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Shades of Violence“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”
― Stephen King
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Chapter 4: Snapshots and Fear
It’s an interesting town with shades of secrets everywhere. The town, itself, is a secret that lies in another secret that lies in another one. There are no bundling loops to fall out of. Once you’re there, you’re just there. There’s a murder case going on, one involving various murderers and wound marks upon fragile victim bodies that lurks of the streets everyday. But it isn’t a murder case that revolves around assassination or blood. There’s murder in secrets and friendships and families everyday and no matter how hard you try, you can’t just manage to not be in one. It’s a serial case and some people, some tragic people who can be the most pure angels in the skies or the most demonic creatures from the pits, just happen to be serial killers without knives or guns or any sort of weapons. You, yourself, can be a serial murder with any weapon. But the most common threat to humankind of extinction is killing with words, guilt, and goals. Your mind is a knife itself and it happens to hate you as well, most of the times at least.
-
There’s a hill, the one spoken about a bloody chair at the top, reaming triumphant in death. Baekhyun is sitting up there right now with someone awfully familiar right by him, hand entwined hand and arms wrapped around shoulders. The athletic star is peering off onto the fogged town in the blurry distances that lie in some kind of mist that’s definitely a lie. It’s been raining lately but it’s spring. What could you expect? The air smells of rain and wet grass, dirtied mist that’s comprised of a fraction that involves two thirds of smoke and a third of the sun. There’s barely any light but there’s the gray that’s bright. It’s brighter than the sun, maybe because without it, you can’t tell any difference from night or day.
“There’s another reason why I wanted to go out with you today besides hanging out with you of course,” Chanyeol says, a little quiet. He sounds grim and it scares Baekhyun and because of that, he jumps to the widest conclusion to grab. It’s been too soon, only three month. They have to last longer than this. Has he really done anything that horrible? He doesn’t remember seeing any other guy unless...unless Chanyeol thinks there’s something between him and Joonmyun. Questions roam quicker than logical thoughts can surprise.
Baekhyun stutters aloud, the auburn hair sticking to his forehead with a single bead of sweat. “W-what?” he asks. Maybe it’s just some other news, Baekhyun thinks. Maybe he’s gotten another basketball scholarship or maybe he’s passed another Science Academy exam. “A-are we breaking up?” he blurts out loudly. There’s too much stuttering for one human being possible.
“What?” Chanyeol says, kind of astonished. He pulls his face back onto the trunk of the tree, unaware that he slammed it into the brawny base. He doesn’t recognize any pain. “No, is there a problem going on with us--”
“No!” Baekhyun says loudly, a little bit too loud. He’s going to attract the damn villagers who live in the brawny forests from behind. He takes a short notice the convulsion from Chanyeol meeting contact with the trunk but he says nothing of it because his own predicament surprises himself. “No, no, no. You’re fine, we’re fine, and I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong.”
The arm around his shoulder tightens up a little more, Baekhyun notices. Chanyeol is frowning now. “Are you okay, Baekhyun? You sound a little shaky for your own self. Is there anything going on that you might wanna talk about?”
Oh, has it really been hidden for that long? Baekhyun finds out in that sudden second that Chanyeol hasn’t learned about the incidents relating to him, Joonmyun, and the newly-informed Kyungsoo and Kai. Text messages are a bit more immature and it correlates more to a teenager prank more but poetic murder and calligraphy injustice, especially for Joonmyun’s inquiry? Baekhyun doesn’t know anything.
“There is,” he says quietly, so quietly that Chanyeol has to peer in closer towards the auburn for him to repeat. He does so and continues on, a little louder but still inaudible. “There’s something that’s been going on to me, Chanyeol. Well, it’s been happening to Joonmyun and Kyungsoo and Kai too.” He waits for a reply. The auburn needs it verbal responses for comfort.
“What’s been going on? Some sort of bully? Gossips--”
He’s brisk with a reply, “No, Yeol. If you would stop interrupting me, then maybe you would find out.”
