— "our realm isn't
the only one!"

NOVEMBER 12:
JEON JEONGGUK

==

"we have a weird thing for late nights and creepy places, don't we."

"the area is a daytime attraction," jae says exasperatedly, but a smile tugs at one of the corners of her mouth. "we aren't allowed here after five p.m., if at all in the first place. and it's hardly seven."

"but the sun is down, and we're the only ones out here."

"are you backing out on us, min yoongi?"

"me?" he grins wickedly. "i almost busted my rib cage and i still stuck around. i'm not going anywhere."

muffled laughter passes over jeongguk's head as he scans the area around him, eyes wide and dry from the blowing wind. he remembers visiting this attraction once or twice when he was younger. it's a nice old town tainted with urban ghost legend, rolling fields of dry wheat crops extending from the outskirt buildings. the area takes up two blocks at the most, with much of its interior lying in heaps of rubble and dirt, and a bare five lampposts flicker desperately down the cobblestone path. unnoticed litter from tourists piles up near degrading brick walls and potholes, and it takes a conscious effort on his part not to step on pieces of glass on the areas away from the walkway.

now i understand why this is a daylight attraction, jeongguk thinks as his eyes land on the warehouse, some couple hundred meters away from them. it's not terribly large, but its wrecked and desolate state, with no visible light evident inside, gives out an ominous presence. he can't imagine how taehyung felt waking up alone with abraxas in this place.

folklore says this town was abandoned hardly a century before for reasons unknown, now haunted at night by the unfortunate souls left behind. jeongguk knows this story is just a scam for tourist attraction; but as the wind howls in his ear, sounding all too much like abraxas's shrieks, he knows the haunted part is far from untrue.

"i feel like abraxas is just going to sneak up on us out of nowhere," hoseok mumbles, rubbing his arms for warmth. "pull another parking garage move. shit, is this broken glass?"

"i'll know when abraxas is near," taehyung says, running a limp hand across the wall of a building beside him distractedly. his eyes are distant, looking at the town around him in a mix of hesitation and wonder. "and it'll know that i'm here, too. our bond will reveal that. as long as you guys stick close to me and don't provoke it—yet—, abraxas won't approach you. i doubt it'll try to attack or run away."

mrs. kim furrows her brows. "why would it run away?"

taehyung turns. "because it knows i have the power to kill it."

"then why wouldn't it run?"

"because it has the power to kill us, too."

she clamps her mouth shut, and jeongguk finally snaps from his absent-minded scan of the town. it's a known fact, but the anxiety still stays.

minutes pass as each of them roam the walkways, only the lights of the scarce lampposts and the flashlights in their hands to guide them. it's hard to grasp that this town is what abraxas calls its own: where it rests, resides, plans. the monster is so human-like in its actions and thought process that it takes jeongguk's mind for a spin.

"this is where i woke up," he hears taehyung murmur. jeongguk glances past the wall ahead of him to see the other pointing to a building corner. jimin stands next to him, their backs turned and expressions hidden. "with no memories, four years ago."

a stretch of silence. jimin squeezes taehyung's hand and whispers something undecipherable into his ear.

eventually the nine of them reach the warehouse, tall and dark and eerie in all its glory. the door is far from gone, now a mere misshapen hole in the wall with bricks and chipped concrete littering the ground around it. wind blows sandy dirt through the building in swirled wisps and pushes against jeongguk as he stands. he's awestruck with fear and amazement.

"...we don't—"

"let's go inside," jae interrupts, surprising those around her. "hm, what? i'm a society member. my job is to find insight on abraxas, and we're at its home, aren't we?"

jeongguk can't help but chuckle at her strict determination, but the laughter dies in his throat when he looks at taehyung's slate expression. "you'll be safe. but when you hear me shout 'leave', that means abraxas is near," he speaks, voice—shaking?—and low. "and we meet outside here when that happens, okay?"

"right, sir," seokjin teases, and taehyung affords the smallest smile. "you heard the man. and stay close to each other, alright."

three minutes later, jeongguk walks between the racks of the warehouse with a flashlight clutched in his fingers. the walls are tall and the building wide, so the slightest sounds—from a hole in the roof leaking water to hoseok coughing—echo in a large magnitude through the warehouse. below him, the ground is bumpy and crumbling; he can't even figure out what its made of from the extent of its demolition. but stains of a black substance—and in places red, to jeongguk's unease—reside on its surface, and he has a hard time not averting his eyes from them.

along the racks are rows of boxes, rusted tools, and mostly empty packages, with a thick layer of grime covering each of them. clearly, the attraction doesn't cover a tour through here. the nine of them are the first to enter this building in a long, long time.

