1.2 | blood in the water [zodiac fic.]

episode 03. grim hours

EPISODE 03 / blood in the water

GRIM HOURS & WHISKEY ON ICE

IT'S SEVEN MINUTES BEFORE HER WORLD COLLAPSES.

The sixth tick of the clock— and he's there, standing still as medusa eyes spill crystal tears, periwinkle fingernails grasp harbinger's knuckles in hopes of tearing down the tender flesh, veins popping out in the whites of her eyes. Haphazard breaths and hushed prayers fall from plump cherry lips.

They'll all be unanswered. He knows it because now, exactly six minutes and forty five seconds after she falls still.

She always does.

It's four minutes before her breaths painfully slowly combust. Four minutes before she becomes a child of soil and dirt and ruin. Four minutes before she is no longer divine. A fall from grace.

Inhale. Inhale the scent of rot. So palpable that he can taste it in the back of his throat. Images of pale flesh shall remain fresh & burning in his haywire brain for as long as his lungs remain capable of inhaling the filthy rot.

It's two minutes and twenty five seconds now. She's here. He's here. And her world is burning. And on the world's ashes shall the harbinger dance as the wailing cries of the girl of the lake are silenced in her throat.

Dead girls aren't allowed to tell any tales after all.

Sixty seconds before the light in her eyes stops flickering and dims.

It's intriguing how he lives the seven minutes over and over and over again, replaying the waking nightmare like an old 80s cassette tape, thinking that perhaps—
perhaps this once he'll do more than simply stand still.

3.0

The phone near the ceramic wash basin buzzed, snapping Euntae from his reverie.

He wrapped his pale fingers around his throat as he was her. As if it was him losing all the oxygen from his windpipe. He focused on the boy in the mirror, stared into his hazel eyes which were giving off a honeyish hue under the bright bathroom lights. His grip on the bathroom sink tightened, knuckles turning white.

Wash his hands. Euntae needed to wash his hands.

He frantically turned on the tap, the rushing hot water providing temporary solace. He lathered his hands with suds, scrubbed them underneath the scowling hot water until they itched and burned, trying to wash off mud and blood and ruin that wasn't there.