[fic]
title: Hearing Clearly
rating: PG-13
fandom: Super Junior
subject: Kibum
summary: It wasn't the first strange thing that had happened to Kibum recently. Both had happened about a week apart, and the first strange incident had been a loss of memory.
notes: AU, and I guess this would fit within the genre of supernatural? 8D; Also, I haven't written fic in six months, I feel rusty.
'Stairs... falling... down... down... down... Father!'
The words echoed throughout Kibum's mind, quietly chasing each other, and he had no idea what they meant.
He'd heard it whilst walking down the stairwell of his apartment building; a whisper against his ear, words that felt like the crackle of dead leaves, but he'd shrugged it away then, and promptly pushed it from his mind.
And then, he'd heard it again later that evening, in the same stairwell, those same words, over and over.
Kibum believed in logic and reason, science and fact, (cynical, his friend Donghae called him) and maintained the belief that it was some kind of prank, or kids playing around, or something equally uninteresting and likely. And yet, even as he went about his usual evening routine (dinner, shower, a bit of television) he couldn't get that moment from his mind.
He'd never heard a voice quite like it, a girl's sigh lost upon the breeze.
Although not usually the type to give in to some random whim, sometime later Kibum found himself in front of his laptop, and searching the internet for any news related to his apartment building, almost without realising that he was actually doing it.
What he found was one of the last things he'd expected his little whim to dig up. Kibum's eyes skimmed across the news article, absorbing every word on the page, only feeling the meaning of them all finally resolve into understanding once he had finished.
The article was over ten years old, about a young girl who had died, right in his very building. According to the source, she'd died after falling down the stairs.
A cold chill shivered down Kibum's spine.
The sudden shrill of a ringing phone cut into the silence then, pulling Kibum out of whatever strange mood he'd almost fallen into, and he snapped back into his usual logical, reasoning self. Things like that happened all over the place, he told himself. Nothing more.
Standing from his seat, he stretched his arms out above himself, let out a quiet groan, and went to answer the phone, before it decided to ring itself into oblivion, as it seemed to be on its way to doing.
Voices, ridiculous.
It wasn't the first strange thing that had happened to Kibum recently however. Both had happened about a week apart, and the first strange incident had been a loss of memory. There was a period of an entire week that Kibum could not, try as he might, remember. He hadn't been to any parties, so no excessive drinking, and certainly no drugs. So he had assumed he'd had some kind of accident, knocked his head somehow, but his check up at the hospital provided no evidence of that, either.
If he was to be entirely honest with himself, the fact that Kibum was missing a week, and couldn't remember how, or find any reasonable explanation for it, disturbed him. Deeply. He hadn't told any of his friends about it, either, not Hangeng, and certainly not Donghae. No one else really needed to know about this brief madness of his, as madness was the only explanation Kibum had left for it.
Missing weeks, and now strange voices. Perhaps he really was going insane.
It was a chill day, wind whipping around corners of buildings in a hell-bent fury, clouds gathered ominously above, holding tightly onto the threat of snow. Kibum was safe and warm, nestled comfortably within a chair inside his favourite coffee shop, sipping slowly at his still steaming cappuccino. The heat from his mug was slowly driving the chill from his fingertips, and every sip dissolved the cold from its hiding spot inside him.
He had a newspaper spread before him, slowly perusing the daily offerings from the world. So immersed was he in his quiet little world of warmth and black ink that Kibum jolted in his seat, just a fraction, when a voice spoke suddenly from above him.
"Kibum? Kim Kibum?"
Looking up, Kibum found himself gazing into a face that he didn't recognise in the slightest. It always made him feel uncomfortable, someone he didn't know knowing him.
A little on edge, he answered with a wary, "Yes? Do I know you?"
Whoever this young man was, Kibum's response didn't seem to be the one he was expecting.
Eyebrows raised slightly, he dropped himself into the seat opposite. Inside, Kibum groaned to himself, outside he took another sip of his coffee.
"I'm Kyuhyun. We met at the hospital. You... don't remember?"
Kibum had only been to the hospital once recently, and he certainly hadn't made any friends whilst he was there. He couldn't quite hide the frown that painted his face. "I really don't know what you're talking about. I was at the hospital last week, and I'm not that old that I'd have forgotten meeting someone only seven days ago."
Shaking his head, Kyuhyun leaned forward, and inwardly Kibum could feel himself begin to bristle. "No, this was almost three weeks ago." He paused, and Kibum could feel the considering weight of Kyuhyun's gaze on him. Almost like a pressure against his chest. "You really don't remember a thing? Not a single thing?"
