Hellooo and welcome to my new Topaz story! This one is planned as a standalone, but I hope it will be fun either way!

Chapter warning for blood and explicit descriptions of dying but death is relative

***********

The rain thrummed on the cobblestones with a lulling melody. Hongjoong never heard the sound so close. Never allowed the drops to kiss his skin without ducking away from them.

It was pleasant. Cooling. The stone below his body also was. It got dark quickly tonight, clouds of thunder and rain covering the skies with a thick blanket. Someone had lit a candle not too far from him and it illuminated the window of the building. Its lure was warm and promised safety, but Hongjoong could merely twitch his fingers towards the path of salvation. His body weighed too heavy to get up from the ground. The navy of his coat was heavy with the rain and seemed to pin him to the street.

The pool of blood surrounding him washed out in the rain, blurring into a red haze in his peripherals. The band of his life force left his body, draining from him so quickly. It kept him alive for so long, kept his heart beating, his limbs moving. But it left him behind so easily. Took away his strength in an unstoppable flow.

Hongjoong tried to push himself up. His arms trembled, and the echo of pain that zapped through his limbs was overwhelming. He curled around his stomach when it throbbed in response, his gasp breathless in the air.

When he tried to find his voice and call for help, no sound escaped him. No one was nearby. The window was so close and yet so far. But Hongjoong's lids were heavy as his head fell back down on the rough pavement, barely keeping open. He only saw the grey of the skies and the buildings. The red tint to the water gathering around his form.

Where had he gone wrong? He was on his way home from the counting house. Walked streets he knew by heart. Greeted the paper selling boy and petted the orange kitten that roamed around his neighbourhood. It had been raining all day already. A light drizzle, nothing too unusual for Oxford. It had looked dreamy then, washing out the colours of the rose bushes and settling a misty haze across the buildings.

Hongjoong remembered crossing the main street and dipping into an alley. The same alley he usually slipped through to get to his workplace. He wasn't even fully employed yet, still the new lad in training. But the money was good for his circumstances and it was honourable work.

Sometime there, everything went wrong.

He heard a scream first. A lady's voice, piercing the air shrill and loud. It was alarming enough near the main street, a pocket thief perhaps, or a drunkard who copped her husband a mouse.

But after that scream, everything happened too quickly, blurring with the rain that picked up into a windy torrent.

Hongjoong remembered a shadow dashing his way. On the run, he thought. Either the criminal fleeing from the mutton shunters or a civilian trying to hide from trouble. Hongjoong had moved aside, wiser than to get involved with any shady figures. That was the task of the bobbies. He was supposed to keep his coat clean and get to work on time, or it might reflect badly on him.

The shadow didn't run past him, however. A blade flashed, sleek and cold. Aiming without a purpose aside from the greed for blood.

It looked so small, so irrelevant, as it came Hongjoong's way. He had nowhere to dodge, trapped between the stranger and a house wall. The fear that rose in his heart at that moment had been electrifying. So real and dreadful what this might mean for him. It gave him superhuman strength, heightened his senses and put him on alert, but it didn't turn his skin to stone.

The knife stabbed deep. He could feel its cold jab in his stomach, like a flash of lightning. It was gone as quickly as it came and the person kept running, but the pain lingered.

Such a small blade. But the wound was deep.

Hongjoong remembered getting dizzy from all the blood that suddenly quelled from his body like a fountain. He pressed his hands to the throbbing spot, but they were also bathed in blood. He felt alive like never before, heart hammering and thoughts racing through his head, but all that excess energy left him just as quickly.

Grey spun overhead. The rough plaster had scraped his cheek when he crashed onto the ground, but he barely felt it. He was in agony and the thrum of rain on his body couldn't seal the wound. It bled so much, more than he thought he could bleed. As he curled around the pain, he knew he wouldn't make it to a hospital. Too many delicate organs that might have been hit.

And here he was. 24 years young. A bright lad from a good family who looked forward to a stable future with a well-paid job.

Bleeding out in an alley while the rain chilled his skin.

Hongjoong took a shuddering breath and it hurt. He felt cold, but not as cold as he expected. The cold felt far away from him, as if the rain had cast him into a dome of safety and removed anything trying to penetrate it. The shadows were deep and soothing, not scary despite the desperate flutter of his heart as it clung to life.

In a way, Hongjoong knew he was dying. Felt his life drain, his mind slip more and more as darkness clouded his vision.

But at the same time, he didn't know. He never died before. Never had anything like this happen to him. Surely, it couldn't be that easy, right? Could such a small blade kill him?

Hongjoong spent his last few moments of life pondering how he could just die so readily. If there shouldn't be more to his life. Some challenge to beat or more moments to experience, anything. In the meantime, his eyes slipped shut, and he handed himself over to the melody of the rain and the chill numbing his pain gradually.

