When Shadows Fall | BTS Kim Namjoon

Chapter 27: Nightmare

A/N: I'm terribly sorry it took me so long to update! I've been having writer's block recently, not just about this story but actually not being able to write at all for the past few months. I think things are better now, but thank you for your patience! I hope you enjoy :)

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I lay staring at the cement ceiling, breathing fast, as the sound of the car faded and became one with the other traffic sounds. The white noise filtered through the ramp and came to bounce around in my empty brain. Slowly I realized one thought was rising slowly through the noise - Apartment. In my apartment.

He was in my apartment. Creepface was inside my apartment.

I felt like there should have been something attached to that thought, some kind of question, but the sentence just floated about unmoored in my brain.

There was a muted noise in the direction of the stairwell. I thought about moving my head to check but couldn't find the will to lift it.

How. That was the question creeping along the edges of my consciousness. How had he gotten in?

The question was all I had. I couldn't even begin to try to reason out an answer. He was in my apartment.

Waiting for me.

A face suddenly loomed over me, and I choked on a scream. Even as my limbs started flailing, my eyes fell to the insignia on the man's chest and I relaxed - police. So Namjoon had been able to call.

In my apartment.

"Which way did the shooter go?" a voice asked, and I moved my head a tiny bit, surprised at how hard it was to coax my muscles into motion. Three other alert and armed officers were beside the first, and one was looking at me for an answer while the others visually combed the parking garage.

"He got in a car and drove away," I said, the sounds coming out quiet and twisted into the air. At the man's look of confusion, I repeated myself, trying harder to force the words out. They must have understood me, because one of them unclipped a walkie-talkie and asked me, "Did you see the license plate?"

I blinked. "No..." I'd always thought it was stupid that people in movies couldn't take half a second to notice the license plate number, but it really wasn't easy to think when bullets were seeking flesh. "I'm sorry."

The men split up to begin searching the area. I listened as the officer with the radio updated someone on the situation, the words ricocheting around my head with little meaning.

"Shooter has reportedly left the premises. Team B searching lower level parking garage. Possibly injured victim south of stairwell entrance."

There was a response that I couldn't hear, followed by more talking. I blinked - "possibly injured victim" was me, wasn't it?

I wasn't shot, though. I was fine.

I tried to sit up, the muscles in my neck and abdomen straining too hard for what should have been a simple task. Scrunching my eyes shut, I gathered all my willpower and forced myself to complete the motion. When I was finally sitting upright, I blinked a few times, feeling a dizzy, sinking blood-rush to my head.

I was fine, right?

Black patches competed with white-hot sparks to master my vision, and I closed my eyes again. It reminded me of the time I'd had my blood drawn at the hospital and stood up too fast afterwards - I'd pretended I was fine and walked out of there on my own two feet as the world tilted and faded and swayed, but I'd probably fooled no one. Now, just thinking about trying to stand up made my head feel full of molten lead.