Matching Kyuhyun's gaze, Kibum shook his own head. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Really. Now," he gestured at his disturbed little world of newspaper and coffee, the impression clear, "if you don't mind?"
He didn't want to show it, but Kibum was truly beginning to feel more than just a little disturbed by all of this. His missing memory, the ghostly voice, and now someone who seemed so certain that they knew him, from some hospital visit Kibum knew he hadn't made.
Kibum didn't like whatever it was that seemed intent upon smashing his well built wall of science and reason and fact.
For a moment longer Kyuhyun only looked at him, his expression unreadable, before eventually shrugging his shoulders in defeat. "I guess you really don't remember." In one easy motion he pushed himself up from the chair. "Even so, I'm glad to see you're okay." Letting out a quiet laugh, Kyuhyun added dryly, "well, mostly I guess, anyway. Maybe I'll see you around sometime." And with barely a smile, Kyuhyun was gone, leaving the coffee shop, and a lump of ice inside Kibum, that even a fresh mug of hot coffee couldn't melt.
It happened again. As Kibum crossed a street on his way home. This time, the voice he heard sounded more like a faded scream, like the scratch in a too-dry throat; the only words he could make out were lights and black and fast. And then it ended abruptly, cut off, silenced.
Except for the echoes of it inside Kibum's head. It was enough to distract him from crossing the street properly, and only the screech of tires and the loud blasting of a horn reminded him of this fact. A scramble of limbs, and Kibum was safely on the other side; now he had the flare of headlights imprinted under his eyelids to match the echoing voice.
This, Kibum concluded, was truly the worst fortnight of his life.
Struggling just a little for breath after that, Kibum slowly, and carefully, made his way back to his apartment, unable to quite blink away the after-image of blazing headlights the entire way back.
After the third incident, the dreams began.
It had happened down a small side street, in front of what had once been a shabby-looking restaurant, but now was only empty windows and withered memories. That time, all Kibum could hear was an agonising scream, as faded and empty as the old shop windows, and a single word.
Murder.
It was all inside his own head, he knew. No one else could hear the screaming, which sounded like it was coming at him from the distance, muted and dry.
The dreams began on the edge of that scream. Kibum was back in that street, and now the shabby restaurant wasn't old and faded, just shut for the night. He could almost see the figure of a woman standing outside it. But this time, as he heard the scream, it was real and right there, loud and full of life and terror as it echoed through him.
And then Kibum was back in that road, where he'd been quite close to getting run over. The blinding blaze of headlights filled his vision, a screech of tires and a blaring car horn so loud they left his ears ringing, and shouting, shouting, loud and terrified and-- cut short, and Kibum watched in horror as a small figure rose up in the air, seemed suspended for just a second, before falling back to earth, body crumpling like a lifeless rag doll against the road.
There was no time for a reaction, as suddenly he was somewhere else again. A stairwell. He could see a young girl standing at the top; innocent, her smile warm and naive and carefree. Smiling up with sunshine in her eyes at the tall figure of a man. There was a moment, only a split-second, in which Kibum suddenly became aware of what was about to happen. He wanted to call out, to warn her, but this was just a dream, and he could only watch as the man pushed at the girl.
He heard her cry of surprise, short and strangled inside her throat. Heard the thuds as her body rolled down the stairs. He could almost feel the hard, unrelenting impact of each step as she fell, down, down, down. Her cries were cut short then, as she thumped to a stop on the landing, body battered and twisted and empty.
Kibum woke with a start. His heart was heavy inside his chest, racing as he struggled for breath, as if he himself had actually gone through each of those incidents.
The perspiration was cold against his forehead, and he wiped it away, shakily, with the back of one hand. As the memory of his dreams sank into his conscious mind, a shiver shuddered its way down his spine; Kibum was beginning to believe.
It was either a coincidence, or perhaps bad luck, Kibum considered, that the next time he went to his favourite coffee shop, he saw Kyuhyun sitting at a small table by himself. Whatever else it might have been, it was definitely a sign of just how much everything was truly getting to Kibum now, that his line of thought followed 'it must mean something, if he knew who I was.'
He was reaching the end of his line, so suppressing whatever he thought on the subject, Kibum walked over towards Kyuhyun, dropped himself into the chair opposite, and said, "What happened to me?"
As Kyuhyun looked up he seemed unsurprised, by Kibum's appearance, or his question, or perhaps both. There was a little crease of confusion between his eyebrows, however, and he leaned across the table, weighing Kibum with a long, considering look.
After a few moments Kyuhyun eventually spoke. "Why don't you tell me what's actually happening to you first?" He suggested, his tone lighter than the expression upon his face.
