Kyungsoo looks up from his phone, his eyes bouncing between the sign announcing when the next train is due to arrive, the many posters for products he’ll never buy and he’s already seen a hundred times, and the people lining the platform.

It’s 4:30 in the afternoon and the subway is absolutely packed, people standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers and no one acknowledging it. His last lecture had ended 15 minutes later than it should have, and instead of managing to reach the subway just before the big 4 o’clock rush Kyungsoo had ended up in the middle of it.

He hates people, hated crowded and cramped places. He feels like the air runs thin whenever there are too many people around, every bump from a stranger lingers many long minutes and the heat from the many bodies sticks to him like an itchy sheen of dirt and grime. During rush hour, like now, the whole subway feels like laying in a coffin next to a three-week-old corpse.

If he had gotten to choose he would have waited until the rush was over, but he knows it will last until at least 6 o’clock, probably even longer since it’s Friday and more people were in movement. At least this train will be the last on his commute home, but there is still a 20-minute ride to have, a ride surrounded by strangers pushing up against him in all directions.

He sighs, running a hand down his chest to feel the cross that always rests over his heart. It brings him little comfort as a group of loud boys push past him, none of them acknowledging the many glares their rambunctious behaviour grants them. Kyungsoo shrugs his shoulders high up, thumb raising the volume on the music in his ears as he tries to ignore the crowd around him.

A train rolls into the platform, people huddling like ants by the doors as the passengers inside push past them and into the station. When the train has left with its new set of passengers the station is no less crowded, all that has changed is that there is a new set of people, a new set of rushed businessmen and loud students and uncaring elders and stressed out parents and loners like Kyungsoo just wanting to get home.

He lets his eyes sweep over the people again as he cowers closer to the wall, but not too close in case he isn’t able to reach the doors once his train rolls in. There is a woman with a stroller by the edge of the platform, her greasy hair tied up in a tight bun. Next to him an old business man with shining shoes and an even shiner bald spot stands, cell phones pressed against his ear as he loudly complains to the person on the other end.

A woman rushes by him, almost running as she heads for the stairs leading to the connecting lines. Another woman rummages through the trash can next to him and Kyungsoo takes a step to the side. A man with an unkept beard wobbles down the length of the platform, making people silently move out of the way as he passes. None of them want to have him too close, the boy with the undercut and eyebrow piercings stepping out of the way without even looking along with the group of business women discussing something, and the Uni-students like Kyungsoo with their eyes attached to their phone screens.

It’s all so mindless. They are just trains themselves, rolling along on their track home and just as expertly as the spindling subway map of his town none of the tracks meet, there is no worry for collision as long as no one derails.

Finally, his train is announced through the speakers and Kyungsoo begins to slowly walk forward, a mass of people moving along with him. As the train stops he makes sure to pick a door at the middle of the cart, it makes him feel less cramped. That way he can move about, find the place with the least people and not get stuck pressed against any of the ends of the cart.

The moment the last person exiting the cart has stepped onto the platform Kyungsoo darts inside, looking for an open seat but finding none and instead positioning himself in between his door and the next. That is usually the least crowded spot. People like standing by the doors so they don’t have to wrestle past too many people on their way out. Kyungsoo prefers some breathing space.

He smooths a hand down his chest again as he wraps an elbow around the centre pole, feeling the little cross and using it to draw strength. A jarring note cut through the murmur, signalling the doors were about to close and Kyungsoo can see the last people force themselves on board, getting squashed against the newly closed doors.

With a jerk the train starts rolling and Kyungsoo pulls up his phone again, opening up his twitter feed and scrolling past the same tweets he has been watching for the past 35 minutes. It serves as ample distraction from the woman on the other side of the centre pole, her fluffy sleeves tickling his hands uncomfortably.

His music drowns out the people talking around him and not before long the train rolls into the next station, people pushing past him roughly as they force their way out. Kyungsoo doesn’t sit down in any of the seats during the briefs seconds they are empty. He doesn’t want to move from his pole, not when people are attacking any empty seat they see like hungry sharks.

