Thunder rumbled in the sky, an echo of the wailing woman wandering aimlessly throughout the isolated manor, her bare feet silently ghosting over the lush, red carpet.

 Her torn, bitten fingernails scratched desperately at the wood paneling lining the walls as she begged to be let in.  She gnashed her teeth and banged on the walls until the slits in her wrist dripped a steady stream of blood. The skin on her knuckles split, red and raw from the splinters into the small dent that was forming.

He had sealed himself inside - no doors, no windows. If there was one thing that made her smile now, it was that he knew - he knew that she was coming for him and that there was no escape.

Myungsoo was lost.

Hopelessly, devastatingly lost.

But it wasn't the fact that he was lost that made him shake, made his fingers tremble.

It was the fact that he was alone.

Hopelessly, devastatingly alone, trapped in his own little box, surrounded by walls that dripped with pink paint, spattering onto the floor and staining him pink. A rotting smell of carrion wafted into his little, pink box, and he gagged at the stench, his insides heaving and churning because all he could think of was Sungyeol.

Pink, pink Sungyeol.

He could almost taste Sungyeol and death on his tongue, the acrid, iron flavor of blood dancing in his mouth. And Myungsoo was almost positive that he could taste bits of carrion and decaying flesh mixed in with the torn and tangled guts and innards. He spat into his hand, trying to rid himself of the aftertasteof human flesh.

Oh, but doesn't it taste good?

He tried to cover his ears, swallowing frantically, seeking to wash away the iron, metallic flavor of crimson with his saliva, but his mouth was dry.

We think it tastes good. What about you Myungsoo?

What do you taste like?

He frantically struggled to cough up the tang of blood searing into the roof of his mouth, but all he could spit out was a string of sticky pink dangling from the his lips. He raised his hand to wipe it away, only to succeed  in smearing his hands.

It wasn't long before he was drowning in pink, swimming through the warm liquid that seeped through his skin and into his body, turning him pink.

That's because you are pink.

Where's your little Sungyeol now? He didn't love you, you know.

He loathed you. He was tired of you, you know. Always following him everywhere—he couldn't breathe. You suffocated him, leeched off of him. Every night when you begged him to comfort you, he would your back while gritting his teeth. Every time you opened your mouth to scream, he didn't want to hear you—he wished he couldn't hear you. He didn't want to be the one to comfort you.  He hated you. He hated you. He ha-

Shut up, he screamed as tears fell down his cheeks. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

But that didn't stop their words from reverberating in his ears, etching it into his brain with indelible ink, complete with a flourish. His hands shakily reached for his ears, and his trembling fingers grasped onto his earlobes as if they werea lifeline.

Myungsoo was scared of the truth.

With eager eyes and slavering jaws,  it patiently watched the terror and panic flicker in his eyes. It was waiting for the moment that everything would come crashing down, so it could sink its teeth into his tormented mind, or rather the remnants of his fractured sanity.

And devour his sanity it did as Myungsoo lay lifeless and bleeding pale on the ground with a thought resonating in his head, unwelcome, unwanted.

It wasn't the pink that they wanted.

It was him.

They laughed at him. Silly Myungsoo.

A door, he cried, begging on his knees, hoping that they would hear him from up above. That was all he would ever ask for. An escape, and he would give them all the pink in the world. 

And give him a door, they did.

With shaking hands, he grasped the doorknob with relief, sobbing tears of relief.

This was it.

Everything he had prayed for every night was now in front of him, so close to becoming reality.  All he had to do was twist the doorknob. 

He could do this.

He closed his eyes, gripping the cold metal in his hand, slowly opening the door as he said goodbye to fear, anxiety, and insanity.

(But insanity wanted to hold onto him for a little while longer.)

Woohyun smiled at him, and a waterfall of pink cascaded from the hole of what should have been his throat as he hung by the neck, strung up like slaughtered meat. His hands dropped limply at his sides, streams of pink running down his slashed-open arms, dripping onto the floor from his disjointed fingers. It was raining pink again, and a haunting image flashed in his mind.

All Myungsoo could see was Sungyeol,

Sungyeol,

Sungyeol.   

Myungsoo wanted to close the door, but he just can't seem to find the doorknob. Woohyun's broken fingers reached towards him slowly, clutching Myungsoo's arm.

Myungsoo froze, feeling the leathery paper skin against his own. The cracked fingernails scratched at him, clawed at him. He felt faint, the black spots dancing a nightmarish waltz in front of his eyes, and he looked back, agonizingly trying to blink away the haze that threatened to devour him.

Woohyun's lips crack open to form three syllables—those three syllables that Myungsoo dreaded the most. 