Frowning, Kibum glanced around them; the coffee shop was quite full, although Kyuhyun had chosen one of the small, out of the way tables. He looked back at Kyuhyun. "Is it safe to talk here?" He couldn't explain the sudden nervousness that overtook him. It was almost as if Kibum's memory was trying, and ever so hard, to make him recall that week he was missing. Even without that, he had the distinct feeling, resting heavily inside his stomach, that everything was linked to that single week.
"Safer than anywhere else, I suppose."
The casual toss of Kyuhyun's words didn't do much to allay Kibum's nerves. But, still he could hear the quiet memories of those strange, distant voices reverberating through his mind, and he had to know what was happening to him.
His voice was almost as hushed as all those he had heard, as he leaned forward and began to explain to Kyuhyun just what was going on. It seemed easier, to be telling this stranger what he had heard, than to tell one of his own friends. There was equal chance of Kyuhyun thinking that Kibum had gone insane, but better a stranger to think that, than to have Hangeng, or Donghae, looking at him with concerned fear.
Kyuhyun's face was an unreadable mask once Kibum had finished. A crease between his eyebrows was all the hint Kibum could garner from him.
"You said you'd been to the hospital recently?" Kyuhyun asked, leaning forward. "What was that for?"
"Memory loss. There was an entire week I couldn't remember a thing about." Kibum's gaze rose to meet Kyuhyun's. "I woke up one morning, and a week I didn't know had happened had passed by."
There was a pause. "What did they do to you?" The words held a quiet contempt, with a look in Kyuhyun's eyes to match.
But more concerning to Kibum in that moment was the question, "Who are 'they'?"
"You really don't remember a thing? Not any other visits to the hospital? Even before the memory loss?"
Kibum stopped his head mid-shake. Another memory was beginning to roll over him, slowly unveiling itself. And, like the dreams, it was vague and hazy and made little sense to him, as if it were missing the final piece that would properly explain it all and make it clear.
A meeting, a meeting in a small office, and a man sat behind a desk; the stethoscope around his neck made it clear that he was a doctor. The doctor was speaking, but his words were thick and muddled, drowned out and distant, coming at Kibum from the past, and he could catch only a few in his net of understanding.
Perfectly safe; glad to have you on-board; an interesting time for science and medicine; paid.
His head began to ache as the memory pushed at him. The touch of fingers against his wrist brought Kibum out of the hazy memory he had unknowingly tumbled into. He looked across at Kyuhyun, eyes wide with surprise.
"You just remembered something, didn't you?"
Kibum nodded. "A doctor. Meeting with some doctor. I can't remember it clearly, but he mentioned getting paid, and that it was an interesting time for science. It was all perfectly safe."
A nod of understanding. "Dr. Song. That would be the meeting to sign the contract, before the actual test."
Slowly, missing puzzle pieces were beginning to appear, but Kibum still couldn't make sense of them, or fit them together correctly. It was frustrating. His head ached with the pressure.
"What test? What is this all about?"
Slowly, Kyuhyun shook his head, as if he didn't actually want to tell Kibum. But he needed no further prompting all the same, as he leaned in close, his voice lowered as he spoke. His words came slowly, almost hesitantly.
"You signed up for a clinical trial to test a new drug. It was supposed to be a new kind of painkiller, but after watching the effects it had on you, I wasn't so sure about that."
The cold fingers of fear began to brush against the back of Kibum's neck, and he could feel goosebumps prickle across his skin. "What-" his throat was thick with uncertainty, his words sticking within it. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "What do you mean? What happened to me?"
Now, Kyuhyun truly did look reluctant to talk any more, his eyes shifting away from Kibum's, staring down intently at the cheap Formica tabletop instead. "Maybe it's best that you don't remember," he said slowly. "You can just forget about it, carry on with your life."
Without realising, Kibum let out a harsh bark of laughter, dry and disbelieving. At the sound of it, Kyuhyun looked up, almost surprised.
"You think I can just forget about it now?" Shaking his head, Kibum continued, "I'm hearing voices, inside my head. I can't-- I can't just 'carry on'. This isn't normal, and I have to know what happened to me."
There was still an obvious look of hesitation in Kyuhyun's face, and he was quiet for a long moment; Kibum began to wonder if he was going to have to try and force the truth from Kyuhyun. He didn't know that he could, if it came down to that, Kibum had never had to do anything like that before.
But once again, either good luck, or bad fortune, was on his side. The sentences were slow from Kyuhyun's mouth, thick with the reluctance to be spoken, but out they came all the same.
