disclaimer: kinda spooky, kinda dark.

___

We're here.

Wake up.

Help us.

Your eyes opened and you could no longer move. Sleep paralysis again? Let us in. You shook your head at the voices outside. You just needed to move.

Your bedroom door opened and you saw him- San was his name- and behind him, seven others. They surrounded you, staring down at you like hungry wolves.

"Please," you whispered. "Not tonight. It hurts."

Mingi bent down and grabbed your limp, numb forearm. "But we need it."

You shook your head. "Find someone else. I can't take this anymore."

"But you taste good." Wooyoung grabbed your ankle. "So sweet."

You wanted to scream, but when your mouth opened, not a single sound came out. Hongjoong smiled and bent down to be next to your ear. "It'll only hurt for a second, I promise."

You woke up, looked at your arms.

Missing flesh and teeth marks- all over your arms, legs, stomach. Your eyelids fluttered and darkness was all that was seen. Why did they tantalize you like this? You would rather have actual sleep paralysis and have them be a complete figment of your imagination. Instead, you dreamt of sleep paralysis, and your demons gnawed on your flesh all night long.

And they weren't figments of your imagination. They were real- you saw them in the hospital where you worked, standing over your patients and watching you as you were on the clock.

God, your skin burned.

You had to shower, but it would be so painful. Dreading it, you went to the bathroom and stripped, looked at yourself in the mirror. The old scars and the fresh wounds were on full display to you. It made you sick.

You wanted the eight demons gone. Forever.

You stepped under the stream of hot water and hissed. It felt like your skin would burst into flames- they left their venom in your veins. They always did every, single night.

Bearing the pain, you finished your shower and continued getting ready for work. In times where your skin needed treatment, you were glad you worked at the hospital. You had medicine and all kinds of choices to choose from in order to ease the pain.

As you grabbed your keys and headed out the front door, Seonghwa appeared next to you, walking alongside you. "Thank you for our meal."

"Go to hell."

"We're already there, Y/N."

You rolled your eyes and Yunho was in front of you, walking backwards. "That was kind of silly to say out loud, we are demons after all."

You picked up your pace, basically running out of the apartment complex lobby and to your car. They wouldn't get in your car with you, so it was your safe haven.

I should sleep in here, you thought. The thought gave you some hope, excitement. Work first, then sleep.

"Doctor Cha?" You turned to your patient and they started wringing their hands. "What's that wound on your hand?"

You looked down and noticed the raw area covering the back of your hand. "Huh, I didn't even notice that." You lied. "I'll take care of it, don't worry about me."

Your young patient nodded and you gave her a quick smile. It was starting to get very hard to hide all of the work the demons did in the nighttime.

Your least favorite demon was Hongjoong. He took the biggest bites, left the biggest scars.

The nicest of the eight was Yeosang. He barely even nibbled, but you still didn't like any of them.

"Y/N?"

You jumped at the fingers snapping in front of you. "What?"

"You've been out of it for three weeks. What is going on?"

"Nothing." You dismissed your coworker. "I don't sleep well anymore, but I'm fine."

He gave you a look, one that you couldn't really decipher, and walked away. You could feel the venom spreading in your veins, and the pain almost put you on your knees.

You were about to collapse to the floor, but the lights turned off and a strong pair of arms caught you. Your breath caught in your throat as you felt their breath on the back of your neck. The lights turned on and you turned around.

Mingi covered your mouth and shook his head. "I'm not the demon, I'm not!" He whispered. "I'm on your side, I swear."

He removed his hand and all you could do was look at him. He did look much different than the Mingi you saw every night. This one seemed to be glowing, but maybe it was the white sweater that made him look so much more angelic.

"We're here to help you, Y/N."

Behind him, seven more men appeared. Hongjoong caught your eye, because he didn't look malicious whatsoever. "Okay? Why are you here?"

"They're coming, and we need to get you out of here before they find you."

"Too late!" The echoey, demonic voice that belonged to Jongho rang loudly in your ears. "Just five minutes earlier and you would've made your clean getaway with our meal."

Bewildered that the demons were making their move in reality and not in your dreams, you ran. You ran as fast as your nervous body could take you, and then you were swooped off of your feet by Yeosang- the good one.

He smiled. "We'll get you to your car, don't worry."

You thought you'd get sick. You were so anxious, so confused, and the bumpy running that Yeosang was doing was not helping.

"Y/N, please don't throw up." Wooyoung whined. "Especially not on Yeosang."

"Well, it's not like I can-" you cut yourself off as a wave of nausea hit you. "Help it."

Hongjoong bursted through the entrance of the hospital. "Look, we're almost to your car!"

Closer, closer, and then five feet away from your car, the earth broke apart and Yeosang quickly backed away from the gap. The demons were closing in as they continued to make the gap even larger.

"I'm going to throw you-"

"What?" You looked up at Yeosang as if he was crazy.