His boyfriend feels his feelings crumple up quickly but he pushes all aside and instead, quiets down. It’s been a rough few days for him as well. “Alright, alright. Finish your damn story--”
“It’s not a story, Yeol. It’s serious.” His words quicken up by length and proximity by every nano and they speed up immediately, ruining definition. “There’s some pranker around this town that’s been holding communications towards me and a few others. They’ve been calling me and sending death threats to Suho and Kai. Kyungsoo’s received a letter that states that vengeance will be placed upon him with execution and I don’t know what it means whatsoever or how it is for the others but for me, I received the phone call at seven past four in the nighttime. And, and, the thing is that this phone call was only directed towards me in the whole household! No one else, I swear, received the call.” Baekhyun takes a small second to take a deep breath, ridges from his abdomen protruding from loss of appetite and sleep.
Chanyeol doesn’t notice it because he’s against the trunk with his knees against his chest, and his eyes are clenched closed like he’s hiding from something. “Okay,” he says, a little too pained for a reply. “What else?”
Baekhyun is shocked on how the boy is still calm but he continues anyway. “I couldn’t sleep at all that night and that’s why the following day at break period, I was looking so tired. At first, when I told Suho, he didn’t believe me but that was, of course, until he got his own message.” There’s a small pause. “I don’t know what to do, Chanyeol. I don’t think it’s a prank anymore even though Kai and Kyungsoo insist that they are.”
The night’s gotten colder and the first star is out, taking replacement of the cowardice that doesn’t even do his job. It lines up with Baekhyun’s vision and if someone else was looking towards him, more like the stranger who’s standing from afar, then maybe they could see the reflections that peer off of each other and maybe how bright the stars are contrasting against Baekhyun’s dark, brown eyes.
Baekhyun doesn’t know but it’s almost eight now and the night’s already dawning with the shades of grey darkening down.
Chanyeol is still sitting there, eyes slowly drooping tiredly, lips relaxing, and brows lowering down as he poses few questions. “Who called you? Like what number showed up in the directory?”
Silence blanches out through hidden coughs and murmurs of incoherent syllables. “There was no name on the phone. It was empty.” Empty as souls that are driven from who they were who they are. “The next morning when I had to get up, I tried checking the records and there was still none. It just shows the latest call I got which was from you that morning.”
It’s darker. Time’s passing by too quickly but it can’t come back, despite the earning rewards and the yearning wishes. It’s all too late. No, even more now. There’s no distinction between what’s precious and what isn’t. No one takes a second too seriously but they do when it’s the ultimatum between earn and loss.
It’s still quiet.
Still.
Still.
Five minutes, now.
Still.
Ten minutes.
“I’ve been receiving weird notices as well,” Chanyeol says, ashamed, making it sound like more than it is. It sounds like he’s done it to himself, or he’s the even thought of the doer so. His eyes are clenched again, ing against every color that’s thrown against him in the vision phase.
Baekhyun remains quiet, sort of shocked but yet not at the same time. It’s happened to all of his close friends, the ones he relies on. They’re all in the same line of discovery. He doesn’t know Kai too well but it still links against one another and he’s not a complete stranger, a label that could be tagged onto the stranger with pale eyes that reflect against the stars in a sinister way. The stranger has moved a few feet closer. He’s blank but nothing stops him back. There’s a coat or some sort of trench that covers his whole body, a lithe frame that stands beneath the worlds of crumbling power in the middle of nowhere, or fields that stand behind the huge oak tree. When Baekhyun turns around, there’s nobody but when he turns back towards Chanyeol, there’s someone.
“It was at nighttime, I’m not sure when.”
Baekhyun swears it was seven past four but he doesn’t say it. Something is buzzing in his right ear and it sounds like a movement from an orchestra that’s playing for a convention of an asylum. It sounds awfully moody yet transparent. It sounds glued onto the atmosphere with its blaring being its only salvation.
Chanyeol continues on and he doesn’t hear it but his voice is too loud, so Baekhyun stops hearing it as well but maybe if he closed his eyes, he could hear the shrieks that happen at the end of the initial piece. “I was leaving the school because I was doing some stupid with my friends up at the school. Not really, in fact, we were just doing some kinda small prank in a bastard’s classroom. That not being the point, we did it real late at night and I was the last one to leave. Through the hallways, I swear, I could’ve heard footsteps following me from a small distance, not too far away.”
