#ast:event001

[silvergashed]

@iinksplit,

two chicken skewers in, and rieun decides that the day can still be salvaged. his body had vehemently protested getting dragged out of bed that morning, but it was going to be worse if he just let it sit and simmer all day.

outside, then. somehow, all the noise about the centennial managed to reach all the way here, but he did remember something about free food. it only took a second to consider, and then he’d taken a few painkillers and left for downtown. anything to be spared from doing dishes.

the sun’s less offensively bright now than it was that morning, filtered down to something more bearable by a patch of thicker clouds rolling in. to his surprise — of course it’s surprising when you’re always doomsaying, he thinks idly — he’s barely felt the last hour or so slip by. it doesn’t feel like the kind of day something inordinately bad would happen, doesn’t even feel ominous despite the things he’s seen with that comic. it’s still there of course, lodged in the back of his mind like a stone in his shoe, but that edge he’s been feeling since he first saw that headline break actually dulls for once as he makes his way around.

mostly.

when he sees the journalists scattered about, he tells himself, of course they’re covering it. it’s a big event, but something about it all makes him feel like they’re holding their breaths for something. for what? it’s the infuriating kind of anticipation. he wants to be open-eyed and very, very aware of when the metaphorical punch is coming. he doesn’t want to be some sucker closing his eyes and waiting for impact.

among the reporters, there’s a familiar face: lee yuram is like the edge of a table that once accidentally snagged the edge of his sleeve, only for him to glance back much later and realize that a thread still hung between them. sure, it hadn’t really been accidental, that night that something possessed him to cover for her and her friends when they were vandalizing some billboard that had already fallen prey to other spray cans, but he’d never expected to come away with a...friend. or so yuram said.

here he is anyway. here he is, approaching her. he’s even throwing away the stick of his skewer, because he’s been around her long enough to suspect that would become ten times a safety hazard near her. maybe she’ll know something. don’t journalists always know something? “so are you here to cover the free food or investigate the evil floats?” he asks by way of announcing himself, coming to a stop next to her. he pauses. squints. “or to be the reason they'll need to be investigated?”

[spltseconds]

blind to you ft. @thekvngdm

friendships had, at one point in time, been taehyun’s strong suit— the subtle art of fostering a relationship between two people that holds true against the test of time. this all changed at the sweet age of sixteen when he had been forced to face the harsh reality of his newfound lonesome state. it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that from that point forward he had essentially fell off the face of the planet, hardly bothering to respond to phone calls and messages that would come through, barely showing his face in public, and hardly saying a word when he does. 

now with friendships being a two way street, the lack of communication from taehyun meant that many of the friendships he had began to dwindle. but that’s alright, for he understood.

it hadn’t been until recently that he began to rekindle some friendships and it comes as no surprise that inna had been on the list. a friendship stemming from their childhood back in elysium hill before they lost touch up until a few months prior when they had locked eyes at beat. years had flown by but taehyun could never forget her face, her features ingrained so permanently in his memories as one of his first friends. it’s for this reason exactly that he could hardly believe what his eyes are seeing. kang inna dressed in a full aeternal uniform before him as he makes his way through pax centennial. 

“what the fuck...” is all he manages to mumble out, his steps frozen in the middle of a busy walkway as passersby circle around him. 

it isn’t that he never expected to have people he knows walk down the dark path of being an aeternal, it’s the fact that inna failed to mention such a fact when they had reconnected. whether intentional or not, he feels a sharp pain in his chest at the sight— a wave of nausea passing through as holds his palm over his lips. he needs an answer, though he isn’t sure he’ll like it. so he pushes through the crowd, stopping merely steps before the girl before calling out her name. “inna!” his voice is sharp, loud, over the chitter chatter of the festival. “what the hell is this?!”

[renegaed]

armageddon  /  solo 0512h  25062022  the maw

it’s the end of the fucking world as he knows it.

he knows this only because the christians have been preaching about this shit for decades. he’s only a child when mother teaches him about the impermanence of life and how this made it all the more important to get right with god. she’d taught him to recognise the signs—the four horsemen, the seven seals—and all he could think of was how he was always bad with numbers. like how mother tells him that the best remedy for dealing with his large emotions is to count to ten, but jaehyun always gets stuck somewhere in between. he tells himself this is why it never works. now there’s fires going off all over town, and there’s a blaring in the distance that sounds like a speeding ambulance and a burglarised corner shop all at once. still, he doesn’t pray. no begging for second chances, no last minute do-overs, no getting right with god. he just stands by his porch and observes the chaos with a cold beer in his right hand.

it’s the end of the fucking world as he knows it, and jaehyun hardly bats an eye. he’s been here before. not just in the pages of some children’s bible that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, but here: coming to terms with the impermanence of life, staring death and loss in the eye and realising that there was no amount of tears he could cry, no amount of screaming and begging and throwing things around that could make it just go away. jaehyun places his beer by his foot, balances a cigarette between his lips and lights it.

