew them away from Luna as if she stepped on hot sand. Her toes curled as she remembered the sweat that dripped off her body while in the furnace that was the foyer a week earlier.

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THEA's Corner <3

It was supposed to be longer, but I decided to split it up. Well, that just means the next chapter will come out sooner.

Posted: 25 August 2010
Approx. 2.5 pages