#xfcdoubt

ONE OF US. ONE OF THEM. THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT, YOU KNOW?

As the roar of confusion surrounding the previous week draws a gradual, stunned silence, the citizens of Busan--frightened, hurt and angry--retreat to what passes as their "normal" lives, never forgetting the news of a mutant woman that tore their city apart. Hate festers, fear rots. The Governor assures them that all will be well when they get back on their feet. They just have to keep trying.

His smile is vague. His words are tainted with a secret, that lies on the tip of his tongue. The General to his left remains tight-lipped. A silent presence bearing over the eloquent, idealistic man with all the weight of a hammer.

"You cannot tell them, Governor Oh."

"Why not? They have a right to the knowledge. That we have mutants on our side--"

"If you reveal the presence of the Acolytes to the city, I will have no choice but to take you into custody. They are a secret for a reason, Governor."

There is a threat in those words, and it isn't one that includes a life behind bars. The man falls quiet.

"What do I say about the woman? Seven?"

"Her handler killed her. But you are to say that the soldiers did--do your job. Assure your citizens that they are safe."

His fingers tap against the edge of the podium, lips forming a small frown. The cameras glare back at him--"Busan, you are safe tonight."

it is shock that drives her through the halls, that keeps her moving through this absolute horror-fest of a visit to the city.

a glance down to her hands reveals blood--why is it always blood?--red, so much red, soaking her skin, sinking into her bones.

why is it that this was a reoccurring theme with her?

blood.

hurt.

pain.

death.

she doesn't want to think about the fate of the human she had injured, or her own injuries, for the matter, the only thing going through her head at the moment had been the boy she had came with.

the boy she had stabbed.

again.

and again.

and again.

and again.

flinching at the recollection itself, soojung swallowed the growing lump in her throat in order to keep moving, hand pressed against the bleeding wound in her side.

as it is, she's driven by one thought and one thought only.

to find her best friend.

what happens then, the telekinetic honestly had no idea.

but jung soojung simply could not think past the heavy weight in her chest.

staggering down the hall of the fifth floor, the girl made a point out of following the trail of blood on the floor--not hers, the fact that she knew fully well whose it is and how tears a choked noise from her--soojung is careful to make her way down the corridor, alert to any sign of life lest those humans surface again. although the blood trail leads her to a shut door and already soojung can feel bits of her energy depleting--

a sensation she would have found comforting prior to the last hour and a half.

still -- she found him.

breathing past the slight jump in her pulse, soojung is slow to twist the door open, lashes fluttering slightly as she slips in, the door behind her shutting with a clear click.

the presence of the negator in the room as obvious as signs of her mutation ebbing away.

it hurts.

you'd think, after being shot in the face, this wouldn't have compared in the slightest -- but that'd be wrong, horribly wrong, to assume so.

if anything the metal pipe impaling her shoulder hurts even more so in her weakened state.

it burns.

even the slightest movement leaves her breathless, sends waves and waves of searing pain throughout her entire body as she struggles to keep up, to take in what just happen.

naeun doesn't remember much -- save the fingernails dragging over his skin, the weak shoves in an attempt to keep her friend--no, friend wasn't even the right word for him now, was it?--aggressor away.

but she had been too weak.

hasn't she always been?

[fuck]

the warmth from jaebum's hands leaves her far too quickly -- leaving the mutant to struggle against the trembling of her own weakened body and the biting cold.

naeun merely released a groan, eyes rolling into the back of her head as she struggles to keep herself upright -- faintly, she hears it, a too familiar voice that brings just as much comfort as it does shame.

she doesn't want to be seen like this.

but the fact that doubles of shim changmin was running at her was something that was very much so real -- even as her legs start to wobble under her weight and eventually gives out, leaving her held upright against the wall by nothing else but the steel pipe right through her shoulder.

her lips form words her throat simply cannot carry out, it being a struggle entirely to just greet her cousin -- helpless, she's helpless.

hasn't it always been this way though?

jinri couldn't believe their luck; not a soul had bothered them on their way to safety, all being too consumed in their own fear and understandably so--they were trapped indoors with a threat. more than one, if she dared to call her schoolmates such; if she dared to acknowledge herself as so.

(which frankly, she didn't and couldn't)

mai and the girl had managed to weasel their way into an office, leaving them with two simple tasks: barricading the entrance and staying silent.  they could only hope that none of the actual owners of the office would attempt to enter, making their presence known; it was clear that a lot of the choices made in the last few minutes and a lot of the choices to be made were based on a synthesis of hope and bullshit.  c'est la vie--the words couldn't hold so true nor so dark until presented in moments like this the girl thinks, lips tugged into a humourless smirk.  