“what the fuck—!” there’s the feeling of scales along the back of his hand, an outstretched palm coming seemingly out of nowhere that forces him to recoil. the beer spills and it flows oddly down the pavement, as though along the outline of a boot.

“jaehyun— jaehyun!” the call is muffled, the backdrop of his porch moving in the silhouette of a man as the offender comes out of camouflage and into view, “it’s me! sanghoon,” the man holds his palms out, as though calming a beast, “remember? choi sanghoon. we were in the facility together.”

the last he’d heard of the man, he was charged with life imprisonment for something he claims he didn’t do. jaehyun believes him—the man may have been rough around the edges but he was relatively mild-mannered compared to the usual bastards in the facility, and he hated the aeternals just like jaehyun does—but the point is that he was serving life with no parole. now he’s here, on his grandmother’s porch, wearing that god-awful prison uniform from the facility. jaehyun suddenly realises how naïve he’d been, remembers that he cares for his grandmother too much to watch her die, even if it’s the end of the fucking world.

“what the fuck,” he balances the cigarette between his index and middle finger and combs his fingers through his hair, “what the fuck.”

“i— i know this is crazy, but i need your help, jaehyun. i can’t go back—”

“how the fuck are you here?”

“i remembered you telling me your grandma lived in the maw—”

“no, how the fuck are you here?”

“i don’t know.” sanghoon shakes his head. “i don’t know.”

“what the fuck—”

sanghoon reaches for jaehyun’s hand, but he recoils. so he clasps his hands together instead, as though in prayer, “i’ll explain everything later, but you need to help me. i don’t have anyone else. please help me.”

he deliberates. looks sanghoon in the eye as he brings the cigarette back to his lips and pulls in the smoke. a second passes, and he tilts his head towards the entrance. “don’t wake my grandmother,” jaehyun instructs as he blows out the smoke, balances his cigarette between his fingers and uses it to point, “i’ll be there soon: i just need… i just need a fucking second.”

“thank you—”

“not in my room,” he pauses. “inna’s there.”

“inna?” sanghoon spits, and jaehyun watches as confusion and anger dance along his brow. jaehyun retorts, “do you want fucking help or not?” sanghoon nods like grinding sand, and he darts into the house.

“fuck,” he breathes, takes another puff before putting the cigarette out with his boot. when he finally gets back into the house, he brings the empty beer bottle along with him.

NPC  choi sanghoon serving life imprisonment in the jeong facility. served time with jaehyun and were members of the same prison gang. escaped due to the event, and jaehyun will harbour him until further notice ( plots can be developed from this! ). possesses chameleon physiology which includes camouflage, enhanced vision, and prehensile tongue. recognisable due to the patches of scales along his cheeks and limbs and his chameleon-like eyes and tongue.

[littlemarie]

her arms are stained with wet soil and grass clippings.

every night, she takes a shovel to the ground and she digs. she stomps her boot to the step to break earth, and she does this over and over until she’s six feet deep. there is a girl within her, younger and with dirt under her fingernails, and she claws at sumi’s arm and begs for mercy. over and over, sumi chooses the same thing: to let go, to shovel dirt on top of her and bury her in the cold mud.

her and her mother are not so different. they do what it takes to survive. every night, sumi had gotten on her knees and pleaded for mother to take her home. even then, mother had looked her in the eyes and covered her with dirt. now, mother calls and begs for her to pick up. sumi longs to tell her what her mother had taught her then: there was never any use begging. instead, she picks up the phone and she smiles without teeth, lest it bares the dirt still caught between her molars.

tonight, she learns that the girl within her is more unforgiving. she is not the sort to play nice, to smile without teeth. tonight, when sumi swallows her medicine, reaches for the girl within her to toss her into the grave she dug, she comes up empty. the girl is here now, dagger within her fist as she bares her rotting fangs.

