"Hey, wake up! I'm tired of playing alone!"
I opened my eyes to find Jisso crouching in front of me. "Yeah, I'm up," I replied through a long yawn.
"Great!"
She sprang to her feet and skipped down the grassy hill while I slowly stood and stretched. Sometimes, standing beside her made me feel like an old man. Keeping up with that energy all day was exhausting.
Not that we were in any rush.
We had all the time in the world.
By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, Jisso was already sitting beside a narrow creek, staring into the water. The moment she turned toward me with that wide grin stretched across her face, I knew it could only mean trouble.
"Look at this!"
She pointed into the creek.
The water was crystal clear, smooth as glass beneath the sunlight, but aside from that, nothing seemed unusual.
Then she shoved me forward.
I crashed face-first into the creek. The water was barely deep enough to stop my handsome face from smashing against the rocks below, though I definitely felt something slip into my mouth.
When I pushed myself back up, all I heard was laughter.
Her laughter.
My clothes were soaked, my perfectly natural hair ruined, and something wriggled in my throat. I spat it out and watched a fish flop helplessly across the rocks.
A damn fish had swum straight into my mouth like something out of a cartoon.
Jisso's giggling practically shook the earth beneath us.
This was humiliating.
Truly humiliating.
Getting outplayed by a kid might've been a new low for me. Still, I laughed it off.
Don't get me wrong—my pettiness runs deep. I wanted to drag that little gremlin into the creek and give her a taste of her own medicine, but she'd already skipped well out of reach.
Besides, Liyu would probably kill me for getting a girl wet.
Wait.
Liyu?
Why did that name feel familiar?
It slipped into my thoughts so naturally, yet I couldn't remember ever meeting anyone by that name. Lately, strange things like that had kept happening.
First Alista.
Then Orista.
Gryan.
Now Liyu.
I sat there silently, staring at the flowing water before slowly looking up. Jisso had finally calmed down and walked over, holding out her hand.
"You're seriously going to sit there all day, Jagger?" she asked. "And don't even think about pulling me in, or I'm stuffing another fish down your throat."
I stared at her hand for a moment before finally taking it.
Not that any of this really mattered.
As far back as I could remember, it had always been just me and her in this world.
"Try to keep up!"
Jisso hopped across the creek on scattered stones, heading toward the tree atop the hill—the same tree we always slept under, the same tree she always climbed while I sat below reading my book.
Book?
What book?
I didn't own a book.
I stopped walking.
No…
This was strange.
Why did these memories keep appearing?
I'd never seen a book before. I'd never met any of those people.
It was always just me and Jisso.
Always.
I glanced down at the creek again.
The water reflected a man staring back at me.
Not me.
A young man with dark curly hair and rough stubble. His eyes looked hollow, lifeless. He mirrored every movement I made.
He always had.
Jisso couldn't see him.
Only I could.
Every single day.
"Jagger!"
Jisso's voice rang out from the hilltop.
I gave the reflection one last glance before climbing the hill at my usual slow pace. We had all the time in the world, after all.
But somewhere, there had to be a beginning.
So where was ours?
As far as I remembered, we had always been here, wandering these endless fields.
But since when?
I stood frozen in place, trapped in the thought. Jisso groaned in annoyance before stomping back down the hill and grabbing my arm.
"Come on, slowpoke!"
She dragged me along while I stumbled after her. It didn't hurt, and honestly, I didn't even want to resist, but her grip felt strangely forceful.
Jisso dropped beneath the tree and pulled me down beside her before resting her head on my lap.
She smiled softly, closed her eyes, and hummed to herself while my thoughts remained tangled around that question.
Was there truly something beyond this world?
Somewhere else?
Somewhere before this?
"Jagger?"
Her voice suddenly cut through my thoughts.
"Yeah?"
"Are we having fun?"
I blinked.
Her eyes were open now, staring blankly up at me. The question came so suddenly that I couldn't tell whether she was joking or not.
"Yeah," I answered. "It's fun."
And it was.
Playing together all day. Telling stories. Fighting beside the creek.
I couldn't think of anything else I could possibly want.
At least…
I thought so.
Then she asked:
"So would you stay here forever?"
The question hit me like cold water.
My mind blanked.
"Huh? What kind of question is that?"
"Just answer."
Her voice was flat.
No smile.
No teasing.
For once, Jisso sounded completely serious.
"Well…"
I hesitated.
This place was peaceful.
Beautiful, even.
