Chapter Text
It's cold when he wakes up.
He breathes in through his clogged nose, and an inexplicable pain jolts through the back of his head. A severe migraine crashes through his senses, that triggered a yelp to tore from his lips.
Jungkook has no idea how he got here.
Or maybe he does, but it's all foggy and disjointed scraps of memories.
Jungkook groaned and hauled himself to his feet, brushing brittle leaves and caked mud from the seat of his thin trousers. His neck had gone stiff laying in an awkward position on his back throughout the night. The bone-deep ache seared through his body in waves as he straightened his spine and squared his shoulders.
He's in a forest. What he can make of by surveying his surroundings, is a dense and fanned out woodland. With deep lagoons and lanky trees, Jungkook can't grasp whether it's morning or night.
He'd long lost sense of time. Long since he'd escaped that hellhole.
Breathe in. A panicked wire of his brain tells him. Just walk ahead. He advanced forward, and a sudden rush of awareness overwhelmed his senses. A scream ripped through his throat and echoed out into the wild. Jungkook immediately clasped a hand over his mouth and cried out. A sharp pain had stabbed through his foot and numbness overtook his left leg promptly. Shit. He forced through clenched teeth. Could things sink any lower than this? He forced himself to think despite the pain.
After standing there, for what felt like eternity, Jungkook finally gathered the courage to step ahead again. He didn't put much weight on his left leg and foot and limped forward, hobbling.
The ground underneath his foot is bumpy, causing an unbalance. Jungkook mustered up the courage to lower his neck and glance down at himself.
He's flabbergasted. The white shirt that'd been with him through and through was hanging in strips off of his chest. While the remaining fabric clung to him like second skin, slick with sweat and dirt. His trousers, unfortunately chalky, had deepened in color too. Jungkook sighs exhausted and the Is it what it is attitude overtook him. He has to make peace with all this if he wishes to get out of this place.
He traversed through the uneven pathway and finally caught a glimpse of a lake. Not any lake. An unusual sense of relief washed over him. It was a rainforest lake.
Jungkook was in the rainforest.
He blinked thrice to clear his blurred vision and inched towards the lake. The clear water held out vivid reflections of the trees arched over it. As Jungkook crept closer, he saw his own reflection in the mist. His face looked pale and the dirt didn't forget to leave its smudges there too. Jungkook sank to his right knee and scooped water into his cupped palms. He drinks from it first, then throws the remaining fluid on his face. It was cold and refreshing. Moisture returned to his throat and he can eventually breathe. He wished he had a water bottle so he could refill it for later use. But knowing he shouldn't stay around and wait for his throat to go dry just to drink from the lake again, he rose up and proceeded.
Just as he was about to forge ahead, he caught a glimpse of something colorful through his peripheral vision. Slowly, he turned to his right, and his breath hitched in his throat for a falter second.
Oranges. So many of them piled against the branches of a hunched tree. The brightest among the grey spread out encircling him. Despite himself, helplessly hungry, Jungkook drifted towards the tree with his stomach grumbling painfully. He reached out for it, hand clasped around the round fruit as he pulled it in.
"Wrong one,"
Jungkook jumped back. The voice burst forth, loud and clear. With his eyes stretched wide, Jungkook's gaze darted from side to side. His heart drummed against his rib, attempting to break loose.
"Wait. Can you hear me?" The voice questioned again. Its tone deaf high.
Detecting the voice coming from the higher branch of the tree, Jungkook raised his neck. In one moment his body is fully in panic mode, and in the next one it went numb.
Over the thick branch, hunched on her toes, sat a spirit maiden.
The air shot out of Jungkook's lung the second his eyes met her unnervingly wide ones, with pinprick irises floating in a sea of white. The slight calmness he'd felt awhile ago , went flying outside the window.
"You can see me.?" She probed.
"No!" He hastily shook his head.
The maiden crooked her brow and watched him for a long time, suspended in one spot. Jungkook drifted his eyes away at the lake to ease the obliviousness.
"What a liar!" She remarked. "How about I eat your soul for falsifying to me?"