"You complained about migraines. Said it felt as if your head was being forced into two. And you mentioned voices then, too. Voices inside your head, whispering, screaming, crying. It was all a bit sudden," Kyuhyun added, meeting Kibum's gaze full on this time. "A bit wild, I don't remember all of the details. And then you just... passed out. The doctors hurried you away into a private room, and told the rest of us that you must have had some underlying health issue you hadn't mentioned to them. They said you'd be okay in a few hours. None of us saw you again for the duration of the trial."
Memories began to form at Kyuhyun's words, vague like pictures in smoke, intangible and impossible to grasp, but with enough of an outline to begin to understand the shape of things. Kibum could remember this headache, now, because it was what had slowly begun creeping upon him during this entire conversation, a steady throbbing at the forefront of his head, worsening a little more every few minutes.
And the voices. The echoing memories of those voices hadn't seemed so many before, as if these ones had been muted to make way for the new, but now that they had been mentioned, their faded cries had been added back again. It was like a quiet cacophony of terror and pain, reverberating around every corner of Kibum's mind. Pain, terror, surprise, sadness, regret. Screams of horror, cries of anguish, sobs of understanding. All of it was there, and all of it was inside his head. He couldn't forget them, and so he couldn't stop hearing them.
Stumbling from his seat, Kibum only half-glanced over at Kyuhyun. "I have to go," he said hurriedly. "I can't-- I have to go."
"Kibum, wait a moment--"
But Kyuhyun's words were drowned out by the roaring inside Kibum's head. Drowned out by the other voices. And he was already on his way out, stumbling past the other tables as he quickly made his way outside. It didn't help, the pain in his head was growing, fiercely. It felt as if two giant hands had grabbed hold of either side of his head and were now pulling, pulling as hard as possible, attempting to rip his head in two.
And still, Kibum was trying to hold himself together, enough so that he could make his way home.
It was a struggle, and sometimes, more voices added themselves to those that were already inside his head. Distant echoes of screeching car tires by the road. A cry of surprise outside some fast-food place. Pain-filled gasps and a horrible, dry, wheezing could be heard as he passed the opening into a small, dirty side ally.
And he knew, the entire time, through the pain in his head, that these were not the voices and sounds coming from the people around him, walking past him, bumping into him, on the street. All of them, even the screams, had the muted sound of happening very far away, or a long time ago. Distant. Past. And they all sounded like the crunch of dead leaves crushed under foot.
Dry, cracked, and dead.
He heard anew the voice in the stairwell, and somehow Kibum knew now that it was the voice of a young girl. The girl who had died on the very landing he was standing upon.
With a strangled cry of terror and pain, Kibum rushed up the stairs until he reached his floor, and had never felt so much relief as he did the moment he was inside his own apartment, the door shut tightly behind him.
The pain was almost unbearable, by then. He made it to his bedroom, let himself fall haphazardly onto the bed, his head cupped tightly between both hands, and fell into a blissfully silent unconsciousness.
Kibum dreamed again. He dreamt about his meeting with Dr. Song. About seeing the advertisement for the clinical trial on the internet. Dreamt about meeting the other participants (there were only ten of them, for the first phase of the trial) and seeing Kyuhyun, talking to him, small talk. He dreamt of being given the pill, and swallowing it easily down with water. Of the other doctors there periodically asking him, asking all of the participants, how they were feeling.
And then he dreamt about the first voice. A quiet crying. It had sounded like a boy sobbing to himself, but there were no children there. Kibum dreamt of the words he had heard, being whispered over and over into his ear, as if the crying boy were standing right next to him.
'I don't want to die,' he heard, a desperate litany, repeating endlessly into his mind. And no one else had heard it. Only Kibum.
And as he began to dream about the pain growing inside of his head, as if it was his body's own way of trying to drown out the ghostly voice, Kibum awoke.
It took him a few minutes to realise that his head no longer hurt. He felt fine. The memories of the voices had died down within him, their constant replay inside his mind over now that they had served their purpose.
And in the wake of their absence, understanding had slowly flooded in.
Kibum couldn't stop the shaking that overtook him, as his conscious mind absorbed the knowledge. It was the only logical conclusion. And it was the one conclusion that he didn't want to believe in. He'd rather be insane.
But the memory of all those voices, crying out to him from the past, could no longer be ignored or forgotten.
And calling to him from the past was exactly what they were doing. Telling Kibum what had happened to them. Reliving their final moments, again and again, in the spots where they had all died.
