He snickers, admittedly under his breath at the comment. As if, it was a simple task that could be accomplished by a kindergartner. Don’t die. Well what if I want to die? What’s the point? It’s not as if I have anyone to live for anymore. Yet, if this was so then why did he continue on each day? Force of habit? That must be the excuse for trying so hard.

Deep down he knew that there was more to his continuance in this life, but he had yet to invest any thought.

“No promises.”

He liked to think ‘just a bad dream’ would be somewhat helpful, but of course it never was. Not from his mother before she had laid slain to his father, and it wasn’t now from the lips of the unknown male at his side. Bad dreams. Nightmares. They were the same, yet different. A dream is something you would equate to a child. A simple night terror you’d ease with a cup of warm milk and kiss to the forehead.

Nightmares however… They were your deepest fears, locked in a special cabinet with a key and the only came out to play when you were most vulnerable. They were a jumbled mess of real and fake, mashed together and made to break you down piece by piece, leaving nothing but crumbled ruins in their wake. Nightmares, were nothing like bad dreams.

“No. It was a nightmare.” He replies, standing and walking away with his bag on his shoulder, brow covered in sweat.

Too bad his mother wasn’t here to kiss away the monsters now.

     It wasn’t unusual, seeing someone turn in their sleep, their face contorted in fear--it was something the island had instilled in them, let it seep through their bones the longer they stayed. The seven years had numbed him, seeing contestants come and go, sometimes being the one to devoid them of their last breath.

     He was the monster in their dreams, the last face embedded into their memory.

     With the presence of his sister and their promise of games and fun, his kill count had swindled through the years. There was no need to hunt the newcomers, after all, surviving didn’t equate to the amount of blood on their hands.

     He watched the boy for a few moments, observed the way he curled into a ball and held himself, as though trying to keep his being intact. Observed the way his hands shook and his breaths hitched, tears threatening to fall from his tightly shut eyes. It wasn’t until he head whispers, names that were trying to crack his lips open and escape, when he shook the boy awake.

It’s an amusing thought. Death. The fate that had avoided him ever since his arrival on the island. Did he wish for it? Sometimes. Would it be slow? Would there be a flash of his life, memories flooding his eyelids as his heart gave it’s final beats? Or was it instantaneous? One moment there, the next flooded in the darkness that was oh so welcoming to him. Is there a heaven or a hell? Most importantly- which would he be joining?

All these questions remain in his thoughts as he watches the hazy sky overhead, registering, but not acknowledging the words from the altered before him. That ever present smirk still remains however, etched into his skin like the caked blood splatters beside it. Finally, he speaks.

“Oh? Well. I would say go for it, but you don’t deserve the honor.”

     [ ☆ ]---he found him amusing, that was for sure. his face was a vague memory in his conscious, a short encounter a few years back presenting themselves as clips and cuts in his memory. it was a park and it was summer and he was dressed in his usual androgynous garb, and he appeared by his side trying to make a pass as he was studying the flowers that grew in the soil. he was, of course, unfazed, and the simple remark that he was male was enough to have this one run away, confused and blushing.

typical.

yet haejin had never met someone who radiated sadness like he did, the chemicals in his body as cold and blue and dreary as the sky that enveloped them. but that didn’t matter now. the murderworld was a twisted game of death, and no sentiment nor memory could stop him from killing everyone to ensure his win and his going back home.