éphémère.

featuring: @blckth0rn dated: june 15, 2017 location: section 5

his scream tears the silence of the night apart, resonating between four walls and probably further. but chase isn’t thinking of others. he’s woken up by the sound of his own scream, but doesn’t realize it belongs to him until he feels his body covered in cold sweat, his rapid breathing filling the quietness of his room. he’s gasping for air, unable to recognize where he is. he remembers the bloodcurdling scream of the faceless human he shot. it haunts him still, keeping him awake for most of the night only to terrorize him when he finally falls asleep. it’s been like this for days now; he wakes up sweaty and confused, heart racing so fast he’s scare he might pass out from exhaustion. each and every time, he’s given a glimmer of hope. maybe it was just a dream. maybe he’s in his own bed, with taehyung sound asleep in the next room.

but it’s never the case.

he’s always in this unfamiliar environment, surrounded by a decor he does not recognize. even the scent disgusts him. he’s been ferociously cleaning the place thinking it would help. perhaps it’s all in his head. it’s a while before he moves and heads to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. he looks at his reflection in the mirror. the person staring back isn’t him. it’s not mark tuan, the professional football player without much history. it’s chase, the lost new boy, the one everyone either pities or mocks.

Still, something had to be done. Amaranth, the faction linked to ‘passion’, was filled with people who had that passionate and emotional side. It was as if people were incapable of caring openly (some would say that they were emotionally defunct or emotionally closed off); therefore, they had a more peculiar way to show camaraderie (because many were afraid of being even more broken and hurt - and she was speaking of experience). Sometimes, the ones with the brightest smiles or the coldest exterior are the ones the most broken of the bunch. So, she wanted to offer some of the good old-fashioned camaraderie by swinging to his place with the first bottle she put her hands on.

She made her way to her neighbors apartment and knocked on the door loud enough not to disturb the rest of their neighbors. She was glad that he had answered. In the middle of the night, it must had been weird for someone to suddenly swing by without notice.

“no, but-” his words get caught in his throat, threatening to slide and twist the insides of his stomach even more. the panic was beginning to bleed from his jumpy hands and shoulders despite the looming feeling of needing to empty his breakfast all over the pavement (when was the last time he had eaten exactly?). “we were here and that’s enough.” there were a thousands of different ways, different directions, they could have ran, but this one lead them down the path of death. though, saint had the inkling that every road would lead them to something dastardly. he heated to have this thinking, but, in this case, it was better the man sitting before them than the two contestants. saint was a very sympathetic person. it tried, but he didn’t let that quality get in the way of his will to live. no matter how many times he thought so before the collective nabbed him, death was not a better alternative. oh how good he had had it back then. if only he had realized it sooner.

he didn’t like any of the options that thorn gave him, looking between her and the man with something akin to devastation. however, as he watched the man gurgle and moan, struggles weakening with every passing moment, saint began giving in. giving up on the possibility of life not for himself, but for the poor soul whose path would end here. what a way to go, hemmoraghing to death on the pavement of some insignificant street. saint hated to admit it, but thorn was right. there was no way they were going to be able to save this man. no matter how hard they tried, it wasn’t a possibility. they also had to get on the move soon. how close were the other mercenaries to surrounding them now that saint had given them the opportunity to do so. “will.. will you do it? i can’t. i will not.” there’s that panic again, breath stuttering before saint can push it all back down.

the tables have turned. he’s about to throw thorn’s own words back at her, that they need to get going and that they can’t possibly help, but then there’s this tugging. the nausea and anxiety he had been feeling earlier had completely shadowed it, but it was definitely now there. it was insistent, making home right in the pit of his stomach. the conclusion he came to was quick. thoughtless. what lead him to think it was unknown, but saint knew exactly what was happening within seconds. he had a gut feeling, one could say (pun intended). “my cylinder.” his words were caught between a gasp and a horrified shiver. his hand reached out, hovering over the man’s quivering stomach, before pulling away suddenly as if he had been burnt. “it’s- it’s in his stomach.” now, he definitely was going to be sick.

