"Do you know why you are here?"

Brianna blinks owlishly, eyes attempting to make sense of the blurred shapes before her. The Antediluvians have always enjoyed hiding their faces, but there is something about this whisper-like haze that doesn't sit well with her.

"Because you're all assholes?" She half gasps, bravado fading as she realizes just how far away her voice sounds to her.

"Watch your tongue girl, " one of the faceless beings proclaims, "you speak to the Gods."

A peal of harsh and biting laughter rises unbidden from Brianna's fevered lips. The air about her feels stale and empty. The very atmosphere seems to be intent on sucking her very soul from her.

"See, most societies expect deities to be benevolent, and that's certainly the one word I wouldn't describe you with." Brianna retorts.

In truth, she's frightened.

Somehow, she can still hear the echo of Yoongi's panicked voice despite the silent air around her ears. It sounds directly in her head and rings in her skull like a sweet siren's call. Brianna wants to go back. She wants out of this nightmarish void, and back into the arms that she has come to love so much.

But it would seem that her soul has been summoned before the Gods, and she realizes that she is not meant to walk away from this encounter.

"Fight it! You don't have to give them what they want!"

Yoongi's pleas reach her, and puzzle her entirely. How can she fight against fate? And whether you support the Gods and their selfishness or not, one must admit that the Gods' will is strong. It bears down upon her like a hammer, and her soul nearly buckles under the weight.

"You have tempted one of our reapers, " one of the faceless Gods reveals. "He has gone rogue. For this transgression, you forfeit your immortal soul."

Tempted? Transgression? Forfeit?

No, these words don't sound right.

She and Yoongi fell in love. It was unexpected, but real nonetheless. And love is always a thing of beauty, real love like hers and Yoongi's anyway. There is nothing vile or vulgar about her love for Yoongi, or his for her. Temptation is not the word for what they have. Neither is transgression. As if it were a sin to love.

And forfeit?

As if she would.

Brianna would not forfeit her soul willingly, and the Gods are daft if they believe otherwise. It grates on her nerves that they expect her to willingly cease to exist, just because they say she should.

"Fight it Brianna!"

Yoongi's voice rings loud and clear in Brianna's mind, and fills her with a sudden sense of determination. Why should she just disappear? Has she not always tried to be a good person? Has she not wept for others, and loved her friends well enough? Why should she owe loyalty or obedience to the beings that caused Yoongi so much suffering?

"The Gods are cruel, " he'd told her.

It should have been obvious to her then, but she sees it now.

"Relinquish your immortal soul!" One of the Gods cries out. "Heed our commands!"

"No." Brianna refutes. "I don't think I will."

And just like that, her vision fades to black.

"She's dead! Dead! And it's all because of you!"

Seokjin's face is red, and tear-stained. He screams hysterically at Yoongi, who has not left Brianna's side even once. Her body is cold, like ice in fact, and there is no breath left in her. But even still, Yoongi can't let it go. It can't end like this. He can't lose her. He clings to her lifeless corpse and snaps at anyone who thinks to remove her from his embrace.

She won't die, won't disappear. She'll come back to him. He doesn't know how, or when. But he knows that she will.

"Let her go," Hoseok commands, eyes bloodshot and voice hoarse due to the sheer amount of tears that he has shed. "She's gone Yoongi. And she isn't coming back."

"You're wrong," Yoongi firmly denies. "She won't leave me like this. She'll come back. You'll see."

Hoseok, Seokjin, and Jeonguk regard the distressed reaper with varying displays of emotion.

Seokjin is far too caught up in his own grief to be polite, and rages about the shop. He screams accusations at Yoongi through brittle lips and anguished lungs. And though Yoongi seems to ignore him, every heated word, every harsh accusation slips through his defenses and into his gut much like a knife. Sharp and painful, the Ifrit's accusations are unavoidably true. If he'd just been a little quicker, if he'd not wasted so much time in throwing off the shackles that the Gods placed upon him...