The train jerks again, slowly rocking back and forth as it moves down the tracks. The tunnel is dark around him, but the fluorescent lights keeps it bright inside the cart. For a second Kyungsoo follows the pipes outside the window with his eyes until a large man stands in front of him at the next stop. He looks down at his phone again, almost falling backwards as the train takes a sharp turn. A brief moment of chaos erupts in the cart as people stumble but the next second it’s gone, no one acknowledging that it even happened.

The train slows again and Kyungsoo casts a quick look up, craning his neck past the large man in front of him to catch sight of the station. Instead he is met with the darkness of the tunnel and the tracks of the train running in the opposite direction.

With a crackle the speakers turn on a canny voice starts speaking. Kyungsoo fumbles to remove one of his earbuds to listen, and for a second everyone in the cart has their heads turned up toward the speakers in unison.

“-til the trains in front of us has moved. I repeat. There is a queue on the tacks due to an earlier commotion at the station and we cannot move until the trains in front of us has moved. We will resume once the track has been cleared in front of us.”

The speakers click off again and a few people around him groan, most don’t. It’s not common for the trains to stop, but neither is it rare, and if you commute almost every day you get used to getting stuck every so often. It’s rarely more than a few minutes of waiting.

Kyungsoo pushes his earbud back into his ears and skips to the next song, and the next, and the one thereafter until he finally finds one he wants to listen to. By now his twitter feed is boring enough for him to look for something else to do and he pulls up one of the few games he has on his phone, installed for times just like this where he has no choice but to wait.

A few minutes pass and still the train doesn’t move. Kyungsoo sighs, looking out through the window once more to see if anything has changed. He knows when trains go slow enough, you cannot feel them move. But no, the same sight as before greets him and Kyungsoo feels his shoulders slump.

He doesn’t look back down at his phone, bored with everything that’s on it, and instead opts to just blindly stare out of the window until something changes. The man in front of him shifts a little to the side, giving him a slightly better view. It doesn’t reveal anything of interest. The concrete walls as bare, the track is empty and the pipes lead endlessly left to right. Other than that, nothing. Nothing but darkness.

The light suddenly flickers, quickly enough that Kyungsoo can’t be sure that it actually happened. He looks around, trying to see if anyone else noticed but the people around him are just as still as before. The person in the seat to his left flips a page in her book and Kyungsoo turns his eyes back towards the window.

A train rolls past them on the track leading the other direction, slowly as if it hasn’t reached full speed yet. Kyungsoo blinks as his eyes follow the carts, and it takes him a full few seconds to realize the entire train is completely empty. He frowns, craning his head as he watches it crawl further into the tunnel.

Sometimes, when there is an unexpected number of people travelling they add in extra trains to compensate for the load. They sometimes pass his home station and don’t stop at any station until they’ve reached the one that needs it the most. It has to be one of those trains.

He bites his lips as he the light from the rear light disappears into the tunnel. There really must be a lot more people in the subway system than usual today, and he had thought it was just him being sensitive again.

His hand finds the cross again as he looks around the cart, starting to feel antsy. Soon to be ten minutes must have passed since the conductor’s announcement, yet they haven’t moved an inch. Shouldn’t he be making another announcement soon?

People around him doesn’t seem to be worried though. They are still quietly talking among themselves or ignoring the world in favour of their phone. Kyungsoo supposes there is no need to get anxious if everyone else is so calm, but then again he has never liked the subway. There is something in the air in these tunnels, something heavy that sticks to his skin.

A thunk reaches his ear, loud and unnatural. He looks over toward the sound. The very end of the cart is submerged in darkness, the florescent lights having given out. He blinks, shifting slightly on his feet as he tries to get a better look.

People seem to ignore it. In fact, no one seems to even have noticed that they’re now sitting in almost pitch blackness. Kyungsoo’s hand squeeze around the pole, slippery with years and years of oil left by sweaty hands. His toes curl in his black dress shoes, his lips making its way between his lips again. Why haven’t they noticed?

Another thunk. The next set of lights turn off, submerging the first third of the cart in darkness. Kyungsoo tenses. Once again no one shoes any signs of acknowledging that they are now standing in darkness. The man reading on his kindle two doors down continues to read, the woman rocking her stroller continues to rock it, the two teenagers discussing something in a textbook continue to discuss it.

It’s not right. The lights in the carts have never turned off during one of his trips before. Never. People should be reacting, should be starting to complain. And more importantly, if they were losing power the conductor should be saying something.