Kibum let out a quiet cry of despair, his throat dry, and every breath he pulled in felt like the crackle of dead leaves.
rating: PG-13
fandom: Super Junior
subject: Kibum
summary: It wasn't the first strange thing that had happened to Kibum recently. Both had happened about a week apart, and the first strange incident had been a loss of memory.
notes: AU, and I guess this would fit within the genre of supernatural? 8D; Also, I haven't written fic in six months, I feel rusty.
'Stairs... falling... down... down... down... Father!'
The words echoed throughout Kibum's mind, quietly chasing each other, and he had no idea what they meant.
He'd heard it whilst walking down the stairwell of his apartment building; a whisper against his ear, words that felt like the crackle of dead leaves, but he'd shrugged it away then, and promptly pushed it from his mind.
And then, he'd heard it again later that evening, in the same stairwell, those same words, over and over.
Kibum believed in logic and reason, science and fact, (cynical, his friend Donghae called him) and maintained the belief that it was some kind of prank, or kids playing around, or something equally uninteresting and likely. And yet, even as he went about his usual evening routine (dinner, shower, a bit of television) he couldn't get that moment from his mind.
He'd never heard a voice quite like it, a girl's sigh lost upon the breeze.
Although not usually the type to give in to some random whim, sometime later Kibum found himself in front of his laptop, and searching the internet for any news related to his apartment building, almost without realising that he was actually doing it.
What he found was one of the last things he'd expected his little whim to dig up. Kibum's eyes skimmed across the news article, absorbing every word on the page, only feeling the meaning of them all finally resolve into understanding once he had finished.
The article was over ten years old, about a young girl who had died, right in his very building. According to the source, she'd died after falling down the stairs.
A cold chill shivered down Kibum's spine.
The sudden shrill of a ringing phone cut into the silence then, pulling Kibum out of whatever strange mood he'd almost fallen into, and he snapped back into his usual logical, reasoning self. Things like that happened all over the place, he told himself. Nothing more.
Standing from his seat, he stretched his arms out above himself, let out a quiet groan, and went to answer the phone, before it decided to ring itself into oblivion, as it seemed to be on its way to doing.
Voices, ridiculous.
It wasn't the first strange thing that had happened to Kibum recently however. Both had happened about a week apart, and the first strange incident had been a loss of memory. There was a period of an entire week that Kibum could not, try as he might, remember. He hadn't been to any parties, so no excessive drinking, and certainly no drugs. So he had assumed he'd had some kind of accident, knocked his head somehow, but his check up at the hospital provided no evidence of that, either.
If he was to be entirely honest with himself, the fact that Kibum was missing a week, and couldn't remember how, or find any reasonable explanation for it, disturbed him. Deeply. He hadn't told any of his friends about it, either, not Hangeng, and certainly not Donghae. No one else really needed to know about this brief madness of his, as madness was the only explanation Kibum had left for it.
Missing weeks, and now strange voices. Perhaps he really was going insane.
It was a chill day, wind whipping around corners of buildings in a hell-bent fury, clouds gathered ominously above, holding tightly onto the threat of snow. Kibum was safe and warm, nestled comfortably within a chair inside his favourite coffee shop, sipping slowly at his still steaming cappuccino. The heat from his mug was slowly driving the chill from his fingertips, and every sip dissolved the cold from its hiding spot inside him.
He had a newspaper spread before him, slowly perusing the daily offerings from the world. So immersed was he in his quiet little world of warmth and black ink that Kibum jolted in his seat, just a fraction, when a voice spoke suddenly from above him.
"Kibum? Kim Kibum?"
Looking up, Kibum found himself gazing into a face that he didn't recognise in the slightest. It always made him feel uncomfortable, someone he didn't know knowing him.
A little on edge, he answered with a wary, "Yes? Do I know you?"
Whoever this young man was, Kibum's response didn't seem to be the one he was expecting.
Eyebrows raised slightly, he dropped himself into the seat opposite. Inside, Kibum groaned to himself, outside he took another sip of his coffee.
"I'm Kyuhyun. We met at the hospital. You... don't remember?"
Kibum had only been to the hospital once recently, and he certainly hadn't made any friends whilst he was there. He couldn't quite hide the frown that painted his face. "I really don't know what you're talking about. I was at the hospital last week, and I'm not that old that I'd have forgotten meeting someone only seven days ago."
Shaking his head, Kyuhyun leaned forward, and inwardly Kibum could feel himself begin to bristle. "No, this was almost three weeks ago." He paused, and Kibum could feel the considering weight of Kyuhyun's gaze on him. Almost like a pressure against his chest. "You really don't remember a thing? Not a single thing?"
