Darker Blood

Chapter sixty-nine

Inori pov~

Jin's grip on my wrist intensified to the point I couldn't feel my fingers anymore as all signs of light were seemingly sucked out of the sky itself, thick dark clouds sealing us in. He'd stopped pulling me towards the house, rooted in the spot as his eyes flickered brightly with more light than the entire sky above us.

What the fuck?

'It's started.'

"What's started?" I had to shout at the leader, the wind threatening to whisk my words away before he even heard them.

'The end.'

"No," I mumbled it, and knew he'd heard it for sure. "N-no, it can't be, it's not time for this."

I tried to pull away from his grip yet he wouldn't let me, so I settled for pulling him back towards the others, and he walked as calmly as he would if he was taking a stroll after dinner.

"It's not like we're given a book of everything that's going to happen, we would have never known until it happened."

So, pretty much, the end is inevitable, and it was happening now.

I tripped and struggled over rises and dips in the dirt, branches scratching against my skin as I continued back the way we'd come, desperate to find Jungkook.

"Inori!"

I heard him before I could see him, my eyes straining so hard it hurt to see through the darkness, only catching him last minute before he caught me, pulling me tight against his body like he could protect me from what was going on. Taehyung and Jimin were there, clinging close to their leader, scared to the very core.

All of the heat was sucked from the air, the cold so intense I could feel it affecting even me. I bent over, arms clutching my stomach tight as my very blood was attacked with stabs of ice. I fell over in the next moment, laying on the ground in a tangled heap somewhat held by the boy I loved who could only ask what was wrong.

I could feel myself burning, skin searing and ice crackling everywhere it could cover.

It really hurt.

Jungkook was freezing, so cold that it only grilled my skin faster, and I screamed at the physical burns that refused to adorn my skin, the pain all trapped inside my head. He was too scared to let go of me completely, and I clung back onto him, letting everything out as the ground rumbled and tingled against my body.

Everything suddenly made sense. In the past, present, and whatever future there could have been, I would always be the first to die. No amount of prolonging and fighting could ever have changed that. It was my turn to die, my duty, and I had no option but to be content with that.

I looked up at the teary face of my lover, stroking a single weak finger down the side of his face through the pain. I could sense his fear, anxiety, and desperation. His heart was hurting, and a part of him already knew what I would say.

"It's my turn to die, so it's really okay."

"Don't you dare say that. I can fix you."

His hands were there, sliding over the skin of my arms, prickling with magic, trying to heal the destruction my soul was putting me through. But nothing was helping, I could feel myself being drained of energy, of life, of hope.

Letting go was the easy part; all I had to do was fall into the wide open arms of the abyss. The difficult part was lying in my lover's hold, pretending I couldn't hear his begs and pleas for me to stay just a little bit longer.