KING

一 17

Brave the storm.

Brave the incoming storm, fight and struggle against the winds, ignoring the rain lashing at your vulnerable skin, drops like needles pricking your exposed body, you wonder if it'll draw blood at some point.

At some point, the storm will get so loud, all you'll hear is silence.

A silence so vast, so heavy, you weren't sure if you had gone deaf or your ears had been stuffed with cotton. A silence so powerful no one would dare to move a muscle for the fear of breaking it. That's what the inside of her head felt like.

A storm, powerful with bolts of lightning and claps of thunder muffled under the pretense of her sitting cross legged on the couch, eyes shut as she put on a calm front. A while had passed since she had spoken to Johnny and Ten, both the boys in their own rooms, sleeping.

She was alone.

Her eyes fluttered open as she stared at the door, gnawing at her lower lip. She felt like she was working sluggishly, too much haven't been thrown at her all at once. That left her mind confused and addled, her body refused to comply with its demands and simply shut down.

She hadn't gotten answers, but she was left behind with were more questions than answers.

Rina sighed, dropping her eyes down to her lap as she picked at the hem of Mark's old shirt, trying to make sense of what happened.

Youngho - Johnny - lied to her, lied to everyone, faking his death. How, she still wasn't sure of. She was too afraid to ask who's body they had used in his stead, afraid to know whether her brother wasn't truly who she thought he was. Eight years could change anybody.

The King lied to her - Ten wasn't dead. Obviously, he had her listening to someone else's execution. Maybe she hadn't even heard Ten's parents, maybe in her grief she hadn't realised it wasn't her best friend who being hung.

She wouldn't put it past her, after all, back then, she was weaker.

Was she any stronger now, though?

She winced as she remembered the needles that had pricked her arm, the wires that had been hooked up to computers. Hours in and out of surgery, staring at blinding lights over her head as masked doctors leaned over her.

"For the good of Limitless, Rina." Her father had once told her, when she'd broken and pleaded with him to stop. Her body couldn't stomach food or drink, she was lethargic and she could barely move. Wires, sensory overload, the constant internal changes they subjected her to. The assault of new smells when they rewired her olfactory senses made her head ache. She couldn't sleep at night anymore, not when the slightest squeak of her bed or the smallest rustle of a leaf sent a fresh wave of throbbing pain.

"Pull through it. You're all I have now."

She scoffed at the memory, remembering the find smile on his face as he brushed her sloppily cut hair away from her eyes, she remembered how the gentle kiss he had pressed to her forehead had momentarily curbed the stinging pain in her chest.

She was all he had, but he wasn't all she had. She had Chittaphon and she had Jaemin, the latter coming to visit her whenever he could. He was her little baby, waving his hands in an enthusiastic greeting as he'd climb onto her bed and seat himself beside her, a bright smile on his lips. The he nine year old boy always treated her as an equal, not like an experiment.

He'd speak, and she wouldn't understand half of what he was saying because of the heavy drugs they'd slipped into her system, but she'd nod and reply as much as she could.

"I can't wait till you become queen, Rina. Get better soon, because I'll be waiting to help you. Youngho would so proud."

That was the first time she realised he had no idea what they were doing to her, he had no idea the very components of her existence were being changed in order to attain the impossible.