Morning came faster than I expected.
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I couldn't sleep.", "I was thinking.", "One thing.", "Well.", "Not the only thing.", "But the first thing.",
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Will I pass the test.
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Do I actually have potential.", "Or have I been telling myself a version of this story that makes the ending possible before I know what the ending is.",
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In truth I just want to be special.", "I think.", "I don't know.", "I never know anything.", "I never amount to anything.", "That's been the truth for most of my life.",
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Usually when I feel like this I run.", "Find the inside of my own mind and lock the door.", "Stay there until the feeling passes or becomes familiar enough to live with.",
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But I can't do that anymore.
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Because somewhere in the dark in my head there is a boy.", "Sitting in my father's chair.", "Dark skin.", "Short nappy hair.", "That suit.", "Those eyes.", "Telling me I can do this.", "Not asking me to believe it.", "Just saying it.", "Like it's already true.", "Like he read the ending before I started.",
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In a strange way this is the most awake I've felt in a very long time.
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But then I think of her.
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Just for a second.", "Eun Byol.",
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We got up.", "Made our beds.", "We didn't know it was for the last time.", "But it felt like it.", "The hands moving with a kind of care that hadn't been there in the beginning.", "Corners tucked.", "Fabric smooth.",
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No words.", "Not this time.", "No words were needed.",
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The showers.", "Cold.", "Then warm.", "The last time the pipes would do that for us.",
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We came back to find the suits.", "Already there.", "Folded precisely on top of the beds.", "The way they always appeared.", "We never solved that mystery.", "We stopped trying.", "This place had many mysteries.", "That was just one of them.",
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Black suits.", "White shirts.", "Black ties.", "Both of us.", "Except the shoes.", "Soft sneakers.", "Black.", "Of course.", "The one concession to what the day might ask of our feet.",
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We used to joke about it.", "Me and Eun Byol.", "Imagining her running.", "Sprinting.", "Placing the folded clothes on the beds.", "Sprinting back.", "Down the narrow hallway.", "Into the elevator.", "That old coffin.", "Always noisy.", "Always groaning.", "And yet never once making a sound when she moved through it.",
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Another mystery.", "Unsolved.", "Left behind.",
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We stood there.", "Black suits.", "White shirts.", "Two soldiers waiting.", "For what comes next.", "For whoever gives the next order.",
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The old coffin screamed.", "The doors opened.",
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She was wearing a black suit.", "Black shirt.", "No tie.", "Her hair smooth.", "Perfect.", "Not a single strand out of place.", "Her red lips.", "Those dark brown eyes.", "We looked at them the way we always looked at them.", "And we could see her.", "Really see her.", "All the things she never said.", "All the things she put into the training instead.",
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She said nothing.", "We followed.", "Into the elevator.", "For the last time.",
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Outside.", "The facility.", "Old and familiar and already beginning to be something we were leaving.", "A black car waiting.", "Clean.", "Patient.", "Chi-Long moved to the driver's side.", "We got in.",
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The car moved.
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I looked back.", "At the building.", "At the broken elevator.", "At the jungle consuming it from above.", "At all the months sitting inside it.", "All the mornings.", "All the floors.", "All the pain.",
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I said goodbye in silence.", "To all of it.", "I think Eun Byol did the same.", "Neither of us mentioned it.",
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She gave us katanas.", "Both of us.", "Two large ones.", "While she carried something of her own.", "A jian.", "Elegant.", "Old looking.", "Precise in the way ancient things are precise.",
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I hadn't thought of her as needing a weapon before.", "I always thought of her as the weapon.", "The thing that needed no extension.", "No tool.", "Just herself.",
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But she was carrying one.", "And that told me something about where we were going.", "Without telling me anything about where we were going.",
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I looked at Eun Byol.", "Her eyes out the window.", "Somewhere far from the car.", "Far from the road.", "Far from all of it.",
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The forest moving past us.", "The trees giving way.", "The jungle releasing us slowly.", "Taking its time about it.",
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Above it all.", "The clouds.", "Moving the same as always.", "Unhurried.", "Unaffected.", "The one thing that hadn't changed.", "The one thing that followed us out.",