Jungkook could cry right now. He probably should, and beg her to spare his life. Remnants of past encounters with every sort of spirit flashed in images before his eyes, and none of them had been fond recollections. Jungkook could die right now. The thought is enough to numb him wholly and utterly.
With his tongue restless and quivering, Jungkook drawled, "Spare my life. I promise I won't show up again." he breathed.
The spirit watched him, sizing him up, "But weren't you about to steal from my tree?"
"I know. I'm sorry," He hesitated, "I was tempted,"
"Tempted?" The spirit burst out laughing. "So you're telling me that a human is milling about this territory without any good reason. And stupid enough to feel tempted?"
"I know it's stupid. I was just hungry. If you let me go I won't bother you, ever." He finished breathless.
The spirit traces her prominent sclera over every smooth of his features. She leaned and dipped her head towards him, flaring her nostrils.
"Are you trying to smell me?" he asked despite himself.
"Yes. And what I'm smelling is that you are rather an extraordinary human," She quipped and reclined her head. "What are you?"
Jungkook isn't dissimilar to the question. He'd been asked this before. He could hear their voices jamming against his very pulse. Yet, he doesn't truly know the answer. Of what he is. Of what he'd been his entire life.
Nibbling at his lower lips in quiet somberness, Jungkook exhaled through his mouth, "I just...," He gulped the thickness down his throat. Suddenly he's dying of thirst again and would like to gulp down an entire pond if he could. "I can see spirits."
That's all that comes out of his mouth.
"You can see us?" She perked a brow at him, "How and why?"
Jungkook flicks his tongue over his lips, "I don't know. I can just see them. I don't know why."
He peered at the maiden and she looked skeptical. He also noticed the way her shoulders tensed in vigilantism. She might actually kill him if he appeared ominous.
"I'm just a mere human who somehow can see spirits and that's all. I swear I harbor no ill will." he pressed. "Can I leave?"
She looked like she was contemplating. Her wide eyes squinted, small, and translucent body twinkling under the light of the sky. Then, after an awkward, uneasy silence, she leaned her back against the tree and eased her legs straight.
"If you tell me how you wielded this spectral vision. I might spare you the trouble of escaping."
Jungkook flicks his eyes shut and huffs out. This was too much. He should never have allowed those oranges to lure him in. Couldn't he just walk straight ahead after drinking the water? He'd read somewhere that greed is humanity's greatest adversary. The words finally took root in his mind.
"I was born this way," He said with conviction. "I didn't wield it. I've possessed this sight for as long as I have known myself."
The spirit peered at him like he'd said something unparalleled.
"It's not a lie," he pleaded. "If I was any threat to you I wouldn't be standing here answering your assumptions."
She let out a small, sardonic "oh." The corner of her pinched lips curled with amusement. "You couldn't intimidate me if you tried."
Jungkook grasps just how much time has passed. He couldn't waste time here since he isn't truly aware of how much it'll take to work his way through the forest.
"Then what do you want?"
The spirit raked her long nails lightly across her chin. "You see. I'm used to certain people trespassing this territory," Her eyes glistened, "They can feel my presence too. So they find their way here to hunt me down."
Jungkook blinked at her. He's aware of what and who she's talking about. He'd heard stories about them, crueler and darker. Their reputation among the common folk was not very favourable. Their name carried little respect. And Jeon Jungkook had never held them in high regard either.
"I'm not one of them," He held out his hands. "Look, I don't even have any weapon with me. I promise I'll just leave and you won't have to worry." he finished, desperation evident in his voice.
"Okay. But how did you even get here then?" She tilted her head. "You are too deep into the forest. And it would take you at least a few hours to get to the final point."
Jungkook doesn't answer. His lips pressed together and his throat painfully dry. In his mind, he fought to piece his memories back together. But nothing came. Only fragile and distorted images floating through the surface, never fully coming into view.
"I don't...," he trailed off as he noticed the spirit's gaze perched atop his head. "What?" he asked.
"You hit your head?" She asked a rhetorical question.
