On The Run || JJK ✔️

38 - Centered

Maybe if we replicate that enough times and just be ourselves all the way... maybe somehow, we still have a chance.

"Alright, circle up!"

We follow Namjoon's order. I end up standing next to him and Jungkook, all of us facing outwards at the sea of Fighters waiting for our energy to deplete - but we aren't going to let that happen easily. We'll fight until we can't anymore.

"Wait, shouldn't we put Y/n in the center?" Jungkook says when he sees me standing next to him. "She's their target."

Namjoon nods uncertainly.

Jimin's letter, with the ink blotched before my name, floats in my mind's eye as I step back into the circle. The sick feeling in my stomach doesn't go away... am I truly their target?... but I shake my head.

There's nothing we can do about it now.

Namjoon narrows his eyes, taking in the situation. "Okay, Taehyung and Yoongi will defend. Jin and I will attack. Y/n and Jungkook, target the fire elementalists with the "Trip on Thin Air". After that we'll make a run for it."

I frown. "Why the fire ones?"

"If they suddenly trip, then they can't concentrate on maintaining the heat," Namjoon gestures, "so we can run without Jin wasting energy. Ready?"

All of us nod.

Jungkook and I glance at each other before we close our eyes.

I reach out with my energy and sense Jungkook's presence in the air before we combine into one, expanding together, feeling the Fighters stationed around us as we lay an invisible carpet underneath as many of them as possible, quickly, discreetly, steadily...

"Three, two, one," Jungkook whispers.

Pull.

And we're off -

- tearing through the camp, jumping over startled Fighters, deflecting weak attacks, vision shaking, lungs burning, adrenaline thrumming, past melted snow and campfires and tents -

- seeing the edge of camp and a line of trees close by and running for it, focus zoned on our only hope for safety, past some Fighters launching individual attacks that end up fruitless against our group's teamwork and diverse elements, everything happening so unbelievably fast like we're being fast forwarded through time, yet simultaneously so slow like we're captured in a snapshot of eternity -

- laughing in exhilaration for a fleeting moment because we might actually make it out -

- feeling the Fighters' energy moving, shifting, morphing in tandem with their confusion, then anger that quickly replaces it -

- yells of alarm -

- and growing dread because our destination is so close yet so far away, and the rumbling of the earth below us is so thunderous, so formidable, so omnipresent.

So powerful it's out of Taehyung's control.

Jungkook and I change the air currents so our group stays balanced anyway, giving us momentary relief, but the interruption is enough.

The fire elementalists may be tired, but the earth Fighters are uniting together now. Another wall rises out of the unstoppable rumbling. It's the same earth wall from the getaway and parking lot fights, an old enemy we've faced twice now, but this time it's different.

We're not in a truck to swerve around it anymore. We're not a group of eight anymore. And this wall, created by a much larger number of Earth Fighters, is too strong to be affected by us alone.

It's just us... against all of them. I've never felt so vulnerable or so small, surrounded by people who know so much more.

And I can't bear the thought of losing any more of us.

Stop! I want to yell. Please stop!

But the rumbling doesn't stop - seeing their chance at victory, at finally capturing me after all these weeks and months, they give us no time to breathe.

CRACK!

It's a terrifying, bone-chilling sound that echoes through the air and thrums through my being. Nothing is apparent at first.

Then we start slipping.

A line had formed beneath us, cutting our group directly in half with Namjoon, Jungkook, and Taehyung on one side and the rest of us on the other. The crack becomes longer, opens wider, like a gaping mouth from the earth itself ready to swallow us whole.

Jungkook's hand finds mine at lightning speed.

"What -?!" are you doing? I wanted to yell.

I don't finish because the next thing I know, he's pulling me over the crevice and I'm looking straight down at the horrifying drop that's already so deep, any slip would've been fatal.

We're lucky the distance is short.

I stumble when I land on the other side. Jungkook hugs me tightly so I don't fall.

The gap only grows.

With the ground still rumbling, and a giant earth wall next to us, and now an abyss separating our group, our probability of escaping has gone that much lower.

Namjoon motions for us to get away from the edge.

"What about Suga and Jin?" Taehyung asks as we run.

"They're on their own now."

I glance behind us. They seem to be doing okay on the other side, running away from the abyss like we are, but the fact that they've got opposite elements isn't going to help at all.

"Stick together but make sure you're always moving," Namjoon's voice brings my attention back. "The earth Fighters could trap us and that would be game over."

Just keep moving...

So we run, barely managing to stay balanced on the trembling ground beneath us.

We run like shooting stars in the sky, like our lives depend on running, like our sole purpose was only ever to take step after step and be On the Run in this great big world.

Like meteors, falling, fallen.

The sound of cobblestone smashing together makes us look back. A good distance away, the earth Fighters are casting makeshift bridges over the ravine and they're all sprinting in one direction: towards us.

Looks like Suga and Jin won't be our biggest worry.

"Let's go!"

We follow Namjoon and keep running to avoid being surrounded, but I know deep down that all we're doing now is delaying the inevitable. I glance at Jungkook in the midst of all this chaos and see the same understanding in his innocent, dispirited eyes... I look away.

Anything to hide my own eyes, blurring with emotion.