The Impossible Virgin Omega Wizard

A Dark Cold Break

Yoo Jin stared into the dark crack in the wall of the cave. He was supposed to wiggle in there until he found a vertical nook then hover there in the water. Thankfully, he wasn't easily scared but even for him, the thought of waiting in a cold, dark, damp place for an uncertain amount of hours was daunting.

What kind of sadistic freak thought of this idea, he wondered as he lifted his leg and began to make his way into the hole.

He turned back once he was about waist deep to see Chief Tak watching him with a calm though slightly grim expression and Tae Hyun, who gazed at him almost like a child who feared to be left alone.

He paused, there was something in the way the alpha acted that made him uneasy and he wondered briefly how it must have been for a fourteen year old Tae Hyun to have to do something similar to what he was about to do.

Yoo Jin met the alpha's eyes and did the only thing he could do to try to reassure the man. He smiled then wiggled the rest of his body into the crevice, which was set diagonally into the wall. The water was even calmer here and no less cold. The most noticeable change was the darkness. The absence of light seemed absolute. He took a deep breath and submerged his body into the water and tentatively opened his eyes but could see nothing.

Using his hands, he pushed his way even farther down. Chief Tak had said that he would feel another opening a few feet on the left and so he focused his hands on that side of the wall until he felt it and when he did, he pulled his body forward, angling his head up until his lips and nose broke free of the water, just barely touching the wet ceiling above.

He paused there, hovering almost weightlessly and his senses began to dull. It was dark, there was nothing to see. He could barely move, wedged in his small space. The cold was seeping into his body until it matched the temperature of the water. The only thing he could feel now was the gentle, barely noticeable swaying of the water at his cheek.

How long had he been there? It couldn't have been more than a few minutes and yet it felt like hours, perhaps even days and he already felt as though he was going crazy.

His heart started to beat erratically and he again wondered at what kind of psychotic weirdo thought up this idea as he tried to quell the unsettling feeling building up within him.

Suddenly a forgotten memory came forth of a dark, cramped closet, small hands pushing with force enough to send small arms trembling against the doors. The pressure of an adult's body effortlessly forcing the doors closed from the other side. And then yelling, muffled words of why it was that she had to produce an omega of all things. A slap and the thud of a body falling onto the ground. He recalled the slamming of a small form against the doors, then the entire wardrobe shaking before precariously toppling over forward onto the floor, forcing the doors shut with its own weight. The remembered panic filled him of his face pressing against the cold wood, the weight of fabrics made heavy by the sheer number of them as he screamed into the darkness, matching the muted screams of the woman outside as they mingled with the pounding of fists meeting bone.

He felt himself involuntarily open his mouth to cry out but water simply filled in from the sides, choking him momentarily until he calmed down and swallowed the stale water so that he could breathe again.

He tried to take a deep breath but found that he could only manage shallow gulps of air. It was musty and stale.

He shut his eyes, forcing his thoughts away from where they naturally led and for some reason his mind settled on the alpha, a young Tae Hyun and wondered how it was that a boy of fourteen had managed to do this. Had it been easier with his youth? he wondered.

In the darkness, time no longer seemed to have substance. How would he know when he was done? How many hours had passed? Chief Tak had said that a panic would fill him and then after it subsided, some kind of new mental state would form but he didn't feel any different. Was he supposed to wait for another undesired memory to fill him? To panic to the point of nearly drowning? Or was he supposed to fear the dark?

He tried to move his head, his neck feeling uncomfortable and a little painful. He took what he could of gulp of stale air before submerging himself as much as he could in the water simply so that he could straighten out his neck if only for a moment. But he found that he could hardly do so, his knees knocking into the jagged walls in front of him, preventing him. The crevice was deep but the crack below his feet was small and no person could pass into it.

Frustrated, he returned to his original position and began to count. He wondered if time would go by faster if he did, at the very least the numbers would keep away the intrusive thoughts.

One. Two. Three...

But just when he was about to reach two thousand, he felt the prickling sensation of the hairs on his skin coming to attention despite the water and an unsettling feeling came over him. It was the feeling of being watched. He tried to turn his head but was again constricted by the sharp walls of the cave. He felt something cold, something other than the water, touch his right arm and he jerked it back, pressing it firmly against his side. His breaths began to come in harsh bursts but the water became still again.

And then he felt it, another touch, this time upon his left leg. It was soft as though it was grazing his skin. It could be a fish or vegetation he tried to tell himself but the tense feeling of alertness that stemmed from within him yelled at him that it was dangerous, that he needed to run.

He took several shallow breaths as he tried to edge away from whatever the thing was until he felt what was unmistakably a large hand wrap around his ankle, gripping it tight in a grasp colder than the water about him.

He tried to yell but again water spilled into the sides of his mouth, muffling the sounds as though drowning him.

He attempted to kick at the thing but was met with only a sharp jagged edge and from the sudden feeling of warm liquid about his leg, he knew that he had cut himself open.

He shivered then flailed in panic when he felt the sensation of a tongue lick at the skin that now throbbed in pain all the while the unwanted hand still gripped him. Then fingers grazed at what he knew was a large scar on his shin, one he had received when he was a child when he had been cornered by a group of boys whose parents had lent money to his mother and had taken upon themselves to punish him when his father had lost it on some failed gambles and the rest on alcohol.

He tried to reach down toward his shin to push the intruder away, wedging his hand in the small space, slashing the skin at the back of his hand open as he did so but not caring, the panic pushing out all other thoughts from his mind.

He then felt his leg jerk violently downward again, lodging his foot painfully into the crack below him. He tried to scream as he felt more blood flow out, drifting about him, surrounding his foot in its disquieting warmth.

The hand kept trying to pull him down into the crack. Soon his face fell into the water and for a moment, in the wall of the cave, in the darkness, he saw it again. That face he had seen in the 'ghost', the face he had seen in the lattice of the door of that room, which now seemed so long ago.

In that second he forgot the pain in his foot, he forgot the terrifying pull of the hand of the unknown creature when he saw what he had thought was just a coincidence, a natural crack in the wall suddenly moved, curving upward into a smile.

His mouth opened and numerous bubbles burst forth, blocking his view of the face and when they finally dissipated, he saw that the face had again disappeared.

Then before he got a chance to think on it, the hand at his foot yanked him down once again, more forcibly this time, and he felt the sharp edge of the crack run into his shin sending continuous waves of pain throughout his body. It was then that he noticed that his lungs were burning from the lack of air. Panicked, his eyes widened as he grabbed at the wall in front of him, trying to push himself up, concerned more by the lack of air than the impossible creature below him but he was stuck, his leg now wedged into the tiny crack, his shin ripped open to fit him in.

His heart began to beat at an unprecedented rate as he started to realize that he was going to die.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head and again that face graced his vision from behind his closed eyelids then a blinding light, and an immeasurable force surrounded him, and finally, as if all had concluded itself, everything returned to darkness.