it’s six a.m. if her head were clear, the words from earlier in the night would come to mind and remind her that there was reassurance in escape─ a promise by a madman but a promise nonetheless. but her thoughts are not crystal, and they do not provide straightened paths for her to take─ not when she speaks, tongue tied in a mess of two languages. it’d be incomprehensible without a special ear even in its norm, but heaving sobs and whimpering breaths make it all the more difficult to discern, even to one attuned to the frequencies of the switch.
she must have run in circles with her words multiple times by now, and still it hardly makes any sense. all that remains clear is the frantic intent and fear behind each syllable, the panic in her voice bouncing off the tattered walls of the still-guarded room.
shiru’s broken ─ people are dead ─ we can’t get out, they’ve died trying; there’s nowhere to begin. everything she says is far from any hint of being chronological, some things more repeated than others. she can’t keep track of herself─ the happenings of the night flash behind her eyes and her wounds sting in reminder.
“why─ w-why aren’t you saying anything? h-hello?”
it hits her, then, like a truck that pins her to a wall and crushes her bones beneath its weight. the trembling of her hands as they clutch her phone intensifies; breaths come sharp and shallow. “hello…?” it comes out weak, soft, like she’s facing yet another nightmare that she doesn’t want to believe in.
she can’t hear him─ she’d forgotten, in the suffocating relief that crashed into her upon realizing that she could finally call for help, that her hearing had been stolen from her hours before.
a wail tears from her throat, pitiful and agonized. she clutches tight at the phone, instinct nearly enticing her to throw it across the room. she manages to not at the last second, a quiet voice keeping it in her grasp.
it’s not as comforting, but there are other ways to communicate that don’t require her to hear. she can barely see through her blurred vision, but she ends the call without warning, pulling up changsub’s name and frantically sending a message instead.
it’s hardly any clearer than her words were, relying on inference to piece together the characters, but it serves to be a better bridge than before.
it doesn’t feel real. initial panic devolves into shock, and changsub distantly wonders if he somehow fell asleep at his worktable with too much taurine in his system, and this is part of some terribly realistic, frightening nightmare his energy-drink-riddled brain’s cooked up.
the sun has not yet risen, and the aircon’s shut off overhead. the dead silence of the building only serves to make the scrambled words coming from the receiver sharper, like sana’s own distress digging into his chest.
it’s impossible to get a word in edgewise or to really even make sense of what she’s trying to say (if there is any sense to the little bits of the hell sana’s been through that he can understand) -- he says her name, repeats it, trying to get her to breathe; he’s already almost to the door, irrationally ready to go and find her himself, circumstances and consequences be damned -- but then her voice, asking if he’s there.
“h-hello? sana -- sana, i’m here --”
a hand presses against the door, fingers clenched tightly. the timid inquiry is almost inaudible, and he’s overwhelmed with sudden helplessness -- his voice breaks in an involuntary laugh, throat clenching tight. the phone is shaking in his hands as he checks the screen, the mute button clearly unmuted -- his fingers slip right over the speaker button just in time for her wail to echo off the walls of his living room. his legs buckle under him.
(it feels like one of those nightmares then, doesn’t it? with that same crippling feeling. the ones where something terrible is about to happen -- the monster’s closing in, your limbs are leaden; you open your mouth to cry out and your throat is swollen shut -- but this nightmare is something special beyond what his subconscious is quite capable of conjuring, and there’s no waking in a cold sweat here.)
“sana -- sana, i’m--i’m here, it’s gonna be okay,” he says loudly, a shuddering inhale angled away from the speaker the only thing keeping his voice from entirely breaking; he cradles the phone close to his mouth and strains his ears to hear her.
he’s only answered by the angry, rapid beep of the call ending.
he’s fumbling with the keypad, typing in an emergency number even as he’s pushing himself back up on frustratingly unsteady legs, headed in the direction of the elevator with some vague idea of getting ahold of the foundation staff.
“you have contacted incheon emergency services. what is your emergency?”
the operator’s voice bounces off the elevator after an unbearably long pause -- the small ping behind their voice is almost missed, but changsub hears and clicks open the notification -- from sana. the message is... jumbled and its implications impossible to believe, but he knows the worse is best assumed.
[sent] im coming
[sent] if youre safe where you are stay there
[sent] im getting help
“...hello? what is your emergency?”
