I attempted to organize this as much as I could because apparently I have a lot of things to say about this fic but nope, what is organization?

By the way I got first place for the contest I entered! :D I'm still trying to process that in my brain right now so I'm having a bit of a delayed reaction lol but overall I'm really happy and thankful ;u; <3

Without further ado, since the results are out I can now post this. I hope this will clarify some of the confusion this fic might have caused in addition to you'll see the explanations over what my inspirations were.

The Darkness

The whole darkness idea was inspired from the demons from “Seraph of the End” which led to it also being drawn from the way demons travel in “Supernatural” aka a big cloud of black smoke.

However as I was writing this fic, I remembered this poem I wrote two years ago and it influenced me to create my own type of apocalypse.

After all this time, I’m still sort of proud of that poem, maybe because it didn’t rhyme for the sake of rhyming, it made sense you know? Anyways here’s the poem:

Overcome by loathing and hatred
He eyes them with masked disgust
Those fragile and pathetic humans
Theirs lives that would soon turn to dust

His soulless eyes glower at them
Razor sharp teeth bared and ready
To take them in a moment's breath
Those hearts that beat unsteady

His skeleton like body
Hidden under a human guise
His thirst just slowly growing
As he yearns for their pitiful cries

There are many more like him
Hiding and lurking in the dark
Pretending to be a human
Just waiting patiently for the mark

To take away their happiness
Their lives hanging by a thread
To just steal away everything
For all they see is blood red

Because of all the change
The humans were buried in greed
Without even knowing it
They created a whole new breed

Their creation will become their demise
And soon enough the new breed will rise

So I tried to emphasize the main cause of the darkness being Greed which is one of the Seven Sins.

Mainly it draws from the way I see society sometimes tbh, that greed and power are instigators for a lot of things and as a result it’ll become our downfall one day hence apocalyptic doom. //cue evil laughter//

Anyways in the story here, while it’s not explicitly said, the way the darkness infected people were how if they were selfish and had moments in which they cared for only themselves, they would have a higher chance of becoming one of the skeletons.

That brings me to my next point, because the longer someone had the disease, the less human they were and in turn their skin fades and bones are seen through it. I have no idea how else to explain how it looks like but imagine an x-ray scan of someone but 100x scarier.

The Sword

Inspiration: Seraph of the End. Origins: unknown. Powers: unknown.

I’m actually serious when I say that. I don’t even know how I can begin to explain how I came up with it.

But the way I envisioned it, was when Chanyeol first used that sword (with mystical powers at work), he kills Sehun not because he wants to but because he’s forced to. Sehun then becomes somewhat like a spirit and flows into his sword because Chanyeol didn’t want to let him go.

You know that one myth with the thousand souls trapped in a vase? It’s somewhat drawn from that idea.

That’s why when Chanyeol is stabbed with the sword; he hears his brother’s voice among the other voices that invade his mind.

Life and Death

I sort of hate how I made a category for this but I feel the compulsive need to explain why I killed off so many characters. Like no, I’m not totally a sadist guys pffft.

First, let’s start with Sehun, Chanyeol’s baby brother. He is what I call the initiator. His death had to happen because Chanyeol had to witness firsthand what it was like and start his journey as a result. His parents sadly were collateral damage.

Now the Byun family, oh man okay. Writing about Mrs. Byun in particular was hard. But what I really wanted to show here was how an apocalypse could affect people differently.

Baekhyun was frightened, rightly so and his action of killing his dad (who was starting to show some signs) was more of a “please-I-don’t-want-to-die” moment than it being in