Hypnotized//JH

.5.

I sat on my bedroom bench, legs crossed and palms placed against my right cheek. It was 4 AM by the time I came back home from the hospital after having a conversation with the patient, and I felt exhausted, not physically, but mentally. I didn't even bother changing into my pajamas or taking off my shoes. My eyes were finding it hard to stay opened, but my brain was resisting the urge to shut down for the night. Too much was going on inside my head and a lot of thoughts were being thrown around here and there to the point that my head felt like bursting.

The events of today and all the conversations that I've been part of kept on replaying in my head, but I seemed to constantly pause on only one particular event of the day: when I couldn't find the video. It was odd, way too odd. In fact, it was the oddest thing that has ever happened to me before.

I remember watching that video a million times just to learn the technique behind Hoseok's method of hypnotizing, so there was no way I was hallucinating. Most of the university students watched the video too! The video did exist, just why not at that exact moment?

Another thought that kept me up was the fact that the one person I was searching for was a murderer. I couldn't imagine myself standing in front of him knowing that he could end my life if he just felt like it. The whole scenario of him killing the man played in my head as detailed as the patient described it to me. I witnessed the horror of seeing his lips form into the words "Kill yourself" as slowly as they possibly could and it only made everything worse for me.

I wondered what would happen if he knows that I know who he truly is, what he has done, and what he is capable of. My body was left trembling involuntary and when I came back to my senses, I straightened my posture and cleared my throat. There was nothing to be afraid of. He was just a human being. Sure, he does know how to manipulate minds and end people's lives, but he remains a human and every human has a weak point. I made it my mission to figure out what his was, just not tonight.

I let out a deep sigh before taking off my shoes and throwing them to the far corner off the room, then crawled over my bench and onto my bed. I kept on crawling until I reached the top of my bed and then slipped under my blanket. My body was too tired that I couldn't even bring myself to go switch off the lights, so I just kept them on and in no time, I drifted off to my dreamland.

After what felt like seconds to me, I heard my alarm go off. I let out a loud groan before rotating my whole body until I was laying on my left side and opened one eye to check the time. It was 7 AM already. I closed my eyes again before slamming my alarm shut and layed on my back. I stayed still for a couple of seconds, trying to go back to sleep, but my conscience kept on convincing me otherwise.

As always, my conscience won the battle and so I started kicking my legs up and down as hard as I could against my bed then sat up straight, annoyed and frustrated to the maximum. I could see so much of my hair that I could only imagine how messy it must've been. The moment I decided to open my eyes fully, the light attacked them mercilessly, leaving me with a pair of closed eyes and a severe headache. The first task I gave myself at the start of the day was to get my eyes adjusted to the light intensity of the room and when that task was fulfilled, I forced myself I get out of bed and dragged my body to the bathroom to get my morning routine started.