(Last Dance) Under The Sun: Prologue One
(Last Dance) Under The Sun: Prologue One
Synopsis: “The end of the world is really, nearly here. You can taste it in the air, feel Earth’s sentencing through every heavy hour that passes in seconds, too quick, too short, too thin. It is written across the skies and stars, a timer or ticker, not visible but palpable in every panicked eye that looks above.
It’s coming, and it’s terrifying.. or at least, it should be terrifying.
Except it isn’t. Not quite yet.”
After it's discovered that a gigantic, 111-mile wide asteroid named Athos is on a collision course with Earth, strategies are set in motion to deflect or destroy it before it can hit. However, when all plans fail, the world has less than seven weeks left before impact. Scientists are calling it the real "end of the Earth": there will be total, global extinction with no chances of life surviving.
But the news doesn't stop a group of five friends from making the very most of their remaining time. Together, they set out on a journey to complete their bucket lists in the forty-six days that the world has left.
Characters: OT7, reader, other characters to be added later.
Genre: science fiction / pre-apocalyptic (extinction-level event), extremely heavy angst, sickly sweet fluff, lots of low-class, middle-finger, highly offensive banter-between-best-pals style humour.
Warnings: multiple major character death, discussions of death and the afterlife (non-religious, mostly speculative), mentions of crime, riots, mercenaries, alcohol, dark humour, other sensitive topics which I will update here as the story progresses.
Chapters: Prologue (1) | Prologue (2) | Prologue (3) | Prologue 4 | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Epilogue
It is a beautiful, beautiful day.
The air is thick with fear; heavy and overflowing, like a dam about to break apart at any moment. A north wind is gaining traction and carrying with it far off voices - some hurried words of love and regret - before taking them up and away, maybe to reside somewhere along the distant skyline. Devastation is clear in every slipping second, but it is still a beautiful day. And the birds are singing.
As if she knows, the sun sits a lot brighter today. Perhaps it is her parting gift. Her last adieu before she retreats for the South to take her final, solo bow at the curtain call, even though it is not she who is leaving Earth’s stage. We will not see her again; but that farewell is on us, and not on her.
For a few moments you stare, observing the grace that is the World above. Try as you might, but you cannot pull your eyes away. The reason is obvious, though you don't allow yourself to think of it. Instead, you favour becoming completely enraptured by the sky and the sun in all their brazen beauty. So much so, that you almost miss the soft voice calling a short distance behind.
Joon is standing there, watching you with a smile, his hand held in front of him. He says nothing more when you turn to face him. Just watches you. There’s something unusual about it. Something new in the way his eyes meet yours, but there isn’t enough time to think on it. It takes you five more seconds to close the gap and grip his hand.
“Lead the way”, you say, and he smiles more while he starts to sway you both. First, from side to side, and then he spins you around in an almost-circle, and a whole minute passes like this. Of you two stepping and shuffling, feet finding some sort off-beat rhythm, flawed and perfect all the same. He looks at you through every second, and you wonder if that’s why your steps aren’t so fluid. But it doesn’t matter, not now, and not in this moment. He is still smiling, but you can’t miss that it’s falling short of reaching his eyes. There is something different, something new. You can feel it in the way his fingers curl between your own, and the way he continues to lead you, as he has always done. Except it feels fragile now. Delicate. Frantic.
He begins to hum after a few more seconds. A gorgeous tune that you don’t recognise. And while he does, a distant realisation bares itself at the very forefront of your mind. This wonderful World - in all her stars, in all her skies and seas and lands. In every new breath of life, each young flower, in every kind of existence. In all the colours and complexions, in all the days and nights. Mornings and evenings, the different seasons. Light and darkness, good and bad. In all the hearts and minds that are crafted, like everything else, by the hands of chance. This World is magnificent. She is grand and mysterious and rare. A master in her artistry of beauty, of wonder. But somehow, she pales to Joon. He is stunning. He takes your breath away. His smile, his laugh, his velvet voice that continues humming. His eyes are warm and his touch is soft, and he is thoroughly, undoubtedly, devastatingly beautiful.