Matching Kyuhyun's gaze, Kibum shook his own head. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Really. Now," he gestured at his disturbed little world of newspaper and coffee, the impression clear, "if you don't mind?"
He didn't want to show it, but Kibum was truly beginning to feel more than just a little disturbed by all of this. His missing memory, the ghostly voice, and now someone who seemed so certain that they knew him, from some hospital visit Kibum knew he hadn't made.
Kibum didn't like whatever it was that seemed intent upon smashing his well built wall of science and reason and fact.
For a moment longer Kyuhyun only looked at him, his expression unreadable, before eventually shrugging his shoulders in defeat. "I guess you really don't remember." In one easy motion he pushed himself up from the chair. "Even so, I'm glad to see you're okay." Letting out a quiet laugh, Kyuhyun added dryly, "well, mostly I guess, anyway. Maybe I'll see you around sometime." And with barely a smile, Kyuhyun was gone, leaving the coffee shop, and a lump of ice inside Kibum, that even a fresh mug of hot coffee couldn't melt.
It happened again. As Kibum crossed a street on his way home. This time, the voice he heard sounded more like a faded scream, like the scratch in a too-dry throat; the only words he could make out were lights and black and fast. And then it ended abruptly, cut off, silenced.
Except for the echoes of it inside Kibum's head. It was enough to distract him from crossing the street properly, and only the screech of tires and the loud blasting of a horn reminded him of this fact. A scramble of limbs, and Kibum was safely on the other side; now he had the flare of headlights imprinted under his eyelids to match the echoing voice.
This, Kibum concluded, was truly the worst fortnight of his life.
Struggling just a little for breath after that, Kibum slowly, and carefully, made his way back to his apartment, unable to quite blink away the after-image of blazing headlights the entire way back.
After the third incident, the dreams began.
It had happened down a small side street, in front of what had once been a shabby-looking restaurant, but now was only empty windows and withered memories. That time, all Kibum could hear was an agonising scream, as faded and empty as the old shop windows, and a single word.
Murder.
It was all inside his own head, he knew. No one else could hear the screaming, which sounded like it was coming at him from the distance, muted and dry.
The dreams began on the edge of that scream. Kibum was back in that street, and now the shabby restaurant wasn't old and faded, just shut for the night. He could almost see the figure of a woman standing outside it. But this time, as he heard the scream, it was real and right there, loud and full of life and terror as it echoed through him.
And then Kibum was back in that road, where he'd been quite close to getting run over. The blinding blaze of headlights filled his vision, a screech of tires and a blaring car horn so loud they left his ears ringing, and shouting, shouting, loud and terrified and-- cut short, and Kibum watched in horror as a small figure rose up in the air, seemed suspended for just a second, before falling back to earth, body crumpling like a lifeless rag doll against the road.
There was no time for a reaction, as suddenly he was somewhere else again. A stairwell. He could see a young girl standing at the top; innocent, her smile warm and naive and carefree. Smiling up with sunshine in her eyes at the tall figure of a man. There was a moment, only a split-second, in which Kibum suddenly became aware of what was about to happen. He wanted to call out, to warn her, but this was just a dream, and he could only watch as the man pushed at the girl.
He heard her cry of surprise, short and strangled inside her throat. Heard the thuds as her body rolled down the stairs. He could almost feel the hard, unrelenting impact of each step as she fell, down, down, down. Her cries were cut short then, as she thumped to a stop on the landing, body battered and twisted and empty.
Kibum woke with a start. His heart was heavy inside his chest, racing as he struggled for breath, as if he himself had actually gone through each of those incidents.
The perspiration was cold against his forehead, and he wiped it away, shakily, with the back of one hand. As the memory of his dreams sank into his conscious mind, a shiver shuddered its way down his spine; Kibum was beginning to believe.
It was either a coincidence, or perhaps bad luck, Kibum considered, that the next time he went to his favourite coffee shop, he saw Kyuhyun sitting at a small table by himself. Whatever else it might have been, it was definitely a sign of just how much everything was truly getting to Kibum now, that his line of thought followed 'it must mean something, if he knew who I was.'
He was reaching the end of his line, so suppressing whatever he thought on the subject, Kibum walked over towards Kyuhyun, dropped himself into the chair opposite, and said, "What happened to me?"
As Kyuhyun looked up he seemed unsurprised, by Kibum's appearance, or his question, or perhaps both. There was a little crease of confusion between his eyebrows, however, and he leaned across the table, weighing Kibum with a long, considering look.
After a few moments Kyuhyun eventually spoke. "Why don't you tell me what's actually happening to you first?" He suggested, his tone lighter than the expression upon his face.
