Kill Our Way to Heaven (Jikook) ✔

Chapter 49

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 49
"ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ"

Pitch darkness surrounded him. He could only feel the even, cold ground beneath him. It didn't even feel like a floor to him, just a surface, almost as if he had perfectly balanced himself on water. Without the pressure, he would've thought he was floating with no indication of what was up or down. Gravity was the only thing to keep him grounded. He couldn't even see the end of the room he was in, if he even was in a room. There was no source of light to tell or anything but the floor he was laying on.

He thought his vision was perfect, but the longer he looked at his hands, the more clouded they became, almost as if he was looking through smoke. It wasn't warm though, so it couldn't be. With every breath, Jimin took he could see the air that left his lungs condensate. Now that he thought of it, he couldn't feel his fingers anymore, or his feet, or his face. They were slowly freezing.

Jimin had always imagined Hell to be warm, to it consist solely of flames as high as mountains and coals as hot as Earth's core. Now it made sense to him. When he tried to warm his cold fingertips he felt Jungkook's skin underneath them. He could feel how the ice had grown onto his skin that night in the field when he was almost too weak to even breathe. The permanent cold that had settled over his heart ever since Jungkook got ripped from him felt all the more evident. He truly wondered how Hell could be anything but cold at this point. It was his trauma and his undoing morphed into one deadly aspect.

Jimin carefully moved his frozen legs forward, hardly feeling the ground beneath his feet anymore. He could hear the sound of his footsteps echo but without that, there was nothing but pure silence. Even his own irregular heartbeat sounded terribly loud in the abyss he was walking in. When he stopped and looked around again, his own breathing was all he could hear.

Jimin curled further in on himself, trying to maintain what little heat he had left in his body. He clung to it like a child to its mother, he guessed it as well was all that gave him life. As long as he could feel his heartbeat under his frozen fingers, that gave him enough courage to push on, or at least try to.

Still, his steps were cautious. He didn't know where he was, but there was no sight of danger, no sight of an enemy. There was only pure darkness surrounding him. But there was something about the black, the darkness seemed almost alive. There was something breathing beyond his vision, he just knew it. It was hidden from him, or maybe spying on him. Survival instinct kicked in, and before he knew it, his steps turned smaller and the turns of his head grew quicker. His breathing got rougher as anxiety sprouted within him, like poisoned ivy finding its way around his throat.

Jimin kept walking. He kept his arms wrapped around himself and his ears pierced. His steps grew quicker, less balanced. Adrenaline could only fuel him for so long. Before he knew it, his legs started to give out underneath him and his steps became too clumsy to keep him upright. As Jimin tumbled forward, behind him, he heard two more footsteps.

Immediately, Jimin flipped himself over. But there was nothing there, not a sound or shape following him. It was just his mind playing tricks on him, Jimin was sure of it. This Hell of his was just a game, some devilish game of chess, and it was his move.

Jimin breathed in deeply, feeling the cold air pierce what was left of his lungs. He needed to calm himself. Even though his instincts were screaming at him, Jimin wrapped his arms around his knees and forced himself to close his eyes. He saw no difference. The darkness behind his eyelids was just as cold and empty as the one before him. But his hearing, it was suddenly loud. Every breath, every heartbeat, it sounded like gunfire. There was nothing there except his own distorted perception, nothing.