Jungkook ran a hand over his hair. On the top back of his head, a raised welt had formed where he must have been struck. The skin around the wound was inflamed and tender. It didn't hurt because the numbness had taken over.
The spirit's eyes softened with an almost unnatural gentleness. Her shoulders eased and her transparent body stabilized.
"How old are you?" She pondered.
"Twenty-one." He was momentarily stunned by her question but still responded.
"Uh, you're basically a kid." She remarked. "Did you leave home on your own?"
Jungkook blinked. She was right. He had run away. He'd remember fleeing with bare feet and not a single cent in his pocket. He'd remember how it felt as though he could finally breathe once he was far away from home.
"Good grief, you're weak and defeated. Where will you end up after this?" She teased, though concern softened her voice.
"I'll find a place. But it can only happen if I'm out of here." Jungkook drifted his gaze all over his surroundings. "Can I please, please leave now?"
The spirit maiden appeared to be no longer amused. She flicked her tongue and shrugged her shoulders. "Why are you so eager to leave?"
Jungkook was about to snap. He was so done with her. So done with everything. He was weak. He was lightheaded since he hadn't filled his stomach for as long as he can remember. Every inch of him was slick with sweat and his left leg was still numb as ever. He was just so fucking done with everything. He want to jump into the rainforest lake and wash the dirt away and-
His musing died all at once. He doesn't know why he went completely still. His breath caught in his throat.
He noticed something---or someone moving through the bushes on the other end of the forest through his peripheral vision.
Jungkook blinked twice.
"You look like shit. Geez, I feel so bad for you." The spirit mumbled.
Jungkook held his breath when he detected movement at the edge of his vision. A figure, to be precise, a human figure stood straight, watching him.
Jungkook gulped the thickness on his tongue down his dried throat and ever so slowly, turned his head and met the unknown's eyes.
It was a short haired woman. Standing at a far distance, Jungkook couldn't possibly make out her face. He traced his gaze down to her neck and noticed a chain around her skin. Jungkook immediately recognized the familiarity. It was an EMF meter. A clock-like device used in ghost hunting.
His blood ran cold.
She couldn't possibly be what Jungkook is thinking she is, right?
"Uh? I'm sensing pure fear from you. Come on, you don't have to be scared of me. I pity you. I won't harm you."
But Jungkook can't hear shit. He'd never seen spirit hunters before. But there had always been a question circling in the back of his mind: If spirit hunters hunt spirits, or even kill them, what're they gonna do to him? If one day, they found out that there was a guy who could see all sorts of spirits, would they hunt him down too?
Are they gonna kill him too?
The woman inched closer to them and she's no longer that at the distance. She's getting closer. And to make it worse, the spirit flinched and her translucent figure jolted and flickered aggressively. Her face turned into something ugly as she snapped her head and spotted the woman.
The maiden clenched her teeth and turned her oversized eyes at Jungkook.
"You rascal! You liar!" She roared.
Jungkook shook his head as his eyes blurred with tears, "I didn't. I have no idea who she is."
The spirit maiden looked broken. She looked like she regretted trusting Jungkook. She looked like she was ashamed for not devouring his soul.
"I..." He obliged. "I'm not with her."
"I could smell it. I was smelling the danger. You betrayed me!" Her voice reverberated into his ears.
Jungkook shook his head again.
"Hey!" That woman called, voice rough. "Who are you talking to, kid?"
No.
The spirit loomed from her perch on the branch, and climbed up the tree. She clambered until she disappeared completely from his sight.
Only then did Jungkook move. His body had gone stiff standing in one position for so long. His head throbbing and muscles taut.
The woman looked like she was fixing something in her right ear, and then she said, "Aye captain?" She voiced. "It's here. I'm standing near the rainforest lake and the Orange tree," She peaked at Jungkook. "Yes. And there's also a boy here. What should I do?"
Kill him. Jungkook hears the person saying, though he couldn't hear any voice coming from the earbud. He could just sense it.
You can't die. His veins screamed at him. After everything, you cannot just die. Jungkook inched back. Run, Jungkook. Run!
