For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.
Hae-joon just stood there, the word echoing in his head, his body refusing to catch up with it. His eyes were locked on Arthur, on the way he held the thing in place like it weighed nothing, like whatever he was gripping wasn't something that should terrify him.
Then the air shifted.
Violently.
The thing in Arthur's grasp didn't struggle, it collapsed. Its form broke apart into fragments of something dark and unstable, slipping through Arthur's fingers like smoke that refused to be held.
Arthur's hand closed on nothing.
"Move!" he snapped.
Hae-joon snapped back to reality, and before he could react, the entity was already at his reach.
He saw it's face, dark, evil, and something very sinister. Hae-joon tried to sprint, but while doing so, he tripped and fell.
"F**k!!" He screamed.
The entity almost grabbed him, Arthur was running towards him...for a moment everything seemed slow, like he was trying to accept his fate, his end.
But, something happened, the thing screamed in agony just as it got near to Hae-joon, like something stopped it, but it wasn't Arthur.
Arthur caught up, and picked Hae-joon up like he weighed nothing and ran.
"I told you to run! Why were you just standing there?!" Arthur screamed, but his scolding had a hint of worry, like he had seen this happen before.
Hae-joon didn't reply.
He didn't know what to say, what to think or what to do...this was something that he never imagined would happen to him. Like his life, now, had a completely new purpose.
Arthur didn't slow down.
The corridor blurred past them, walls stretching into shadows as his pace became something Hae-joon couldn't even comprehend. The air rushed against his face, sharp and cold, stealing whatever breath he had left.
"Arthur—!" Hae-joon tried, voice unsteady, fingers gripping tightly onto his coat.
"Don't talk," Arthur cut him off, sharper than before. "Just stay still."
Behind them,
something moved.
A presence.
Close enough to be felt.
Hae-joon turned his head slightly despite himself, his vision catching glimpses of something flickering through the darkness,there one second, gone the next, like it was phasing through the space instead of running through it.
"…It's still there," he whispered.
"I know."