One second later and back on my feet, Death was battling the reapers who slashed through everything and everybody. My only impulse was to run, find the happy duo and get out of there. Leaving Death to handle the situation, I crawled back the same hallway and supported part of my weight on the walls. Whatever Death had done, it weakened me from top bottom. My mind was all over the place, trying to remember what room they had been confined in. Passing the mirror with no reflection, Jessica appeared before me with her new pairs of red orbs and a straight face. Before I could try to knock her down or before she could try to do the same, Jessica grabbed my hand and forced me to run as far away from the mirror as possible. Only after some blasting noises came from behind had I realized she was trying to save me. Wings stretched and snuggled at her chest, we flew through the hallway until we reached the study room.

Reapers were banging and kicking at the wooden doors. I wanted to tell Jessica that it wouldn’t last long, that we should get out as soon as possible, but not before we find the two men.

Daesung embraced me from behind, turned me around and kissed my lips, only to end it with a worried puppy look and his thumb softly caressing my cheek.

“What has that bastard done?!”

He shouted with a broken lip, cut wounds on his face, messed up hair and his clothes tore right and left. Jung Min watched us from afar with his arms folded over his chest and his wings flapping from time to time. When my palm brushed over his skin in an attempt to heal the blond, there was nothing. No light and no energy flowing through my veins. He grabbed again my face and placed a second kiss on my forehead.

“What happened?” Daesung didn’t have to speak most of the time anymore since I could hear his thoughts. At that moment, all I heard was complete silence and had to find out through the good old fashioned way of asking.

“Jessica released us, then we fought the guards and were about to go after you when we heard the commotion.” Jung Min came forward and pulled Daesung off me. Two of his fingers pressed against my chest. Jung Min retracted them right away and frowned, his fingertips ash black. “What’s this...?”

“Wait, why?” it was weird that Jessica suddenly switched camps after she looked so keen on putting that snake after our asses.

“I don’t know,” she pushed against the door, restraining it with her entire body. Wings became black curtains stuck to the door frame “I felt like I had to do it,” she eyed Daesung “I know you two, don’t know the reaper. Something told me I should be doing this.”

I wonder if she remembered her previous duty towards Death and how she betrayed him. Yuri's details were slight fuzzy on what exactly happened, but she seemed to feel incredibly guilty about it.

“Come with us,” Jung Min spoke as the banging become louder and more violent. Shadows covered the walls, twisting and turning from the flames. Holes instead of eyes kept a close watch. “Somebody regretted not saving you, come with us and make her pain go away.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He had no time to persuade Jessica. Reapers broke through the large windows, shatters crumbling when they hit Jung Min’s wings.

We needed weapons of some kind and fast.

Daesung ran straight to the bottle cabinet, snatched a couple of them and smashed each bottle in the reapers’ heads before high kicking them into the walls. They weren’t as strong as those that attacked us in the woods, so that was good news. From the small wings and lack of strength, they were probably Carriers. Jung Min also crushed a couple to the ground with his wings, two kicks to their heads and stomping one in midair. Jessica was trapped at the door and yelled at us to get out through the window and let her handle everything.

I wasn’t about to tell Yuri that we met the blonde and then we let her die again. Grabbing her arm and hanging onto Daesung, Jung Min used all of his force to punch the last remaining reapers and then helped us get out the windows. The door behind us cracked and more reapers followed.

It wasn’t as comfortable on Jessica’s back as Jung Min was too busy clearing our path, blasting reapers left and right to the ground. Small crates appeared underneath us each time he poured all of his anger in each punch and kick. I had never seen him battle so fiercely in my entire life, struggling for us to escape as far as possible from that condemned place.

Guess that’s why we were surprised when green eyed reapers drew their blades and one plunged it straight into one of Jessica’s wings.

“SOOYOUNG!” Daesung jumped off Jung Min’s back and used his remaining energy to catch us both and tumble down the deck that lead back inside the ballroom. He didn’t calculate the landing very well since I was the one that took the full blow. Flat on my back and with a heavy chest, Daesung rested my head on his knee and nodded in Jessica’s direction when she got up her feet and held her shoulder. I felt bad for her wing, feathers falling each time she moved.

Liquid came out of my mouth and what I thought to have been saliva smudged my sleeve burgundy.

“Blood...” Daesung panicked even more at my words as he held my hand and forced me closer to his chest.

“We’ll be out soon, hang on, think of Changmin and of Yuri and Yoona is pretty awesome too, right?” he forced some chuckles which irked me “Please, Sooyoung,” the laughter turned into a miserable sob “We’ve been through worse, right? This is nothing compared to those times! Remember when you had your hair cut? That was worse, hahaha~”

I should have laughed with him or smack Daesung over that thick skull if only I could see him clearly through the hazy vision. It was pretty hard processing every sound too.

The green eyed reapers came not long after. I heard Jessica let out a battle cry as she bravely fought them, despite them having blades and being higher in grade. Clutching at Daesung’s clothes and coughing out some more blood, I couldn’t let Yuri’s guilt continue.

“Listen to me you punk,” Daesung wiped his tears away and wouldn’t let go “help Jessica and get her out of here, you can come after me later.”

“But---”

“Jung Min,” you know that feeling when you learn to breathe, as if it wasn’t supposed to be automatic? I had in that moment. “I’ll be fine with Jung Min.”

“Sooyoung...”

Jessica collapsed on one knee when the Warrior struck his blade in the broken wing.

“GO!”

Daesung placed me back down and left.

Good, now where’s that bastard? Death, please tell Jung Min to hurry up.

...for I think I'm dying for real.