And that's what he did.
He ran. He sped to save his life. But as soon as he did, a scream tore from his lips. Every inch of his body jolted in painful waves. But he sprinted anyways.
"Stop right there!" The woman yelled.
He doesn't. If anything, he sped up. He crossed the rainforest lake and emerged into bushes and what not. He can't move his left leg or foot. He could feel every vein of his leg popping and breaking. His ankle is screaming at him to halt. Jungkook didn't. The back of his head snapped at him, shutting down all his senses. But Jungkook ran anyway.
Just keep running. Far away from them. Don't stop! He yelled at himself.
Behind him, Jungkook could hear hurried footsteps. He was sure the woman was much sharper and faster than him. She looked completely healthy. She looked like she could run for miles without dying. The possibility made Jungkook to clench his fists and teeth as he bolted through the wild. The footsteps behind him grew harder.
"I said stop!" She shouts.
Jungkook doesn't know why he shook his head at her. But he did. His vision blurred and darkness etched around the corner of his eyes. Jungkook closed his eyes as the intense pain flashed through his skull. He closed his eyes so shut that all he could see was nothingness. And he doesn't stop running.
He could feel the forest breathing under his foot. The uneven surface making his leg wobbly then they already were.
With his iris shut taut, and his tears streaming down his neck. A vision appeared before Jungkook's eyes. There are countless voices slamming one after another into his ears. It dawned on him, how it started. And it dawned on him, that the threads of his memories had been severed. But not fully.
🏹
Junkook was only five the first time he'd seen a spirit.
And seven when they found out that he could.
His mother had stare down at him with her arms clenched tightly around her chest. His father sat with hunched shoulders and a deep frown perched on his features. Jungkook also noticed flickering figures milling outside the glass window in the dark lawn, and he'd tried his best to ignore them.
He had no idea why they were so appalled. Maybe because Jungkook had cried earlier. Or maybe the truth behind his tears left them utterly shaken.
It was the day Jungkook realized not everyone could see spirits like him. That he was the only one given an otherworldly sight.
Jungkook had asked his mother if she could see that wandering male spirit in the lawn. He told her that the spirit was very annoying and how he'd pushed Jungkook away. That had been the reason he cried. And Jungkook wanted his mother to scold the boor ill-bred.
His mother had looked at him like she'd seen a ghost.
That was the day everything shifted.
His parents never treated him the same way again. For them, it was as if raising a child of spirit, an alien. And Jungkook stopped viewing them as his parents soon enough too, and started seeing them as his benefactors.
He doesn't recall how he grew up. But it hadn't been pleasant. He tried his best not to give away his awareness of he spirits. But it was as though he was denying reality itself, acting as if he had no eyes to see it. And just like that, his difference became known throughout the school.
He no longer has to put efforts into keeping his eyes fully shut. It's as if they're glued together now. It's as if Jungkook was lucid dreaming while bursting past the angry woodland. A footage after footage hurled against the darkness behind his eyes, and Jungkook cannot open his eyes now even if he tried.
This time, the memory was more vivid and figurative because it was associated with bodily agony and bodily agony only. It was like being shoved into a hard surface that knocks the air out of lungs completely, except, it wasn't a dream. Tears rolled down his cheeks like waterfall as an unbidden memory struck him.
It hurts like a bitch. The one who pushed Jungkook right into the bathroom wall must've thought that congenital insensitivity to pain came unfettered along with supernatural sighting. And it truly felt as if his bones were splintering. Jungkook doesn't remember much after that. It was punch after punches and kick after kicks.
Jungkook never went home that day. instead, he fled, running until his lungs felt like they were ablaze.
"If you won't stop, I'll have to shoot you!" The familiar voice clashed against his ears drawing him back to his senses.
And just as Jungkook was about to snap open his eyes, his foot caught on something solid, and his momentum sent him sprawling across the ground.
He screamed and is fully convinced he sprained his right ankle too.
