Chapter Text
As a youth, Jungkook's mother had always warned him to stay out of the woods.
He never knew then just what it was that they were truly hiding from, choosing instead to remain ignorant despite his peers' jabs and their calling him a coward for his lack of presence during their secret games in the woods. As much as he craved to belong, to have a taste of the camaraderie they’ve formed over their shared secret, he could not deny the wariness seeping into his bones from his mother's tales of the gods and monsters supposedly surrounding their quaint village.
Even as a child he had only ever wanted, needed, one thing--safety. Certainty.
Children like him never bothered with the stars when they already had a single candle. He didn't want his mother to wake and find that her only son had met the same fate as his father. So he remained in their little home, safe, merely watching as the world changed outside his bedroom window.
_
Days bled into days, and years into years, and as his limbs grew longer he saw how the shadows from the woods shifted, growing darker, devouring more and more of their land.
He saw the grass wilt in its craven touch. He saw the fear in his fellow villagers' eyes. How desperation seemed to waft over them all now, like it had long seeped into their skin.
They grew hungrier as their flocks died out, black veins lining their skin and their eyes becoming like black tar. Most days they barely had enough of anything, yet despite it all he strove to remaine vigilant; opting to join their villages' limited forces, learning how to fight and make his body into a weapon--for somehow he knew that there was something else out there, just watching, waiting, bidding its time.
_
And at night, when he wakes, it is to find himself shivering, despite the sweat drenching his clothes and his sheets.
He's never told anyone, not even his mother, but he dreams about them often--things with hundreds of eyes and teeth and rotting limbs, men with black tar for eyes, hundreds of hands pulling him under into liquid obsidian to swallow him whole. Shadows, always. And a man's touch, unfamiliar, whisper soft. So close he could almost taste it, the salt and ice of its skin.
He wakes gasping and he remembers it all: The wanting, the screaming, the blood. How real it felt. Sometimes he wonders if they were prophetic. He can only hope that they were not.
_
"If this keeps up, they're truly going to start a mutiny before winter starts. " Eunji stated, her hands on her hips as she squinted against the afternoon sun.
"Against what? It's not like Chief Kim can do anything against the shadows." He replied as he stretched beside his childhood friend, limbs sore from squatting for hours.
"Maybe not, but they need something, or someone, to blame. Look at us, Jungkook. We're the best hunters the village has got now and we haven't caught anything in two days. Sundown's in three hours and we're going to have to close the gap with nothing in our hands again." She snapped, bending down to gather her weapons.
"It's not your fault." He placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping to calm her down. " I don't know what they expected from us, asking us to station here. Best hunters or not, we can't catch anything if there's nothing to catch. You've seen how the shadows work. They kill everything they touch. Our coming here was nothing but a pipe dream. There's nothing left alive in the woods."
"Maybe so. But you've seen how empty the lake is. Our leftover rations wouldnt be enough to feed us for more than two months. They're desperate. I'm desperate. Enough to start looking here. There has to be something we can do."
For a few moments they both stayed silent, not wanting to think of how dire the situation is.
"Let's try sending an offering then." He finally replied, barely blinking at the incensed gasp he received in return.
"What?! We haven't sent it an offering in two decades! We're no longer barbarians. We're barely a hundred in the village as it is. We're not going to send one of our own to appease something we've only heard about in myths and stories. For all we know, the offerings they've sent before only got lost in the woods, or died of starvation, and it was pure coincidence that the shadows only grew after. "
"The Lacuna--" he started, but was quickly cut off.
"--Is nothing but a story our mothers tell us as kids to scare us to sleep. Do you still believe in such things, Jungkook? There's no such thing as monsters. There's no magic nor miracles either. All there is is us. Humans. And hunger. So don't get funny ideas. I've known you snce we were ten and I know how you look when you're planning something. Let's just pack up and go back. You were right anyway, there's nothing else we can do here today." She slipped her bow back onto its sheathe and held out a hand, which he took after a few beats.
He followed after her, dusting his pants off of dirt and grime.
Was it really such an inane idea? Two decades ago the shadows were merely a black spot against the horizon. Now it was almost akin to the gaping mouth of a monster threatening to swallow their village whole. If not for the lack of offerings, then what reason could there be for its growth?
When the new Village Chief took over--Kim Han-Eul, the father of his older childhood friend Kim Seokjin--the annual offering had stopped, due to his benevolent nature. The newly appointed Chief had stubbornly believed that they must break past the old traditions, calling them barbaric, inhumane. He opted to indoctrinate them with his religion. The town’s center was converted into a Church, and crosses were planted at the edge of the woods. The shadows were the work of the devil, he’d said.
He remembered how his father's group had shouted in anger during the announcement. He had often asked his mother why it was so. Was his father that brash, cold-hearted?
Now he was old enough to understand. His father's group were the best hunters their village had, and they had an inkling of the creature lurking in their woods, and what it wanted. They weren't inhumane, they were merely practical. They did what they had to to survive, no matter the cost. If it meant sacrificing one to save hundreds, then they'll do so--even going as far to giving themselves over to the woods to appease whatever entity it is that may reside there, in the hopes that it wouldn't lead to what was happening now.
He could only hope he could be as noble as his father had been. That he could be valiant, and die someday for something he truly believed in, knowing he did something right.
But he knew in his heart he wasn't.
He thought of his mother and her crooked fingers, her bent back. How she barely had enough to eat because she gave it all to him. How she protested when he offered, stating that she'd already eaten when his were the lone bowl on their table. He thinks of this and how he'd sacrifice anything, anyone, just to make the shadows disappear. Just so his mother would stop looking at him with dead eyes. Even the whole damned village.
He knew he was being selfish. But he'd had to be, if he wanted to live. There was no place for softness nor children in their world.
He thinks of all of this, not noticing the odd look Eunji had leveled on him, the almost fear in her eyes as she glimpsed his dark eyes. Like dead fish, she thought. Jeon Jungkook, what are you thinking? What have you become?
Not noticing the lone watcher, deep in the shadows, just watching, bidding his time.