The House on Mass. Avenue | Rensung

Untitled Part 19

Jisung broke a rule.

And he was going to have hell to pay for it.

[One hour earlier]

Jisung held a glass mug in his hand, the design of the Celtic tree of life etched gracefully onto the sanded material. It burned a little, but not enough that it was unbearable. In fact, it brought a bit of comfort in the chilled house.

It was his turn, in the rotation that the house residents had established, to watch over Donghyuck.

Roughly three days had passed since Donghyuck's surprising collapse - or at least it was to Jisung - and he had been bed-ridden for the majority of those days. Jisung's eyes glanced over the boy's sleeping face, feeling that morbid atmosphere increase the more he spent in the older's room.

A sickening greenish coated Donghyuck's sweaty skin, lips cracked - pale yet stained with red as slivers of cracking skin allowed escape for droplets of blood. His face was sunken in, almost as if he was decaying, and this was just Jisung sitting next to a corpse.

It was terrifying for the younger, and he found himself fraying at the edges from nerves. He still had no idea what exactly it was that Donghyuck was suffering from, and no matter how hard Jaemin worked and how much remedies he gave Donghyuck when he was awake, he only seemed to be digressing into a worse state.

Jisung shifted in his seat, his fingers drumming against the side of the cup, his back beginning to cramp up from how long he had been sitting there. He brought the warm drink up to his lips, taking a tedious sip and being rewarded with soft hints of chamomile and ginger.

A soft rapt came at the door and Jisung perked up, turning his head just as the closed structure creaked open, Jeno coming into view. The other smiled lightly, taking extra care to be careful and quiet and he shut the door behind him.

"How is he?" the whisper slid carefully through the fragile silence and Jisung looked back towards Donghyuck for a moment, as if his condition had changed since he last looked. To no avail.

"Still the same," Jisung muttered softly as Jeno took a seat on the bed itself, the boy's hand moving to lightly rest on Donghyuck's arm. The young author refrained from saying the standard 'alright' in response to Donghyuck's condition, for he was most certainly not 'alright'.

A moment of silence passed between the two and Jisung took another deliberate sip of his tea, Jeno letting out a soft sigh.

"You know," Jeno started softly and his hand tightened around the blankets of the bed, his gaze exclusively on the unconscious boy, "I've been with Donghyuck for a long time, and I can still never get used to the fear I feel whenever he gets like this."

"He always bounces back though, right?" Jisung questioned softly, both out of reassurance to the other and of curiosity. Jeno nodded, the conversation rumbling carefully to a stop at that point.

It was another minute or two before Jeno jolted slightly, turning towards Jisung with an apologetic smile, as if he had just remembered the younger was there. "I'm here to take over, you're free to go."

"You sure you'll be alright?" Jisung made sure to ask just in case and Jeno nodded, waving his hand in dismissal. "Alright, just come and get me if anything happens or if something changes in his condition."

Jisung got to his feet, clapping a reassuring on Jeno's shoulder and holding his mug in one hand. He carefully moved across the wooden floor, acting just the same as Jeno had been before in order to prevent waking the sick resident who needed the rest. The young author leaned against the closed door with a heavy chest, worry curling around his bones and settling in the marrow.

Taking a step forward, a deep rumbling sounded and he paused, looking around in concern. The entire house suddenly seemed to be shaking in it's foundation and Jisung placed a hand on the wall to steady himself. An earthquake?

But Jisung didn't quite have the time to ponder what exactly the cause was, the floor heaving under him almost as if the floor boards had become the churning waves out in the deep sea. He stumbled again, this time his hands hitting the floor in a jarring action, his teeth gnashing down on his unsuspecting tongue.

He winced in pain, not fully processing the crash of the glass as his mug slipped out of his hands and shattered against the floor. Falling again, Jisung's back hit the wall behind him, the younger curling into a ball and tucking his hands over the back of his head.

What was happening?

What was going on?

An earthquake? He had never been in an earthquake before!

What about everyone else? Were they okay? Was the house about to collapse on them?

The shaking came to a slight lull, pictures and shards of glass shattered and shaking with the residual waves. Jisung slid his hands down from where they were around his head, his head racing in his chest as he jittered to his feet, his hand pressing against the wall to keep him upright.

A chill raced down Jisung's spine, his body freezing in place as his eyes slowly shifted to stare at where his hand was placed on the wall. But, the thing was, it wasn't where he consciously placed it.

Jisung let out a strangled cry of surprise as he caught sight of his hand resting around the rusting golden doorknob of the basement door. His mind went blank in pure and unbridled shock, thinking that he had only placed his palm against the door and suddenly he had found his body moving without his expressed permission.

"No," Jisung whimpered out, finding himself locked in his mind, peering through the eyes of his body as his other hand slowly moved to undo the series of preventative locks. Heart thudding in his chest; blood rushing through his ears; internal scream of agony -- Jisung was about to unlock the basement against his own physical will.

But there was nothing he could do as the last lock clinked against the slab of wood resting on ancient hinges. There was nothing he could do as his wrist turned, the door shuttering under his grasp.

There was not a single thing Jisung could do as fear welled in his chest.

The basement door clicked open.

to be continued...