Frowning, Kibum glanced around them; the coffee shop was quite full, although Kyuhyun had chosen one of the small, out of the way tables. He looked back at Kyuhyun. "Is it safe to talk here?" He couldn't explain the sudden nervousness that overtook him. It was almost as if Kibum's memory was trying, and ever so hard, to make him recall that week he was missing. Even without that, he had the distinct feeling, resting heavily inside his stomach, that everything was linked to that single week.
"Safer than anywhere else, I suppose."
The casual toss of Kyuhyun's words didn't do much to allay Kibum's nerves. But, still he could hear the quiet memories of those strange, distant voices reverberating through his mind, and he had to know what was happening to him.
His voice was almost as hushed as all those he had heard, as he leaned forward and began to explain to Kyuhyun just what was going on. It seemed easier, to be telling this stranger what he had heard, than to tell one of his own friends. There was equal chance of Kyuhyun thinking that Kibum had gone insane, but better a stranger to think that, than to have Hangeng, or Donghae, looking at him with concerned fear.
Kyuhyun's face was an unreadable mask once Kibum had finished. A crease between his eyebrows was all the hint Kibum could garner from him.
"You said you'd been to the hospital recently?" Kyuhyun asked, leaning forward. "What was that for?"
"Memory loss. There was an entire week I couldn't remember a thing about." Kibum's gaze rose to meet Kyuhyun's. "I woke up one morning, and a week I didn't know had happened had passed by."
There was a pause. "What did they do to you?" The words held a quiet contempt, with a look in Kyuhyun's eyes to match.
But more concerning to Kibum in that moment was the question, "Who are 'they'?"
"You really don't remember a thing? Not any other visits to the hospital? Even before the memory loss?"
Kibum stopped his head mid-shake. Another memory was beginning to roll over him, slowly unveiling itself. And, like the dreams, it was vague and hazy and made little sense to him, as if it were missing the final piece that would properly explain it all and make it clear.
A meeting, a meeting in a small office, and a man sat behind a desk; the stethoscope around his neck made it clear that he was a doctor. The doctor was speaking, but his words were thick and muddled, drowned out and distant, coming at Kibum from the past, and he could catch only a few in his net of understanding.
Perfectly safe; glad to have you on-board; an interesting time for science and medicine; paid.
His head began to ache as the memory pushed at him. The touch of fingers against his wrist brought Kibum out of the hazy memory he had unknowingly tumbled into. He looked across at Kyuhyun, eyes wide with surprise.
"You just remembered something, didn't you?"
Kibum nodded. "A doctor. Meeting with some doctor. I can't remember it clearly, but he mentioned getting paid, and that it was an interesting time for science. It was all perfectly safe."
A nod of understanding. "Dr. Song. That would be the meeting to sign the contract, before the actual test."
Slowly, missing puzzle pieces were beginning to appear, but Kibum still couldn't make sense of them, or fit them together correctly. It was frustrating. His head ached with the pressure.
"What test? What is this all about?"
Slowly, Kyuhyun shook his head, as if he didn't actually want to tell Kibum. But he needed no further prompting all the same, as he leaned in close, his voice lowered as he spoke. His words came slowly, almost hesitantly.
"You signed up for a clinical trial to test a new drug. It was supposed to be a new kind of painkiller, but after watching the effects it had on you, I wasn't so sure about that."
The cold fingers of fear began to brush against the back of Kibum's neck, and he could feel goosebumps prickle across his skin. "What-" his throat was thick with uncertainty, his words sticking within it. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "What do you mean? What happened to me?"
Now, Kyuhyun truly did look reluctant to talk any more, his eyes shifting away from Kibum's, staring down intently at the cheap Formica tabletop instead. "Maybe it's best that you don't remember," he said slowly. "You can just forget about it, carry on with your life."
Without realising, Kibum let out a harsh bark of laughter, dry and disbelieving. At the sound of it, Kyuhyun looked up, almost surprised.
"You think I can just forget about it now?" Shaking his head, Kibum continued, "I'm hearing voices, inside my head. I can't-- I can't just 'carry on'. This isn't normal, and I have to know what happened to me."
There was still an obvious look of hesitation in Kyuhyun's face, and he was quiet for a long moment; Kibum began to wonder if he was going to have to try and force the truth from Kyuhyun. He didn't know that he could, if it came down to that, Kibum had never had to do anything like that before.
But once again, either good luck, or bad fortune, was on his side. The sentences were slow from Kyuhyun's mouth, thick with the reluctance to be spoken, but out they came all the same.
