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When he felt the teeth sank in, Yeongshin thought, no, not yet.
He knew pain. Bruises and cuts, branded flesh and broken bones, the ever-present gnawing feeling curled deep in the guts.
But this? This was different.
It burned.
Burned like watching his little brother getting thinner and weaker. Burned like looking into the sick boy's eyes and making a promise that he didn't know how to keep.
Burned like the ashes of a ruined field he once called home, choking in his throat.
It burned.
Fire crawled under the tearing bite and dug deep into his flesh. His body seized, faltered, and suddenly he was crowded by monsters and weighted down onto the unyielding ice.
Too thick. Too damned thick.
He kicked and tossed, scrabbled and struggled, to no avail.
He had lost his gun. He had lost his defense. He had lost his sight of the prince in tides and tides of bloody monsters.
No. He can't loss that.
He's aware of the way he followed the prince like a stray in seek of a new keeper, past hound or not, showing of all his tricks, desperate to impress.
Because somehow along the way to stop all this hell-like mess, the prince had become the only hope he'd ever dared to have. A touch of light above the endless dark path that is his life.
So he cried out. Or he thought he cried out.
A deafening crash drowned out all the sounds, followed by series of crackings and in a blink he's falling, sinking...
Swallowed by the dark lake.
Cold. So cold. Too cold.
The enfolding waves branded him like liquid iron, pierced into his aching bones.
He flailed frantically——not that he's afraid of dying.
None of them had thought they'd make it out alive when they followed their prince upto the rooftops, then onto the ice, into the death trap.
He just never knew how to give up.
But his body failed him, hurting and numbing in the same time, dragged him down with all his sins and guilt.
He watched the inhumane shapes stilled one by one through his eyelids, clouds and clouds of blooded silk floated above and around him.
Did it work?
It must.
Because he had given his all to the only thing he's ever capable of: redeem his deed.
But had he done enough?
He hoped so.
Darkness enveloped. Soundlessly, hesitantly.
The pain was gone. His body was gone.
There's no up and down, left or right, only what's left of himself drifting in this new found endless nothingness.
Somehow merciless, but fair.
For the first time in too many years, he's at peace.
And the world came back.
Yeongshin flailed again, and swam.
...up to his new found hope.