But those questions never stopped clawing at my head. The strange names. The missing memories. The feeling that something existed beyond this world.
I had to know.
I needed to know.
"No," I answered quietly.
The moment the word left my mouth, Jisso sat up and turned away from me.
"Again…" she mumbled beneath her breath.
Then, quieter:
"Why…?"
I crawled closer and touched her shoulder.
She turned around.
Tears streamed down her face.
And suddenly, something clicked inside my head.
I had seen this before.
This exact moment.
Under this exact tree.
Again and again and again.
How had I forgotten?
"Couldn't you just forget about them?" Jisso sobbed. "Why do you always remember? Why can't you just stay here?"
She shoved me onto the grass and started pounding weakly against my chest. The punches didn't hurt, but the tears splashing against my face did.
"A hundred times… a thousand times…" she cried. "I asked you the same question, and you always gave me the same answer…"
Her punches gradually weakened until they finally stopped, and then she collapsed against my chest.
"I don't want to go back there," she whispered. "To that world. To Father. But I don't want to lose you either."
She stayed there quietly for a long time while I lay speechless beneath her.
I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to say something—anything—but I was terrified of making it worse.
At moments like this, I hated how cowardly I was.
"But I guess I can't force you to stay…" Jisso murmured weakly. "Just… please don't forget me."
Then the ground beneath me began to sink.
Grass swallowed my body whole, dragging me downward as though the earth itself were consuming me.
I reached toward her desperately.
"Jisso!"
But she didn't move.
She simply sat beneath the tree, tears dripping from her chin, before finally speaking the words I never wanted to hear.
"Farewell, Jagger."
**************************
I flailed wildly, but my body felt unbearably heavy. Was I buried? No. It felt more like drowning.
I opened my eyes, and everything around me glowed orange. The last thing I remembered was locking myself inside my room, trying to wrap my head around Jisso's disappearance.
I couldn't breathe.
In front of me floated some kind of membrane, thin and translucent like a fragile wall. I pushed against it, but something suddenly yanked me backward.
A tube.
Something was connected to my neck.
Panic surged through me. I grabbed the tube and tried to rip it away, but agony exploded through my body the instant I pulled. It felt fused to me, like tearing off one of my own limbs.
Pain shot through every nerve in my body. Blood spilled from the wound and dissolved into the orange liquid surrounding me.
I gasped instinctively, losing the little air I had left.
Just a little more—
With one final pull, the tube snapped free.
I tore through the membrane, and the thing surrounding me burst apart like a bubble. I collapsed forward, coughing violently as thick orange fluid poured from my mouth.
It tasted revolting.
Behind me, something twitched.
The severed tube writhed frantically across the ground, searching for me—or maybe searching for another host—but as the seconds passed, it slowly dried out. Its movements stiffened until it resembled nothing more than a dead branch.
After a while, my vision finally began to clear.
Darkness surrounded me. Not ordinary darkness, but the kind that felt like wearing a blindfold.
I carefully reached out, feeling along the walls around me.
Rough.
Dry.
Wood.
I froze.
…Am I inside a fucking tree?
How is this possible?
Then I slipped.
I crashed into a shallow pool of something sticky, warm, and oily. Confused, I raised a trembling hand to my nose and sniffed it.
A strong metallic scent filled my lungs.
…Blood?
My stomach twisted.
I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could, but before I even managed a step, I tripped again and slammed face-first into the liquid. Warmth coated my skin. Some of it splashed into my mouth.
I nearly vomited.
Cold blood.
What the hell is this place?
What the hell happened to me?
As I tried to make sense of reality, I desperately searched for another explanation. Maybe this was another hallucination. Wouldn't be the first time.
But this felt too real.
The pain.
The exhaustion.
The hunger gnawing through my stomach like something alive.
I should've eaten more back home. My body felt skeletal now, every movement sharp and painful, like my bones were trying to tear through my skin.
At this point, I was basically a walking corpse.
Then suddenly—
Something wrapped tightly around my leg.
Before I could react, it pulled.
I was dragged violently across the blood-soaked floor. My face plunged beneath the surface, choking me as blood flooded into my mouth and nose. I tried to lift myself for air, but the thing dragging me moved too fast. The sheer force behind it kept my body pinned helplessly against the ground.
Pain tore through my leg.
My head and back slammed repeatedly against roots and jagged wood while every remaining breath became precious.
All I wanted to do was scream.
But I couldn't waste the air.
