▬ Chapter 6: R/eality ▬

“Again,” Yoongi’s voice came out harsher than he intended when he heard that his fate was already sealed before that day ended. His tender and bruised wrists were no longer a concern upon learning that whatever move he’d make in the future to get out of this place, he was still going to die regardless. “What are you talking about?”

Sumin took a deep breath before opening her chapped lips again. “This may be hard to accept, but I’m not exactly normal per se. Ever since I was young,” she closed her eyes with a slight shook of her head, then opened them back up again only to stare at a moldy spot on the wall. “I’ve had these dreams. You can call them premonitions, if you will.”

The young detective knew this scenario all too well. The familiarity of his own story being told by someone else made it even more unacceptable for him to hear. Whether what this woman said was true or not, the idea of her having a premonition of a failed route of escape stirred him.

“No, that can’t be,” his defiant voice echoed through the walls.

“Yeah, it’s more of a curse, really,” Sumin tried to laugh it off. “But believe it or not, it’s what I saw when—”

Yoongi interrupted before she could continue. “No, that can’t be, because that’s not what I saw.”

Now it was Sumin’s turn to stop and stare at the wall as if he was right there in front of her. “What?”

The red haired man cursed under his breath in an attempt to decipher where both of their lives were headed at that moment. Despite his willingness to shut out everything else and think of a plan, he tried to explain out loud to his confused neighbor what he meant, all the while thinking of an escape route at the back of his mind.

“I also saw a premonition a few minutes ago,” he recounted. “I was able to feel the sun on my skin. I was able to breathe fresh air, hear the birds singing and trees swaying. It felt real. We were both outside. I mean yeah, they chased us again at the end of my dream, but still, we were out of this cell. That’s enough hope for me.”

“You also have premonitions?” Sumin’s eyes widened. Then a thought occurred to her when she remembered all the instances Yoongi desperately cried out more than what a seemingly random bystander would do. “Did you — you saw me before in those dreams of yours, didn’t you?”

Yoongi stayed quiet for a moment when a flashback of his first dream about Sumin clouded his mind. What was he supposed to say to that?

“Tell me,” she begged. “Please.”

“I don’t think—”

“Did you ever notice,” her voice wavered when she detected his reluctance in answering her plea, “that you never had premonitions about anything big about yourself?”

“What?”

“Simple scratches, bumps on your forehead,” Sumin listed out. “Nothing ever big like breaking a bone, getting stabbed, or anything that would be considered gory in movies.”

Yoongi gave her statement a thought. He tried to recount most of the premonitions that he could remember only to find out that out of all the years he’s had this ‘gift’ of his, he never did see anything big about himself other than bumps and bruises. Heck, he even cursed one time about his ‘useless gift’ when he broke a bone as a teenager after playing parkour with his friends. Or that one time he was chasing down a suspect and got stabbed when he didn’t see the other grab a small knife from their pocket amidst their altercation.

“So I want to know that if you saw me die, for once, I’d want to know so that I can prepare for it when it happens.”

The man raised an eyebrow, a bit perplexed at her wish. “Isn’t that worse? Why would you want to know how you die?”

“Death, as our reality, is how we humans are inevitably expected to end up. I’m all for that since we can’t do anything to prevent it. But the process leading to death is another question. I’m just… curious, that’s all.”

“First of all,” Yoongi confessed, “there should be one thing to know about my premonition about you. Technically, I didn’t see you die.”

Sumin stared at the spot where she thought Yoongi would be. “Then what did you see?”

“You, in that same white dress. Bruises, scars, and blood all over your face and body.” Yoongi closed his eyes for a moment, reliving what he saw before. A second later, he gritted his teeth as he neared the end of his dream and opened his eyes. “My premonition ended with hearing footsteps and a loud metal clang getting closer and closer until you screamed at the top of your lungs.” He paused, still a bit unsure if this was the right move to tell her everything. “I woke up and next thing I knew, I was trying to search for you.”

“Well, I can get why you’re so hopeful after everything that’s happened seeing as I didn’t straight out die in the end.”

Yoongi scoffed. “Can you take this a bit seriously?”

“These premonitions, you know we can’t actually stop them, right? Regardless of you trying to save me this time. Well, guess what? I can’t be saved if you’ve seen me like that.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m only trying to help?” The detective could hear the frustration in his gradually heightening voice. “We haven’t even tried yet and you’re already—”

“BECAUSE I’VE TRIED IT!”

The echoes of her single sentence was enough to silence the man. H