“This is the song I always imagined playing for our first dance,” he says. "I made it for you. It's your song."
“I wanted to marry you. I still do,” he continues. “I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. But not like this.” He sets his jaw, tears welling in his eyes. He still hasn’t looked away from you. “Not like this. Not with such little time to love you. I wanted more.”
Since Spring began, you’ve done well to keep yourself together. You've held tight at your seams. Every broken moment was a wasted moment, that's what you thought. But this moment is different. It hits you all at once; a pain you’ve never felt, inching around you, feral and cruel. It pauses you. Drags you away into a void of grief and mourning you didn’t know existed. Mourning for moments of life you’d never imagined for yourself, but others had. Grief apace with grief. For the life you know you’ve lost, and another life you didn’t know you’d also lost. It’s a cold and dry void and you’re in it. There is no escaping it. These short weeks were not the gift they should have been, they were a penalty, and Time was never the friend we praised her to be. She, too, is in this loss.
“If you had asked me, I would have said yes.”
He thinks for a moment, wiping at the tears you didn't realise had fallen down your face.
“Do you remember that day five years ago, when we were down at the river near home? It was a bad day for me. I felt like I was falling through life. I didn't know who I was, what I wanted. Who I wanted to be. So I ran to that river because I thought I needed to be alone," he says.
"You followed me. I'd been there for a few hours, but you followed me there and you sat right next to me at the waters edge. You didn't say anything, but you put your arm around me and that was all I needed. We sat in silence, watching the sunset. I always knew how I felt about you, even before that day. But that evening, I realised just how fiercely I loved you. And even if I didn't know what else I wanted from my life, I was sure of one thing, and that's you."
You don't try to stop your tears. His words, so simple, have stunned you. You want to speak, to remind him of just how much you love him, too. But all you can do is cry while he carries on speaking.
“I have never forgotten that day,” he whispers, lifting one hand to brush his thumb across your face. “That was the moment I understood that there would never be anyone else for me. It is you, it always has been, even since that very first day we met. Y/n, I have spent most of my life with you. Not in the way that it should have been. I wish we could have so much longer. I wish we could have forever. I wish we weren't on the wrong side of fate. But I know that we could have endless lifetimes together, and still there would never be enough time for me to give you all that my heart and mind had hoped and dreamed for you.”
He lifts your hand up to place a soft kiss to your knuckles, and you cannot say anything, too choked on grief to make a sound except for heavy rasps while you try to breathe. His whole body is shaking. And your heart is burning.
“Know this, y/n. My life has been richer and more colourful than I could have ever imagined it to be. And that's because of you. You opened my heart to a life I didn't know existed. To a love that I didn't know could be so beautiful. And now here we are together, with tonight approaching... and it doesn't really feel like the end."
He wipes your tears again, and places his hand to stroke your cheek. "I don’t know what happens after today. But whatever does happen, I promise I will find you again. This... this is my vow, y/n. Every word is my vow to you. I never got the chance to marry you, but I love you more than I can ever put into words.”
“I love you too, 'Joon. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
The sun will start to set soon. Right now, she’s still dancing along a blue tide, though the sky has already begun to recede, ready for the last close of the curtains. An array of golden hues are coursing through the heavens and setting the scene for Earth’s final act. But there will be no encore, nor round of applause. The lights will fall, and that shall be the end of the show.
Minutes have passed and you and Namjoon are still standing there, arms tight around each other. Neither of you have said much more, but you remain to enjoy the sight of the sun while she still glitters. Maybe the moon and the stars will arrive earlier tonight. Maybe they’ve their own goodbye to wish to the World, or maybe not.
Right now, the sky is absolutely breath-taking, and it is almost too easy to forget that the end of time rests just upon the Horizon.