"You complained about migraines. Said it felt as if your head was being forced into two. And you mentioned voices then, too. Voices inside your head, whispering, screaming, crying. It was all a bit sudden," Kyuhyun added, meeting Kibum's gaze full on this time. "A bit wild, I don't remember all of the details. And then you just... passed out. The doctors hurried you away into a private room, and told the rest of us that you must have had some underlying health issue you hadn't mentioned to them. They said you'd be okay in a few hours. None of us saw you again for the duration of the trial."
Memories began to form at Kyuhyun's words, vague like pictures in smoke, intangible and impossible to grasp, but with enough of an outline to begin to understand the shape of things. Kibum could remember this headache, now, because it was what had slowly begun creeping upon him during this entire conversation, a steady throbbing at the forefront of his head, worsening a little more every few minutes.
And the voices. The echoing memories of those voices hadn't seemed so many before, as if these ones had been muted to make way for the new, but now that they had been mentioned, their faded cries had been added back again. It was like a quiet cacophony of terror and pain, reverberating around every corner of Kibum's mind. Pain, terror, surprise, sadness, regret. Screams of horror, cries of anguish, sobs of understanding. All of it was there, and all of it was inside his head. He couldn't forget them, and so he couldn't stop hearing them.
Stumbling from his seat, Kibum only half-glanced over at Kyuhyun. "I have to go," he said hurriedly. "I can't-- I have to go."
"Kibum, wait a moment--"
But Kyuhyun's words were drowned out by the roaring inside Kibum's head. Drowned out by the other voices. And he was already on his way out, stumbling past the other tables as he quickly made his way outside. It didn't help, the pain in his head was growing, fiercely. It felt as if two giant hands had grabbed hold of either side of his head and were now pulling, pulling as hard as possible, attempting to rip his head in two.
And still, Kibum was trying to hold himself together, enough so that he could make his way home.
It was a struggle, and sometimes, more voices added themselves to those that were already inside his head. Distant echoes of screeching car tires by the road. A cry of surprise outside some fast-food place. Pain-filled gasps and a horrible, dry, wheezing could be heard as he passed the opening into a small, dirty side ally.
And he knew, the entire time, through the pain in his head, that these were not the voices and sounds coming from the people around him, walking past him, bumping into him, on the street. All of them, even the screams, had the muted sound of happening very far away, or a long time ago. Distant. Past. And they all sounded like the crunch of dead leaves crushed under foot.
Dry, cracked, and dead.
He heard anew the voice in the stairwell, and somehow Kibum knew now that it was the voice of a young girl. The girl who had died on the very landing he was standing upon.
With a strangled cry of terror and pain, Kibum rushed up the stairs until he reached his floor, and had never felt so much relief as he did the moment he was inside his own apartment, the door shut tightly behind him.
The pain was almost unbearable, by then. He made it to his bedroom, let himself fall haphazardly onto the bed, his head cupped tightly between both hands, and fell into a blissfully silent unconsciousness.
Kibum dreamed again. He dreamt about his meeting with Dr. Song. About seeing the advertisement for the clinical trial on the internet. Dreamt about meeting the other participants (there were only ten of them, for the first phase of the trial) and seeing Kyuhyun, talking to him, small talk. He dreamt of being given the pill, and swallowing it easily down with water. Of the other doctors there periodically asking him, asking all of the participants, how they were feeling.
And then he dreamt about the first voice. A quiet crying. It had sounded like a boy sobbing to himself, but there were no children there. Kibum dreamt of the words he had heard, being whispered over and over into his ear, as if the crying boy were standing right next to him.
'I don't want to die,' he heard, a desperate litany, repeating endlessly into his mind. And no one else had heard it. Only Kibum.
And as he began to dream about the pain growing inside of his head, as if it was his body's own way of trying to drown out the ghostly voice, Kibum awoke.
It took him a few minutes to realise that his head no longer hurt. He felt fine. The memories of the voices had died down within him, their constant replay inside his mind over now that they had served their purpose.
And in the wake of their absence, understanding had slowly flooded in.
Kibum couldn't stop the shaking that overtook him, as his conscious mind absorbed the knowledge. It was the only logical conclusion. And it was the one conclusion that he didn't want to believe in. He'd rather be insane.
But the memory of all those voices, crying out to him from the past, could no longer be ignored or forgotten.
And calling to him from the past was exactly what they were doing. Telling Kibum what had happened to them. Reliving their final moments, again and again, in the spots where they had all died.
Kibum let out a quiet cry of despair, his throat dry, and every breath he pulled in felt like the crackle of dead leaves.