The set of lights in front of the ones Kyungsoo are standing under goes out, and as if per instinct, Kyungsoo starts to move. The woman doesn’t seem to notice as he wrestles his way past her, neither does the group of old men complaining about the expansion of the subway and how it disrupts the buses, nor the middle schooler who he almost pushes over as he wrestles past.

Behind him the lights where he had been standing turns off. The darkness brings with it a chill that seems to reach out behind Kyungsoo, wrap around his ankles as he stumbles past a group of businessmen on their cell phones.

He reaches the next door, and it’s the most crowded one so far. People are packed so tight he doesn’t even know where to start. The light behind him goes down. The darkness slides along the floor like tar, tainting it as it creeps ever closer. And closer. Kyungsoo gasps.

The businesswoman in front of him is almost thrown to the floor as Kyungsoo forces her out of the way. She doesn’t notice. Another man is forced out of the way. A child, follows him with their eyes as he pushes their grandmother out of the way. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t realize he had been noticed until the child is drowned in the darkness behind him.

He can see the end of the cart growing closer, and closer, and closer. A shopping cart clutters to the floor, spreading milk across the sticky linoleum and colouring it white for a second before the darkness claims that too. He doesn’t stop to check where the darkness is, he can’t. He too will be consumed.

Another door, another group of people. Kyungsoo shows no regard. He wrestles past them as if they were mere dummies, not caring that he’s stepping on feet and pushing phones to the ground. No one cares anyhow. No one except him noticed the darkness.

No one can feel the chill that has invaded the cart, the way the other side of the track is no longer visible through the window, the way that the darkness seems to crash over them like an inky black wave. No one can feel it searching for them, chasing, laughing as it knows he’s caught.

“Hey!”

Kyungsoo skids to a halt a meter in front of the end of the cart. There is a door in front of him, but it cannot be open, there is no handle in sight, only a keyhole. Still he reaches out for it. His nails slip over the surface, catching on old wood and drilling splinters into his fingertips.

“HEY!”

A pair of hands grab his shoulders. Kyungsoo jumps, turning around and coming face to face with another boy about his age. He has an undercut, a set of piercings in his eyebrows and the holes in his ears are stretched wide with rings. Kyungsoo’s breath hitches, his hands flying to his chest to clutch at the cross.

“You have a flight light on your phone?” The boy asks. His voice is shrill, tainted by the same fear that pumps through Kyungsoo’s veins.

He nods, trying to ignore how the boy keeps turning around to look at the darkness slowly pushing up against them.

“Turn it on.” The boy says, reaching into his pocket to fish out his phone. Kyungsoo does the same. His fingers shake as he tries to move them. The tips of his fingers slide against the slick surface of his phone as he tries to grab it and he almost drops it.

The flashlight turns on seconds before the last light goes out, and suddenly it’s just him and the other boy in the cart, their flashlight illuminating no more than a meter around them. He huddles closer, ignoring the fact that the other is a complete stranger.

There is something about the darkness, something that makes him not want to touch it. It seems almost solid. It feels like if he were to reach out and dip his fingers in to it they would be gone, consumed. It feels alive.

A clammy hand catches his, squeezing it tightly and the pair of them press impossibly closer, their backs against the door.

“Why can’t we see anything?” Kyungsoo hears himself say. The words don’t move past their circle of light and Kyungsoo notices that the never-ending murmur that filled the cart before has died out. The silence is as thick as the darkness, almost tangible as it presses down over it.

“I don’t know.” The boy says, his voice louder than needed for their proximity. Almost as if to keep the silence at bay. Kyungsoo doesn’t mind. Anything to keep them from being swallowed.

“Do you think it’s a blackout?” He asks, even though he knows there isn’t one. He too keeps his voice loud, trying to push past the wall of darkness that surrounds them.

“No.” The boy replies. “I...I don’t think it’s real.”

Kyungsoo swallows, making a noise of agreement. The darkness in front of them can’t be real. It can’t be of this world. It is so unlike anything he has ever experienced before. The endless nothingness of space would be preferable to this. It would be better to have neverending nothing around them, then the hungry something that surrounds them.