He didn't hear the steps approaching him at first. They fell lighter than the hammering of the rain on the nearby roofs, the rush of his life leaving him in his ears. A pair of shoes halted next to his fluttering lashes. Expensive leather, someone of high standing, perhaps. If the stranger had arrived earlier, he might have been able to help, but Hongjoong couldn't even move his blue lips anymore to explain what happened.

At first, he mistook the hum of their deep voice for the rolling of thunder. But Hongjoong was still not dead yet. He could strain his ears, resurface from the depths he was sinking into, to listen.

"Poor thing."

A male voice. No skirts ruffled when the person knelt by Hongjoong's side. The shadow of an umbrella fell over him and took away the trickle of rain momentarily. The sound of it on the umbrella was hollow.

The fingers that touched Hongjoong's forehead felt cold. Maybe he had to admit he was dying after all, as he no longer felt any human heat. Neither was he startled by a stranger looming over him in a dark alley. This was it. Nothing more for him to cling to.

He had no energy to turn his head and look at the person properly. To ask why he was out here in the rain kneeling over Hongjoong when a criminal was on the loose. His eyes merely slipped shut again.

For a moment, everything was blissfully quiet. Detached. Like drifting into sleep. Hongjoong barely felt his wound anymore, forgot it was there since he spent such little time with it.

Something pricked at the skin of his neck. Smaller stabs, irrelevant and easily washed away by the rain. Hongjoong kept his eyes closed, looking forward to dozing off finally so he would forget the hard ground below him.

But something changed. As the stranger shifted above him, the dull throb of pain in Hongjoong's stomach seemed to lose itself in the distance. Instead, the tug on his neck became more apparent. A sting, a burn, light at first but suddenly too hot. Hongjoong moaned against the pain and somehow, his hand had the might again to reach up and try to remove the feeling from his neck.

But it no longer lingered on his skin. It was deeper, throbbed in his veins and coursed through his body. He felt his every artery suddenly, believed them brightly ablaze. There was too much going on, his legs twitching and his head spinning. His sight cleared, and he heard the rain louder than ever. Unconsciousness was slipping away from him at the speed of lightning and all that remained was burning pain.

"It hurts," Hongjoong gritted out, scratching at his neck, but he felt nothing there that gave him a hint as to what was going on. Perhaps the man gave him medicines, but Hongjoong never heard of a drug that did its job this quickly and efficiently.

He rolled around, catching sight of the dark umbrella shielding him from the rain. The face that hovered below was pale but hauntingly beautiful. A male face as if carved from marble. Beautiful and serene, like the paintings of cherubim in the church. Long, golden waves of hair framed his features, but Hongjoong didn't get to dwell on what struck him so odd about the deep crimson of his eyes. In that moment, crumbling under waves of a feverish heat, he didn't question anything.

"Be patient. It will only take a moment," the man muttered to him and his cold hand rested on Hongjoong's shoulder as he writhed on the ground, gasping for breath. He was no regular believer, but he called to the god in the sky so the pain would end and the numbness would return.

But the liquid poison in his veins gave him new strength. Made his legs kicked out and his hands push himself up as he twitched and trembled. He felt nauseous, couldn't remember smelling the nearby shops and people so clearly through the rain before. His stomach didn't hurt anymore, but it was still overwhelming. He wanted to leave, wanted to hide away somewhere. The light of the nearby candle seemed blinding, aching through his eyes.

Voices at the corner of the alley had Hongjoong's odd companion jerk up. Too loud. Too close even when Hongjoong couldn't see anyone. He could tell how many there were, could tell the light steps of a woman from those of her male companions. He was going insane with all this information, curling up with his hands over his ears.

The stranger by his side soothed him with a hand on his forehead, checking on Hongjoong's cold, cold skin.

For a moment, the angel listened with strained ears. When he spoke, the words came out jumbled and quick.

"Wait for me. I will be right back."

His feet dashed off into the shadows. Didn't even properly leave the street, just seemed to blend with the darkness somewhere. Light and airy, as if he hadn't actually been there but disappeared like a ghost.

Hongjoong managed to sit up on his knees. He was going insane. When he blinked his eyes towards the group of people nearing him, he could see through the night as if it were day. He smelled their heavy perfumes, something sweeter below, something he couldn't place.

"There's a man there. Mister? Are you feeling quite alright?" One of them called out to him and Hongjoong stumbled to his feet. The hands that had been holding his head flinched down to his stomach, expecting pain, but none came. His confusion slowed him, but he could move, could balance himself on soft knees.

The woman clasped her hand over her lips when she realised his state, the puddle of dark blood he rose from, too much for him to still be moving around.

"Blood! Mister?! What happened here?"

Something was wrong. This shouldn't be happening.

Fear seized Hongjoong abruptly. He needed to leave. Needed to figure out what was going on or he might get mistaken as a murderer.

As soon as Hongjoong realised, he scrambled backwards. Away from the loud voices and concerned faces of the people coming his way. The shadows greeted him as he dashed into their cool embrace, fleeing from the scene of his own crime.