— you did this
to him.

OCTOBER 21:
PARK JIMIN

==

for a moment, all jimin hears are his own breaths.

as he crouches silently in a relatively high tree (if rope climbing has taught him anything from high school gym class, it's this) with his shaky fingers clasped around a thick branch, he finds himself strangely calm. usually, he's one of the first ones to let fear or emotion get the best of him. but he guesses he has. relentless anger, boiling fury is the overpowering thing that made him stay in the woods with a demon, having the intent to kill, wandering by.

jimin knows this is a stupid move. hell, he knows the likelihood of dying in the next few minutes is much higher than managing to escape with every one tonight. but seeing abraxas push hoseok against that tree, seeing its grotesque and misshapen face, seeing the form taehyung had seen all those years before that jimin had considered a mere figment of his imagination—it overtook him. and the next thing he knew, jimin had practically javelin-thrown a nearby branch into abraxas's back, watching as it pierced right through to the opposite side and fell to the ground, like its skin was a sheet of water.

and now he's here. jimin has no idea where exactly the others are right now; all he can hope for is that they are safe and out of the woods.

his hands curl around the branch tighter.

"shame on me for never believing you, tae," mutters jimin, and he quickly, quietly, scales down the trunk of the tree to the ground. "now look where i am."

as he begins to walk, dead leaves crunch against his boots. the sounds are like fireworks compared to the quiet night, without even the chirp of evening crickets. but jimin doesn't try to silence them. abraxas is sure to find him sooner or later.

why aren't i running?

it's a good question that jimin doesn't have the answer to.

and three steps later, as he approaches a clearing of trees that allows the scarce moonlight to flood his vision, abraxas arrives. it's a mere fifteen or so meters away from jimin, with loud breaths and a heaving chest. neither of them take the first move (he's surprised; he swore the moment it saw him, it would attempt to kill him), instead continuing to examine each other.

abraxas's wings are coated in black blood, dripping down to the ground. they hardly seem to be for flying; from the way they curl in reflex and sharpen at the ends, jimin's guess is that they're some sort of attacking appendages. but jimin can't help but continue to stare at its face, as if it's a rhythmic pendant and jimin is being hypnotized.

jiminie, i'm scared. it's at my bedside. i can't sleep there tonight, it keeps staring at me.

jimin winces.

...nothing, don't worry. it's...i'll ignore it. don't worry, i'll get through the day.

jimin swallows.

am i insane, chim chim?

jimin raises his branch.

abraxas roars. in the next split second, the monster is right by jimin's side, not even giving him enough time to register his surroundings. an explosion of pain erupts in his abdomen as he's kicked to the side, the world around him blurring as he spins. jimin momentarily forgets how to breathe. its force is something stronger than he's ever felt before.

he coughs out phlegm when he hits the ground, elbows and knees digging into the soil. what the hell is this thing? it's almost laughable; he knows this monster is otherworldly, yet he continues to try and place familiar laws on its actions. abraxas is much more than he'll ever understand. shouldn't he know by now?

jimin raises his branch just as abraxas flings its talon-like appendages at him, and he barely manages to dodge the hits. with a frustrated shout, he sprints forward and pierces abraxas's misshapen foot, watching in complete surprise as the monster slightly stumbles, as if the branch had actually halted or at least slowed its movements. the moment is over as soon as it began, however, and jimin is forced to dodge abraxas's onslaught of talons again. 

in a lightning-fast decision, jimin scrambles behind the trunk of a wide tree and collects his breaths, abraxas howling behind him in the clearing. he reels the exact moment when the branch penetrated its foot, remembering how abraxas had stumbled the slightest from the impact. of course, the branch didn't do any physical damage—it quickly fell through to the other side of abraxas's foot—, but from the way abraxas acted, it did something.

jimin strains to think. "when i threw the branch at its back when hoseok was there, it stumbled forward," he murmurs, eyebrows furrowing. "wait, holy shit—"

a talon suddenly cuts through the tree, and that's how jimin realizes it.

the reason why he and the other first witnesses can see it. the reason why abraxas is able to harm him and the others, even though it shouldn't be able to in its true form. the reason why it just cut through that tree, even though only its physical form, now completely gone, is able to do that.

abraxas's true form is its physical form now.

but how? it makes no sense. when its physical form of taehyung wilted, it should have reverted to its true self again, only able to be seen and only able to harm second witnesses. so why is it here, destroying him and everything around them?

