god, he’s hungry-- this whole favors for food thing has him starving, mostly because everyone seems to be too busy socializing with each other to come to little ol’ jimin. which is funny, considering the fact that usually parties consist of a ridiculous number of people trying to get into his pants or otherwise gain his affection, but tonight seems to be a completely different situation entirely.
which, under normal circumstances, he’d welcome-- but right now, he’s just fucking hungry, too hungry to approach anyone and instead leaving him slumped against one of the trees to try to deal with the fatigue his hunger inflicted on him.
His eyes ached. Everything in this forest was too bright, he couldn’t sleep. The phrase·‘too much of a good thing’ echoed between his ears: a symphony. Curling up among the flowers, the colours became too vibrant, they hurt his eyes.·
"I ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴛʜɪs" He breathed, rubbing at his eyes, stomach churning from the sweetness that filled his nose. "I ʜᴀᴛᴇ ɪᴛ, I ʜᴀᴛᴇ ɪᴛ, I ʜᴀᴛᴇ ɪᴛ!!" Scrambling up to his feet, Chansik ripped at too-green grass, tearing apart vibrant petals. These were not the beautiful parts of nature he dedicated so much of his life to! This was fake. "...ɪᴛ's ᴀʟʟ ғᴀᴋᴇ." Looking around, his chest ached as the fae gulped down air into his lungs - though even the air felt wrong and he did not know why. "ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴍᴇ!" He screamed to deaf ears, "sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ʜᴇʟᴘ ᴍᴇ!" But no one was there. No one was ever there. No rose coloured glasses could dim the horrors of reality. He had taken to his feet, eyes frenzied. He felt as if he were home in each forest he had been to but these trees were strangers. His legs buckled as he ran, voices whispering in his ears, 'come back!','we'll keep you company!'we love you!' 'chansik don't leave us!' 'you have no one else to go to, just stay with us' He ran faster, tears clinging to his lashes. "ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴀʟᴏɴᴇ!" He bellowed to the voices, turning his head away from the darkness at the end of the path. Looking back to it he had realized just how close he was. The closer he got the stronger the pull back was, he was fighting tooth and nail. But he had breached it. He had come out! He couldn't see, the bright lights had burned out his sight like walking into a dark room. Closing his eyes he waited for his eyes to adjust before opening them again...--
Well, his company wasn’t, she was actually quite a pleasure to have around, but their environment was. It was almost as soon as the two of them entered that he had felt as though he had made a grave mistake. Making sure to not once let go of her hand, the two number eighteens made their way through the darkened and miserable forest.
He felt completely vulnerable being that he didn’t have his magic to protect either of them. And protecting her is something he was determined to do. After-all, he was the one who drug her into this hell of a place. Whatever happened would be on him. With this in mind, he tightened his grip on the girl’s hand, not so much that’d it’d hurt of course, just enough that she’d feel secure while they trudged their way through more horrible things than he’d ever seen before. He wasn’t completely certain of what most of the stuff he spotted even was. There were various strange looking fungi and a lagoon of gunk that resembled some sort of black pitch. Not to mention, the horrid smell that plagued his nostrils.
It was all way more than he had signed up for.
There was a heavy gloom that hung in the air, making everything just seem so much more depressing. Constantly, he found himself asking if Suzy wanted to get on his back. He was more than willing to carry her, but it seemed that each time she’d refuse.
It made him more sad with every time he’d notice her struggle by stumbling on a root or getting caught on some other unknown object. So, every time he witnessed it, he’d ask again. Finally, she agreed and he couldn’t help but to crack a smile, despite the circumstances.
She was very light, so it wasn’t really a burden to him, even though she seemed to worry that she eventually would be. Still, it never happened.
At one point, he mistakenly mentioned the fact that his powers weren’t present ever since he’d waken up. He had momentarily forgotten that not everyone would know about that... How could he be so reckless? He was simply thankful that the girl was not a hunter. That wouldn’t have been good at all.
After several hours of carrying Suzy, they noticed a light in the distance. He felt a tap on his shoulder and the girl quietly informed him that he could now place her back on the ground.