so sumi runs. all around her is chaos. the sky cackles DO YOU KNOW THE NAME OF THE SERPENT?, and she realises that she never learnt the name of the girl she had always buried. there are people around her screaming, and sumi tries to warn them. run!, she screams, run!, but she watches as the girl flings them out of her path to get to her. there was never any use begging. so she runs, turns deaf to the screams around her and she hides in a corner, pulls her lighter from her pocket because she’s learnt it’s the only thing that can keep her away. sumi flicks the sparkwheel with her thumb, once, twice, watches the spark fizzle out each time. “come on,” she whispers, flicks the sparkwheel again, “come on—” and the lighter falls from her hands and into a drain. the screams are getting louder, the girl’s footsteps getting closer, and she reaches her fingers into the gaps of the drain for her lighter, but it was never going to work. “fuck—” sumi slams the drain with her closed fist, “fuck!”

the girl is here now, dagger within her fist as she bares her rotting fangs.

shallow grave  /  @spltseconds​

[iinksplit]

the pax centennial celebration,  DAY 3 for @thekvngdm

she’s got half her body wedged between a brick wall and the vent that leads down to the alleyway. yubi sends a helpful push from their ink, liquid black straining to be solid enough to boot one lee yuram out the metal metahuman trap that she’d willingly swung herself through. for curiosity’s sake, of course, but the symbie’s still holding this less than bright decision over her head. i told you to just use the entrance! that’s why we have a journalist pass!

it’d tip them off, she’s arguing back, though who them is is just a nebulous concept. her intuition’s just telling her there is someone to be tipped off if she were to be, say, found lurking around the highly rumoured floats cordoned off at the corner of the festival. and if there’s someone to be tipped off... there’s also someone to be pissed off if she were to, well, trespass through the restricted area and take a peek at the floats she’s been hearing so much about.

and yuram’s really good at that.

at least, until she gets stuck in her getaway chute with only the scolding of a know-it-all symbiote to help. no, wait, scratch that—and an entirely unwelcome aeternal patrolling the grounds, the off-white of their costume darkening the sky over her. yuram squints up, yubi providing a helpful shade over their eyes to find nyx looming over her. the metahuman’s face scrunches up.

“how do you find me every time?”

she’d get up in the older woman’s face, but yuram’s a little more preoccupied with escaping the vent she’d crawled through. “this isn’t illegal,” she informs the aeternal cheerfully, rubbing the dirt on her cheek off with her sleeve. “see? i have a pass!” a wiggle of her now crumpled but still very official reporter lanyard, yuram letting it hang around her neck as she raises both hands up towards inna, “wanna help pull me out?”

[thekvngdm]

there’s something in a touch. fuck it, there’s everything in a touch.

so pardon her, the paragon caught in barb and jagged tooth, if she lets her fingers slip carelessly over jaehyun’s shoulder. she had stolen a moment’s glance at him before she valiantly put foot before the other. she wonders if he will spit fire from his mouth at her arrival, surely his ire quelled in confined spaces where lips almost…

anyway.

‘hey, bighead.’

inna drinks him in, forgets herself as the pax centennial happens around her, the din mixed with mirth and merriment that she could never say she ever felt apart of. she’s not on the clock today but zero says it would be worth having her around, to keep up appearances, show the people the aeternal united front. how could she say no, when master has beckoned? 

so here she is, in a summer dress and combat boots, her hair twisted into a messy bun, a corndog perched between finger and thumb. she is a picture of normalcy though under the skin a tempest unfurls. 

‘i wouldn’t have thought this was your scene.’

she indicates a faceless crowd, laughter siphoned away by a moving body. she tries to remember a time she laughed like that, so hard the lungs empty, the cheeks flush. she wants to tell him that it’s good to see him again, how since that night at daemon she has been gouging at the stars for any trace of him. she settles with sly tilt of her lips instead, one that holds a memory.

𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 / @renegaed

[renegaed]

he’s never been any good at carrying his feelings.

there is a horizontal line cut across the length of his torso, and he only knows it to spill out of him. mother was always picking it up off the floor and holding it in the cradle of her arms, and she was always coaxing him to carry it in his own. but it was always too big, and he was always too little. he never knew how to carry it in his hands.

but he carried her then. it’d been the sort of blundering to follow inexperience, so for a while, he felt like a boy again. carrying her in his arms when he barely knew, himself, how to walk. and he’d let it slip from his hold sometimes, these feelings, smattered in the hold on, inna!, the don’t give up on me yet, and the we’re almost there— c’mon, we’re almost there! he’d held on too tightly, made so many mistakes, left bruises in the shape of his fingers and there it sits on her skin now, under her uniform. still, he carried her. he carried her all the way home.

now he’s sitting in the living room and he’s fiddling with his palms, muscles aching in the parts of his hands that he’s never used before. he sits there for as long as it takes until grandmother comes out of his room and lets him know that she’s awake, and he nods, swallows that lump in his throat. still, he sits there for a minute longer.

when he finally goes to her, he makes sure to keep himself rooted by his door frame. she’s lying in his bed and she’s in her uniform, and he knows he should hate her. instead, he’s learning to carry his feelings again, because he can’t let her know that he doesn’t. that he finds it impossible to. and he makes sure to keep that distance between them, just in case it spills out.

