— we know
so little.

OCTOBER 21:
KIM NAMJOON

==

haewon is crouched haphazardly on the hood of her car when they arrive, an expensive-looking set of binoculars positioned in front of her squinted eyes. scattered pieces of technology surround the car, and by the amount of things on the hood with her, she's probably been here a while. it's obvious she's been taking some pictures of abraxas for the society's record.

the night is dark and humid, and being isolated by scattered unlit buildings and thick patches of half-leaved trees does nothing to subdue namjoon's nerves. but it's the feeling of knowing that abraxas could be anywhere close to him and the others right now that gets to him. he hardly knows the city, let alone his surroundings. all he can hope for is that haewon knows what she's doing.

after hoseok clears his throat, haewon finally puts down her binoculars and turns towards the four of them, smiling gratefully (it's a surprising change from her usual stoic expression). "ah, you're here. i was afraid i might have to do all this alone." she cranes her head behind them. "where are the others?"

"stuck in traffic." namjoon hates the fact that he finds himself disbelieving it more by the minute. "there was some bad car accident a few hours back that held up the roads, apparently."

"again? seriously, there's got to be a limit to how much bad luck someone can have."

namjoon turns to where haewon was looking and sees a large, concrete, squarish building a few hundred yards away from them. it looks like some sort of parking garage, though there isn't a shopping complex or at least a large group of stores nearby, making it seem almost misplaced.

after a few moments, haewon sees him staring and explains, "there used to be a pretty famous mall here, but they tore it down a while back for some reason. i'm guessing there just wasn't enough revenue. now all that's left is the old parking garage."

"is that where abraxas is?" jimin asks.

"it's been moving all night, actually, but not much. it used to be over there," haewon points to the woods, "just laying on the ground. almost like it was in pain, like what i told jae over the phone. but it managed to crawl over to the parking garage, and now its just standing there, groaning loudly occasionally. here, i'll show you."

she hands the binoculars—it's expensive, with several sets of lenses as namjoon realizes upon further inspection—to him, pointing vaguely towards the parking garage. pulling the strap over his head to hang on his neck, namjoon squints into the lenses.

it takes an immense amount of effort for namjoon to restrain his shocked gasp once the binoculars focus. abraxas's physical form is almost completely gone, with only the rarest shreds of murky, sick skin hanging off its body and minimal strands of brown hair hanging from its misshapen head. torn, dirty articles of clothing hang from its abnormal frame (no where near human; it looks to be at least seven or eight feet, judging by its close proximity to the ceiling, and its thin, gangling limbs hang off a thin, stretched body).

when abraxas turns slightly, namjoon catches a glimpse of its face: and it's absolutely terrifying.

whatever resemblance to taehyung he and the others had seen weeks ago is completely gone. the human-like characteristics of its physical form is now replaced with a grotesque anomaly of gray, rotting flesh on an angular face. abraxas's mouth is gaping, as perpetual as a black hole, with rows of sharp crimson teeth and a long, winding tongue. dark gray eyes seem to fixate on nothing and absolutely everything all at once.

though the pair of binoculars isn't able to distinguish features with complete certainty, the sight is clear to namjoon, horrific enough to draw bile in the back of his throat.

"namjoon? namjoon, what's it look like? what's wrong?" seokjin's voice snaps him back to his senses, pulling quickly away from the lenses. he feels like he's going to be sick. it's surreal, seeing something so terrifying and so monstrous outside of the safe box of media and television.

that's what taehyung saw every day. that's what terrorized him. that's what he had to live with.

"yeah, it's...i'm fine, just," namjoon exhales, giving the binoculars to seokjin. "fuck, i didn't realize that's what abraxas truly looked...like..."

"that's the closest we'll ever get to seeing abraxas in its true form," says haewon, jumping down from the hood of her car. "aside from through cameras and photos, which only witnesses can fully see."

the binoculars carefully circulate from seokjin to jimin, then to hoseok, and the three look just as shaken up by the sight as namjoon is. they can count any second of sleep tonight good as gone. not that it hasn't been like that before, though.

"so the 'other world'..." jimin swallows audibly. "it has other beings like this? like abraxas?"

"it's hard to say," haewon replies. "we don't have the slightest idea of what the other world is like, where it is, what is has—it's one of those enigmas too big for an organization as small as the society in terms of research. but considering all the characteristics of abraxas, it might be safe to assume that it is one of the few, if not only, beings from there. there has only been accounts of one being like this on our planet, and that's abraxas."

"so if we're able to somehow kill abraxas," jimin rushes, "then there won't be any problems like this ever again? no one will be tormented again like tae was, and all the other second witnesses before him?"

"i would think so."

"then why don't we attack it?" hoseok turns from the binoculars, leg bounding up and down. "look, abraxas isn't doing anything. it seems pretty weak. it'd be easy to kill it right now, right? we have knives, and there's five of us. we can just surround it and—"

"it's not that easy," haewon sighs, running a hand through her short, choppy hair. "believe me, i've tried, and so have others. one of our society members even tried shooting a gun at abraxas when it was particular weak—this was decades ago, before i became a member, and barely a year after the previous second witness died—, and none of the bullets hit."

"what?" seokjin furrows his eyebrows. "did they aim incorrectly, or something?"

"no—they didn't land. every single bullet was aimed perfectly to abraxas's body, but when the bullets touched its skin, they just disappeared. they absorbed into its skin, without a single trace. it's like throwing something into a cloud of thick fog and watching it disappear, by what other members have told me."

