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mxsticmess · 1 month

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To Disappear Under the Sun

✦ Character: 707

✦ Words: 3062

This is me expanding on this call from day 6 of 707's route! Warning: agent angst ahead.

“Status check, Agent 707?”

“All clear, Agent. Withdrawing now.”

“Time estimate?”

“Ten minutes at most. You have permission to withdraw.”

“Copy.” The little voice crackles then cuts out completely in Seven’s earpiece and he is left in silence. It’s hasty for Seven to send him out, but this mission has been going so smoothly, he sees no reason to have him out there any longer.

He is deep in the basement of a corporate building, a cockroach scurrying under the polished shoes of the oblivious corporate workers upstairs. So far, the mission has been going suspiciously well. He managed to slip into the office of his target unnoticed, steal all the information he needed, and get out again without alerting a single person. Though, none of this has done anything to ease the tension he has felt since entering the basement. With its fluorescent lighting and nearly-unnatural silence, the whole place has a liminal feeling that Seven is keen to be rid of.

And he’s close now. He can feel his heart thrumming in his chest and a strange buzz in his fingers that tells him that his adrenaline rush is wearing off. He is more than ready to get out of here.

One turn. Through another doorway, careful to stay out of view of the cameras he knows are positioned there. Another turn.

As he moves down one of countless dark hallways, he hears the little voice in his earpiece confirm that they have gotten out safely. He’s the last one left. Only a few more minutes and he’ll join them. He has the route memorized. He just needs to go up a staircase, through the door to the basement, and out of the back entrance. Vanderwood should be waiting there with the car to get them out of there.

He is about to start climbing the stairs when the door at the top of the staircase opens and he comes face-to-face with someone who definitely shouldn't have been there. It was supposed to be guarded – was guarded up until a few minutes ago – by another agent. Seven curses under his breath. There is a moment of silence, each of them weighing the options. Then, Seven makes his second mistake: he runs back into the basement, the way he came.

He hears shouts from behind him, the person calling for backup, and the thundering of steps on his heels.

But he is faster. He always is.

He works his way back down the hall, mind working through possible escapes at breakneck speed. There is no way past them. Anyone who could have helped him is gone. He tries anyway to call out the emergency code over his earpiece, but he gets no reply.

Three turns and through two more doors, and he comes across a door with a heavy-looking handle and a big warning sign on the outside.

KEEP OUT

AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY

Based on Seven’s experience, doors like this usually come with heavy-duty locks. And, if anything, the sign might convince his pursuers to look elsewhere. Either way, he’s running out of time. He tugs it open and quickly disappears inside.

The room is noticeably a few degrees hotter than the hallway outside. As his eyes adjust to the light, he can see why: he has found his way into the building’s boiler room. All around him there are pipes leading up into the rest of the building and against the back wall, there are three big boilers.

A piece of good news: the machines are making enough noise to cover up anything he says or does.

He takes this opportunity to test out his radio. He tries reaching Vanderwood, but he doesn’t receive a reply. Whether it’s because he doesn’t have any signal this far down or because they’re all gone, he can’t know.

Well then, he will just have to wait.

His eyes adjust to the darkness and he takes in his surroundings. The room itself is small, with nothing more than the boilers and pipes to take up the space. The pipes run across every wall in the room, hot to the touch, and he does his best to stay away from them.

The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and he is starting to feel the injuries he must have sustained during the chase. His lungs ache from running and somewhere on his leg a cut smarts. But he’s alive.

Already, the heat in the room is starting to weigh on him. He is panting from the chase, but breathing does not bring him relief. There is a stubborn tightness in his chest that doesn’t ease and his heart is still racing, even though enough time should have passed for him to calm down. Despite the room being big enough for him to walk around in, he is feeling claustrophobic. He has to fight the urge to throw the door back open and run out into the hallway. Luckily, he is still rational enough to know that it would be suicide.

Instead, he raises his arms over his head and stretches, trying to force more air into his lungs, holding each breath for a few seconds before releasing. It’s a struggle at first, his mind fighting furiously against his body’s urges, but he eventually manages to slow his breathing down.

He can still hear the footsteps of his pursuers roving up and down the hall. Despite still being too antsy to relax, he forces himself to sit down. It won’t do him any good to exert more energy than he has to in this state. He leans back against the wall, tilts his head back, and shuts his eyes. Sweat beads on his upper lip. The back of his neck is damp. He is already thirsty. But he does not think about it.

He waits.

⋆ * ✩ * ⋆

He idly stares at the wall opposite him and allows his mind to wander. He has paced the room back and forth (and found himself worryingly tired after a few laps). He has counted each of the pipes, even attempted to touch them a few times just out of curiosity (they’re terribly hot). This is far from his first time staking out like this. Every hour or so, he tries to reach the agents outside, but he never receives a reply.