"there you are," comes a voice from jeongguk's left, startling him. he turns to see namjoon. "of course your wild ass would be exploring alone."

"what's that supposed to mean?"

"hm...so how's your shoulder?"

jeongguk laughs. "alright, i get it, i get it. but it healed fine without the medication, anyway."

"you didn't even take the medicine? jesus christ, gguk, you're either superhuman or you're completely stupid."

"anyway, found anything interesting?"

namjoon gestures with a slight head tilt to the ground. "other than those ominous black trails on the floor, no. i think that might be abraxas's blood. remember what taehyung said? about it being black? and it kind of adds up to the story he told us when he woke up."

"...gross."

"and creepy. they're—they're trails, what was abraxas doing?"

refusing to answer the question (because the response is terrifying to think of), the two instead continue to walk through the tall aisles, flashing their beams against each rack. a few times they startle a rat or a group of moths—which, in turn, scares namjoon each time—, but the area seems to have remained untouched. there isn't anything out of the ordinary, just empty boxes and sandy dirt.

eventually, they reach the last few aisles of the warehouse, towards the far back end. jeongguk shines his flashlight on one of the rack's shelves and almost stops breathing.

"what the hell?"

namjoon turns, humming in question. "what's wro—woah, shit! what is—what is that?"

upon closer inspection, it looks like a stuffed bear—battered down and dirty with misuse and no use, pieces of stuffing falling from tears near the tail. one of the eye buttons is missing, a mere clump of fraying string in its place, and its left ear is torn to oblivion. the toy looks like it was dragged through hell and back. and because of its surroundings and wrecked state, jeongguk can't help the sweat that runs down his neck.

"what's this doing here?" namjoon mutters, picking the toy up carefully. "and why does it look like four trucks ran it over?"

jeongguk takes the tag from the underside of the bear in his fingers, examining the print with squinted eyes. dust from the fur tickles his nose. "there's—i think there are initials written here. really sloppy, and in pink marker. 'm.w.'"

"you think someone forgot it here when the town got abandoned?"

there's a small emblem stitched into the toy's leg, and jeongguk notices it with slowly widening eyes. "no...no, it couldn't be. because look. i'm pretty sure this toy brand wasn't around one hundred years ago."

"dammit, you're right."

"think a tourist somehow left it behind?"

namjoon opens his mouth to say something, but his eyes land back on the rack. he hands the bear distractedly to jeongguk and shines his flashlight to the shelf, sucking a breath in through his teeth when he sees the object now illuminated in front of them.

"a cap?" jeongguk furrows his brows. this time, the hat looks a bit newer than the bear, but in more or less the same condition; the red of the fabric is faded, the flap dented, the logo nearly gone. "in the same area, too...?"

namjoon shines his flashlight further down the rack, and then they see it. rows and rows of objects like these. personal objects. a necklace, a jacket, a cassette tape, even a science book—bent and destroyed, dirtied and ruined. there are dozens of things, ranging from pieces and eras jeongguk doesn't even know of; it's like walking through a time capsule of a thousand people's prized possessions. not all of them look like intimate objects, though. next to an intricate ring, embedded with faded streaks of emerald, is a dirty sock—next to a parchment note is a purse, a fountain pen near a pair of glasses. the sheer contrast between each of these numerous objects is what makes the situation so utterly confusing.

"this is insane," jeongguk whispers (he doesn't know when their voices grew so small). "man, just—look at all of this stuff, christ. how did it even get here?"

when all he receives in response is silence, jeongguk turns his head. "namjoon? hyung?"

"...this is abraxas's home, right?" the latter swallows hard. "and taehyung woke up here after being taken. so its safe to assume it took many of its...hosts...here. after it was abandoned, of course."

jeongguk finally begins to piece it together. "oh, god, you don't mean—"

"these are objects from the hosts abraxas has killed, fuck," namjoon grits his teeth, staring at the stuffed bear in jeongguk's hands. "a toy, jeongguk! a children's toy, dammit. there were—there were kids being taken, suffering, being killed—"

jeongguk feels sick to his stomach. he shoves the stuffed animal back onto the rack and exhales shakily, his breaths growing louder by the second. "b-but it moves, abraxas moves locations periodically, it can't have—"

"it probably takes these things with it," spits namjoon, "like some fucking victory tokens. i don't see why it can't take hundreds of objects across the world with it if it can travel practically at the speed of sound. god, this is so fucked up..."

before jeongguk can respond again (with what, he doesn't know, because he still feels on the verge of retching), hoseok enters the aisle in front of them. "guys, listen, we found—what the hell is that?"

