Annihilation

Plunge

On the side of the building Jungkook and Jin played a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who would get the bag of salt and vinegar flavored chips. They'd retrieved a total of five bags and three cans of soda, Jungkook pouting when Jin won until he opened the snack to share with him.

Shelby leaned against the brick wall with Taehyung and Jimin on either side of her, switching between two bags while she ate from both. Namjoon held the map up as we approached, Yoongi's hand an inch away from the small of my back to guide me without touching me.

I put my focus into watching Namjoon spread the map onto the back of the tilted vending machine, squatting next to him while he dragged a finger over the paper until he landed on the previously named city of Chapel Hill. He traced closer to the capitol before moving in the direction we'd started walking to take a guess at our vicinity.

"We should get closer to the Neuse River since it runs so far across the state. Then we can follow it until we find a place to stay." He talked to himself and to the rest of the group, rubbing his chin in thought.

If we kept going in the same direction we'd run into it soon enough, needing to cross through parts of the woods to maintain the path. We took turns sipping at the sodas they recovered, lacking carbonation but still as sweet as I remembered before falling back into formation.

I was still a little distracted and out of body as we walked, hating that something as small as a closet impacted me in a way I couldn't quite describe. Jungkook and Shelby noticed quickly, dissatisfied with the vague answer that I was fine everytime they checked in.

We stopped one more time to rest, Jin sure that we were nearing water as he combed his fingers through the ground.

Jimin was the first to hear the sound of water flowing, his eyes lighting up at the faint trinkling noise. "I want to run to it." He beamed, moving into a sprint before anyone could stop him. Jungkook was right behind him, grabbing onto my hand to pull me with him before I could protest. It brought me back to the night we ran through the woods together to escape Carolus, though this time my heart raced with exactly what I needed in that moment, exhiliration rather than fear.

Finally, at the edge of the woods there was a break in the treeline, a short patch of land that standing between us and the river.

Jimin was the first to reach it, squatting down to cup his hands into the slow flowing water. He pulled it up to splash on his face, yelping at the bite of chill from the weather and flipping his hair away from his eyes as the ends got wet.

I gasped when Jungkook released my hand to keep going, bags dropping from his shoulders as he plunged into the water, taking a sitting position so that the few feet covered his entire body.

Jimin chuckled, shaking his head at the younger when he sprang up from the river with a shuttered gasp.

Jungkook's clothes were drenched, beads of water dripping from the tips of his hair and hem of his shirt. He reached his arms out in a gesture that made me instantly scrunch my nose in refusal.

"There's no way I'm getting in that." I crossed my arms, already imagining the hard time he was going to have warming back up.

"Come on, I used to do one almost every day in school. It'll wake up everything and bring you back into your body." He dipped under a second time as if it'd prove a point.

A small part of me thought he was right, that somehow a shock to my body would help more than the counted breaths that only reengaged my mind for a moment.

It was that inkling that pushed me toward the water and over the edge until I sunk down in one breath. For some reason I expected to feel nothing but it was just the opposite, a stark sensation of pin needles poking at me with the rush of heat that seemed to leave my body, replaced with a cold that drew my attention from pain.