He listens to the voices outside as they come and go. It sounds like the building’s regular security patrol was called in. However, if his target is as paranoid as he seemed to be during Seven’s research, they won’t be the only people on guard.

Time drags by, painfully slowly, and Seven focuses on his breathing. He still feels the urge to run out of the room; he has the odd sense that he’s being cooked from the inside out. Once or twice, he gets up and goes to the door, he finds himself with his hand on the handle before forcing himself to step away. There is no way out of this basement with so many people on guard. Even he isn’t that good.

He has to wait.

⋆ * ✩ * ⋆

Isolation is a strange thing to endure. Seven is no stranger to spending time alone, but this is a different beast all together. He is cut off from the outside world, slowly losing track of the stakes and all things that might have existed outside the door and its bright safety label. While he is very used to his own company (and often prefers it), his is a presence he’d do anything to escape right now.

He is painfully aware of just how dry his mouth is. It takes immense mental strength to not think about his fridge back home, fully stocked with crisp cold Dr. Pepper cans and water bottles. His whole body, by contrast, is uncomfortably damp. His clothes cling to his body in the most frustrating way, his hair is plastered to his forehead, and he has given up on pushing it out of the way. He can feel as sweat rolls down his skin and can do nothing to make it stop.

It is still hard to breathe. Each breath has the opposite effect and reminds him just how humid the room is. He imagines water filling his lungs with every breath, imagines drowning while dying of thirst. It’d be terribly ironic.

He makes a conscious effort to take deep breaths, but he can’t keep it up for more than a few minutes before he forgets. There is a dull throb starting in his head that he knows is just another sign of dehydration.

It has been around 24 hours since he first got into the boiler room, and it is starting to mess with his mind. Whether it’s the darkness, the heat, or both, he is starting to lose his grip on reality. With nothing else to distract him, his mind turns worryingly dark.

Seven’s identity and existence in daily life are tenuous at best. He is wrapped in so many lies and elaborate facades that he’s not there there’s anything left underneath it all. In this basement, cocooned in concrete, he is completely severed from the outside world. It is easy to imagine that he doesn’t exist at all.

Easier still when he can still hear the frustrated voices of the second round of security guards called in to search for him. They’re starting to doubt whether there was anyone ever there to begin with. It’s starting to sound more and more convincing even to him.

He’s too scared to let himself sleep, but as the hours pass, exhaustion starts to creep up on him.

⋆ * ✩ * ⋆

He startles awake. A quick glance at his watch tells him he has only been unconscious for two minutes, but his heart is racing like he’s been dreaming for far longer. His eyes shoot to the door out of pure habit. This has been happening every few minutes. It’s extremely exhausting: he exists in this terrifying delirium where he is constantly on the brink of death with no way of escaping.

Nothing feels real. Not the outside, not the threat of being caught, not the work he finished. All that exists are these four walls and the oppressive heat that is pushing hard on his chest. Each breath is strained. In between dreaming of being caught, he dreams of deserts. Sand that’s hot to the touch, beautiful mirages that slip away before he can touch them. He dreams of slipping out of his skin just to feel the cold air again… his head lolls downwards as he drifts off again.

His eyes snap open. Nobody has burst through the doors yet. He is leaning to the side, neck at a painful angle, face dangerously close to one of the exposed heating pipes. He’s one wrong move away from a nasty burn. He pulls himself back upright and shakes his head, as if to throw off the exhaustion. His mind runs in increasingly frustrating circles.

He must not fall asleep. They will eventually find him if he is not vigilant, and God knows what they’ll do to him if they get their hands on him now. Nobody would ever hear from him again. Worse; he’d be a failure. He’ll never see Saeran again. He must not fall asleep.

Then again, if Saeyoung vanishes off the map today, who would mourn him? Sure, his friends might worry for the caricature he created, but what do they know of the person he is underneath it all? There is no name attached to the work he has done for the agency; nobody will ever know what he did. Nobody will know who he died for.

His head pounds.

He must not fall asleep.

He mutters an incoherent prayer, words slurring together until they’re just a stream of consciousness like water, Saeran, please… eyelids already halfway closed again. His head lolls down again…

His cheek hits the pipe.

He lets out a startled cry and leaps to his feet, still half asleep, narrowly missing bashing his head on another pipe. He immediately presses his palm to his mouth, as if to undo the noise he just made, but it’s too late. His outburst has caused some commotion outside. He can hear feet pounding up and down the hallway, the voices of men shouting to each other to search every corner of the basement.

