Chapter Text
He couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard he tried to inhale the air around him, it just wouldn’t go all the way into his lungs.
You need to calm down. Otherwise they are going to find you. You are so close to finally getting away. You can’t give up. He repeated those words like a mantra, but his vision still became foggier with every second he ordered his legs to continue to run. He couldn’t remember for how long he has been running through this maze of trees and all he wanted was to stop. Just for a second. Just long enough to catch his breath and clear his vision. But he wasn’t sure if he got away yet or if the hunters were still behind him - somewhere in the undergrowth, just waiting for him to make a mistake.
His head turned back once more to check his surroundings and when he couldn’t see anybody, he allowed himself to stop. He needed a plan. Preferably right now. They have trained him for years. They taught him how to survive in a fight, but he wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to go against those creatures who were barely human anymore. Who had to suffer even more than he had.
You need to find a place to hide. But where? He knew that the facility was far away from civilization. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hide all their dirty secrets. But he has been running for at least 5 hours (if he could trust his sense of time at all) and someone had to be around here. He closed his eyes, went down on his knees and focused his senses just how the major had taught him all those years ago.
You need to focus on one thing and shut everything else out, boy. Let your instincts take over. In some occasions this will be the only way for you to survive. And that’s what he did. With one hand touching the earth beneath his feet, he followed his senses until the forest stopped. He could make out a street just a little bit more than 4 kilometers in front of him. If he keeps up the tempo from before, he should be able to make it there before the sun goes down. Slowly he withdraws his feelers until his spirit is no longer in the earth but back inside his body. Every muscle aches as he stands up and starts to run into the direction of the street. He isn’t sure if it’s the right decision. How can he be sure that anybody lives close enough to use that road? Maybe he will wait there in vain and the hunters will surely find him out in the open. It’s only a matter of a few hours until they’ll catch up to him and then he will have to at least try to fight them, but he will lose in his current condition.
He doesn’t have time to regret his decision as he starts to see the road in front of him. As soon as he steps on it, he feels his powers wither away and his legs give away beneath him. He welcomes the pain he feels when his face and the parts of his arms that aren’t covered by his t-shirt scrape over the asphalt. For the first time in hours he can breath. In and out. In and out. In and out. It’s the only thing he focuses on for a while. Somewhere deep inside of his soul he is scared that this is the end. That he fought all this time just to die on a road in the middle of nowhere. All alone. Part of him welcomes the darkness with open arms, hoping that feeling nothing is as fulfilling as he expects it to be. Part of him wants his life to be more than what he experienced in the past. He admits that maybe a tiny part of him is also scared for his soulmate even though he knows that he needs to commit to the bond first for his soulmate to be affected by his death. At least that’s what his parents told him when he first asked questions about the tattoo on his right wrist. Slowly he can feel his thoughts slip away from him and he knows that if the hunters find him now, he won’t be able to put up a fight. Mum. Dad. Hyung. I’m sorry, but I can’t fight anymore. I’m just so tired. The last thing he sees before the darkness envelops him is the outline of a caravan driving down the road right in his direction.