"seriously? what about blades? or—"

"same case. nothing seems to work, to at least touch abraxas."

"but then why can abraxas touch us?" jimin responds, almost angrily. "shouldn't it be unable to touch us if everything that tries to harm it vanishes?"

"you have to remember," haewon clenches her jaw gently, as if she hates her own words too, "that the other world has different properties than we do, a different being, different characteristics. we can't put logic into this. it's impossible to."

"so what, abraxas is just invincible then? we can't even touch it?"

haewon doesn't need to say anything for them to know the answer.

"we can at least try," jimin finally tries, desperately. "what's to say that it can't be harmed now? i mean, you just said logic can't be used in this situation. we've got minutes until abraxas's physical form fully wilts, and then we're back to the cycle, the cycle that we, that taehyung, want to break so badly. we've got to...got to try something, right?"

"he's right," seokjin says, sliding off the hood of the car. "this is the best we can do."

haewon chews her lip. "i've borrowed my superior's handgun from the society for tonight, but it's not powerful at all. but...i mean, you said you had knives, right?"

they nod almost in unison. they're pocket knives, technically, but namjoon isn't ready to disclose that. he really wants to get back at abraxas right now.

"...help me grab my tech. quickly; we've got little time, like jimin said. i'll drive us as closely to the garage as possible without alerting abraxas. even though that's pretty impossible," haewon adds under her breath.

they're on the ground in moments, carefully taking apart the equipment and cleaning up the countless bags of food and other things (namjoon finds a still-packaged neck pillow, which makes him sigh). jimin is practically running, eager to use up as little time as possible. "keep an eye on abraxas," namjoon calls to hoseok, who nods and squints through the binoculars again.

"by the way," says haewon lethargically as she and namjoon package her delicate equipment. by now, it's at least nine p.m.; she must have been at this search for days. "i was thinking about what you guys said about the newspaper. the one that got stolen from you by abraxas, remember?"

"all too well," he says, chuckling dryly. "what about it?"

"we told you the author was a young man from the society, right? i don't remember his name, unfortunately, but i do remember things."

"really?" namjoon's eyes widen. "like what?"

"he...he used to be extremely important in the society," she says, quickly covering some type of device in bubble wrap. "was insanely good at collecting information, researching. and he started quite early; i think he was able to find the society at age sixteen, or something crazy like that. but he started to grow a little distant, a little strange, especially after taehyung's 'death'. he started investigating on his supposed murder, using all these sources. really, he was remarkable. he wrote that newspaper the following year in march and went as an anonymous author to make sure the public would be able to read it, and he wouldn't be chased by the media.

"anyway, i think just the situation itself got too intense for him: all his gruesome research, the other world, the such. one can't blame him, really. so he left the society three or so months after his publication. completely cut off ties with us."

haewon takes her packaged equipment and walks to the trunk of her car, namjoon following. "we actually weren't able to hear anything about him until a few weeks ago, actually," she says, placing the crates in her car. "that's why i was a bit surprised when you guys brought up the newspaper."

"what did you hear about him?"

"he's been...worsening. i guess the wall he built with all of these other world things was broken when abraxas exploded that subway, you know. caught him off guard. that's what the other members have been saying in the society, at least." haewon pauses. "actually, i think his girlfriend died in that subway explosion. that's what really got to him."

namjoon's breath hitches. and suddenly, the story is all too familiar.

"i heard he's also been in trouble with the police lately. can't quite remember what for; the media is so shaded these days. but—"

"wonchol."

haewon stops. "what?"

"the author of that newspaper," he breathes out, and suddenly he feels lightheaded. "the author is—"

"guys, guys, look!" hoseok's voice suddenly interrupts them. "dude, abraxas's true form—look, it just lost the human skin and hair, and clothes, too. holy shit, they literally vanished, just like that."

"what?" haewon says. but her tone isn't curious. she almost seems scared.

"yeah, you guys wanna see?" hoseok hands the binoculars down to namjoon. "that's really cr—"

"no—no, are you sure? are you sure that its physical form is truly gone?"

"i'm completely s—"

"we aren't supposed to be able to see abraxas in its fully true form, hoseok," namjoon suddenly realizes, slowly. "we're first witnesses. we can only see it when it has its physical form."

there's a ringing in his ears from the silence.

"then..." hoseok's voice is small. "then why can i see it?"

namjoon climbs the hood of the car and looks into the lenses of the binoculars, heart thumping against his chest. and with a dull pang of numb terror, he realizes hoseok is right. abraxas stands eerily straight in the center of the floor, any trace of its physical form completely gone. it isn't it pain; in fact, it almost stands like how it had all those days ago, right after it crashed those cars, a jug of gasoline in its hand—powerful and invincible.

"i can see it too," namjoon's words are almost silent.

and just like that, abraxas is suddenly gone.

"what the—" namjoon puts the binocular down quickly, heartbeat growing faster by the second. he turns his head right, left, right, left, right—he's panicking, vision blurred from adrenaline and terror in his veins. "oh my fucking god, it's gone, where did it go—"

"namjoon?" jimin voice is urgent. "hyung, what's going on? what happened?"

"it—it just left, it's not there anymore—"

namjoon suddenly drops the binoculars. they slide off the hood of the car, falling to the soft ground with a dull thump.

there is abraxas, standing mere feet in front of them, with its mouth wide open.

==

yall im heckin sorry ive been swamped wit homework, i barely edited this chapter lmao
anyway yeah!! so that just happened!!
cya next time lovelies have an AMAZING day