you don't have time to worry about that right now, dumbass. stay focused. use this to your advantage. jimin licks his dry lips, dry blood starting to cake around his wounds. right now, abraxas continues to retain the invincibility of its true form and physical forms, unable to take damage and become wounded. but now it has earthen, normal properties, probably because of its true form being exposed to both witnesses—and that property is maybe not being harmed, but at least being affected by attacks.

jimin sprints to the side as abraxas mauls the tree with its talons. if he had stayed a mere second or two longer there, those sharp appendages would be all through his body by now. carefully, he removes a strip of wood from the peeling branch in his hands and pinches it between his fingers, almost like an arrowhead.

quickly, he peers out from the thickets and throws the shard, watching as abraxas's attention goes to it. and immediately after, he chucks the branch into its body. abraxas stumbles forward—just slightly, but enough to establish what jimin had figured out. it's invincible, but it's easily affected.

he manages to grin. that's how he can trick abraxas and get to the others: by making a diversion.

heart pounding inside his chest, jimin scans his surroundings for something he can use (he has to move quick, or those goddamn talons will pierce him like a voodoo doll). there's a half uprooted tree about twenty meters away from him, gray from lack of nutrients and on the verge of collapsing. that's it.

jimin sprints to the tree and crouches, wrenching its remaining roots from the soil with surprising ease. in a minute or two, jimin will easily bring this tree to the ground.

the task is trying to get abraxas directly underneath it when it falls.

as jimin reaches the last few thick roots, he grabs a handful of fallen branches in his free hand and cranes his head from behind the tree. "here!" he yells, and abraxas turns. jimin almost laughs at its primal actions; didn't haewon say this thing had intelligence? "you liked torturing my best friend, didn't you? fuck you and everything like you."

right after he hisses those last words, jimin pulls the last roots from the soil and watches as the tree falls. abraxas is quick to stand right in front of him; but that's also where the tree is about to hit.

and when the trunk collapses onto abraxas's body, cutting through its abdomen with such transparency, abraxas does stumble. in fact, it stumbles a lot; and that amount of time abraxas is momentarily immobile is enough for jimin to sprint the opposite direction. he cuts through the forestry, grinning as adrenaline runs through his bloodstream.

i fucking did that.

jimin isn't usually pretentious, but damn, wait until the others hear this.

the night is quiet again as jimin runs, squinting through the trees to see the parking garage. by the speed that he's running, it will only take him a minute or two to reach it. there, he can meet up with the others, get out of this place, and—

jimin stops running.

slowly, he turns to the left, feeling something hot and searing erupt across his shoulder. a long, curved talon is impaled into his skin; but now, instead of only black blood dripping from the appendage, it's his own red, too.

he collapses to his knees, gasping in pain, as abraxas lowly growls behind him. jimin thought he would have enough time; he thought up a good plan, he figured out abraxas's properties. so why couldn't he get away? why wasn't it enough?

haewon's words ring through his mind. he shouldn't have underestimated abraxas. he shouldn't have thought it wasn't as intelligent as haewon said it was. he shouldn't have thought he could defeat it. just as he manages to shakily bring his head up to face abraxas, a long talon drives itself into jimin's leg with the easiest blow. another goes to his abdomen, but jimin manages to move at the slightest second and avoid it.

the sound jimin makes is one of pure agony. excruciating pain blooms across his body; although the talons have made only shallow gashes, they hurt just as much as if his entire limb had been cut off. what the hell are those things?

"fuck!" he shouts, writhing against the stubborn appendages as he tries to wrench them away from his body. he succeeds in removing the one on his shoulder just as another comes to pierce his forearm. "no!"

what did you expect, jimin?

you knew abraxas is stronger than you. it can beat you with the slightest touch.

why did you stay behind?

blood trickles down the side of his arm from the wound on his shoulder. abraxas is shrieking like mad, thrashing its talons in every direction, clearly enjoying the thrill of jimin's situation. think, park. how can you get out of this? what can you do?

jimin pulls out the last two talons and gasps, clutching his arm and dragging his leg. his movement is stumbled, like a drunk man on a tightrope, and there are patches of black in his peripheral vision that don't exactly seem like a good sign. swallowing audibly, he turns around to face the monster.

i can't do anything.

