Bring It On! - Chapter 35

Chapter 35.

The ground beneath my feet gave way, and I instantly lost my balance. My body’s weight was already leaning forward, and I realized there was no stopping the fall.

Instinctively, I grabbed at the weeds around me as if they were lifelines, clutching them with all my strength. But of course, there was no way a handful of grass could support an adult’s weight.

Snap. Rip. They tore away without mercy, and I plunged helplessly down.

A faint sound stirred me back to consciousness. It was like the delicate legs of insects skittering across the surface of wet rock.

The moment my numbed senses, dull as if submerged underwater, recognized that single sound, the rest began to return all at once, like water bursting through a broken dam.

“—Hah…”

I let out a ragged breath, almost like vomiting it out. Even when I blinked my damp, sticky eyes, all I could see was pitch-black darkness. Had I blacked out the moment I slipped and fell?

If I could call it luck, then perhaps it was lucky I hadn’t died on the spot.

Not far away, I could hear the roar of the waterfall and the rough rustling of leaves in the night wind. How I had woken up to the sound of insects in this deafening noise was beyond me.

“Ugh…”

When I tried to get up, a dull pain shot through my ankle.

I felt around with my hands and could tell immediately. My left ankle was far more swollen than my right.

Would I be able to walk?

I managed to put weight on my right leg and stand, but after only a few steps, I collapsed.

The pain from that one attempt was overwhelming.

I could only grit my teeth in silence, clutching my ankle.

To make matters worse, a biting cold began to gnaw at me.

Even back on the beach near the shelter, the nights had been chilly because of the wide temperature swings on this uninhabited island. But here, deep in the forest, it was like winter.

Whether it was from the cold or the fear that I might truly die here, I couldn’t tell, but the shivering wouldn’t stop.

Still seated, I tried moving around, searching for some way to escape this place, but the area I’d fallen into was large enough that I couldn’t feel any walls to support myself.

After repeating this useless motion for a while, frustration and fear suddenly surged together.

My stamina was already hitting its limit. My breath was short, walking was impossible, and my head throbbed.

If I kept moving in this condition, without even being able to see, it was obvious I’d burn through whatever strength I had left.

But I didn’t know if I could last here until daylight.

And even if morning came, there was no guarantee Jay or Suho would find me.

If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve done as Jay said. Either go with him or clearly tell him where I was heading before leaving.

Realization always came hand in hand with regret.

“Hnh…”

As time passed, my body temperature kept dropping, and whether from the pain in my ankle or something else, cold sweat kept beading on my skin.

A wind carrying the briny smell of water blew over my head, making the thick leaves above me sway with a sinister rustle.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I thought that if this went on, I might really have to start thinking about death.

I had thought I was managing well on this uninhabited island. In a place where it wouldn’t be strange to die from hunger or illness at any moment, I’d been adapting without major problems.

That had given me a kind of reckless confidence.

But really, all I’d been doing was driving stakes into a safe zone and clinging to life day by day. So what was all that arrogance and pride for?

Now my past actions felt pitiful, and honestly, embarrassing.

The body I’d been keeping upright with nothing to lean on finally toppled sideways. The pain in my ankle was nothing compared to the cold that consumed me now.

I curled up, hugging my arms to my chest as my body shivered violently. From the ground near my ear, I could still hear the faint sound of insects crawling.

I forced my eyes to stay open against the growing heaviness in my lids.

I’d long since lost all feeling in my feet, and now even my fingertips were starting to freeze and go numb.

I had never longed for the midday sun as much as I did now.

Even as I felt my stamina being shaved away second by second, I reached out and dragged the nameless weeds scattered nearby toward me.

The leaves’ chill made me colder for now, but I figured that if the wind picked up, it would still be better to wrap myself in them than nothing at all.

I was trying to hold on with every ounce of strength I had left, but my eyes kept drifting shut.

The thought that this might be my limit kept floating to the surface.

You can only whip a faltering mind so many times. When the body is in bad shape, just holding on to consciousness is exhausting.

My eyelids sank halfway closed.

It felt too miserable a life to end here. When I’d boarded the plane, fleeing my parents, the curses they’d hurled at me had etched themselves into my mind like scars:

“I can’t believe something worse than a dog was born from me.”

“It’s not us who’ve gone too far. It’s your thoughts, your actions. But fine. It’s not like you haven’t always been stupid.”

“Come back. We’ll understand.”

“Let’s see if you can last three years.”

And this year marked exactly the third year. They say no news is good news, and I had sworn never to contact my parents first, whether it took three or thirty years. I believed that cutting off contact naturally like this was the perfect escape, a way to prove myself.

But if, following the report of my disappearance, news also reached them that I had died far from home, that would be the most satisfying, gratifying ending my parents could have wished for.

The eldest daughter they’d raised so “devotedly,” ignoring their pleas, had strayed for a moment and ended up dying in a foreign place. That ending. 

My parents would receive endless condolences, buy funeral clothes from a seller, and the neglect that had bordered on abuse would be buried forever as a secret.

When my thoughts reached that point, I suddenly felt unbearably pitiful, curled up and shivering from the cold. To die after tripping while arrogantly thinking I could chart my own course. It was ridiculous.

If my body were found, they’d piece together the circumstances and my parents would end up knowing the cause of death. The thought was so humiliating I wanted to die twice over.

I was also worried about Jay and Suho, who would be left behind in the shelter. Suho, like a child, was easily tempted, and Jay had an impulsive streak. With their similar temperaments, would the two of them manage to put up with each other and survive on this deserted island until rescue came…?

“…Damn it.”

The hopelessness and frustration I’d been holding back welled up to the tip of my nose and finally burst out.

Every time the wind howled, a grim resonance rose from deep in the valley and echoed in my ears. It sounded like the wail of a vengeful spirit or the cry of a wild beast. 

If it really was the weeping of a restless soul, maybe I, having died a tragic death here, would join their chorus. I’d never once fantasized about becoming an idol, even in daydreams. But debuting after death was one experience I absolutely did not want.

Don’t fall asleep. I repeated it silently, trying to keep my consciousness awake, but my eyelids grew heavier by the second, against my will.

I felt something darker and colder than the surrounding night winding up from my ankles, wrapping around me. I had no strength to struggle. I was being swallowed whole when….

In the pitch-black darkness, I saw a lump of red light swaying. My eyes, wet with dust and tears, pushed away the drowsiness for a moment.

“Sun Woori!”

More vivid and piercing than the flickering blaze, that voice drove straight into my eardrums. The blood began to circulate again through my freezing fingertips and legs, and my heart, seconds from stopping, started pounding wildly to survive.

“Jay…!”

Cough, cough, cough! I wanted to shout his name at the top of my lungs, but only a faint, broken sound escaped from my sunken throat. From deep within, despair and urgency rose bitterly, stinging my mouth. 

I knew that if I lost that light now, all my hope would be completely severed. Just as I opened my mouth again…

“Sun Woori?”