There were shades of burgundy spewed across every ridge of the "serrated" plaster white walls of the apartment hallway. The elevator was on constant stall, a ding from within muffling its way out to express its distress.

Jongin stood amidst the rouge stained hallway - poised down from the ajar doorways that exposed the redder rooms beyond them. He stood transfixed, confused, his heart stalled and unmoving. The world was at a stand still. The world of red carpeted viruses and burgundy plastered barricades.

-

It took 5 consecutive dings of the standstill elevator, within a 30 second time period, for Jongin's heart to finally start beating. 6 seconds later from the initial beat was when jongin could feel his pulse rise in his throat and finally burst through his ears. His body responded before his brain could register the situation. With heavy feet sliding across the slick flooring and hands pushing to go faster against the serrated walls, Jongin ran to the staircase whose door was swung wide open.

"LUHAN!" His voice was weak, stuck with his pulse in his throat, hardly registering - it was as if his words stuck against the walls, just as anonymous's blood did.

"YAH!" Was the only thing he could think to yell that wouldn't require much thought. It was an instinctive clamour that shouted out fear and trepidation.

-

The door to Luhan's room was just as wide as the doors beyond it. Jongin stood in the center of the frame, his hands holding on tight to the metal alloy molding, staring at the rouge inside that reflected the halls outside of it.

This hall, two floors above Jongin's and Kyungsoo's, was no better than the one previous. It too, was smeared in a deep maroon as the sun streamed through the translucent carmine windows. The carpets up here however, were immersed in the substance, making Jongin's sneakers sink with a nauseating squish. The ceilings were at the point of saturation where they pooled crimson teardrops of past lives and quondam souls.

"Luhan." Jongin said sternly, almost as if he expected an answer, but what came back was exactly what he had been getting for the past ten minutes - silence.

His footsteps spoke constrained syllables as he stepped one foot in front of the other, deeper into his Hyung's apartment. Jongin's angled brown eyes darted from one side to the other, his long fingers shaking as they stretched out before him in apprehension.

-

After searching the life ridden apartment and coming up with empty, russet hands, Jongin fell to his knees in the centre of Luhan's corrupt living room with a yell of trembling confusion. He was in the middle of a hallucination, an imagined dream land of horrors and solitary confinement.

-

It took several hours for Jongin to finally rise from the slick flooring and vile apartment with heavy soaked shins and a shaking body.

Through his hazed mind and clogged thoughts, his feet somehow took him back to the staircase. Hands following, they clutched to the banister to avoid falling to their death and adding to the present abomination. It was a wonder how he still functioned, how he kept his stomach and tears within himself and didn't fall to pieces in his apartment doorway hours before.

Maybe it was because it was just him. Just him and the dehydrating, displaced rouge around him. With no owners, no life, no voices or whispers, no constant crying from the room next door, or singing down the hall - it was just Jongin.

Just Kim Jongin.

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