The flashlight on Kyungsoo’s phone flickers, just for a brief moment, but it’s enough to have Kyungsoo’s blood turn to ice. He presses his thumb against the home button, trying to open the screen. It won’t respond.

The boy’s phone flickers next. The hand in his tighten. A pair of dark brown eyes look into his, and Kyungsoo knows that both of them know what’s causing the flickering. He can feel the darkness almost look down at him as he struggles to open the phone, to get any kind of steady light as their flashlights continue to flicker.

“Why doesn’t it work?!” Kyungsoo cries, slapping the screen with his hand to get it to work. The darkness shifts back and forth as their flashlights flicker, almost as if it’s crooning at their distress. The boy next to him has given up on his phone, instead tearing through his backpack. Kyungsoo slaps his screen harder, feeling it bend under the force.

The light goes out.

Blackness crashes down over them. The weight of it pushes Kyungsoo to the floor. His arms go up over his head but it’s too late. The darkness has reached him.

It dives down his screaming mouth, in through his nose, down down down deep inside him. It crawls up the legs of his pants, getting stuck on the hair and scratching the soles of his feet as it reaches into his socks. It pulls at the buttons of his shirt, tearing them open, exposing him, destroying him.

It seeps into his pores, thick, sluggish, but stronger than any force Kyungsoo has ever felt. Like a stream of bugs it crawls into his ears. Like snakes it slithers through his nostrils and into his lungs. Like a knife it presses in under his nails and bends them up and away. Like a lobotomy needle it pierces his retina, pushes deeper and deeper and

A rapid clicking forces past the bugs in his ears and suddenly he can breathe again.  A small flame flickers steadily in front of him, illuminating the face of the boy. It looks like a corpse. Kyungsoo feels like one.

“It-” Kyungsoo’s voice is weak, every syllable a struggle as he tries to push past the tar lining his stomach and oesophagus. The boy’s eyes plead with him and Kyungsoo moves closer, so close he can feel the other’s rapid breath on his lips.

“You?” He asks, because the silence is almost as bad as the darkness. It too will invade him if he doesn’t keep it at bay.

“Yes.” The boy says, nodding quickly. There is eyeliner around his eyes, smudged by tears, and Kyungsoo can feel two cold tracks down his own cheeks.

“Don’t leave me.” The boy begs. “I don’t want to be alone with it. I don’t want to be alone with it again. Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.” Kyungsoo promises, clutching the hand in his as hard as he can. It hurts. It doesn’t matter that it hurts. “I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

A click, silent but sharp as a gunshot. Both of their eyes go to where they know the doors are, the last doors of the cart. The wall of darkness meets them again. It dances with the flame from the lighter. It laughs at them.

The sound of doors sliding open reaches them. Silence follows, but with it it carries the knowledge that there is something out there, something in the darkness. The silence wraps it around Kyungsoo’s chest, squeezes and squeezes and squeezes until he can’t breathe.

Next to him the boy sounds like he’s choking and Kyungsoo presses his hand over the other’s mouth without really noticing what he’s doing. He bites his lips, stopping the panicked scream he wants to let out. Blood spills over his tongue.

The darkness moves again, a fog of unimaginable horror. It toys with them, delving in and out as the flame of the lighter continues to weakly dance. It at the tips of their shoes, consumes the end of the boy’s long laces. It blows into Kyungsoo’s hair, sending a chill down his spine so harsh his entire frame shakes. It looms above them, and every once in a while, reaching out to over their terrified cheeks, like one does with a scared animal before putting it down.

It laughs.

Kyungsoo cracks apart from the pressure.

The tears of the boy burn his hand like acid as the scream breaks free.

Another noise reaches them, the sound of the doors closing. There is another click. The darkness gives a wobble, and then the light turns on.

The cart is empty.

There is no one in sight. The businessmen, the woman with her stroller, the grandmother and her grandchild, the drunkard, the woman with her book, the students, the middle schooler. They’re all gone. The milk that had spilled on the floor is gone, and so is the gums along the windows, the many flyers that littered the walls and the lost scarf left around one of the poles.

It is worse than the darkness.

“The track in front of us is clear.” The canny voice says from the speaker and Kyungsoo looks up, his hand still pressed over the mouth of the boy next to him. He moves it. The flame of the lighter still flickers in front of them. They don’t put it out. He swallows. His mouth is full of blood from where he was biting his lip.