You should be worrying about yourself if you do not want to die early. She wished that she could have told him that, but, in his current state, arguing with him or reasoning him was not going to do them any good. To think that he believed that it was there fault was simply mind-boggling. None of them had the power of foresight. None of them could have predicted that this civilian would have left the comfort of his personal domain. The man was already dying, so why was the latter still thinking about what had already happened. They needed to move on from this ordeal (and she needed to go find some bag, because she could not carry all of findings in her pockets indefinitely). Anyways, his frame of mind was wrong. He needed to be recalibrated to understand that life sucks and that he cannot blame himself for petty things like that. Sad that the civilian was dying. It was a truly unfortunate turn of event.

However, it seemed that the other realized that any rescuing attempt was futile. He was still panicking though. Not hiding her frustration, she sighed and walked up to the candidate. She used her free hand to ruffle his hair and, afterwards, to pinch his cheek. “Calm down, kid.” She was not good at this, but she really tried to reassure him and to calm him down a bit. Some people were just not cut for this game. Although babying him was not going to help him later on, she chose that route still. “I won’t pressure you into killing the guy. I volunteer as tribute, already,” she offered. “But, you got to calm down.”

[ trigger warning: graphic death ]

was this how lucifer felt when he fell from grace? when he got his ass kicked by archangel michael? fuck, if she knew. her compulsory literature class during university was hardly riveting enough to make her pay attention, let alone show up to the lectures. she didn’t even read paradise lost. because that’s what sparknotes is for. saving students from the hassle of reading books they’re forced to study, and she still got one of the highest grades in class despite never showing up. ( ha, take that professor lee! ) not that it mattered considering her university doesn’t even know she exists anymore — which is a good thing, now that she thought about it. anyways, she’s pretty sure that landing on some nasty apartment dumpster would be on the same level as getting kicked out of heaven, if not higher. [ ... ]

She chuckled quietly at the bow. More at ease, after a moment of glancing around anxiously, Thorn pointed at the direction of the door with a tilt of her head before proceeding inside herself. She was not ignoring the other more like she wanted to take cover before anyone would come in the area. It was not like they had all the time of the world anyways. The damaged door gave it all away. Inside the store, her sight was already on the boxes that were laying around in the back. She remained quiet for a few more seconds before finally responding.

“For your first inquiry, I can’t stand the wretched stench of blood especially when it is not my own,” she answered with a grimace. “I was in dire need of a shopping session. I believe that you need one as well considered that you stink. Did you go dumpster diving or what?”

Thorn moved to the aisles and start rummaging around to find a flashlight. She deemed turning the lights on too risky. Then again, it was not like she had all the time in the world on her hand, so turning them on would help her loot more quickly and efficiently. The choice was quite hard to make since both had a similar weight on her risk scale.  Still as she was searching, she did found a few trinkets. Batteries and water bottles.

[ ❥ ]

“we can’t just leave him to die,” saint manages to croak out, eyes never leaving the man. he mentally counts every single time the civilians chest rises and falls in his struggle to breathe. saint’s heart aches painfully. “we - we can’t do nothing. this is our fault.”

Her eyes narrowed on the other candidate. She could understand why he felt apologetic towards the victim; yet, she could not understand his reasoning behind his last statement. Regardless her poker face, he left her baffled and bemused. “How is his condition our fault?” She inquired as she sat next to the civilian’s body. “Did we force him to come out of the safety of his house? Did we expect him to come out of his house? If yes, then I agree that it is our fault. However, it is not case. We did not decide to play devious games for sport. We were not even coerced into it.” She turn to face the the victim. It was sad that he was dying, but it was not their fault.

Using her medical knowledge into good use, she examined the latter’s injury and found where the wound was. No wonder that he had difficulty breathing since the bullet lodged itself into his left lung missing the heart. He was dying. He was going to inevitably die actually. If they were going to notify the authorities, they missed the right time for it. “We can do something, kid. We can either wait until he takes his last breath or we can give him a painless and quick death. We do not have the time, the equipment or the manpower,” she tried to reason him by giving him facts. “Punctured lung and lots of blood loss. He might have other injuries, but I do not want to waste time here. The mercenaries are everywhere. Who knows if they are not coming now. It is worth mentioning..”