#i just wanted a lil break from writing plot heavy things and ws itching to write smth

[neoneun-au]

seungcheol x reader

genre: horror

warnings: blood, death, hints of body horror

word count: 1.3k

fairly experimental in style

.

.

.

Seungcheol’s body is on fire. Flesh boiling with a heat so unbearable he wishes he were dead. Again. Like he thought he was the first time. 

Barking. Dogs. No, not dogs–something worse. Something ancient and beautiful and terrible and oh how his flesh burns and aches and stretches and pulls at him. His skin ablaze with the agony of change. Unnatural, inhuman. He’s screaming but he can’t hear it through the roar of his pain, past the snarling of those beasts. But he can feel it–his throat raw, parched. Ablaze with a fire of its own. 

He can’t think, he can’t breathe, he can’t feel, he can’t scream. Or maybe he still is, he can’t tell. Nothing but the yawning abyss of pain as he writhes on the ground. 

The first bite was horrific. You warned him not to, attacks were on the rise, but he was brave or stupid or both and the thought of death or whatever this was hadn’t touched the edges of his mind with its grasping, greedy fingers. 

No, not fingers. Claws. Sharp, piercing, tearing, scratching, raking flesh to blood to bone to muscle. Splaying him open on the pavement in a macabre display of the weakness of man. The pain was tortuous, but the death, oh the death, was magnificent. 

Relief. A breath, a sigh. His final one. Filled with thoughts of you–sweetening it at the edges. Regret was there, but so was love. He didn’t know he could feel so much love in one moment, in one flash of memory. You shimmered and shone, a halo on the horizon of the end of his life. A beacon for the dying, illuminating the darkness as it closed in on him–calling him forward, onward, towards the end. Towards peace and relief. Darkness consumes, he slips away to the fading sounds of the night and then—

Red. Hot, searing, blood-soaked red. A crimson tide eclipsing the moon above and him, lying torn apart on the pavement underneath it. Was this the love he felt? Some twisted, torn apart thing? 

Was it his love wrenching him out of the darkness and tearing his flesh and mind apart? He searches for you in the midst of it all–seeking out his beacon–but he’s met only with more twisting, snarling pain. He feels a great shuddering, he thinks he’s moving but he can’t tell, thinks he’s crying but he can’t tell. All he can hear is growling, barking, snapping, red, red, red. 

The pain in his flesh ebbs slow, bit by bit, as he shudders and shakes but the red remains. A red the shade of furious hunger. He feels half mad with the insistence of it, with the gnawing in his core. He needs, he needs, he needs—

No. Too much. Seungcheol pulls back inside of himself, fighting a war in his mind. A dog barking at his soul, clawing to get in. He holds the door shut as it clamours and throws itself against the creaking barrier, wearing down his resolve but he holds, he holds. He has to. He doesn’t know what this hunger is but he knows he can’t give in because it feels like losing himself. Like losing you. He needs, he needs, he needs—something. Someone. You. Your light, your arms, your love. You can pull him out of this. Soothe the pain, ease the torture, satiate the hunger.

The dog ceases its clamour. His legs carry him forward. The hunger gnaws. 

Legs, feet–bare feet against cold pavement. Where were his shoes? 

He’s running now, faster than he ever has. Cool night wind blowing through his coarse dark hair, he looks down at his feet but they’re not his feet. The dog scratches at the door—softer, pleading. He bristles, feels his hair stand on end, a cold shock down the length of his spine. These feet that are not his feet carry him on—faster now, faster. He needs, he needs, he needs.

You. 

Through the window he sees you in the kitchen, the amber glow of the light haloing you in its warmth. Panting, breathing, chest heaving with the effort of seeking when this hunger just won’t lessen, won’t ease its death grip on his chest. He feels it closing in on him even as he moves towards the door but he can’t stand to open it. Why can’t he stand to open it?

The dog paces, he can hear its claws tapping away against the folds of his brain—so tired, so tired—and he sees the window again. You again. With your halo of light calling to him in the darkness. His heart yearns and aches and he thinks it might jump out of his chest with the force of his love. It eats at him like this hunger and he tries to pull together memories of you, of feeling this love with you, but they’re vague and spotty and dimming and dying and he thinks this might be worse than the pain. He thinks his heart might leap out of his chest if he can’t get to you, can’t feel you, can’t sink this love into you. 

And then it does leap. Or he does. These feet that are not his feet landing, scrambling, on the floor of your home—nails clawing for purchase on the slick tile. 

The dog snarls, barks, howls—clawing and scratching and leaping at the edge of him as he scrambles for solid ground, for safety. A hand to hold, the soft touch of the person he loves most, the person he needs most. Now. More than ever. He finds you, soft flesh yielding and inviting to his touch—to his hands. Hands that are not his hands, claws that are not his nails. Blood that is not his blood. Snarling turned to screaming and he can’t tell if it's coming from him any longer. Maybe it's the dog, maybe the dog got loose. He needs to protect you, to feel you, to swallow you whole, too close is not close enough he needs, he needs, he needs—

His teeth ache with the hunger now—more agony than before. More red than before.  He needs it to cease—he would give anything to not feel this hunger, to not feel this pain. Anything. He opens his mouth to it, to release it, to let it escape and he finds you there at the end of it all, like you told him you would be on that bright shining day when you promised your forever to each other. He feels that day burst through his chest in a white hot flash and he leaps for it. 

Your hands on his flesh, in his hair, grabbing, clawing, gripping and he holds onto you.  Sinks into you. You, the safe place from all his pain and fears and harbour for his love, you can help him. You can give him this release. He bites down and the dog laughs or howls or both. Closer now, using his eyes, his mouth, his hands—these claws that were not his hands but now feel like his as they press into you. He hears your voice, soft and pleading, and he smiles at the familiar lilt of your voice, lips stretching over teeth that drip and shine in the amber glow of the kitchen. Your grip has slackened, arms around him like a hug and his lips stretch back further. 

You. There. Before him. Haloed in crimson like a blood moon. You called to him through the darkness, a flare of hope in his final breath—the force of love pulling him through, carrying him here on feet that were not his feet. A love that burned and ached like a hunger until it didn’t, until he could wrap you up in it and make you feel his love, how it blazed inside of him like a wildfire. He lies down, curled up next to you on the cold tile floor, hair dripping in the redness of your love, of his relief.

The snarling has stopped, the fire put out. All is quiet. And in the morning? some distant part of himself thinks,  but there is no thought that follows, only a whimper.

.

.

.