"There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it."

- Alfred Hitchcock

Autophobia – Fear of being alone or isolated

Kim Sunggyu

Note: Picture does not belong to me | Source

The sun felt bright on his face and it nearly blinded him as he squinted in its brightness. Kim Sunggyu groaned as he sat up. The sand felt itchy on his arms and the water that lapped at his feet made him a little more aware of his surroundings.

He regarded the deserted environment with shocked eyes. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was him boarding the flight to Japan. No wait, it was coming back to him – there was a sudden announcement and then the airhostesses were ordering the passengers to evacuate the plane. There was panic and screaming and then, it was a blank.

Sunggyu couldn’t remember anything that happened after that but with a little bit of guessing, concluded that his flight had probably crashed. Then that would mean, he was on some sort of deserted island.

No! No, no, no! He couldn’t be alone – he, he just couldn’t. Sunggyu scrambled to his feet and turned around wildly, looking for someone – anyone!

It was one of the lesser known facts about Kim Sunggyu, that he was deathly afraid of being alone. Fear and panic took control of his brain before he forced himself to think rationally.

First things first; he’d have to scour the island for any forms of life. Maybe some more of his co-passengers had ended up on the island – he could only hope.

After searching for a little more than fifteen minutes with no luck, Sunggyu was about ready to give up. The island was huge but he hadn’t found any forms of life, neither animals nor humans. There was only a dense forest in the center of the island with more varieties of plants than he’d seen in his entire life.

Just as he was about to give up on his search and head into the forest to get some food, he noticed a figure lying a little ways away in the sand. Sunggyu rushed to where the body lay and lightly shook the person. It was a young girl, around nineteen he assumed, with nicely tanned skin dressed in what was probably a pretty green summer dress. Now it was slightly tattered and torn, small cuts and bruises covered her skin, signs that she was a plane crash survivor, but nothing looked too bad.

Sunggyu tapped her cheek lightly and a few seconds later, she squirmed before opening her eyes. Sunggyu in a breath, her eyes were a shimmering blue, the same color as the ocean that surrounded them.

“W-Where am I?” she spoke, her voice oddly hoarse.

“I’m not sure exactly,” Sunggyu sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Our plane crashed and we somehow ended up on this island,” he trailed off.

The girl’s eyes widened and she quickly looked around. “A-Are we the only ones here?”

“Pretty much.” Sunngyu felt slightly calmer now that he realized he wasn’t all alone.

The girl stayed silent for a few minutes, just staring at her hands. Sunggyu coughed awkwardly to break the tense atmosphere.

“Sorry,” the girl spoke softly.

“I’m Sunggyu,” he introduced himself.

The girl gave him a half-hearted smile. “Saeyoon.”

“So what should we do now?” she asked after another brief pause.

Sunggyu looked around, “We should probably find some food and a place to set up camp or something.”

The girl nodded and together they set off into the forest.

Sunggyu rubbed two rocks against each other, trying to create a spark to set the small set of twigs on fire. He’d seen it in a movie before but it was much harder than the male lead had made it seem. After a few fail attempts, he finally succeeded in getting a fire started.

A minute later, Saeyoon stumbled into the clearing they had made, her hands filled with berries. “I found these,” she laid them on a large leaf Sunggyu had set on the ground. “I’m pretty sure they’re edible,” she added.

Sunggyu nodded before roasting the fish he’d managed to catch over the fire. The two worked silently, only the presence of each other stopping them from panicking.

“How long do you think we’ll be here?” Saeyoon asked as she nibbled on her fish.

Sunggyu shrugged. “It could be days, or even months before someone finds us. Everyone probably thinks we died in the plane crash,” he said, honestly.

Saeyoon felt her heart plummet and her expression probably reflected her inner turmoil as Sunggyu hastily added, “It probably won’t be too long; maybe a cruise ship will come along or they might send out a search party just to make sure there aren’t any survivors.”

“So what you mean to say is, till help shows up, it’s just you and me?” Saeyoon spoke up after a terse silence, her voice sounding defeated.

Sunggyu nodded while repeating the words in his head: Just you and me.

That was right; Sunggyu only had one person to keep him company now.

She was the only one keeping him from having a panic attack, from letting his autophobia over power him.

And for that he’d be thankful.

And he’d hold on to her, for she was his only link to sanity.

Author's Note

Sorry this is a little late, I've just been feeling kind of down lately... But I read the super sweet comment left by sandrajin4396 and it really motivated me to write another oneshot, so thank you so much for that :)

I'm not very happy with this chapter... I donno, I was trying for a non-fluffy angle but it became a bit... blah. Anyway, I'm going to be a bit busy the next two weeks so I don't know when the next update will be :/

Hope you guys liked this chapter; please comment, subscribe and up-vote if you did :D