Its all mud and rocks and mud and snails under him as he tumbled forward. It's almost funny to think that he was dying like this. So funny that Jungkook wants to cry rivers.
And when the wild finally stopped ridiculing and humiliating him, something cold confronted him. It didn't require much thought for him to understand that he had plunged into the water. A pond. Cold fluid stabbed every inch of his tuat body and Jungkook made a mistake of opening his mouth and trying to breath.
Kill me. The dirty water clashed hard into his windpipe, knocking whatever he had left straight out of him.
"Oh my God, please don't die." The woman beseeched.
Jungkook held his arms up and let himself fall. His lungs have officially stopped working, like they escaped his system and flew away. He doesn't try to open his eyes. He couldn't, even if he tried.
So Jungkook let himself fall, and he wonders why the heck his soul hasn't left his body yet. It's not like he was breathing, or there wasn't a bone in his body that didn't ache or feel broken.
Then why hasn't he died yet?
Or perhaps, this was afterlife?
The thought barely formed before it faded away as a hand clasped against his own, before the fingers intertwined together. One moment he was thinking why he wasn't dead yet, and in the next Jungkook was being pulled up.
Wait- he was being pulled up?
Have they seriously not left yet? Are they still fucking after him?
The sharp air slapped his face before it filled Jungkook's lungs and he was wracked by a harsh coughing fit. His eyes were closed, yet Jungkook could feel a sore liquid bubbling out of his mouth. He was throwing up.
He'd like to die a little if not fully, please.
"Goodness gracious, the pond wasn't all that why the fuck were you standing there like that?" The woman yelled right into his ears.
Standing?
Jungkook layed confused and shocked and his after panic body convulsed and quivered in ways he'd never felt before. Soft footsteps echoed into the distance before they grew louder against his ears.
Jungkook closed all his senses off and tried to lose consciousness as if he grew up doing that. And just when he thought the awkward mediation was working, a voice, loud and clear, rang out.
"Is he dead?"
Now it was a man who asked. Jungkook wonders just how many people they were? Measuring Jungkook's condition it wouldn't take more than a person to put him into the final sleep.
"No, still breathing." The woman informed.
A soft sound echoed past the man's lips. "Why the hell did you chased him down? It wasn't in our motive."
He said with a quiet authority like he was the captain the woman was talking to through the earbud.
"It wasn't, I know," She paused for a second. "I saw him talking to nothing earlier."
"What the fuck does that mean, Natsuki?" He exclaimed.
The woman named Natsuki went quiet.
Please don't tell him. Jungkook begged as if it would somehow, telepathically reach her.
"I think, he was talking to the spirit earlier."
Fuck you!
There's an utter silence. And Jungkook doesn't wanna hear anything. He doesn't want to hear the announcement of his own death. He closed all his senses off, fully this time, and let himself fall into the pit of hollowness.
But just as he were about to hit the final ground in the pit, he heard a ghost of a voice...
"Let us carry him to the manor"
🏹
The pickup truck slammed into a protruding rock.
At least that's what came to his mind the moment he regained consciousness. The swelled back of his head careened against the steel plating. But Jungkook couldn't even hissed in pain. The inside of his mouth was ballooned and completely numb. So much that if he committed a desperate attempt to move his lips for even a flicker, a cry of pain tore from the back of his parched throat.
After the collision, it went still and completely silent. Jungkook forced his eyes open, along with all of his senses he'd forced shut earlier.
“Ah, shit.”
His ear caught a weary groan from the front seat. Jungkook realized he was thrown into the truck bed, with his back leaned against the tailgate.
“I told you I wanted the damn wheel!” The familiar voice grumbled.
“Aye Captain. I know you are a good driver but I have no intentions of meeting my end so soon.” The woman threw a playful reminder.
“You are the one who wrecked it!” The man practically yelled.
“And if it were you driving with a wounded hand we couldn't-”
Jungkook tunes them off until they're the background voices. He stretched himself up on his butt and took a better look around. It was dark. The sky coated itself with thick black clouds and the moon was nowhere to be seen.
Jungkook remembered what the man had said before he fainted: Let us carry him to the manor.
