── summary. the lines of reality and dreams are getting blurred.
── roles. ateez, reader, halateez
── genre. dark, angst, slight horror, alternate timelines, high school
── word count. 2k
── warnings. death (right off the bat), violence (not too much but it goes with the first warning), blood, y/n kind of has a mental breakdown and gets paranoid.
── developer’s note. this is just a teaser of the final piece, i wanted to know if people would be interested in it before i continue writing it. so please let me know what you think and if you would read more of it.
i’m still on hiatus lol but i’ll be back in a few days. so yeah... this is queued 😅 i’m probably watching the great british baking show when this is posted.
you feel your breath caught in your throat as you are backed into a wall. you can feel your legs slowly starting to give out before you completely fall to the ground. your knees getting scraped against the concrete as your shorts did nothing to protect your skin. the man in black that had been chasing you, approaches you slowly and you feel tears begin to well up in your eyes as you fear for life.
“p-please,” your voice is broken and almost nonexistent as you hold your hand out to him as if it would stop him. he does stop a few feet from you before crouching down and the only thing you can see is his eyes.
but you know those eyes. those eyes are ones you have seen every single day for the past year now.
“h… hongjoong…” you manage out a sob leaving your throat as his hand reaches up to take the one you still have in the air. his hand is warm, like always and you hate how none of this is making sense to you. tears begin to blur your vision as you rip your hand away from him and hold it to your chest.
hongjoong’s head tilts to the side in a curious manner before it straightens and he pulls out something. you watch in fear not knowing exactly what you are about to see before even more confusion takes over your body.
an hourglass. one where all the time has run out.
he sets it on the ground, treating it as if it breaks with the slightest wrong move before he meets your tearstained face.
“try again.”
“t-try... again?” you repeat and he nods before gesturing to the hourglass between you two. with shaking hands and a hard shallow you move carefully as you reach for the hourglass and turn it over so the sand begins to slowly seep into the empty part.
you flinch when hongjoong suddenly moves to stand and you watch as he walks to stand in front of you. he pulls his mask down as he once again crouches in front of you and reaches out for you. you let out a cry as he grabs your hair and pulls you to him. your faces inches from each other as he speaks.
“find seonghwa,” he says before roughly throwing your body to the ground, your head hitting the concrete as blood begins to slowly seep out of your head from the impact. your tears stop as they dry on your face as your breath slows down before stopping completely. your now lifeless eyes staring at the hourglass as it continues to countdown.
hongjoong only looks at you with an emotionless face before he pulls his mask up and walks away, leaving your body and the hourglass behind in the alley he had originally chased you down.
you let out a gasp as you woke up looking around you as you sat up to find yourself in your bedroom. your heart feels like it's about to burst out of your chest as you slowly lift a hand to your head to feel no wound like the one that was inflicted in your dream.
find seonghwa those words echo in your head as you wonder if you should do what the man in your dream asked.
what was his name again? you try to recall the man in the fedora’s name, but both his name and face are just a blur as you try your best to remember. you know the man, you just know it, but why… why can’t you remember him?
you decide to just push the dream to the back of your mind as you get up and get ready for school. once you are ready, you grab your bag before leaving your apartment, making sure to lock it behind you.
you fail to notice however the black figure watching as your own figure disappears into the elevator.
the walk to school is normal as it always is, but you can’t help feeling like there’s an extra weight to your bag, but you brush it off thinking you’ll check it once you get to school.
find seonghwa… the words once again echo in your head making you stop in your tracks as the voice sounds familiar but the face and name, but you once again can’t remember.
seonghwa? you only know one seonghwa and that’s park seonghwa, student council president. there’s no way you could go up to him of all people because some strange man in your dream wanted you to find him. you’ll just ignore the dream, it was probably just that, a dream.
ding, dong, ding!
“oh fuck,” you mumble as you realize that you’ve been standing in the middle of the entrance courtyard daydreaming. you quickly rush to class hoping to make it before the final bell.
you’re out of breath when you manage to reach your classroom just as the final bell goes off and you walk quickly to your seat by the window and sit down. you’re thankful you got to class before your teacher or else you were sure you would have gotten detention.
“you made it just in time, y/n,” your seatmate, hyejin, teases and you nod in agreement to her as you unzip your backpack to get your books out. however, you freeze when your eyes land on the familiar item you thought you left in your dreams.
the hourglass fit snugly in your bag right next to your pencil case and books and you could only look at it in horror.
“what the fuck?” you say out loud catching hyejin’s attention as she looks over your shoulder into your bag and sees the hourglass as well.
