[Song suggestion# Toxins by Kodoku]

Slowly like the calm waves rippling over the skin of a sea, his consciousness kicked in, bringing the silent pain crawling back to his existence. Seokjin groaned swinging his head to the other side with the left side of his skill pounding with immense pain shooting through it. He hissed and tried to hold his head only to find his arms restricted. Opening his eyes through the dried blood sticking to his skin, the guy looked down at himself being tied with metal chains while a white chalky structure crawled around his neck. It appeared to be an arm of a statue.

Seokjin looked back to see the head of the statue with dried splinters of blood over its white surface. Those white lifeless eyes peered back into his as if trying to communicate a message through his sealed lips and chained tongue. Seokjin found himself to be chained against a statue that held the breathing human in a headlock peering right down at him trying to steal the life out of him.

Panicked and terrified about what was happening, he looked around frantically with shaking orbs to discover a huge chamber with chopped and dead heads hanging from the ceiling with long chains decorating the ceiling like chandeliers.

Beneath them were numerous chalk statues, structures tainted with stale blood and lifeless pallid eyes they held chains and cuffs waiting for their turn to hold the culprits in the circle of verdict.

What is this place? He peered around with wide orbs feeling sharp chills kiss his spine, heavy breaths condensed in front of him leaving him to shiver to the freezing temperature of the room, or was it the warmth of life leaving the vessel of his body slowly?

Yanking at the chains trying to get himself lose, Seokjin withered like a fish out of the water yet all in vain. It was impossible to get out of such restraints. Must be a mastermind behind this right?

The revolving chair turned around as she shifted in the chair hearing the pained struggles of the former. Venom looked up to see the once unconscious man now thrash against the statue out of dread. She quietly watched him struggle like a prisoner in a lockup built like a well.

"You are foolish enough to try or should I say daring?"

Seokjin stopped his struggles hearing the familiar mellow voice, that familiar rasp to its edges, how could he ever not recognize it? He rose his gaze up to the voice's owner and there he saw her, gracefully seated on the chair. As always.

Intimidating and enchanting.

And those strange eyes of hers hiding his favorite sunset-like irises. These new ones just gave off a cold feeling. They were not much different from what the statues around them had.

Pallid merciless eyes

She looked like their queen. Cold-blooded, merciless, and heartless. So, this was her playhouse, right? And I wasn't dreaming?

That means she is actually alive and- here right in front of me.

"I have always loved your daring nature Seokjin, but overconfidence can cost you losing the game" Her words broke his chains of thought and forced his focus to the present.

"This is not a dream?"

A snort was what she gave off at his very first words after gaining consciousness. It was funny how the man simply questioned the reality of his surroundings.

"Maybe this might help you wake up" Venom swung a small blade between her fingers and aimed it right at the restrained figure forth.

The blade flew past his existence kissing the shell of his ear smoothly leaving a scratch deep enough for the blood to seep out. The blade clanked against the statue behind and fell down. Seokjin hissed to the burning sting on his skin leaving Venom to sit back with crossed arms and gaze focused on him.

The former looked up toward the one who stole his heart two years back, the ferocious ruthless queen who melted his frozen heart with the warmth of her cold fascination.

"So, you are going to hold me here as a prisoner now?"

"Prisoner? Ain't we all one up here" She tapped her fingertips against her temple.

"You must be a fool to think otherwise. The thing that irks me the most is the shattered prison of the mind. No matter how tired you get of being enclosed in here. You just can't leave...."

"Why? Not because there is no door, one can always make a path through by will but we don't. Not because we are craving to seek an escape from it but because we are scared to not be scared anymore. No matter how painful it is, we all prefer the world nurturing up here more than the one around. Creating our own demons just to overlook the real ones in front of us. Ain't we all the same? Prisoners to our own demons"

"But I am not one, I'm struggling to escape it one day into that wonderful world of true joy, and to be alive there, not just in a dream, not just see it diffused through my tears, with a never-quenching thirst for it through the walls of my aching heart but really with it, and in it. I will get out of this-... with you. I won't let you dwell on this masochistic feeling either."

Seokjin saw a small twitch in the corner of her lips, tugging wider fuming with the nasty taste of judgment.

"How ironic!" A soft scoff left her mouth.

"Look at yourself, idiot. You are inside a prison, with a prison inside you yet this little bird of hope is still writhing inside you. I am so eager to kill it"

"You can't, I won't let you, I won't let us lose it-..."

"Are you sure?" Her daring words left his tongue trembling from saying anything more.

"Y-you are gonna torment me slowly, aren't you? If this is the case then go on, I would love anything you give me, even if its death"

"Are you sure?" The same question again, like a quiet warning murmur yet Seokjin knew if he wants to win her heart, he has to walk through his hell, and that was his biggest mistake.

Slowly she rose from her place and placed a firm step forth. Her cold eyes never left his warm ones neither she stopped the tracks of her footsteps. Reaching up to him, Venom knelt down to his crooked figure. Uncuffing his hands, she slowly enclosed the cups of her hands around his face pulling him closer.