A chill ran down his spine as the voice rang into his ears. They were taking him to some sort of manor. A place as unfamiliar as the rainforest was for him. Jungkook tries to rise on his feet but he can't. He's chained. A thick steel chain wrapped solely around both of his ankles. His feet tied together.
Of course. Jungkook ran a hand through his damped hair in misery and reached for the chains. He has to get them off of him. It was a mere luck that they hadn't tied his hands.
“-Its not a big deal, captain,” he heard a soft click of boots against the pavement, “All we gotta do is pulled the rock away.”
Jungkook leaned on his back quickly and closed his eyes. He deliberately tilted his head to his left so the woman couldn't see his face. He heard some footsteps echoing in the distance and getting closer. Jungkook held his breath when he felt a presence on his right.
“He's still unconscious?” The man asked.
”Yep. Looks like he hit his head pretty hard.”
Then he heard some clicking of instruments laid a few inches away in the truck bed. It was another luck that it was a moonless night. Jungkook slowly opened his eyes while staying in the same position and peered at the woman who held a few instruments into her arms and then walked to the front.
Jungkook settled on his butt once again and reached for the chains. He tries to undo them but the metal clung to his skin in a knot so tight, Jungkook couldn't possibly get them off with just his hands. But he will try.
He traces his fingers across the chain, measuring it. And to his relief, the chain wasn't knotted with the plating. It was only tied around his ankle which made it easier to get off. Jungkook began to struggle against the metal, tugging at its fat hoops to create a distance between his skin and the greasy object. It only helped at little as it eases on his slick skin.
“Please…” He begged under his breath. “Get off of me!”
“I think the boy is awake. I heard something.” Said the man with a small huff.
Jungkook's eyes widened and he swiftly leaned on his back once again and shut his eyes taut.
“Uh God. If you think so, just move a little and check on him yourself.” She voiced, annoyed. “Can't you see I'm trying to get this rock out of the way?”
“Natsuki, you are fired.” The man exclaimed.
Natsuki sighed dramatically. “You fire me at least seven times in a day and this has been going on for three years, since I joined. I'd suggest it's about time you came up with someone new.”
Jungkook imagines the man flaring his nose while shooting glares at his partner. And then the sound of door opening and slamming shut echoed into the air. The man inclined near the truck bed and Jungkook sensed eyes on himself.
Don't move. Jungkook tells himself. Don't you dare move.
There's a loud silence. So much that all Jungkook could hear is the sound of his own beating heart and insects lurking in the distance.
“...He doesn't look like he's awake. Natsuki, do you think he's pretending to be unconscious?” The man questioned, and Jungkook realized the man was almost bent over his face as if trying to detect a single movement Jungkook might make.
“Just pinch him if you think so.” Natsuki sounded like she was in pain, jittering and practically clenching on her teeth.
There's another moment of silence. Jungkook held on his breath.
“Nah,” the man snorted. “I’m not touching him when he's unconscious and…” he trailed off.
“And what!?” Natsuki yelled.
“Dirty.” He muttered and Natsuki laughed.
Jungkook realized with a quiet certainty that he hates this man.
He hears the man moving away and he quickly begins. He twisted his ankles, stretching them straight and a cry of pain bubbles out of his throat. It was too much. Adrenaline rushed through his veins in hot blood as he forced his legs out of the chains, while being careful enough to not make a sound.
“Are you done?” The man asked.
Jungkook flinched and halted.
“Yeah, almost.” Natsuki answered while muttering something under her breath.
That's it. Jungkook mused. Just pull your leg and jump out. It's not that hard.
He gave the metal a final shake and stretched both his ankles straight, giving them a final pull.
It's like all the meat in both of his feet gathered at his toes. The pain is inexplicable and certain. Jungkook gulped the tears down and crawled towards the tailgate’s edge with his legs free.
You did it. His heart stammered. You are free.
There's a sound of door slamming shut as Natsuki breathed. “Let us get going.”
Let us get going.
And just like that, Jungkook jumped and fled away.