It's interesting how darkness is often described as black waters in which you must swim out and break the surface to reconnect with the living world above.

For me, darkness was a void of starless skies in which I was suspended in. For just a few moments, I was weightless, hovering in the vast expanse of absolute nothingness. And then I was falling. And falling. And falling.

My eyes flew open. Harsh iodoform and disinfect air filled my lungs.

A dim light swung on the ceiling above, its yellow rays piercing my eyes as my pupils tries to adjust. I was laying in some narrow cot, a few thin sheets covering me and keeping me minimally warm.

I tried to look around. That was when the pain rushed through me.

Everywhere, every bone and fiber of my very being shrieked in one agonized symphony. Pain slammed through my skull. A small gasp escaped me.

Something moved. My heart lurched as I realized there was a weight right beside one of my legs. I painstakingly looked down my laid out body, and found wide eyes looking back.

There was a chair pulled up right beside my bed where he must've been sitting in for who knew how long. At some point it looked like he'd fallen asleep, his head resting on the edge of the bed by my legs.

"Hey partner," Jimin whispered. He stiffly sat upright in his chair, hair on one side of his head sticking up a little from where it had been pressed against the sheets.

"Hey."

My voice was raw, throat sore.

He reached forward to take my hands into his with heartbreaking gentleness. For the first time I noticed the bruises and split skin all over my knuckles. Countless cuts and more ugly contusions lacerated up my arm before they all disappeared under the clean white hospital gown sleeve. My gut twisted.

"How are you feeling?"

Feeling. How was I feeling? What was I feeling?

A shadow flickered across Jimin's face at my lack of response. He shifted so he was now sitting on the edge of the cot that I was in.

I realized I was in one of the many small infirmary rooms of the base. Hence the sharp bite of disinfect hovering in the air all around me. There was only room for the small bed I was laying in, the chair, and a small cabinet on the other side of the room with bottles and medicines inside.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Jimin asked softly.

Talk about what? I blinked unseeingly at the door of the room. It was ever so slightly cracked, allowing a sliver of imagery of the hallway beyond. I swore I saw people go by however I couldn't hear a sound aside from the silence in the room that was growing heavier by the second.

"Jiyeon..." Jimin leaned forward, forcing me to meet his eyes. "You haven't shed a single tear or done anything yet. You can't keep it pent up inside forever. Believe me, I know. I need you to talk to me. What are you thinking about?"

As if on its own, my breaths became shorter. I didn't know why though. It was as suddenly if my body couldn't take in enough oxygen.

"Would it help if I talked about what I'm feeling? How I felt?" He asked softly. "And then you tell me what you're feeling okay?"

I didn't want to. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to tell him what I was feeling. I didn't even know what I was feeling.

"Scared."

I watched as Jimin gently ran his thumb across my palms, brushing over the faint scar on my hand the night the assassins had broken into our Sharehouse.

"I was so scared when we got the news," said Jimin. "I was scared for everyone. I was scared for you. You guys were under occupation for two days, almost forty-eight hours. Those hours were one of the worst hours of my life. No one knew what was happening. Everyone was scrambling to try and figure out some way to get you guys out without alerting the Purists."

Two days. We'd been locked in that room for two days. It felt longer. Much longer.

Blood. Eyes. White. Red.

I flinched as several memories seared through my mind. I reeled to get them back under control, to shove and lock them away.

Jimin's hands tightened slightly as he sensed my tensing muscles. His voice was smooth as ever though. "I was angry too. Angry that we'd been tricked. Angry at how helpless we were. Angry at myself for not somehow keeping you more safe."

White. Red. Screams.

No no no. The flashbacks and memories were drawing closer. A small whimper escaped me as I tried to shove them back. I wasn't ready to face them. I wasn't ready. Not now. Not ever.

"Come here," Jimin murmured, tugging me to him.

I immediately lashed back. Trying to rid myself of his unbearably gentle touches. Rid myself of that soft voice that was opening the lock to the memories of what happened.

He deftly blocked my flails and pulled me tight against him, burying my head in his chest; holding me, murmuring comforts that fell deaf to my ears. No matter how much I struggled against him his arms were iron bands around me, trapping me. And the memories began pouring in.

Scenes, as if some sort of horror slideshow, flashed through my mind. One scene after the next. Running. Fighting. One moment I had a gun in my hand. Another a knife. Blood everywhere. The way eyes, so full of life and emotion, suddenly turning blank. Because of me. Because of me. Because of...

The dam inside me shattered.

Terror. Fear. Hate. Horror. Ice. Fire. Pain. Grief.

All of it poured through me like hot magma, burning every thing in its path. I didn't even remember when I began to cry. Ugly sobs wracked my body as it felt like my very soul was twisting and turning in on itself. I was screaming again, my voice barely muffled by his shirt. Screaming for every person I saw go down, including the Reformists. Screaming for every blow I'd taken as well as gave.

Through it all he held me tightly, his arms holding me together and keeping the last shred of my being still anchored to this earth. When my voice finally gave out I still whimpered and clung to him, clinging on for my dear life; and we stayed like that for who knew how long.

Finally, even my whimpers died down and I felt like an empty shell once more. Except this time there was no wall any longer, holding back the waters. It had all been drained out. There was still more to come. It wasn't over. Perhaps it would never really be over.

But everything that I'd muted and shut down the moment I saw Irene go down had finally been poured out into the air.

Jimin gently ran his fingers through my hair, soothing and comforting.

"Does it ever get easier?" I whispered.

I didn't know what exactly I was asking though. Did it ever get easier to see someone die? Did it ever get easier to kill someone? Did it ever get easier to handle the aftermath? Did it ever get easier?

"No," Jimin murmured. "It never gets easier. In fact, it often gets harder. But you learn to bear it. You become stronger; and the burden will become lighter as time slowly heals."

Time. It felt like time no longer had any meaning to me. It dragged on. It sped up. It froze. It broke. Something so unreliable as time seemed impossible to ever heal what happened. If it ever did heal.

But something deep within me ignited as my breaths finally began to steady and his steady arms around me never faltered once. Something like a little candle flickering to life in the deepest, darkest cavernous hole within me.

Hope.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