“They’re gone.” The boy says as the train jerks and starts moving. Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything. His entire body hurts, the abuse inflicted by the darkness still aching. He doesn’t dare to move. He doesn’t want to leave the boy.

“Let’s get off.” He says. His voice echoes in the emptiness of the cart. It beats back against him. The boy next to him nods. His hand feels safe in the other’s grip. The only safe space in the entire cart.

It takes all of him to move as the train stops at the next station. One of his hands is clutching at his cross, begging to a God he needs more now than ever, and the other is still holding on to the hand in his.

The platform is crammed full of people that huddle at the doors like ants, desperately wanting to get on. None of them reflect over the fact that the cart is almost empty as they pour into it. Kyungsoo feels their touches linger on him, pushing at him and tearing away until he feels raw.

The jarring note signalling the closing of the door shoots through him like a spear and suddenly he heaves. The boy helps him throw up. It’s black like tar and Kyungsoo hurls three times before he’s gotten it all out of him.

“You.” A voice says and Kyungsoo looks up, meeting the eyes of a middle-aged woman. Her eyes look hollow, empty, and her skin is white and clammy. She’s trembling, looking as if she’s going to break any moment.

“It was real?” She asks, looking between Kyungsoo, the boy and the vomit. Kyungsoo heaves again. It’s just stomach acid this time.

“Yes.” The boy’s voice is hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours. Maybe that was how long they had spent in there. Either that or a second. Kyungsoo can’t tell. All he can do is squeeze the hand in his and let the boy help him straighten up.

“I’m Soyee.” The woman says, as if latching on to anything that isn’t what they have just left behind. Kyungsoo is so thankful he could cry.

“I’m Jongin.” The boy says.

“Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo says, giving a light bow. The woman nods, flinching as the sound of another train rolling into the station fills the platform.

“I have a car. I can give you a ride home.” She offers. Her eyes flicker to the train and Kyungsoo does the mistake of following it. The open doors, jammed packful of people, look like a maw. He feels Jongin stumble next to him, legs giving out and Kyungsoo’s arms reach out to catch him.

“Thank you.” He whispers.

Kyungsoo sways in time with the subway cart, the earphone in his left ear playing that new album Jongin had told him about. The tunnel outside of the windows is dark, but not too dark. He smooths a hand down over his cross.

“Do you like it?” Jongin says, voice a little too loud for the subway. It always is. Kyungsoo nods. He can’t speak while he’s on the train, he can’t open his mouth. He knows why. “I told you punk wasn’t all you thought it was.” Jongin’s tone is teasing, almost relaxed, and it helps Kyungsoo ease the grip on the cross.

He rolls his eyes, looking over at Jongin with raised eyebrows. Jongin giggles and gives him a light shove with his elbow.

“I should have known a church boy like you wouldn’t appreciate it.” He teases and Kyungsoo gives him a shove in return. Jongin laughs again, making the man in front of them glare up at them in reaction to the far too loud tone Jongin’s using. Kyungsoo feels himself relax a little bit more. They’re being acknowledged.

The train slows down and stops, the view outside the window is still the tunnel. Kyungsoo takes a step closer to Jongin, feeling the other tense.

“There is a queue on the tacks due to an earlier commotion at the station and we cannot move until the trains in front of us has moved. I repeat, there is a queue on the tacks due to an earlier commotion at the station and we cannot move until the trains in front of us has moved.  We will resume once the track has been cleared in front of us” The canny voice of the conductor informs from the crackling speakers above them.

Kyungsoo’s hand closes around the lighter in his pocket, the one that has been in his pocket for six months now. The other squeezes Jongin’s hand tightly. He can see Jongin stuff his hand in his pocket too, closing around his own lighter. Kyungsoo holds back the urge to kick the man in front of them, to force a reaction.

Three minutes later the train is moving again and Kyungsoo’s grip eases. Jongin starts rambling loudly about the album they’re listening to, empty words meant to chase away the chill that press down over them.

They get off at the next stop, ignore the poster urging anyone with any information about the disappearance of over 600 people six month ago to call the police, and leave the subway.

Jongin’s hand never leaves his.

Thank you for reading! if you liked the fic please leave an upvote or a comment telling me about it :3