Not really ready to let go of her, he quietly chuckles.“Are you sure? It’s going to feel strange to not have you on my back after toting you around for so long.”
Hesitantly, he obeyed and looked down at his female companion. A smile formed on his lips and he asked her if she was ready to get out of here. He felt a warm feeling wash over him when she responded by taking his hand once more. He allowed their fingers to intertwine and once she’d given him a nod, he gave her a nod back before he starting to head out.
Wang Jackson couldn’t answer this with certain. In this place, he had stopped having the notion of time. His mind was set in trying to find a way out of this nightmare, not in counting the minutes that had passed since he woke up in the middle of nowhere. It felt like years had passed since it happened, when probably only a few minutes had actually passed. His body was aching to get out of here. It was a living nightmare, especially when it didn't take him long to realize that his powers didn't have any effect in here. Was this some sort of hallucination?
During the 'adventure', his partner had stayed behind. The vampire had promised to himself that he wouldn't let her go, but this hallucination had been against them - clearly since the beginning - because while he had tried to keep an eye on her, something unknown had happened to break them apart. Jackson wasn't even sure when that happened, but he had looked around, he hadn't found her anywhere.
The path he had chosen seemed to be out of a Halloween book. The air was clearly cold, but because he was a vampire, he hadn't felt the change in the temperature too much. There were only negative thoughts in his mind and he had tried to push them away to continue his journey to the end of this maze. It had been a tough path, but one he had decided with a solid reason behind it. No matter how tempting and alluring the other seemed to be, nothing good could have come from that path. Life was made of darkness. People had their hearts rotten, from their pessimistic thoughts and gloomy feelings. People always wanted shiny solutions to their problems for free. It would only be natural that most people would pick the other path. But at what price? There was always a price behind easy solutions. If Jackson had to face the worse kind of scenario, it would be better doing that now.
That was exactly why the dancer had chosen the other path and that was exactly why he was still struggling with the irregular path underneath his feet. So far he had found an abysm - that was only another hallucination - and a dark cave with a lot of dangerous animals. The sounds could be heard, but he had tried to continue until the end of the path. How far away was he from the end? The demon had lost the count of how many times he felt the hope of almost reaching the end of this nightmare. The end had been only a few steps away so many times before, so why was this taking so long?
The trees around him seemed to be closing his path even more, using its branches to stop him from leaving. The black hoodie he had been using the entire night was a bit ripped at some random places because of that. His own white sneakers had turned into a dark color, because of the mud. Those damn puddles seemed to drown him to the end of the time. But so far, he had survived. The parasitic fungus had been the worse, creating an intense smell of rottenness that was already stuck on his clothes. Even the rot fruits don't seem to help, creating a slip-effect on the ground.
His thoughts were filled with sadness of his past and death. Every single death by his hands was in his mind, haunting him to keep him stuck in that place of misery. "Enough!" Jackson screamed in annoyance, using his own rage to tear out some of the branches from his way, not even caring if his hands were covered in cuts. They would heal in a few minutes, hopefully. At this moment, he only wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The floor was too slippery. The vampire tipped because his own foot, while fighting against the trees, and that was when he finally reached the end of the path. The cold went away immediately and even if his body didn't feel it, his own breathing was enough to show him that something was different. Looking back, there was nothing. Jackson frowned in confusion, realizing that he was finally out of that crazy maze. But what now? What else was waiting for him at the next corner of this nightmare? The only thing Jackson knew was that he really needed to find his partner again, because the vampire had a feeling this was crucial to get out of this place.
. . . in a forest too bright to be real, even harsher than where they had been before—the over-saturated leaves are coated in a substance akin to candy, and laughter can occasionally be heard in all directions, almost too sweet to be kind. The woods constantly offer distractions in the form of the travelers’ wildest desires—a hallucination of a past lover, fruit ripe enough to burst, diverging paths leading to libraries of the greatest knowledge or to paradises of pleasure and repose—and all very, very tempting.
