[ 16: BAD DREAMS ]
[ CA-23 ][17.03.2015]
Hyerin felt like running again. She's assured it's not a dream, because she knew what she felt.
She inhaled sharply, and her eyes met up with the sparse, high ceiling. She blinked rapidly, turning to the large windows that let the brighter parts of outside shine through. Otherwise, most things remained unseen.
When she knew the loud thuds and the harsh sounds of the vinyl flapping, however, she cowered, pulling her knees closer. It sounded far, but she shuddered as she waited for the winds to stop.
A few blue wisps started to take form, and approached her dainty figure. Hyerin lifted her head up, only to see them clutching her clothes and skin. A shudder pass her, but afterwards, she felt her body heavy, and her eyes slowly closes its lids.
The last thing she saw was the mute window, laying over the flat, cut grasses.
She wanted to lift herself up, but she couldn't. She was too tired.
♦
She came to her own senses, only to see the dark lane. Everything was pitch black, from walls to the floor she crouched on. But something gloomy started materializing in the cold, sharp air. Hyerin could hear the voices again, this time, loud enough to make her know the words.
"Help." The sounds shouted, followed by another one, and then, it snapped.
The smoke stopped to be a black shadow of a figure, holding two spinning spheres, one blue and another one dark purple. The figure had a black hood covering its face, but as far as Hyerin could narrow, its eyes were hidden, but its mouth remained open.
Its sickly pale wrinkles became even more folded when its red, glossy lips pulled itself wide. Hyerin felt her forehead started perspirig cold sweat and her stomach churned at its sight, even if she had been a few metres away.
Her eyes looked upon the left and right directions, but there was nothing else in sight. The land seems to stretch far and wide, an endless inch of nothingness. If she could run somewhere, she couldn't escape.
"Ah, little Hyerin is having bit of a... bad dream, does she?" The overtly sweet tone came off as plastic to her. Yet it still made her spine shiver. No saint's adversary had made her wanted to scream, but now she did.
She felt something made tied. Any responses that denied the voice got quickly swept away, reeling her with only a void that wanted to say, 'yes'.
"Hyerin?"
She stopped for a while. Another voice, its depth and smoothness made her look up to the empty sky. She gulped nervously, hearing its clear difference.
"Hyerin, we're here."
Slowly, she started breathing again. The things that had made her froze in the first place started loosening, and something lets open again. The figure remained, shaking its head in disapproval.
"Bad dreams only ends when I stopped it." Hyerin crossed her arms, glaring. She had no idea what came to her that she had came up with those words, but she never regretted it.
"Then too bad," the figure spoke. It's deep voice made it hard for Hyerin to know if it's a man or a woman. "if you can't stop it later."
Hyerin tried to approach the figure, who remained at its ground. But as soon as she neared to it, it disappeared.
And Hyerin lets her head up, meeting with a concerned profiler and an injured woman.
♦
"Hyerin?" the woman's clear voice came to her, and the younger sighed in relief. She looked around, and noticed the windowstill letting the moon's reflection.
"I'm alright." Hyerin shrugged, turning away from the concerned eyes of the two. Hearing their panted breaths and foggy air meant they didn't come here long ago.
"Uhm, great. You're alive and getting real good sleep." the man said, and Hyerin noticed the disgruntled, rough voice.
"I don't." Hyerin said, sternly. She no longer saw the blue wisps, so she hoped they had gotten scared after the two came by.
"Sejoon, that is not polite. Hyerin, what happened?" Hyosung said, turning concerned to Hyerin.
Ignorance is bliss, right.
"Nothing..." Hyerin said, but looking at Hyosung and Sejoon's scrutinizing stares made it hard to let it off. On the other hand, she knew her story would came too 'fantasy' to be anything than a bad dream.
"Then it's probably just a bad dream, which I believed you just denied. Which one is real?" Sejoon's words made Hyerin bite her tongue. She turned, now glaring.
"Shut it, would you?" Hyerin harshly said. It was the loud and clear, and it rung throughout the bleachers section. She wasn't sure whether it was the bad situation or his words that drew her ire, but she couldn't help it. She's losing it.
"Enough, both of you. We are in a situation, which should have meant you should be able to work together, not like this." Hyosung said, gently pulling Hyerin close to her side, away from Sejoon.
Hyerin turned away, ignoring Sejoon's petty glares. She closed her eyes again, and started hearing a slow hum.
It was something very different from the static she'd known. It didn't overwhelm her ears, but it made her heart felt heavy. Something pangs her heart and made it ache; she couldn't pinpoint it.
The hum started getting slightly louder, and she started looking over through some images. They never looked the same to her, but the faces made her remember. Hyerin breathed deeply, witnessing as each images became blotted with dark ink.
There was it, one by one, all of their members. They played out like a little film, one that slowly turned black as it was finished.
So when it came to seeing the team's victim and the hooded figure, the hum grew more and more quiet. A static usually snapped, but this hum sounded different.
The last one was the image of a broken person, slumped against the dark, endless land. Hyerin nearly took a step back, but when she took a closer look at the face, she bit her lips.
The figure turned, and said, in a hoarse voice, "What are you now?"
Hyerin opened her eyes, only to be met with mint green walls. When she turned around, she noticed a familiar green jacket, lying on the floor.
♦
"Hyerin?" Hyosung said, gently opening the door. Noticing the voice, Hyerin pulled the duvet over her head. She heard multiple footsteps, pairs whose rhythm became so obvious.
Then, there was no noise. If there was, then Hyerin could only hear very small parts of it.
"Hyerin... sleeping... I... Iseul... food." Hyosung's hospitality has been the next best thing ever since the team recovered, and Hyerin was quite impressed on how she could put herself together the best.