Then, for a brief second, I felt the direction shift.
Upward.
A moment later, my body lurched vertically as the creature began dragging me along a wall. I finally managed to breathe again, though nausea immediately crashed over me. Being hauled upside down at that speed felt like my organs were being blended together.
Honestly, I was impressed my spine hadn't snapped yet.
After a while, faint spots of light began shining through cracks in the wood. Tiny beams, but enough for me to finally understand my surroundings.
It really was a tree.
A gigantic hollow tree far larger than anything I could've imagined. You could probably fit an entire city inside this thing without running out of space.
Then I saw them.
Pods.
Thousands of cocoon-like sacs hanging throughout the massive interior.
My breath caught.
Were those the same things I came out of?
No.
Mine had been filled with orange liquid.
These were red.
All red.
One of the pods suddenly burst open.
A torrent of crimson liquid spilled downward like a waterfall.
Blood.
It was the same blood covering the floor below.
My mind immediately jumped to the worst conclusion, but I forced myself to stay rational.
Maybe it wasn't human blood.
Maybe livestock.
Maybe animals.
Yeah.
That had to be it.
But the sheer number of pods made the thought hard to believe.
The idea of how many living things had been drained inside this place made my stomach churn.
Then something caught my eye.
Just for a fraction of a second.
From a massive hole carved into the wall nearby—
Firelight.
A campfire?
Ouch!
The thing dragging me suddenly veered sideways and yanked me straight into one of the openings. My head smashed against the edge hard enough to make my vision flash white.
Now that I could finally see it properly, the creature looked like a pale green vine wrapped tightly around my ankle.
After several more painful minutes, it finally stopped.
The vine loosened itself from my leg and retreated silently back into the darkness.
I lay there covered in bruises, with a throbbing skull and a leg that felt half-broken.
My entire body trembled from the ordeal.
The nausea still hadn't faded either.
Even standing felt impossible.
Still, after several failed attempts, I eventually managed to drag myself upright using the walls for support.
Then I saw it.
Light.
Real light.
Was that the outside?
Did that vine thing actually drag me toward an exit?
No.
Don't think about it.
Just move.
I limped forward through the narrow passage as quickly as my battered body allowed.
Then my hand brushed against something.
Roots.
No—
Tubes.
I immediately recoiled.
Dozens of fleshy tubes ran along the walls beside me—the same things that had connected themselves to my neck earlier.
I stumbled backward and pressed myself against the opposite wall, terrified they'd suddenly lunge at me again.
But they didn't move.
They simply remained embedded in the wood, pulsing faintly as they stretched deeper into the darkness.
The farther I walked, the more of them appeared.
Above me.
Below me.
Everywhere.
Eventually, they all converged toward a small opening in the wall.
From where I stood, I could barely make out whatever lay beyond it.
My head started spinning.
I could leave right now.
I could ignore all of this and run toward the light.
Or…
I could crawl into that cramped hole filled with the same nightmare tubes that nearly killed me earlier.
For most people, the answer would've been obvious.
Unfortunately, I wasn't most people.
Curiosity had always been my biggest flaw. Ever since I was a kid, I'd had a habit of digging too deep into things that should've been left alone. What started as harmless curiosity slowly turned into obsession.
Mysteries itched at my brain.
And if I didn't uncover the answer, the feeling would eat away at me until I did.
Besides, even if I escaped, I still had no idea where I'd end up.
Maybe somewhere near home.
Maybe somewhere completely different.
Or worse—
Somewhere straight out of the stories Orista used to tell me. Warring nations. Lands beyond the Lords' control.
Or the very center of the world itself.
Ciel.
The opening grew tighter the deeper I crawled.
Soon I was practically squeezing through layers of fleshy tubes. They twitched softly against my skin, warm and disturbingly soft, as though something alive flowed inside them.
It felt like crawling through the guts of some gigantic beast.
Eventually, I reached the other side.
The chamber beyond was completely covered in tubes.
Walls.
Floor.
Ceiling.
Every single one of them stretched toward the same place.
A girl sitting silently against the far wall.
All of the tubes were connected to her.
I slowly approached.
Her body looked pale and withered, almost corpse-like, but faint breathing still escaped her lips.
She was alive.
Barely.
Long gray hair covered most of her face, stained with dirt and dried blood.
Carefully, I brushed the hair aside.
Then my entire body froze.
That face—
I would recognize it anywhere.
"Jisso…?"