The various forms of escape blurs out your reality.

Hani's POV

It was time to pack up. We were going home by the crack of dawn. Two days was quite short for a vacation, I was having a really good time here, too bad things you enjoy always seem to end so soon. I watched the clock tik-toked, it was just 4 pm. I wonder what should I do to kill time~

Things were pretty hectic when the guys got drunk, it was seriously such a hassle but their faces were so priceless. Especially Hobi, who went and vomited all over the place. They were so wasted that it made them unable to walk back to their respective rooms and so I went back to the rest house and brought some more blankets and pillows for them to get comfortable. I brought some towels and a pale of water as well. After Jin and I talked, he slept the whole time.

I got out of my room to take one last stroll at the beach. The boys were pretty busy packing their things and getting rid of their hangover. It was quiet, all I could hear was the gentle waves hugging the shorelines and the occasional birds that would flap by. I looked at the sun as it prepared to set, the sky starting to paint a beautiful orange hue. Slowly, I realized that I was able to see colors inside my monotonous world.



But in the end, I'm scared to be too happy. Because if I am, then great sadness comes after. A never ending cycle that I wish would just stop. The wind blew strongly carrying my sun hat along with it. The hat stopped in front of a pair of feet. I slowly looked up, hat in hand.

"Taehyung? Over with your hangover?"

"Idiot." He ruffled my hair, smiled and then walked away.

I looked at his fleeting figure. Engraving the deep sadness in his eyes inside my memory, making my heart hurt  a little. Why are you all so scarred?

I moved away and sat on a stone above the shoreline. It all feels so surreal as if anytime, I'd wake up from a long sleep and through time, forget all this.

end of POV

"Tae, I don't want to do this anymore."

"Don't let emotions get in to you. It's irrelevant."

"Can't you see? We're merely pawns in this game."

"I don't care."

"You're blinded, Tae. Let's just find a way to escape this together, ne?"

"You don't understand! If I ensure my own freedom, I'd endanger that person's life. I need to protect that person. Just escape if you want to."

"Is there really no other way?"

"It's the only way."

The frustrations were building up inside the stupid professors head. He hasn't slept for days, unable to forget his newly built failure. He stood there looking straight at his mirror of a weakness, his failures and his endless desire for his nearly impossible dream. What else was lacking? What went wrong and why does he fail all the time and at moments where he thinks that this time, for sure, it'd work.

He once was content and full of passion. Slowly, the virus of this corrupted world got into him. He was at first, hesitant and then one day, he just accepted everything and let the grave desire to prove people who mocked him wrong, swallow him like a flightless bird who allowed the countless predators eat him up.

The society destroyed a man who once was full of pure and innocent dreams, striving success amongst the countless competition. If only someone saved him from the abyss of impure desires, cravings and greed.

The professor laughed at the reflection of his pitiful self. He was hungry for more and the lump of homunculi failures made it worse. It smelt rotten. Flesh and blood all deteriorating.

Jhope's POV

My head throbbed so bad and lying down wasn't helping. My wallet fell as I was moving around to a comfortable position and then mom's picture came out without notice. Eomma..

-flashback-

"Please tell me, what's wrong, I need to know, Hoseok ah. Please tell eomma." Mom said crying in her sleeping state. She was tossing and turning around, it made my heart hurt. I didn't want to tell her the hell I've been experiencing in that laboratory, all the mental abuse, inhumane training and various experimantations. She'd sometimes ask me about my bruises and scratches, I'd simply reply that it was from playing with my friends but I knew that she knew something else was going on. I didn't want her to worry after all the pain she's been. Was this alright?

Put your mom to sleep. Let her rest, Hoseok. That way you could focus on your job.

My conscience gnawed at me. My eyes were getting blurry. What have they done to me? My hands moved at its own will, as if being controlled. I love you mom, I'm sorry. Goodbye. I'd rather kill you with my own hands than have someone else do it for me, that way I could only loathe myself and become numb.

I injected the poisonous liquid into my mom's body. She looked like in so much pain and then a few seconds later, her life was forever gone. A warm tear escaped my right eye and I knew by then, I had no place to turn back to anymore.

-end of flashback-

All because of a childish game, we became stained devils.

"I miss you mom."  I couldn't hold it in anymore. Years of fear and bloodstained hands. Guilt and bloodlust. I have become my own twisted psychopath. Sleeping has become a switch to my endless nightmares and nothing can help me escape it. In fact, the word escape has already become such an unfamiliar word to us.

Why are we working so hard? Why are we granting someone else's dream when we should be granting our own? What benefit do we get?



"Hoseok ah, you should be packing your things." Namjoon entered with concerned eyes.

"Don't worry, I'll do it when my headache ceases for a bit." I managed to fake a smile because right now, I've become so good at pretending.

"Don't push yourself too hard." He said as he tapped my shoulder and headed out. I smiled in return.

I console myself. I tell myself that there is no such thing as a perfect world. I slowly empty myself in the dark abyss I've been running circles in.