the realization sinks in. jimin can't do anything. he thought that because he had figured out something, figured out that maybe abraxas is actually affected by things that should affect it, he could get out of this. that he could beat abraxas. but the futility of the situation has always been there; he knew this from the beginning. so why didn't he run? why didn't he escape while he had the chance, when he wasn't wounded and his mind was clear?

i did it for hoseok, is what he tries to think. but if he did, he would have ran to him immediately when he had the chance instead of hiding in that tree for abraxas. he would have helped his wounded friend get to the parking garage safely.

i did it for the others. he doesn't even know where the others are.

i did it for taehyung. jimin's mind is racing. no, he didn't do it for taehyung. if anything, taehyung would want him back safe, unharmed, laughing by his side. taehyung would want him to meet up with the others and get out of the area as fast as possible. taehyung would want the exact opposite of what he's doing right now. so why am i doing this?

he stops.

i'm doing this for myself.

this was never about being the hero. no, jimin realizes, he was never that good of a person. he's doing this for revenge—for all the times he had to live on with the aching, distant memories of taehyung, for all the times abraxas has ruined countless peoples' lives, for all the times it's ruined his own.

and now, his selfishness, his stupidity, is going to cost him his life.

just as abraxas raises its appendages to aim at him, something faintly whirs in the distance. both of them stop, and strains to hear. the sound grows louder, and louder, and louder—

it's a car.

for a moment, jimin forgets the numbness of his wounds, the dried blood on his wounds and lip, the terrifying image of abraxas and its talons illuminated in the moonlight. it's as if time slows down when an expensive car cuts through the trees, headlights bright and blinding, and rams into abraxas.

just as expected, abraxas stumbles from the impact, bumping into a particularly large tree. jimin can't quite fathom what's happening; why am i still alive? where did the car come from?

the door to the vehicle quickly swings open and out steps namjoon, hair tousled and eyes wide. he's shouting urgent words at jimin, but the latter can't quite understand them; it feels like he's underwater, and everything around him is a blur.

and then things clear up. "—go! we gotta go, jimin! come on! get the hell up!"

jimin quickly scrambles to his feet as the situation dawns on him. namjoon is here. he climbs into the car and practically collapses into the passenger seat, watching with a thundering heart as abraxas stabilizes itself and turns to face the vehicle.

namjoon shuts the door and wastes no time. he practically mauls the gas pedal and swerves right, cutting through the woods to the direction of the parking garage. everything around them is a blur; jimin looks to the side mirror and swallows, watching abraxas attempt, in vain, to locate the car.

"oh my god," jimin breathes, slouching against the seat and closing his eyes. "oh my god—"

"what the actual hell, jimin!" namjoon shouts, but emotion cracks his words. "you never take a lesson, do you! look at you, you're covered in blood, your clothes are torn, y-you're on the verge of passing out, you idiot—"

"i know," jimin murmurs, inhaling deeply. "i know."

"i was so damn worried about you—do you understand how terrifying it is to hear abraxas scream like that? dumbass, acting like a hero, you should have ran, we t-talked about this, we—"

"i wasn't trying to be a hero, hyung."

"bullshit! how else was hoseok able to escape? i saw him running to the parking garage, i was hiding in the forest. you need to think about your safety too—"

"hyung." jimin sits up, pulling apart his dry lips. "i...i did this for myself, namjoon."

"what do you—"

"i stayed back because i wanted revenge," croaks jimin, clasping his hands. "i always thought that's what i wanted, because i—i thought that taehyung would never come back. but now he's here. and i still fucking went after revenge. what's wrong with me? why did i stay back for revenge? i didn't even stay back to help hoseok—that was part of it, but—"

"jimin, what—"

"i'm selfish, hyung." jimin's throat is raw. "i'm no hero. i didn't do any of this for a good cause. i did this for myself, and i almost died because of it. how does that make me a hero?"

namjoon tries to speak again, but jimin shakes his head, laughing quietly. "god, i'm making this shit about me again. let's just—let's just focus on getting to the parking garage and getting the others, yeah? i'm fine."

when the older finally nods, lips pursing into a thin line, jimin closes his eyes and lets himself take a few deep breaths.

he knows not to take them for granted, now.

==

thats a big ole Yikes
im rly sorry for this late update guys ive had lots to do lately :((
(& also beating up jimin goddamn box)
((he handle it well tho))
(((kind of)))
ANYWAY ILY BYE