Beyond bliss, bright colors bleed, seeping sweet and sickeningly into the soil, tainting what should’ve been the natural green flush of the forest’s vegetation; and overwhelmingly, the intensity of each hue causes its picturesque perfection to vibrate menacingly, severe and strong, across Namjoon’s vision. The passion of how alive his surroundings were—obtrusive in its message to envelop the young man in faux flavors of vivid, vain promises—was too much for him to feel all at once, too much to comprehend in the entirety of its energy, when he had been someone accustomed too much to bleak realities and unforgiving fates. Could it truly be his fault, then, could he truly be blamed for following a path less traveled by him, a mage who only ever wanted to have euphoria within his reach for once?
But he must have wanted more than he deserved. Something impossible for him to have, at least for now. And as he’s forced to stumble through the dizzying array of glimmering leaves, and to endure the hysterical laughter, shrieking sharp and shrill, around him, he discovers that he’s reached his limit, enough to have him sink to his knees, palms maintaining his weakening sense of balance by plastering themselves onto the sucrose sheen coating the nearest fallen tree log. Selfish—feeble limbs, faint of heart, unable to handle mid-autumn dreams despite having longed for them.
Red toy cars spin, grow, shrink, fly; peaches burst its sticky juices across the floor; light beats against his exposed skin, blinding even through his closed eyes, stinging to the point of forming tears behind his lids; the rush of rivers flowing at an alarming rate; the soft touch of hands covering his own, another pair at his shoulders, rubbing, soothing; whispers of lullabies, voices morphed so softly, yet strained, one low, one high, comforting his weary heart, getting louder, louder; his heart pounding rapidly against his ribcage, they’re here, they’re back, they’re here, they want me, they need me, they’re here, with me, here, here—
Namjoon keeps his eyes shut. Namjoon scrambles up, hands flying around him, and his pace quickens as he flusters, one step at a time, touching trunks, yanking leaves to guide him until he’s running. Warmth invades his senses, his blood moving faster and faster within his body as he runs without sight, although knowing that they had been with him, his parents had come back for him, had given him unexpected joy so powerful that he almost felt like he would implode from the fulfillment of getting to be with them again. But he doesn’t open his eyes, and he’s speeding away from the beautiful moment, tossing his long frame through the crackling wind, panting, the longest time passing, all the while sounds intermingling with the air, unearthed from his subconscious soul, twinkling, singing, replaying time’s unremembered, elusive — illusion.
He trips slightly, nudging his chest forward before his legs, though reflexively thrusts himself a step back, and stops. His breathing is heavy, his muscles ache, his head is splitting; but a familiar numbness cools his mind, as it was before he entered the path. Namjoon’s lashes flick open, and a few tears slip down his cheeks, having been previously trapped behind his eyelids.
If the faces of his parents had been the first things he saw after opening his eyes, he’s afraid he would’ve never left. Thankfully, regrettably, when he does it now — it is not.
To tell the truth, Sungyeol still had absolutely no idea whatsoever of why any of this was happening.
The first thing the boy was able to remember was waking up within the forest. Which forest however, he remained unsure. Who had brought him here? Why had they brought him here? So many questions remained unanswered, and continued to plague the young one’s thoughts.
Moments earlier, he and a stranger who went by the name of Jaewook had found each other, and a rather strange looking... Fork in the road. One path seemed utterly depressing, while the other had seemed too good to be true. Ultimately however, they went with the brighter path, for reasons Sungyeol still wasn’t sure of. Would the other path have had as much as an emotional impact on him? It was impossible to know, though Sungyeol could only imagine so.
On this path, he had met... Or seen, rather, a familiar face from his past. It had been the face of Jungwook, his deceased adopted father. The one person that Sungyeol had cared for the most, the one person that had been stolen from him, he was right there. Yet even so, he wasn’t.
Knowing that the man who had stood before him could not have in fact been Jungwook, Sungyeol had forced himself to walk away. It had taken everything within him, and had taken a large toll on the boy. He would never know if Jungwook had truly stood there on this day, though he could only imagine it was a mere hallucination. His father was dead. And that was the end of story.
The rest of the walk was difficult for Sungyeol to recall, given the fact that he had drowned most of his surroundings out. No matter how hard he tried to focus, to move on, he could not remove his father from his mind. He had seen him. He had had to leave him. How would it have been possible for him to have focused on the other trials ahead of him while his mind was deadlocked on the first?
