FEAR | stray kids

V - by streetlight, this dark night

"What's going on?" Seungmin asked. "You've all been acting really strange, and have clearly been hiding something."

"Do I have to explain again..." Jeongin groaned, his eyes shut. "Guys, can you just move the mug?"

The mug remained still.

"Guys?"

"Jeongin, what is it?" Jisung asked worriedly.

Jeongin opened his eyes. "Guys, where are... Where are you?"

"You can't see them?" Jisung cried.

"Chan!" Jeongin yelled, looking around madly. "Hyunjin! Where the fuck did you go?"

"Jeongin..." Felix put a hand on his shoulder. "What are you talking about? They're missing..."

"No, no, they were here! Damnit! They can't be gone again!"

"Maybe they're still here, maybe you just can't see them-" Changbin tried.

"No, the air is too warm. It was never this warm when they were here." Jeongin mumbled.

"Are any of you going to explain what the hell is going on?" Seungmin yelled.

"No, shut up!" Jeongin's eyes were wide with panic. "Stop looking at me like I'm crazy! They were here!"

"Do you think their souls could have returned to their bodies?" Jisung asked, ignoring the confused noises from Felix and Seungmin.

"But how? If it was possible all this time, why now?"

Minho looked strangely calm. "You know, I think we're missing something here. I... I need to look at those articles on Chan's laptop again."

"Guys..." Seungmin looked frustrated.

"We'll explain everything later." Jisung mumbled in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, grabbing the laptop from the living room and giving it to Minho.

Minho scrolled down to the comment section on the article they'd looked at before. "Three hundred years old, huh... Sounds almost like immortality."

"Right! Chan never answered me when I asked if we were immortal." Jisung said. "So, maybe... this is proof of it. Or at the very least, vampires have longer lifespans?"

"Lifespans..." Minho hummed. "I think that's it. Vampires are being taken because of this... Whether it's immortality or longer lifespans they have, someone probably wants it."

"But why mass kidnapping? Couldn't they just ask to be turned?"

"Well, no offence, but the bloodlust isn't exactly the most ideal situation. Maybe they want to still keep their humanity whilst lengthening their life."

"But how would you even do that?"

"It must be something to do with detaching the souls. A soul is, what? Kind of like a life force?"

"But that doesn't explain how Chan and Hyunjin's bodies were still alive without their souls. How can they be alive without a life force?"

"The biology of vampires must work differently. There's gotta be something on here, somewhere..." Minho began searching the website. "Vampires aren't really alive, but they aren't dead either... Hang on, vampires is like a subsection here, I need to find the voodoo soul shit."

After more searching and browsing, Jisung quickly stopped Minho from scrolling when he spotted something.

If a human's soul is detached from their body whilst they are alive, they will die, and the soul will move on without an anchor. This also applies to someone who is already dead; their soul will have already moved on. These circumstances make soul manipulation impossible.