And the dread smothered his bruised and suffocated heart with serpent-like hands, strangling it. They trailed up his back, whispering into his ear, leaving scratches and scars on his fading corpse and mind. All while giggling, carving their mark onto his skin, claiming him as theirs.

 "She's coming."

Myungsoo ripped his arm away from Woohyun, falling backwards in his haste to get away. He frantically d around blindly for the door, pulling himself away from Woohyun's reaching hands, scared that Woohyun would drag him deeper into his nightmares. He slammed the door shut on the other side,  squeezing his eyes shut tightly, painfully, until tears formed at the corners.

Myungsoo covered his ears, attempting to block out the sound of Woohyun's ragged nails grating against the splintering wood. He could hear them  right next to his ear, the long fingernails reaching through the hole in the door and tearing at his neck.

He ran, swallowing the bile that threatened to spill from his lips, frightened tears falling down his cheeks. He blinked, rubbing his eyes raw, eyelashes fluttering, and suddenly, he was surrounded by doors on all sides.

They stood wide open, their hungry maws gaping, pools of pink drool gathering at the corners.

A tremor of recognition seized Myungsoo's nerves.

He could name them.

Each and every one of the six that hanged in front of him.

They were the ones who surrounded him every day. He could imagine how their laughter became silent screams, how their lively eyes became soulless orbs of glass, how the warmth of their skin became the hard surface of chilled stone.

The thought alone made him scream, strangling his vocal cords. He tried to flee, hoping that this was all just a sick joke of his mind, a forged reflection in his eyes.

A trick of the darkness perhaps. The darkness loved to play with him, force-feeding him its deceptive lies, poisoning him slowly. So it was with great joy that it watched the venom leisurely infecting his heart as it ate away at his sanity.

He fled the scene, slashing and swatting the air around him, crying that it wasn't his time to die yet.

(Not alone, no.) 

But their hands, disjointed, bloody knuckles and all, held him back, chaining him to them as they dug into his shoulders, piercing holes and gouging his eyes. He trembled, knowing that he must never look behind himself. However, he could not resist their imaginary hands reaching into his neck, digging into his skin and wrenching his head.

Eyes.

Eyes swimming with pink tears.

That was all he could see as they asked him ever-so-sweetly, "Myungsoo, dear, where do you think you're going?"

He woke up, his sheets covered in cold sweat, the same name falling from his white lips just like every other night. "Sungyeol."

Half-blinded, he fervently reached out, hoping for the familiar touch of Sungyeol. He felt about, panicking when he realized that he was grabbing at emptiness. The abandoned mattress next to his spoke louder than words as Myungsoo d around, his eyes closed for fear of what he might see.

Or for fear of what he might not see.

He ran from the room in terror, afraid that the darkness surrounding Sungyeol's bed would soon come after him too.  He barged into Sungjong's room, flinging himself upon the floor, sobbing hysterically as he buried his face in his hands, too afraid to see if the darkness had followed him or not.

Sungjong groaned as he cracked open one eye irritably. "Myungsoo? What the hell do you want?"

Myungsoo grabbed onto the sleeves of Sungjong's  pajama top, his nails digging into the flesh underneath. "Please, Sungjong. Can I sleep here? Sungyeol's gone, and I'm much too afraid to be alone."

Sungjong merely grumbled under his breath about how people needed to man up these days before he scooted over on the mattress.

Myungsoo waited for Sungjong's next words, his heart thudding in his chest. He tensed up, anticipating those words that  helped him fall into a soulless sleep with no fears or worries. He tapped Sungjong's hip, disappointed when the only response was a soft snore.

He tried to picture Sungyeol's body lying next to his instead of Sungjong's, tried to remember the scene which had happened countless times. Sungyeol, who would turn his head back, smiling sleepily. Sungyeol, whose lips would soothe Myungsoo's frayed nerves. Sungyeol, who would Myungsoo's hair like his mother did in the past.

Myungsoo's heart clenched when he thought of Sungyeol instead of Sungjong next to him. What he would do to have Sungyeol there to whisper lullabies and nursery rhymes into Myungsoo's ear until he became drowsy.

But he wasn't.

So instead of Sungyeol, it was Myungsoo who whispered the question quietly to himself. "Are you okay?"

His mouth contorted into a ghost of a smile. "Yes. It was only a nightmare. You're here and that's all I need."

But he could still hear their words echoing in his head.

Every time you screamed, he wished he couldn't hear you. 

author's note

woah, hey there guys. it's been a while. sorry for the lack of updates. i was going through some serious writers block for the past two months. i had a majority of the chapter written up, but decided to scrap it. so this is the final product. i tried to salvage it as best as i could. i was hoping to update when myungsoo's dating rumor came out as a form of support, but things didn't work out. if you noticed, i also changed the chapter titles.-mei 

credits - contradictori