“you’re awake,” he rasps, keeps his hands in his pockets as he regards her, and he nods to himself, as though to say good. he used to know how to talk to her. words once fell from his lips the way his feelings would, but he can barely look her in the eye now. “it’s a shitstorm out there,” he tries. and, when he finally lets himself, a soft, “how are you feeling?”

milk teeth  /  @thekvngdm

[renegaed]

heroes bleed the blue of ichor.

it’s how they know they’re destined to save lives. a small nick on the finger of a child, newly born, and you’ll know. it brings him comfort, this belief that heroes are born, not made. it absolves him of the guilt from all the times he’s tried and failed. in times as those, he reminds himself that he just wasn’t born with it. his parents die when he’s four, and it brings him comfort to be able to shrug that blame onto this conviction. because if jaehyun were born a hero, a part of him thinks that he’d have known. somehow, he would’ve known that something bad was going to happen, and in some way, he would have been able to save them. the way heroes do. instead, the morning of their passing had felt like any other day to him: normal and uneventful, even as his parents were bleeding their ichor all over the battlefield.

there are no heroes to be found in men like park jaehyun and song taehyun. they can try all they like, but they’ll always fall short. it’s like reaching out for a falling wine bottle only to hear the crack and shatter. now they’re on their knees with a dry cloth, mopping up the spilled wine and they cut themselves on a shard. and they’ll wonder—they’ll always wonder—what it’d be like to be the kind of person to notice a second sooner. instead, they bleed red, and all they’ve left to do is to clean that shit up along with the wasted wine.

it’s why they’re running now. the festival’s a shitstorm and there’s a weird fire burning in their lungs, but they’re running anyway. away from the fucked up float and the sirens and all that fucking drama. there are people around them screaming and crying out for help, but jaehyun doesn’t hear them. he’s done this enough times to know that it’ll only end up with him on the floor, mopping up another bottle of spilled wine. there are no heroes to be found in men like park jaehyun and song taehyun.

( but sometimes, they try anyway. even if it’s guaranteed to end up in vain. )

it takes him awhile to realise that taehyun isn’t beside him anymore, so he slows his pace, turns around and catches taehyun staring at something behind them. jaehyun tries to look, but there’s too much chaos happening, too many stories ending in tragedy to know which one he’s honed in on.

“taehyun!” he calls out, runs to the latter and taps him roughly on the back, “wake the fuck up! we gotta to get the fuck outta here!”

red cape  /  @spltseconds

[spltseconds]

anywhere, everywhere ft. @twenty46

pax centennial is somehow the last place one would think to find taehyun, yet also the most fitting place for him to be after a strenuous night at work. there is something so serene about being invisible in a crowd full of people after having fingers snapped at him all night in efforts to gather his attention. really, his own fault for choosing to bartend at the city’s most popular nightclub, but that’s a tale for another day when the sun isn’t shining and children’s joyous shouts aren’t heard in the background amongst casual conversation. 

he scans the stalls in his vicinity for something that suits his taste, brown orbs with that heroic sliver of gold bouncing between faces as vendors are working their hardest to attract patrons their way. part of him regrets coming alone but this had been a last minute decision on his way home where his bed and whiskey are always more than happy to welcome him, a moment where his curiosity had gotten the best of him; a last minute decision that meant his friends are either busy with other things or already had plans for the festival with others that he is “more than welcome to join”— their words, not his.

he politely declined, for he’d rather be on his own than be the silent extra party in a group. 

it’s then that he spots something (or rather, someone) he hadn’t been looking for but found nonetheless. 

faye has always somehow been a constant in his life, so much to the point where the two have created an inside joke of sorts out of it. he can hardly recall when they truly first met, but all that taehyun remembers is that ever since that one fateful day it seems the world has curated a plan for their paths to consistently cross, even if it is for short moments of time. this brings a small smile to his lips and puts a spring in his step as he closes the distance between them and he finds himself in front of a stall that he hadn’t noticed earlier. 

“hey.” he starts, a small yet effective greeting in hopes of grabbing her attention away. his voice is louder than he would have liked it to be for the daytime but he’s fighting against commotion and he wants to ensure that he’s heard. “didn’t think i’d see you here— well, at least not this early in the day. i thought you’d be a night owl or something, with the way our paths have always seemed to cross.”