Darker Blood

Chapter seventy

Jungkook pov~

Everything was white.

I was floating harmlessly, a single particle drifting through space. I couldn't see Jin, or Taehyung, or my love.

I looked down at my hands, so dark in contrast to the blinding white that couldn't touch me for I was impure, a weeping wound scratched by the devil himself into the skin of the universe.

"You may be filthy, but you are important."

I looked around for any source of the sound, my body floating without gravity, spinning in the air until I wished it to stop and it did. I hadn't heard the voice, it felt like it was coming from everywhere at once, vibrating within my very bones.

Maybe I hadn't heard it at all?

I strained my ears for anything else, straining my eyes at a sight in the far distance, where parts of the pure white universe were twisting and binding together, turning darker with each spin, constructing limbs and hair and a face as still as a doll's until a girl stood right amongst the floorless space. Her features didn't change as I asked her who she was, and she stepped calmly on invisible ground towards me while I floated, trying to make my position more central.

"I do not have a name, nor do I wish for one."

I frowned at the girl. So that's where the voice had been coming from. Her lips hardly moved, everything about her seeming quiet, reserved and small, yet the tiniest movement rocked my eardrums.

"Where are they?"

Her lips quirked up until a charming look. "They have not yet arrived. Your friend is still deciding how far back things need to go before he is erased everywhere."

I clenched my fists so hard the skin challenged the pure white surrounding us, unable to continue looking at her. He really did it. He expelled himself from the universe, a passing thought that would never exist, a void that would always be empty while everyone remained blissfully oblivious to his sacrifice.

I miss him.

"You didn't know, did you?"

My look alone, watery eyes turning puzzled, blotchy face twisting into confusion, was an answer within itself. She looked at me calmly, as if discussing some mundane thing, a part of everyday conversation.

"He would have always done it, if you asked him or not. He favours you because of how much he likes you."

I swallowed hard. "He was my friend, we were a family, he was like my brother-"

"I didn't say he would sacrifice himself for a brother. Families are tedious."

The guilt pressed so hard onto my chest that I was sure something internally had raptured, and I hung my head, unable to face the unnamed voice that was surely a god or a devil, or even both.

"You are not physically injured. You are untouchable in this space."

Her voice was empty, and it offered no comfort or reassurance. I couldn't even restart it to bring him back, he is nothing more than a forgotten dream now, deleted from everyone's minds but mine.

Remembering is the worst.

She hummed, slowly moving to look straight upwards even though all there was, was white covering everything. "I should go. Your master is arriving."

Not a moment later did Jin appear beside me, just a little too far from my grasp, his eyes closed as he was suspended in space. I looked around for another sign, any indication that Taehyung would be here too, and the sigh that the girl let out only had me guessing I was missing something big.