It wasn’t long after encountering Jungwook that Sungyeol had seen what almost appeared to be the exit of the whole thing. Only a bit further... It was only a matter of time now.
Ignoring each and every surrounding within the forest, Sungyeol took another step. And then another.
Everything that the boy was faced with seemed like something straight out of a terrible nightmare. This definitely put a real damper on his mood. Even so, he did what he could to fight it. Every single time he felt the strong urge to go back, turn around, or even stop where he was and no longer carry on, he used all of what mental strength he had to ignore it and keep moving forward.
He knew that he couldn’t get out of this place soon enough because he just wanted to get back home. He had no idea of where he truthfully was or why he was here and it was so incredibly frustrating. He just wanted to be able to understand what was happening.
He did admit, he felt thankful for the fact that he was able to so easily happen upon Wheein, the other number twenty-eight in which he felt like he needed to be searching for, and he was also glad for the other few that he had bumped into and posed useful in the attempt to escape this forest of horrors.
The strong feeling of nausea was present and he kept a headache throughout the entirety of his adventure. He was surprised that the horrible combination didn’t result in him vomiting. There had been times when he really thought he was going to, but he managed to hold back.
Most of the sights were enough to make his skin crawl and the hair stayed sticking up on the back of his neck. Sometimes he’d notice movement in the dark trees around him and although he wasn’t easily frightened, it wasn’t something he wanted to get caught up with.
After what seemed like forever, he finally drew even nearer to the end. Actually... did he see it? There was a light at the end of this terrifying tunnel ( of trees ) and he was really going to make it. Despite all of the things that tried to hold him back ( like the black gunk that at times seemed impossible to step out of ), he managed to pull through yet again.
If there was one think Park Chanyeol was, it was driven.
Finally exiting, he took a deep breath. Time to see what was in store for him now.
after the third time he falls on his face, one knee submerged in the black sludge, jimin thinks that maybe he would have been better off choosing the second path instead of this one.
but, really-- just about everything seemed lamentable, at this point. he wasn’t sure if it was the goop coating his skin or the hopelessness that started to fill up in his chest after losing all of the people he’d come across on the path, but he was lonely. it was a loneliness that filled him up, pushed itself out of his orifices like an unwanted visitor, leaving bitter tears to trail down his cheeks while he stubbornly tried to ignore the fact that he was crying. crying.
god, if only yoongi could see him now.
thankfully, his sense of humor hadn’t lost him-- completely-- but his limbs ached. this place drained him, in more ways than one-- every time a twig snapped, he flinched, trying not to remember painful memories of hunters in the woods, intent on murdering him and all of his kind. and his own cowardice crept up on him: he couldn’t be alpha. he hadn’t taken the role he had been groomed for, let some stranger take it for him, run away from his only home.
and now, here he was, crying because everything seemed to hard and he just wanted to sleep. the forest floor, covered in things poisonous and menacing and nothing friendly, looked more inviting than it should-- he’s never been this tired before, really. he wanted to curl up and wallow in his own pathetic misery, go to sleep and maybe never wake up. because who needed him, really? who out there really cared about him?
(an image appears of a friendly face, handsome and sharp, but softening to jimin’s heart. he has to bite back the brief smile that surfaces just from thinking about him-- even if this was all a dream, seeing hoseok for that small window of time had cheered him. maybe jimin was just hopeful, but hoseok seemed like a genuinely kind person, someone who wouldn’t abandon him at the drop of a hat. he misses him, even knowing that their budding connection isn’t even that strong yet-- he wonders if the elder is still out there, wandering and tripping on shit and trying to play it off. he hopes he’s made it out already, if this all really is real and they’re all trapped here for whatever godawful reason. he really does.)
it takes him by surprise-- he trips for the fourth time, scuffing his elbow on something sharp, and the pain is what snaps him out of it, the daze the place had put him into. he looks on with clearer eyes, and sees it-- the end. the way out. someone else seems to be just ahead of him, and he can’t make out their form, but it must be someone else trapped here-- he chases after them, following them into autonomy.
finally. he was tired of smelling foul sticky shit all around him, anyways.