It’s eight forty-five but it feels exactly like seven past four. Midnight. Sharp.
“Everytime I turned around when someone felt really close, there was no one there and you know how you get that feeling like someone’s behind you and you can feel it despite no one being there? I felt that way from the beginning to the end when I was in complete isolation. That’s not the real problem though. Later that night, when I was preparing to go home, there was a message on my car.”
Chanyeol pulls out his phone and goes towards the snapped photo, he shows it to Baekhyun. It’s a picture of a slashed car and Baekhyun couldn’t help but think of the troubles Chanyeol must’ve gotten into. The tires are slashed in some X pattern and all across the rear door, there’s something as thick as blood dripping off the marks. His car is red though so maybe it’s just new paint but there’s a small inscription on the window. It says four words.
even stars eventually die.
--
There’s a wall that’s meant to be leaned on with the soles of shoes perched on the dark bricks and knees propped out to the cold air. It’s beige and it’s located on the alleyway between the borders of what he believes to hell and heaven but in his opinion, there’s no difference. It’s lonely and no one ever see its because no one ever visits this side of the town. It’s rumored to be haunted but that fact doesn’t frighten at all.
On this wall, there are twelve pictures on it, nailed onto each brick with a separation of three inches between each shots. They’re Polaroid snapshots, being taken by an artistic photographer, if he would say so himself. They’re also edited with negative shots and it’s a little disoriented since his fingers twitches too much while holding the camera but he doesn’t care. Underneath these shots, there are small scribblings on comments. The boy named Baekhyun has several, most of them being synonyms and being relatable to one another with the words of prioritized and must being highlighted. The pictures are all arranged in a straight line and when the moonlight reflects onto one of them, accidentally maybe, there’s an X visible over their name.
The usual sirens could be heard from across the fence and the stranger, who has a pale complexion so white that he lights up in the darkness, walks away, vanishing in a manner that’s indescribable.
--
Oh Sehun’s captures moments. He’s an artist with memories. Sehun is a major in creative arts but recently, he’s been finding a strange obsession with something called photography. The tall boy with weirdly dyed, blonde hair is sitting on his bed with two of his friends over, one being his more particular cup of delight than the other. Luhan, the crush ever since freshman year, is sitting right by him, his eyes focused on a laptop screen while Sehun wishes those eyes were focused on him. He reaches an arm over, slowly, inch by inch, waiting for it to make accidental, cheesy contact with the soft material of Luhan’s flannel sweater but for some reason, it never does. Maybe it’s because he backed away too quickly at each move but really, it’s just because he never started to move his arm. It’s always been on his Polaroid camera and it’s never moved an inch. There’s a sigh inwardly and something that consists of incoherent complaints and wantings that are too unachievable.
His other friend, Jongdae, is sitting on a piano bench, frail fingers placed on a preparation for a major scale but too broken to press them down. Everytime he does, it sounds like a screech more like, something pained that cries aloud. He thinks that there’s something wrong with his hands, like a fracture or a disease that inepts force but really, he’s just too scared that he’ll mess up and make the two on the bed cringe. He’s scared of making a mistake and embarrassing himself as the perfectionist he’s always been deemed as.
“So you guys know Baekhyun and his friends, right?” Sehun asks warily, his right thumb sliding through the pictures that he’s taken. They consist of broken windows, chipped doors, wore down painted walls, lanky trees, and more that makes nothing of sense except to a hipster that involves their lives in abstract concepts.
Luhan doesn’t look up but he replies back, half-listening while he scrolls down his social networking site. “The auburn one? Yeah, he’s alright. He’s kinda cute but he’s dating that super tall basketball star.”
One could tell that there’s a small impaction that comment makes on Sehun. He chooses to ignore it but he really can’t.
“Yeah, him. I heard that’s he being stalked by some psycho. It’s kinda crazy hearing that, especially in this small town of ours. Nothing much happens and nothing much can happen,” Sehun says with a suddenly tired expression.