Brianna might still be alive.

Hoseok hasn't spoken very much at all since their return. He'd lost a daughter, just the same as Yoongi had lost a son. And maybe this is why Hoseok seems so willing to show the reaper so much pity. It is clear that he'd loved Brianna. It took forever for Hoseok to finally see that, but it's the truth. And he'd killed his own progeny, with his own two hands. Whatever else the reaper may be, he is clearly not as emotionless as he and Seokjin had convinced themselves he must be. The loss of a child is hard, no matter the circumstances. And in his pain, Hoseok finds a greater understanding of Yoongi than he might have otherwise.

Even Freya, who's come by several times to pay her respects and check on the seer, hasn't been able to lift Hoseok's mood. They say that time heals all wounds, and as an Immortal, Hoseok does not lack for time. But he doubts that even centuries would be enough to heal the wound that this loss has created within him, and he finds his disdain for companionship growing with every hurt and shattered memory that he locks away within himself.

Jeonguk is by far the most silent of them all. He spends most of his time holed up and away from the others. Seokjin is certain that the werewolf is blaming himself, just as he's certain Brianna knew he would. This must be why she'd so adamantly demanded that Seokjin get Jeonguk out, at any cost. Though Jeonguk is busy blaming himself, Seokjin knows where the blame truly lies. He continues to insist that it is all Yoongi's fault but, in reality, he'd failed her just as much as anyone else. More, even. She'd counted on him to get Jeonguk out, to keep him from a set of events that could scar the kid for life.

And in his arrogance, he'd truly believed that he knew better than his best friend. A seer.

Why couldn't he see just how stupid he was before it was too late?

It is truly disconcerting just how empty the void feels without the presence of the Gods. Without the sun or the moon, Brianna has no way of telling how much time has passed. And without sound, it becomes hard to determine whether any of this is even real. Did she die? Is it done? Or is she somehow safe at home, warm within her bed and dreaming of simple nothingness? If so, she must admit that she's had far worse dreams.

Bit by bit, Brianna's mind begins to become hazy. Did the Gods' resort to sealing her away within the void because she wouldn't willingly relinquish her soul? Why didn't they just snatch it from her, as they have done to so many others? Could it truly be that they literally couldn't?

Every now and then, Brianna can hear the faint echo of a voice that sounds so familiar, and so heart-wrenchingly sad. It belongs to a man, that much is clear. But though she feels as if that voice should be as recognizable to her as her own, she simply cannot remember where it is she has heard it before. She also can't deny the way his agony hurts her, nor the sorrow that churns in her gut whenever he cries out her name.

Like a broken prayer he calls it, again and again.

"Brianna!" He cries. "Brianna come back to me. Don't leave me, please. Don't let them win!"

Let them win? Who, the Gods? Was she ever truly so fierce a person that she could stand against beings so powerful? As a seer, all she has ever known is fate. And surely, her fate is to die. It's why she's here, isn't it?

But Brianna can't help but feel as if there is something she is forgetting. Something important. The longer she spends here, the more her memories become fuzzy. Until, at last, she can barely remember anything about her life at all. She was a seer, right? And she had friends...

A loved one! She remembers the feel of talented fingers against her skin, and the warmth of a set of arms around her as she sleeps. But what was his name?

Pain erupts behind her eyes as a series of visions flash within her mind, and these too, seem so familiar. There is a face, with feline eyes and doll-like lips curled up into an eternal frown. He seems intimidating, at first glance, but a strange sort of intuition tells her that the man whose face she is seeing is not scary even in the least. Rather than fear, an unsettling sort of longing bubbles up within her and threatens to spill from her eyes in the form of crystalline tears.

Brianna's chest suddenly feels tight, and her throat burns with the need to scream. What is this? What is this pain? Why does that face make her feel as if her heart is breaking into a thousand tiny pieces?

