Hurt [제크훈] ᴇɴ-

11. The Tragic Domino Effect

Night fell. A contrast of the chipper broad daylight. And it felt extremely silent. A feeling of uneasiness lingering throughout the place.

Jake! Wake up! Please! You can't leave me like this. It's unfair.

It was a peculiar remark. But what's more bizarre was when Jake realised he was in an unfamiliar room. An old rundown hospital room. More precisely, a surgery room. But even though it's old and abandoned, he could hear some voices. He didn't know where it came though.

There wasn't any single human there
Jake couldn't see anyone. He scanned through the whole room. All the glass windows were covered in dusts. All of them were blurry and dirty.

Jake tried many things to escape the room. But nothing worked.

"Hello?! Anyone? I'm here. I need help. I'm contained in this room!" Jake tried to shriek for help.

But with loud shrieks, he never got a response. What's worse was it already felt like hours inside. But no one showed up. Even the voices had stopped.

Jake's candle of hope was almost extinguished. It felt like his feet couldn't contain his weight anymore. And with that, he slowly slipped down to the dirty floor. He could feel that his eyes were filled with tear as he was in the verge of crying.

"Why is everyone leaving me? Please help me. Sunoo, I'm so sorry for everything that I did onto you. I missed you so much."

Sunoo was the first one to came to his mind. But then, his mind was filled with another people.

"Mom, Dad, Heeseung, Sunghoon..."

Dub! Dub! Dub!

Jake's could feel his heart beating fast. It's hurting him. It's like there's a burning sensation inside his body.

"Why?! Why are you all leaving me here alone?! I need someone! I need someone..."

You need to wake up, Jake.

Jake shrieked loudly. As he woke up from the slumber, he was met with silent. No light was turned on to illuminate the room as it was surrounded by darkness. Thereafter, he turned on the light.

After some moment, he finally woke up from the comfortable mattress. Feeling like the clothes weren't comfortable enough, he wanted to change it but his body felt so heavy.

Jake is in the see-saw of waking up from the mattress and changing his shirt. But then, he finally chose to change his shirt. And when he passed by the mirror, he sensed that tears stanning his face.

"I cried? When did I cry?"

Jake approached the mirror step by step. And when he was about to touch his face, the phone suddenly rang. Even though he was still shocked, he swiftly checked on his phone. The bright screen displaying Heeseung's name.

"Hi Heeseung...," Jake smiled in relief.

"Jake? Are you good? You sound quite odd."

"Nothing really happens."

There was a brief pause. But then Heeseung became more wary of Jake's situation.

"Jake, tell me. What happened?"

"Well... Today is my wedding but Sunoo wasn't there. And even you weren't there."

"I'm so sorry Jake. I have a plan with Eunbyeol. But what's with Sunoo?"

Jake sighed in disappointment. But it wasn't at Sunoo and more toward himself.

"I had a fight with Sunoo and he left the apartment. I tried to reach out for him but he never replied. Just nothing."

"Oh! I just remembered that Eunbyeol said they have a party this month. Maybe Sunoo went there?"

"I don't know... I just hope that you are right."

Few seconds later, Jake could make out Eunbyeol's voice on the background. Then, it crescendoed and became more prominent. He heard the latter asking Heeseung some queries before she suddenly on the line.

"Hi Jake!"

"Hi Eunbyeol."

"Don't worry about Sunoo. He's currently at the party held by my family. And don't worry, he'll cool down later on."

"Thank God. At least I know he's safe."

"Yeah... But how about you? Have you been taking good care of yourself? Have you eaten yet?"

"I actually haven't."

"Where's Sunghoon?"

"I don't know..."

Eunbyeol suddenly felt odd. But feeling like she's being too much of nuisance of others' business, she shrugged the thought off quickly. Not wanting it to be something that lingers in her mind.

"Oh! Then you should eat. Don't eat too late."

"Okay. Thank you, Eunbyeol."

Ending the call, Jake made his out from the room. The odd thing was the whole house was consumed by darkness. As if the house was abandoned.

From Jake's room, he scanned through out the whole dark aisle. And then his eyes landed on the wooden door of Sunghoon's room. Even after knocking the door for more than five times, no answer was received.

It was only silence filling the unilluminated house. Jake tried ushering Sunghoon to open the door by knocking once again. But still nothing.

Jake then chose to twisted the door knob. And apparently, it wasn't locked. Furthermore, he scanned the room inside and there wasn't any presence.

Where could he be currently? It's quite late...

Train of thoughts started to appear in his mind. But he chose to leave it and settled himself like cooking himself a meal and taking a shower.

But even so, Jake couldn't overlook the fact that his spouse wasn't at home. To be more precise, he had been waiting for hours. Currently, it was already one in the morning. And neither Sunghoon had come back nor sign of him coming back home that night. He patiently waited for him.

Feeling like some more time had passed, he checked the clock. And it chimed two times, noting the second hour of that day.

His health condition could be worsen if he had a terrible sleep schedule. I recommend him to sleep early and exercise more. No watching movies that could give him anxiety or scary feelings.

It was a remark from his doctor. It was from last summer the year before. He was half unconscious but still he could hear the doctor statement.

"I should go to sleep right now. It's not good for my health."

It escalated down the day he had a fight with Sunoo. The moment became the first domino to fall in sequence of events that had happened until now. But he couldn't revert anything back to normal now. Driven by only grief, Jake could only cry all on his own.