"Are you sure Seokjin-ah?"

He peered forth into her cold eyes with his shaking glossy orbs while he rose his hands to place them onto hers leaning into that familiar cold touch that brought warmth to his heart. Closing his eyes, he let a whimper out clutching onto her hands keeping them pressed to his face.

"I am, I am sure and I have faith and I-I know I will succeed"

"Hm~ pretty one? sorry to break your little happy bubble but this is not your story, it's mine. And you are not destined to be happy in it."

~I inhaled your toxins, lungs are rotten. You left me here to die~

~You found then lost me, Lost then found me, again from time to time~

~And you said you'll be my rock, Turned to some sand~

~Now the grave is where I fall, Right through your hands~

~This fantasy love that I dream about ain't real~

~I can't seem to trust 'cause these scars ain't healed~

"What do you want from me? To leave you be? I can't. To disappear from your life? I won't. To hurt me? I would take it all gladly..."

"You are too quick to judge me Seokjin, remember when I told you no matter how much you know me and you think you can interpret me, I will still be a stranger..." Venom reached her hand down to the small blade with its sharp shining with a few droplets of blood on it. She grabbed a hold of it and brought it up.

"I know, this... physical torment is not gonna put you through any agony. But... this surely will" She placed the blade in his hands pointing the sharp edge to herself, Venom curled her fingers pushing his to hold the blade though Seokjin was still clueless as to what she was doing.

The former tightened her hands on top of his on the blade and yanked them forth directing the blade right toward her heart. Seokjin shrieked at the sudden turn of events and pulled at his hands letting go of the metal weapon.

"You can't hurt me, if you do~ you won't be able to forgive yourself, right? You are already suffering from this and pressing onto these wounds will suck your soul out for sure, won't they?"

"V-venom..." It felt like his blood dried in his own veins leaving his body deprived of any warmth, Seokjin gave off a shuddered exhale.

"I will not hurt you pretty one." She tightened her grip onto his hands again yanking at them directing the blade to herself. Seokjin let out another whimper resisting her actions to stab herself by his hands.

"You are so scared to lose me, Ain't you? Then I will make sure you live that same night over and over again, the night you left me to die between the pools of my own blood" She tugged at his hands harder while he yanked them back making the blade slice past the cloth of her top exposing her cleavage.

"V-venom please" He wheezed while his heart clenched harder to the memory of that night two years back.

"Come on Seokjin-ah, accept it, you betrayed me, accept it you hate me-..."

"N-no no I-I love you" He struggled pushing the words off his quivering lips, with continuous tears washing the dried blood off his cheeks.

"No you don't, you hate me"

"I FUCKIN' LOVE YOU" He screamed feeling the back of his throat sting.

Staring in his eyes, Venom let go of his resisting hands enclosing them together letting the blade slice past her palms as the blade was yanked back with the absence of opposing force. A gasp left her mouth leaving Seokjin to glance towards her bleeding hands. His soul seemed to leave his body. The blade fell from his trembling hands as he watched her blood dribble down her cut open wounds.

"See, you failed, you failed again pretty one~ you hurt me again and you failed to protect me Seokjin"

"N-no, no I-..." He was trembling badly, there were no fatal bruises on the outside, but he looked absolutely frantic, as if he was taking his last breaths. So, this is why they call her vicious! She truly was. Weapons or not, she was equally fatal.

"Look, can you see" She rose her bleeding slit palms forth to which Seokjin shook his head hysterically, he scooted back pushing himself more to the statue before.

"N-no, no Venom please~" He wheezed clutching onto his heart, gasping for breath trying to cope with the eyes blinding pain cruising through it.

"You hurt me again, you left me bleeding again" She rose both palms to his face and wiped the blood against his cheeks tainting them red. Seokjin let out a pained cry shaking holding onto her arms.

"You have my blood on your hands, you are my murderer too. Accept it Seokjin that you killed me, you so-called love murdered me" Pulling her hands away from his face, she got up on her feet moving back watching the guy to instantly latch forth to her trying to grab a hold but failed.

"No Venom-... " He struggled against the restrains trying to pull himself out to reach out to her and stop her. But he failed miserably, all that was left there was his struggling figure, rattled sobs, trembling existence and non-stop tears.

"N-no come back to me, c-come-..." He pleaded desperately trying to grab a hold of her while Venom watched his helpless figure writhing. Glancing for the last time she turned on her heels and walked away leaving the boy behind lose his sanity between the cold walls and colorless statues.

She was right, he was in a prison with a prison inside him. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison.

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[A/N: For the songs I shared my writing playlists Spotify account on my message board, you can easily get all the songs there used in my writing.]

ℑ𝔶𝔞𝔫𝔨𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔳𝔬𝔱𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔡𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔰.
ℑ𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔯𝔢
𝔖𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔥𝔞𝔢, 𝔅𝔬𝔯𝔞𝔥𝔞𝔢
𝔜𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔟𝔢𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔡 𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔯
𝕍𝕍

𝔇𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔡: 24/1/2023
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