"a stuffed bear."

"huh. you didn't strike me like the type of guy to carry one of those around, jeon, but to each his own—"

"we found it on the shelf," interrupts namjoon, shining his flashlight back on the rack. "with all of these other objects. we think they're possessions from past hosts, hoseok."

"wait, what?" hoseok steps back, startled. "no way. no way, that's insane—"

"i know, and that's why it's probably true."

"that's—but that's a stuffed animal! and that, isn't that a fantasy book? that can't be true, right?"

"then why else would they be there?" jeongguk says. "abraxas is ruthless. the society has told us this countless times before. and we've heard it firsthand from taehyung, haven't we?"

"but—"

"hoseok!" a voice calls from further across the warehouse. "dude, come on!"

"oh right, sorry! one minute!" hoseok turns back to namjoon and jeongguk, his expression clearly uneasy. "that was yoongi. we, um...we found something too. not sure if on the same level of disturbing as...this...but pretty up there."

he leads them back into a dark corner of the building, save for a singular hole in the roof directly above where they stand. several crates lie on top of one another in uneven columns, and a panel of moldy wood lies a few feet away from them on the ground. "christ, hoseok," yoongi says when they arrive, one eyebrow raised. "it takes you a goddamn decade to cross ten meters."

"it was more than that, come on. and i don't have long legs, anyway."

"yeah, well." yoongi glances to jeongguk and namjoon. "we heard you guys talking near us, and we wanted to show this to at least someone. it's...well, it's society worthy, if you want to coin it."

he crouches down and gestures for jeongguk to shine his flashlight to the rotting wood, which he does. there, a black, long and sharp talon lies, frayed ends of what looks like what would attach to one of abraxas's appendages. it's old, clearly from an "injury" abraxas endured a long time ago, but the power it once wielded is fresh in their minds.

"that's one of abraxas's talons, isn't it?" namjoon asks.

"yeah. was, at least. probably took it off to regenerate another one, or whatever the hell it does." hoseok kicks yoongi's knee at that. "anyway, look at this."

yoongi slowly extends a hand to the talon, but when his skin makes contact to the appendage's surface, it passes through like the object was fog. jeongguk inhales sharply in surprise. it's like watching a computer glitch in front of your eyes; yoongi practically cuts through the talon, unable to pick it up or even touch it.

"holy shit," murmurs jeongguk.

"so what haewon and jimin said was true," namjoon says, biting his lip. "you literally can't touch anything from abraxas's realm, much less physically harm it."

"even a fallen talon too, apparently." yoongi waves his hand through a few more times. "feels like absolutely nothing, which is the weirdest part. no one can move it except for abraxas."

"but remember when it found us at the graveyard?" hoseok says. "it could touch and harm you. it beat you to shit."

"yeah, yeah," yoongi mutters. "but the thing is, it can hurt us, not vice versa. it can touch us. i can feel abraxas's physical forms only if it contacts me first, i think, which is the worst part. because here i am, next to abraxas's talon for god's sake, and i can't even pick this thing up."

"that's absolutely ballistic," jeongguk hisses. he crouches to his knees and swipes a hand through the talon himself, groaning in frustration when the action yields the same result. "what, so abraxas is just allowed to be this all-powerful, invincible being? and we can't even touch its injured, disassociated limb?"

"remember what taehyung said, though?" hoseok pipes. "he can beat it. so technically, he's the most powerful one here, don't you think?"

"but can taehyung touch this talon?"

"well, probably not, but..."

"then..." jeongguk sighs, getting to his feet. he stares at the talon at his feet, lip tucked between his teeth. "then what if he can't—"

a shout cuts him off.

"leave! everyone, leave!"

==

GUYS. guys ist 1:46 am rn omghfuck
im not postin this until the morning tho ion trust my ass
howdy yall!!! this chap creepy as shit
but anyway i'm on break rn i aint got any work 2do im LIVIN the life
my bts comeback senses are tingling wb yours
nyway bye! have a nice day!!! ilu all wit my whole leg