Still, Hyosung left with the false knowledge that Hyerin is asleep in Jookyung's room. The calming smell of green tea still wafted her nose from the sheets and the duvet.
After hearing the door being clicked, there was a full-on silence. Hyerin furrowed her brows. She was assured she had just heard a pair of footsteps went outside, and Hyosung should still be sane enough to actually talk to someone.
Hyerin slowly flip over a piece of her duvet, only to directly make eye contact with an unamused red-haired girl. After a long moment of staring at each other, the girl made an enormous smirk.
"Hi."
Hyerin swore she's going to scream later on.
♦
"You're thinking Hyosung's stupid enough to actually think you're asleep, and you're wrong. Have some tea." Taking the hot mug from the red-haired girl, Hyerin looked irked, but no longer as hostile.
"Thanks." Hyerin said curtly. She had completely missed out the other person coming to the room. Hyerin's (one-sided) enemy.
Or to be fair, maybe ex-enemy.
"You're welcome." Hani said, turning to look at Hyerin. No matter how much the older tried, Hyerin would always avert her gaze. She sat down, pulling the chair close to Jookyung's bed.
"What happened just now?" Hyerin asked. She knew about their emergency meeting, but her headache had worsen just moments before that, so she missed out.
"Our identity is on the Web. An evil, big corporation may be behind this." Hani groaned.
"Identity?"
"Yes, our names, birthdates, status, all of those things. Our activities too." Hyerin seemed to nod, feeling her head had felt so much better after the sleep she had. Maybe it was the exhaustion, but Hyerin seemed to not feel too much of it.
"Hani," Hyerin turned to her. The latter looked at her, eyes wide. Ever since day one, Hyerin wouldn't even look at her straight. Calling her name seems even more out of it.
"Yes?"
"Did you ever see a hooded figure?" Hyerin had seen through the images and even heard from Hani accounts, but she wanted to hear it again.
"Yeah?" Hani felt something clicked. The bright orb was Hyerin, which meant Hyerin should have been able to see through her, her mind, which meant she knew about the hooded figure. But why—
"It's the one responsible, not just a big organization can do that." Hyerin answered bluntly.
"What do you mean?" Hani asked, hesitant.
"If it could make Kim Rohee get into your mind, it can see through it," Hyerin said. "which meant it knew what you know about the members. No big organizations should be able to pry that much information from a highly protected place, just like that."
Hearing those words made her stomach churn. There had been a small question that started bugging her more than anything—How did Hyerin even get into her—but being pinpointed like that made her want to run a frenzy.
"No," she laughed sardonically. "you can't be serious."
"No," Hyerin said, but then paused for a while. That figure came to her dreams, something that she started doubting was a dream. "but never mind. It's a thought."
"Well, then this is a thought of mine," Hani said, sighing. "you still wouldn't like Ens like me, do you?"
Hyerin pulled the blankets near to her. "No, and I know you feel hurt. But me and being with Ens are not going to stop me from being here. And for all is worth, I don't hate you."
"How can you say that you hate something that is a part of me and ?" Hani never felt so much ire in one minute. She'd thought the youngest had been more mature and fully accepted her, yet there it came to her.
Maybe she should've never hoped for that. Hani turned around, and slowly walked to the door.
"My issues with Ens, that is, your species, is something personal to me. But even if you're an En or not," Hyerin said loudly, and Hani stopped on her tracks.
"I'm glad you are alive."
♦
"Jisung?" Sejoon hurriedly raced through the door, approaching the awakened young boy. He was drenched in sweat, breathing heavily, covering his face with a blanket. Sejoon's anyways, but didn't matter. He could always wash it later.
When Jisung looked up to him, Sejoon couldn't help but felt a little taken aback. There was anger, and disgust, and all the negative emotions that just piled up when he glared at the profiler, but it didn't last long. His face started wrinkling, and before the man knew, he broke into tears.
"Jisung, big boys don't cry." Sejoon slowly pulled Jisung in to him, and lets the younger boy pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. The younger tightly gripped Sejoon's black shirt, and the latter could feel his shirt getting a little wet.
"I'm sorry." Jisung vigorously wiped his tears, pulling himself away from the older's arms. Jisung looked awfully wry and distant, much worse than when he'd fought.
"Jisung, you can talk to me," Sejoon said, biting his lips. "is it a bad dream?"
Jisung stopped. He inhaled deeply, and said, "No, it's the future."
"So, a particularly bad vision of the future?" Sejoon's voice made Jisung flinch, and Sejoon became increasingly confused. Jisung never tried to avoid him like that, but maybe he was being too laid-back.
"Uh, hey, our future is an outcome of our actions, and so is the kind-of-distant future, and distant future, and distant-distant future," Sejoon patted Jisung's back. When the younger looked at him curiously, it gave him confidence to continue on.
"I'm not doubting your accuracy, but if anything, people can just do things differently from what they may have done in your vision. Laws of nature, everything is unpredictable." Sejoon smiled.
Jisung looked warily at him for a moment, but then, there was a small smile. Looking at it made the 23-year old's heart grew too.
"What did you guys finally plan for?" hearing those words, Sejoon's face almost falter. He awkwardly coughed, and forced another smile.
"Ehm, we're taking a break. Everyone's stressed out." Jisung's face turned to worry, and he lets himself off Sejoon.
Sejoon grimaced. This didn't feel good, but suddenly, something just came to him. "Actually, I have some thoughts. In your future, something bad happens, right?"
Jisung nodded.
"Did you see something else before it?" Jisung nodded again.
"We have some really good things happening before now." Jisung said, warily.
"Great! Then let's see about that good outcome. What did we do?"
notes: Uh, Sejoon, that's not how you avert your future.
Bit explanation. The earlier parts of this fic is actually the past. otherwise, this chapter is quite long.
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