Title: Captured in Her Eyes
Genre: Romance/Fantasy
Summary: Byulyi can see someone's lifespan and how they're going to die except for hers. So when she meets Seokjin and saw that she'll die with him, she will do everything to keep him alive.
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Death.
It's something that has always feared and interested people. We are largely mindful of death, and we know it will come to us, every one of us. To a significant number of us passing cuts a chill down our spine ridden with dread, however to others it is ridden with quality and fulfilment of achievement. Luckily or tragically, we are completely sentenced to death.
We will all die. I am trying not to be prophetically catastrophic or something in my passing exposition; it is basically an articulation of truth. Each living being will die over the long haul.
There are plenty of conceivable outcomes to delay demise. A man may live twenty years or a hundred years; however, no man can live, for instance, 200 years. Hence, passing is predictable for us all, and there is no way around it.
But there is an interesting thing; we don't have the knowledge of how the inevitable will strike to have a conversation. Not just how we don't even have a clue on where and when it will happen. We just know this is inescapable.
However, it's not the same for me. You see, I have this ability wherein I have visions on when and how a person will die. In movies, this is probably what you'd call psychic powers. I mean I could save lives with this, right? I could become a hero!
Yeah, that's what I thought too. But we're in real life.
And in reality, it's considered a curse.
Of course people would be freaked out. Would you like it when a kid tells you that you're going to die? Or would you even believe it the first time you hear it?
The first time I discovered my ability was when I was playing with the neighbourhood kids. We were playing a game of 'tag you're it'.
There were some weird symbols above their heads that my 4-year-old brain couldn't decipher yet and every time I would touch someone or they would touch me, I saw some snippets of their life. At first I thought I was seeing things or maybe even daydreaming since it was kind of blurry. I was a kid. I never really took much care in it since all I cared about that time was having fun.
But as I got older, the visions became clearer and I knew that the symbols were actually numbers indicating how much time they have left. But my abilities had limits, I had to make eye contact with people to see their lifespan and our hands must touch if I want to see their cause of death.
And the ironic thing about all of this is, it doesn't work on me. I tried looking at myself in the mirror but no numbers appeared on top of my head. I also tried hitting myself to see if physical contact can make me see my own death, but it bore no fruit.
I talked about it with my parents or anyone I know but they didn't believe me and thought maybe it was all a coincidence. However, the visions and actual deaths matched perfectly for it to be a mere coincidence. People even started avoiding me because I was seen as a "freak" or that I bring death with me.
My grandma was the only one who understood and consoled me while growing up. She was the only one to remind me that I'm not crazy nor do I bring death to the people around me. But just like with other people, I watched as the numbers on her head decreased day by day.
From then on, there's this weight on my shoulders whenever I talk with the people I love because all I can see are the numbers above their head. I felt powerless.
So I started avoiding eye contact with people so I won't see those dreaded numbers and avoided any form of physical contact as much as possible. It was all stressful to handle it on my own, I ended up isolating myself.
"We will be reaching the next station soon. The doors on the right side will open. We will be reaching the next station soon. The doors on the right side will open."
The train announcement snapped me from my thoughts and I held onto my bag tighter as I prepared to board down the train. It was quite cramped today so it was difficult to avoid making contact with people. It was a simple train ride yet I already saw 15 visions just because the train had to be full that day.
The guy to my left is going to die of cardiac arrest from too much stress. The lady standing in front of me only has a week left to live. And the grandma seated across from me would die in the upcoming month.
As the train came to a halt, all the passengers started pooling out of the car and as much as I hate it, it really was inevitable that I'll be taken in the swarm especially with a small build like mine.
Damn it. Can't people chill? It's not like the train is going to leave right away.
I fought to squeeze my way out of the pile when an old man forcefully pushed past me. My eyes widened in shock as I was taken by the momentum and found myself falling off the train. I tried to reach out for something but I was already out of the car.
What the hell? Is this how I'm gonna die?!?!
Luckily a hand reached out to me and pulled me out of my near death experience. Before I could process everything that was happening around me, my mind was instantly filled with images.
I was walking home with my phone squeezed between my shoulder and cheek as my hand was currently occupied with a bag of groceries while the other was holding an umbrella. The rain was pouring so hard that most cars were warned to drive slowly. My house was close since I was just a block away when suddenly a car came rushing towards my direction.
I looked at the driver and he seemed like he didn't have full control of the car. He motioned for me to get out of the way but my feet didn't budge.Then before I knew it, the car crashed killing both of us.
"Miss! Are you there? Are you hurt anywhere?"
The vision ended right there and I started gasping for air. It was the first time I saw my own death! A car accident was the cause of my death. There was a person who caused both of our deaths.
My heart was beating wildly against my chest and I looked around me frazzled. There were numerous eyes on me and numbers filled my vision but I couldn't focus on it because my mind was still replaying what I saw. Some people came close to me, I think they were medics, but I scurried away from their touch.
"Hey, hey. You're safe. It's okay."
I turned to the sound of the voice and my anxiety went tenfold.
"It's okay. You're alive. You didn't die."
It was the person who died with me in my vision.
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N/A: It will be my first time writing fantasy. I hope I'd do well. This has been on my drafts for years, so glad I can finally post it. Hope you liked it!