Jongdae presses a minor key and immediately halts off of it, rubbing his fingers together to create warm friction. The piano is cold today. “I’ve heard that too. It’s not surprising though, for a popular kid like him. Of course, he’s going to get stalkers everywhere in school--”
“It’s not a student who goes to our school. Well, it’s not a student at all, apparently. It’s some stranger that he doesn’t know or recognize. That’s what I heard, at least. The news is being spreaded by those newspaper gossipers in the front hall. If I were Baekhyun, I’d be pissed to s. I wouldn’t want anyone getting out my personal life, even though it is kinda creepy.”
“Hm, weird,” Luhan says with a huff. He continues scrolling down his blog feed.
There’s no recognition as always of the stranger outside who’s currently staring through the window.
“Maybe it’s just a joke or maybe it’s just another gossip story being spread by those freaks. You know their budget is being cut on loose. If they don’t get a story out, they’ll be screwed.”
“Hah,” Sehun laughs. “Maybe.”
-
Sehun is an insomniac but he prefers it to be labelled as someone who can’t sleep really well. The term of being a light sleeper becomes too sensitive for him at points, so he doesn’t prefer it to be called as that. It’s late at night, probably close to the strike of morning as he swipes through his thousand feeds of photos. He always does this, everyday and every night, and he deletes the most haunting pictures that he condemns as a horror to a photographer’s eye. Today, it’s a picture of gravel, gravel that’s been soaked by something red. He’s found it on the weird side of the town, the more frightening one where rumours call the town a place of trials, murders, and the paranormal. He had to visit to make a small visit to the asylum, where his parents currently resume. It’s been months since he’s visited so he figured that day he might as well do something productive.
He pauses his doing so once he hears something small, but suddenly loud. It sounds like static and it sounds like white but it’s not white since outside. Everything is dark. It looks like blood had met purple figment and it had merged into something that looks of an ultraviolence sort of hue. Trees look like wielding murderers while mailboxes look like small dolls, with maybe a broken eye, waiting to be held in strings by puppeteers. Sehun doesn’t know what to think about it since he’s seen worse in the asylum.
The sound slowly rings to be a bell but it’s strange. There isn’t a town bell in this town at all. There’s been speculations on why there isn’t one but it’s been shoved aside by the cruel city government to be a mere religious hassle. Sehun shakes his head, ignoring it and forces himself against the wall more to give space to the sleeping body next to his. Luhan, to Sehun’s delight, had asked him if he could stay over and of course, Sehun couldn’t say no. It’s one of those nights that he wants to make a move but he’s too frightened to. So for his own sanity and comfort, he looks out his window, ignoring the flash on his camera screen fade out to black. There are stars and cosmos lying out there tonight but it’s not magical. It doesn’t look luminous or majestic. It looks like something’s been dragged against the sky, once bludgeoned to death. It’s red against dark, dark purple.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns back towards his camera where it now lies on a picture of a Polaroid shot of his own face. His eyes widen and he struggles to remember when he’s taken this. It’s a yearbook shot of him from maybe two years ago and there’s a red X over it and he concludes that this isn’t his shot. He pulls the shot closer to his face and clicks the print button, where a small shot of the picture comes out a few seconds later. His mouth gapes open slowly as he feels something from his side. It’s not Luhan. He turns towards his right out the window, but there’s nothing. He closes the curtains anyway to make himself feel a little bit safer.
Underneath the border, there’s a few words scribbled on. He puts down the physical shot onto the windowsill and zooms in on the camera with his eyes squinted so he could read the words more easily. But he regrets that immediately once he sees the following words.
your dead body will look pretty on a Polaroid.
Even the few words are scribbled in a manner that makes it look like death. Maybe the font is death and maybe the color is blood with a definite marking of 16.
4:07 is the time, it shows on his clock and the stranger’s---..
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currently obsessed with the seho ship and all the seho fanfics like yaas. enjoy (horror to write dam you all)
ask me questions because i'm lonely
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