Tight rabbit costume.
Stage lights.
Girls surrounding her in similar attire.
Her friends.
All of them alive under the lights as the crowd screamed endlessly.
---
The bathroom.
Paparazzi screaming on the way to the dressing room.
Each girl peeling off to her own space.
Eun Byol closed the door behind her.
The room started to spin.
Then everything turned black.
She felt her body being moved.
Something tying her mouth.
Air against her skin.
She tried to move.
Tied.
She tried to scream.
Nothing.
Some kind of chair.
Time moving on without her.
Then voices.
Low first.
Rising slowly.
The bag pulled from her face.
Light blinding.
Adrenaline pumping.
Everything vivid.
Fast.
Blurry.
Then she saw him.
Ha Joon.
For the first time.
Her hands shaking.
Her mouth begging.
Pleading.
How foolish she was.
How foolish.
---
Her feet planted in the forest now.
Tears leaving a trail between her cheeks.
Her body numb and shaking.
The memory pulling at her.
An old rusty pipe from the shower.
A powerful swing at Ha Joon.
Chi-Long grabbing it in an instant.
The first of many slaps.
Her eyes skipping from memory to memory.
His words.
*The first album. The music video. I love it but it should have been still. You know what I'm trying to say.*
Late at night in the bunker.
Him trying to talk to her.
She didn't want to talk.
Didn't want anything.
She was lost.
*Still lost.*
The memory of them cultivating together.
The cafeteria food.
Wet cardboard.
Tasteless.
Utterly disgusting.
Him tasting something.
Making her taste something too.
The showers together.
Training in the forest.
For a moment it was them against the world.
His face.
Rose and broken.
Red. Pink. Blue.
Screaming out—
*Run.*
---
It hit her like a bomb inside her head.
All of it at once.
She stopped running.
Stood at the edge of the forest.
Looked back.
The explosions in the distance.
The smell of metal and flesh and blood floating through the air.
The slow vibration of it reaching her feet through the earth.
She stood there.
Then her face changed.
Fury.
Wrath.
Fire burning within her eyes.
She turned back.
Ran.
Everything blurred.
Everything green rushing past her.
Growing closer to the ridge.
Ha Joon.
Weakening.
The ant growing closer to him.
His eyes closing.
Accepting.
---
She reached the top.
Picked up her sword from the ground where it had fallen.
Ran to the ridge.
Jumped.
Screaming.
The sound slowing everything down.
The ant looked up.
Ha Joon heard it.
Recognized the voice before his eyes opened.
Both of them—Ha Joon and the creature—looking up at her.
The creature tried to jump to meet her.
Swinging its pincers wide.
The sword made contact.
Stabbing into the creature's mouth.
Finding the powerful wound already carved there.
The blade moving through.
Reaching inside.
Finding its core.
Driving through it.
Something powerful giving way.
They fell together.
The creature and Eun Byol dropping.
Ha Joon screaming from below.
Every last thing he had left in his voice.
"EUN BYOL!!"