Perpetual Rain ✓

Hell

Water poured over the top of your head, uninterrupted as you sat on the porcelain floor of the hotel's tub. You didn't have the strength in you to stand right now, mentally drained to the point of physical exhaustion. Even lifting your arms to run lather into your hair seemed like a daunting challenge.

So you just sat there, dazed and confused. Legs bent, hugged against your bare chest as your lifeless eyes stared at the tub's floor with no objective. The fact that you managed to get undressed was a miracle in itself. At least now you were warm.

Deeply, you breathed. Despite your best efforts to focus on anything else besides the madness in your mind, you failed. You drifted back to hours earlier, kneeling in that street.

Your body tensed at the remembrance of that pain. That soul crushing agony that you could still remember so clearly but you wanted nothing more than to forget. The shaking that had stopped due to the warm water began to return. This time, fear chased it like whiskey. Nails sinking into the flesh of your legs, you tried to keep your body taunt and force it to stop, but to no avail.

Resting your head against your knees you tried to think of something, anything. The pain felt as though it was returning all over again with those vivid memories. Eyes slamming shut, you held your own body in a death grip, afraid if you loosened your hold you'd shatter right there on the porcelain floor. Though, the darkness brought no solitude. Hell was the only thing that followed...

Lucid imagine after imagine began to flash behind your closed lids. Blinding headlights, the smell of charred metal, the heat of fire but no sight of flames, broken bones... blood. They were all flashing so fast you couldn't make anything out. Were these hallucinations? Were you dreaming? You tried to focus, tried to wake yourself up from the unrelenting nightmare but the recurring pain was making it impossible. Your stomach began to turn - twisting as if your organs were being turned to mulch. Blades of a blender thrust through your abdomen, rapidly spinning like you were nothing more than red velvet cake batter. 

Your mouth came unhinged, gasping for air that was lodged deep in your throat. You could taste the metallic familiarity of blood, as if drowning in it. Memories of where you were vanished, as you could only feel the torment of hell. You were being punished, but for what? Your nails began to sink so deeply into your skin that you tore it, drawing blood that began to run down your calves with the water that drained it from your veins. Your fingers went numb, along with your toes, that ice cold touch of death seeping into them like the winter frost on moist glass.

Wake up... Wake up... Just wake up...

"Y/N!" A voice screamed out, followed by loud pounding like a fist on wood. "Y/N! Are you okay?!" They called out once more, the voice only getting louder. It was him, Taehyung. "Y/N! Open the door!" He yelled, you could hear the rattle of the gold plated handle of the bathroom door.

Finally, your eyes snapped open. In that split second you heard the echoes of screaming, and in that instant, you realized they were yours. Your lips trembling as you finally inhaled a much needed breath, your lungs gasped for air, you were unsure when the last time you had remembered to fill them. The screaming had stopped as soon as you satisfied your urge to breathe. Your head shot up so fast that you nearly slammed it on the shower's wall.

"Y/N!" Taehyung continued to yell, his fist pounding into the thick wood of the bathroom door.

"Yes! Yes... I'm fine." You called out between labored breaths, hands moving to the sides of your head as you gripped it lightly. You could almost feel your head throbbing against the pads of your fingers.

"Y/N, open the door." He demanded as you could still hear the rattling.

"I can't..." You called out, weakly. Your voice was hoarse from the screams that you didn't even know you were emanating. But you still couldn't move, you couldn't let him in.