Luckily, the noise of the boiler room has covered up the exact source of Seven’s voice, but it has put them all back onto high alert.

He wobbles, dizzy and uncertain of what to do. His hand probes his cheek to check if the pipe left any lasting damage. His skin is sore, but he’s hoping it’s nothing more serious than that. The last thing he needs right now is a burn to worry about.

He clumsily lowers himself back to the floor – the sudden exertion of him jumping to his feet has made his headache significantly worse – and plants his head firmly between his knees. Sweat drips off his forehead onto the concrete floor. The shock has sent a wave of nausea through him and his limbs are too shaky to be of any use. He has never felt cool in his life. If the guards ever give up searching for him, he doubts he’d have the energy to get up and leave. Maybe he will just sit here until the dehydration or heatstroke take him. Nobody would ever know what happened to him.

It’s almost a relief. He has tried to be invisible for most of his life. It feels like a final gift that he might just disappear from the earth without anybody having to know.

⋆ * ✩ * ⋆

Sand, as far as the eye can see. Saeyoung, wobbly on his feet, head pounding. A crackly voice in his earpiece, calling his name.

“Status check, Agent Seven?”

His throat is too dry to speak.

“Remember your task. You have ten minutes.”

“Copy.” His voice comes out as a rasp.

The sun overhead, unforgiving and blindingly hot. His hands shaky, a feeling of dread in his gut. He knows he isn’t going to make it out on time.

He isn’t sure where he’s supposed to go, where to find the office that he knows has the information he needs. There isn’t a single building in sight. He stumbles a few steps forward, but moving makes the world spin dangerously under his feet. He is too dizzy to do more than shuffle a few steps forward at a time, the sand only hindering him.

His body aches, and he's sure he can hear footsteps around him somewhere, though there's nobody around to make them. He mutters a prayer under his breath. Whether to escape or to just be put out of this misery, even he isn't sure.

He only manages a few steps before he stumbles and falls. His skin stings where it hit the sand, but he doesn’t have time to recover. He needs shelter, and he needs it fast. He starts to crawl forwards again, desperate for something, anything.

He can't find purchase in the sand. It starts to pull him down deeper, like quicksand. The heat in his body is unbearable. He sinks into the sand, palms then wrists then forearms being swallowed up by the heat.

There is no escape.

He looks up to the sky desperately, when suddenly a shadow is cast over his face. Someone is looking down on him, and he can’t muster up the strength to tell them to get out while they still can. He waits for his eyes to adjust, sun in his eyes, and then gasps.

It’s Saeran staring back at him. A face remarkably similar to his, hair lying just a bit flatter on his head (Seven’s hair has always been more unruly), though just as vibrant as his own. The only thing that surprises Seven is the look of disappointment in Saeran’s face. It's a look he has never seen, and would do anything to never see again. He looks down at Seven like he has already failed him.

“Wake up,” he says. His voice is strangely deep, familiar somehow.

“What?”

“Wake up. Is this what you left me to do? To die all alone? It's pathetic.”

“No- I…”

Saeran leans down so his face is close to Seven’s. He enunciates every word slowly so that Seven’s addled brain can keep up.

“Then. Wake. Up.”

Seven puts all his energy into opening his eyes. It’s the hardest thing he has ever had to do.

“Ah, thank God you’re not dead. C’mon, wake up.”

“Huh?”

Vanderwood stands crouched over him in the boiler room and is shaking his shoulder. Already, there is sweat beading on their forehead.

“I’m getting you out. You want to die here?”

“You found me.” His voice is as hoarse as it was in his dream.

“Obviously. You think I want to deal with the boss yelling at me for losing his best agent?”

Seven can barely keep up. He’s sure he’s hallucinating.

“Huh.” Is all he can say.

“Ugh. Come on.”

Vanderwood heaves Seven off the floor while Seven can do little more than groan at the pounding in his head.

The only thing that somewhat revives him is the first taste of air outside the boiler room. He takes his first full breath in three days. Slowly, Vanderwood half-carries him up the stairs and out of the building and loads him into the car.

Seven is barely conscious (Vanderwood won't let him sleep again) but it hits him: he survived. He exists outside the confines of the concrete and desperate, suffocating heat.

Saeran's dream words come to him again in his delirious state. Is this what you left me to do? To die all alone?

It had never occurred to him before. The agency work had always been vaguely for Saeran's sake. But this was not how it was supposed to end; dying alone and nameless without ever being able to get word back to his brother. He knows this now, suspects that he has always hoped so.

Despite how badly he may wish to disappear back into the earth, it seems that something bigger is awaiting him still.