“an hourglass? you know when i told you to get a watch, this isn’t what i meant,” she teases with a laugh and you could give her a delayed laugh and a small ‘yeah’ in response. “hey are you okay?” she follows up and you finally rip your gaze away from the hourglass and to hyejin who looks concerned.
“i-i’m fine! just forgot i had this in my bag, so i’m a little surprised to see it,” you answer and she nods her head in understanding. she’s about to say something but your teacher walking in stops her as the two of you are forced to turn your attention to them.
throughout the whole class, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander back to the item in your bag. what the fuck was going on? how the hell did that hourglass end up in your backpack? you thought it all a dream. you felt tears start to build up as unknown fear began to well up in your chest.
a soft sob manages to escape past your lips catching hyejin’s attention immediately as she turns to look at you. “y/n? what’s wrong?” she asks turning her body towards you as she shakes your arm to grab your attention, but you are too consumed in your thoughts to acknowledge her.
“teacher, something’s wrong with y/n,” hyejin said, interrupting and catching everyone’s attention. your teacher is quick to rush over to your desk in an attempt to grab your attention.
“i’m gonna die, i’m gonna die, i’m gonna die…” you repeat over and over again under your breath and your teacher is quick to tell hyejin to gather your things as they both try to escort you out of class. Your teacher managed to get you to stand and your eyes quickly glanced outside where you saw a familiar black figure. your eyes widen as you let out a blood curdling scream as you ripped yourself away from your teacher and crashed into the floor taking yours and hyejin’s chairs with you.
your scream caught everyone’s attention, even those from the other classes in the hall. it only took a few moments for other teachers to arrive to see what was going on. they arrive to see you thrashing around on the floor as your teacher tries to get to you to calm down. students from the other classes couldn’t help but come see what was going on. the ones in your class, however, could only watch in shock and horror as you continue to scream and cry.
the nurse finally showed up, someone probably called them to see what was going on with you, and they rushed into the classroom and over to you. the nurse kept calling your name but you could cry harder as your eyes remained locked onto the windows as if the strange figure could reach you on the fourth floor of the building.
“what’s wrong with her?” the nurse asked your teacher but your teacher could only gesture to hyejin who was the one you noticed suddenly crying.
“i-i don’t know. she just suddenly started crying, i mean she was fine when she came into class. she did seem a little out of it but she was acting normal,” hyejin explained and the nurse nodded and looked at you.
it seemed that your screaming and crying was wearing you out as you had started to grow quiet. tears still running down your cheeks as you were hyperventilating from so much crying.
“y/n, can you walk to the nurse’s office with me?” the nurse asks and you blink a few times before nodding a little bit. the nurse pats your back before she and hyejin help you up and they both walk with you to the nurse’s office.
all the students that were in the hallway, were immediately told to get back into their classrooms as the students in your class did their best to straighten up the classroom. the teacher told them all to do silent reading for the rest of class before they excused themselves from the room.
“thank you hyejin, you can go back to class now,” the nurse said once they reached her office and they laid you down on one of the beds before pulling the curtains closed in order to give you some privacy. hyejin poked her head through the curtains and gave you a small smile.
“hey, y/n, i’m gonna head back to class, alright? you just stay here and get some rest okay?” you nod looking at her with a slightly dazed look and she gave you one last smile before quickly setting your bag by the end of the bed before leaving.
you don’t know how long you lay there, staring up at the white tiled ceiling before the nurse appears through the curtains. she checks your temperature only to find you didn’t have a fever. she then began asking you questions about what happened.
“a dream?” she seems shocked by your answer as you recall everything that happened from your dream since the start of class. she looks at you like you’re crazy for a few moments before letting her professional face cover her disbelief. you gesture for her to look in your bag to prove you aren’t crazy about the whole thing but, “there’s no hourglass in here, y/n.”
“what?” you sit taking your bag from her in order to look inside it and she was right, there was no hourglass. did you somehow make the whole thing up? no you couldn’t have because hyejin even saw the hourglass this morning. then what happened to it. “it... it was here, i promise!”
“why don’t you just stay here for the rest of the day and try to calm down. that dream must have really worked you up and caused you to hallucinate a little bit,” she says before turning and leaving you alone once more.
but it was real! you want to scream at her, but you stop yourself. it was useless because without the hourglass, she wouldn’t believe you. you let out a sigh as you rest your head back on the pillow and you once again find yourself looking up at the white tiles before you let sleep take over.