"Trust me, you'll be fine."

And then he threw you over the gap, no countdown, no warning, but you managed to catch yourself. Your keys were in your hands, but you couldn't remember grabbing them. Regardless, you unlocked your car and hopped in.

As you pressed the lock button, you watched the good and bad face each other, heaven and hell breaking loose. You were so confused, so absolutely stunned that you felt like you'd pass out, from fatigue, from shock, who knew.

Your eyelids fluttered, the same way they did earlier that morning. The last thing you saw before your involuntary slumber was a dangerous looking Hongjoong staring at you.

Not even ten minutes later, you were awakened by the feeling of your car being lifted off of the ground.

"Y/N, open the door and jump out!" Seonghwa yelled.

Your eyes widened. You had just woken up, and he expected you to do what? Jump out of a car that was hanging above a huge gap in the earth, and jump out? However, the look on the angels faces made you open the door.

Before you could muster up the courage to jump out of the vehicle, it was launched into the air. You weren't holding on to anything, and as soon as the car tipped to the side, you were no longer in the car, but falling towards a pit of what looked like old, recycled cars.

This is it, you thought, I won't have to deal with the demons anymore.

You closed your eyes as the impact was made. You heard your bones crack against the metal of the cars, and you couldn't feel a single thing.

"Our meal! Hongjoong, you idiot!" You heard demon Mingi yell. "Who in their right mind would throw good food like that?!"

You could hear them getting closer and closer. Moments later, their faces were above you, coming closer to your skin. They wanted to feast on the dying, but they didn't get the chance. Angel Mingi pushed them away from you and picked your broken, fragile frame up and began carrying you to a big white light, where the other angels were waiting.

"You won't feel anymore pain after this," Mingi whispered. You could see tears in his eyes. "Everything will be okay."

You were barely hanging on, but you watched the angels go through the portal, then you and Mingi went through.

The last thing you thought was, This is what peace feels like.

You shot up in what felt like a bed and backed into the headboard. The bright, white lights made you squint at your surroundings, but you could hear groaning, yawning, all around you.

"Hello?" You whispered.

"Oh my gosh," you heard a whisper, then frantic, "Guys! Y/N's awake!"

You rubbed your eyes, wanting to get a better look at what was going on around you. When your eyes could open wider, you saw eight men staring lovingly at you.

"Where am I?"

"In the hospital," Hongjoong said. "You've been in a coma."

Your heart stopped. Coma? That was all a dream? Could that have even been considered a dream? Your breathing hitched and you lifted up your sleeves. The marks were still there.

"Woah, what are those from?" Jongho asked.

"You," your shaky voice trailed off as you looked at all of their faces. "They're from all of you." They looked at one another. "How long have I been in a coma?"

"Eight weeks." San replied.

Your chest heaved and pain coursed through your veins. A burning sensation gathered in your stomach and you leaned forward to make it stop. It stopped, so you lifted your shirt and looked at your stomach.

Right in the middle, burnt into your skin, was the number eight. You looked at them, then at the doorway where the doctor had come in.

Your hands flew to cover your mouth. "Oh, my god."

"I'm your new doctor, Doctor Cha, and these are my assistants."

You looked at your friends as they looked at you. Wooyoung grabbed your hand. "Is this some kind of sick joke? Did you somehow find all of our doppelgängers before going into a coma?"

You shook your head no, absolutely speechless. You looked at Doctor Cha, the coma version of yourself, then at the demons, her assistants, who feasted on your flesh for eight weeks.

"It's a Christmas miracle that you woke up," Doctor Cha's eyes went dark, completely black. "Merry Christmas, Y/N."

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a/n: merry early christmas. i hope you guys liked this one! it's not your typical christmas story, but i found this really fun to write.

i was honestly just writing this story for fun, so if you need any clarification as to what is ACTUALLY happening, let me know and i'll go into more depth.

but for now, here's a brief (actually quite long) explanation: y/n went into a coma eight weeks ago. during those eight weeks, she finds herself living a real life inside of her coma, and when she sleeps, she dreams about sleep paralysis where the demonic versions of ateez come and feast on her skin. when she wakes up from her dream, she finds that the demons leave marks, painful ones, and they leave venom in her veins. now, these demons are the coma version of her friends in real life- ateez.

while she's working at the hospital, her angels (ateez as they are and not demonic) try to save her because her demons are hungry. they successfully get her to her car, where the demons can't enter. demon hongjoong later gets mad and throws her and her car into the distance, where she falls to her death and lands on a pile of old cars. the demons are about to feast on her one last time, but angel mingi saves her once again and takes her through the big white portal, which is actually her waking up in the hospital room.

her friends, ateez, tell her what's going on and then right before the unexpected happens, the number 8 is burnt into her skin. then, the coma version of herself and the demonic versions of ateez, come into her hospital room to tell her that it was a "miracle" that she woke up.

they all came through the portal with her.