"Brianna!" The voice sobs miserably. "Come back! I miss you! You can't leave me like this..."

Like lightning, Brianna is struck by a handful of memories. They play before her unseeing eyes in rapid succession, one after the other. Suddenly, names begin to fall from the tip of her tongue, and from her lips.

"Jin? Jeonguk? Papa?" She cries, voice breaking the stillness about her.

From the depths of the void, she can feel more than hear the slow rumbling growl of a disapproving creature. If the void is a sort of supernatural prison, does that mean that there is a jailor? And if so, is that the discontent presence she feels in the distance?

As the creature grows closer, a sense of urgency weighs down upon the still hazy seer. There is one more name, still forgotten, but hanging just off of the tip of her tongue. Brianna feels as if she might free herself, with this one name alone. If only she could remember it.

"In other news, the recent incident involving a warehouse in downtown Seattle that mysteriously caught fire has only just been resolved. The firefighters that handled the fire claim that the inferno was like nothing they have ever seen before, and many are baffled by the fact that the fire took a full three days to extinguish..."

With a snarl, Seokjin smashes the power button on the T.V's remote, and resists the urge to throw it and smash the damn thing. All any mortal can talk about lately is the warehouse, and the fire that Seokjin himself rashly set upon the city. From what he's heard, his flames even spread to a few of the surrounding buildings before the magic he'd left behind had finally evaporated. Unlike normal fire, an Ifrit's flames simply do not go out. Not until they are good and ready to, anyway. Magic is rather temperamental at the best of times, and given Seokjin's recent state of mind, he has to say he's surprised that the flames ever went out at all.

He doesn't even need Brianna here to remind him of why the situation at hand is bad, though he'd give anything just to hear her voice again. Even if it meant her telling him off, as she'd so often done. He'd brashly rushed in, fire blazing and steel conviction in his heart. He'd ignored Brianna's knowing warnings, and created a spectacle that the mortal world is trying desperately to explain away. But the Gods are not likely to turn such a blind eye, and for a moment, Seokjin wonders if this is the reason that the Gods have snatched away Brianna's soul.

It was clear, when Yoongi finally arrived with Brianna's limp and lifeless form, that she hadn't been injured by the nephilim. As far as any of them can tell, her heart remains firmly in her chest. The wound on her side, the one caused by Jeonguk's massive jaws, is bad. But not lethal, no. Such a wound shouldn't be enough to kill an Immortal.

So, logically, there is only one other option left.

The Gods must have taken her soul. But why? Because of the display Seokjin so ignorantly caused? Or was it perhaps because of her involvement with the reaper?

It's hard to know for sure, especially when Yoongi refuses to speak to anyone but Brianna. He sits at her bedside, with her small hands folded delicately within his own larger ones. He won't eat, or sleep, and refuses to allow anyone to approach. Hoseok has given the guy far too much leeway, Seokjin thinks. How long is the seer going to allow the reaper to stand guard over Brianna's corpse? Sure, if he's being completely honest, a part of him feels a certain sense of pity for the reaper. It's clear to see that Brianna meant a lot to him, maybe more than Seokjin ever gave him credit for, because the guy is all but broken.

He sits there, hour after hour, talking to her lifeless corpse. Begging her to come back. Yoongi blocks out everyone, and everything else. He is certain that the others think he is crazy. They think that Brianna is dead. Gone for good. But he knows better. He can feel it in his bones. Her soul is not yet gone from this world entirely, and her will to return is going to see her back in his arms once more. Patience is what is required now. Patience, and a voice to remind her of where she belongs.

She can hear his voice, he's certain of it. Yoongi doesn't know how he knows this, he just simply does. Maybe he's taking a lot on blind faith, or maybe he's just delusional. To be honest, Yoongi doesn't even really care whichever it may be. Either he is right, or he is wrong.

But even if he is wrong, it doesn't change the fact that he is not ready to give up on her.