"let's push this desk in front of the door," the mutant suggests.  the task is one that goes by quickly and for the most part, easily, the main issue being noise.  said issue is solved by the fact that jinri is a bloody mutant--it's funny, how one forgets such things whilst being persecuted for them--that can support the structure with a bit of air.  eyes curve, displaying the smile that was hidden behind her mask; one that now, she could take off.  and so she does, fully thrust into the belief that at least for now, they were safe.

Disconcerting fantasy from reality had never proved itself a problem before, his mind not poisoned by such adamant delusions, and yet he stands in the midst of a bedlam with legs extending their roots into city hall’s polished floor, stuck in an emerging dystopian world worthy of graphic novels and movie adaptations. Fingers curl, his movements delayed and the scene surreal, a haze inhibiting his perception since the first echo of the governor’s recorded voice, discourse controlled and illuminating on present nightmares, anomalies and a woman delivering insanity. There’s a sense of pain registered, but he’s not certain of what is real, feels a brewing articulation of the word genocide upon the tip of his tongue when the faces of people – mutants – from the Academy are displayed like a sick ‘most wanted’ power point presentation.

The future is of history repeating itself, impending calamity, corpses, killers of cold blood; same song, different verse, and the entirety of the world is a weight pressurizing his lungs into raisins when a person, face distorted from the dark and their panic, jostles him from the daze. His legs stumble, shrieks and threnodies hammering at the back of his skull, and it feels real, detached but nonetheless an actuality pulled into the crevices of his conscious mind, where it’s absorbed and vilified. They need to get out of here, not him, and his shoulder blades stab into a wall, distanced from the congregation of frenzied animation, faces and names of publicized mutant ‘murderers’ engraved into corneas.

Perhaps his body has been fooled to not tremble, the screen of his phone bright and steady when sending a max text – something along the lines of ‘At City Hall - they broadcasted the identity of at least fifteen students today as criminals, complete with profiles, and shit is hitting the fan quick, someone just fired a gun. Get a responsible adult.’ If those that he trusted, Mai and Mina, Boram and Jungkook, didn’t manage to evoke Xavier and Magneto then, well – he redirected his focus onto the madness and anarchy, footfalls arranged in even strides, blood pushing its way to his fingertips and brain too quickly, the lightheaded levitation accompanying him in this aversion to getting shot, or worse. There had to be a way out, despite doors and windows eliminated from possible options, and pacification didn’t bless the uproar, their mania made itself a home in his head.

This body felt ancient, skeleton sealed with resin, chasms making brittle bones in a spine convex, a serenade for Flora weaving through his hair. A battle of wills plagued him since he gained the wherewithal to trade money for processed poison, the means a bout of frenzied courage and exasperation; including notes of the behavior of maddened citizens and tobacco achieved from the recent trip to Busan. A cigarette limp between left hand appendages, the cold whispering against skin left blue, scaled, and outside youths chortle and bellow profanities. He prefers labeling the inhalation of chemicals as a coping mechanism or at least, habitual, a ritual ingrained in his life to alleviate stress and purge his body of negative energy, those obsessive thoughts spiraling in his head, the mental asphyxiation.

It’s mockery of innocence, these clouds of white ascended in the glory of n-nitrosamines and formaldehyde, dissipated past his lips and tainting the air of spring. “I need to quit smoking.” Byunghun breathes out, the proposition, the motivation, escaping from his lungs as he smothers the embers on the outer walls, ashes drawn away with the wind. This composure he maintained was a load of bullshit, and if he hadn’t been exhausted from the danger room sleep would be an abstract thought in the hold of insomnia, and he knew this, eyelids heavy at an hour so early, adhering to his planned foundation of an ameliorated schedule. Tossing out the newly purchased package of Mevius’ didn’t make the cut, kept on the windowsill a few cylinders short, and he seals a recently discovered small room, in which he exists in alone.

Finicky, he smothers bumps in the yoga mat, polyvinyl chlorine dyed in a hue of pastel green, only a composition written by Sergei Rachmaninoff acting to placate him despite the past half hour wasted on stretches and ashtanga poses. “This is dumb, I’m amazed at the level of deplorable I’m at right now. Really, what…” May his mutters contain self-loathing venom at their purest, extracted from memories taunting him with instructors and their vexatious equanimity, but more torturous were reminders of previous achievements in flexibility and balance. With the top of his head pressed against the floor, he cannot disregard how feeble his biceps feel alongside the skull, or the reedy legs before him, approaching his face in steps hastened – it’s a contortion, and he cringes from nociception pain burning above his abdomen.