Chapter One: You waited for so long.
What a night to die. The moon is bright, smiling as if enjoying itself, watching me squirm in pain.
My body lies on a street in the middle of this shitty city, getting colder. The rest of my kind—human, if you want to be precise—surround me to watch the holes in my body.
With these many eyes, it reminds me how I hate being popular. Especially not in this way. Is a man slowly losing his grasp on life really that entertaining? Go to a movie or something.
Flash.
Phone flashes. The owners are a group of high-school girls, filling their galleries. Each shot, I bleed more. A picture of my dead body among a thousand cheerful selfies, that's funny to imagine. They stop. Oh, had enough? Now you want to look guilty? It's fine. Let me flip my body so you can take a better shot of the red holes. Brag about having a killer photo of a corpse. Your friends will love to see it.
I am still bleeding…
How much longer is this?
Some people have already started walking away. They have better things to do. Maybe they are going to watch movies after all. If I weren't the one limping down here, I'd do the same. Watch a movie, smoke two or three sticks, and go home.
When I left my apartment this morning, I never thought I'd get stabbed. Who did this to me? Great question. Actually I'm not sure. Probably one of the hundreds of people I hurt. You know, if they just asked me before doing this, I'd just nod and jump off a cliff. Dying that way… doesn't sound so bad. This, though, is bad, because it hurts so much. God. I had hoped to die old, full of sins. I am now twenty-five and... dying with many sins.
God and sins, huh. Is any of that real? If they are, I know where I'm going. Last I heard, that place wasn't so fun. I hope the answer to that question is no. I hope no god will judge how I live my life. However, that won't be fair.
My heart starts to yell. Or is it crying? Am I afraid? No, of course not. This is just how any human body is programmed to act in these situations, trying to keep itself alive. But the wound is too deep. And I don't want to try.
Actually, now that the pain is numbing, maybe it's not so bad after all. Every big and little worry, now I can just let go.
After all,
I'm free of life.
Maybe those people who offed themselves were onto something all this time…
Chuckle.
The darkness is closing in. The moon and stars stop mocking me.
The noise is moving away. I can hear the ambulance coming. Luckily, they are too late to do anything.
A touch.
My arm is grabbed.
Someone is trying to move me. Must be the people from the hospital. Go ahead and try to fix a corpse.
Grip.
Damn, do you have to be so rough? I know I'm already dead but this is just rude—
Drag.
Fuck!
Burn. My skin burns. My soul burns.
Who's this? There's no way a trained medical professional would be dragging a body across the street.
Stop this.
What's happening?
I force my eyelids open.
Below my feet is a body getting carried away on a stretcher. That person on it, I recognize him. Of course, I would, that is me.
Then, what the fuck am I now?
My eyes search up, a pale hand on my arm.
Further up, a black-haired woman dressed in a black suit.
We're closing in a door. A door without buildings. Just it and the air. It's knob glittering.
Somehow, that feeling creeps up at me. Stop her. Is the first I thought of.
But I am unable to do so. My mouth is full. My lungs are full. I can't breathe—no. I can't. My mouth is gone. My lungs, gone. What I was, gone.
And my surroundings… As we move closer and closer to the door, the people, the cars, the stars, the moon, the body, the stones, the street— fading away.
Fading away… and away…
Until what is left, us and darkness.
"From the deep abyss of time…"
A voice. Sweet, like a song my ears have waited for. Loud, as if it's coming out straight from my head. And lonely.
"We have found you."
My head feels… elongated, as if thousands of hands are squeezing it. I can feel my eyes blinking.
A blink, time passes, days, weeks, months, years— a decade passes.
I have my eyes open all this time. Why? There is nothing much to look at.
Until there is.
White.
A single line of it, moving.
When it had already stopped, it had turned into a shape.
Another line is born out of nothing. Making circles, triangles, and rectangles. Then spheres, cones, cubes. Color seeps in, spreading through the void as paint drops into water. Red, green, and blue.
Outlines, colors, combined.
And so a window is created. One that is holding a soft orange sky and puffy white clouds.
The creation continues.
I wait there as the world is being painted.
Until I find myself in a corridor; at the end of it is a door. It's knob glittering.
My body? Where are the red holes? The blood?
The sound of footsteps enters my ear.
The woman is gone, now replaced by a pink, low-ponytail girl dragging me forward. Talking. She is saying something. Her voice is soft and friendly.
The door. Closer.
My feet are the culprit of that.
Have I been walking all this time? Was I not limping on the ground?
H— hold on.
I stop them.
Think.
What. What the fuck happened? What is going on here?
Stab.
A sharp pain. My head suffers.
*
All right, calm down now. I know this is your first time meeting them, but try to stay cool-headed. You can't afford a bad first impression. Take a deep breath and… phew. I can do this.
I'd prove to Maria that her big brother is someone she has to be proud of after I get in, of course. Can't wait to find out what kind of face she makes.
Let's set that aside for now and focus on the matter at hand. Behind this door is the only special class at this high school. Inside lie the students I've heard so much about. And these special people need a new tutor. Here I am with my two-hundred-credit black suit, ready to take that position.
It won't be easy to convince the four girls that I can do it. No worries! No matter how flawed they are, I believe… I believe…
*
I believe that I was supposed to be dead. My body bled to death. So how? How the hell could I stand? Blink? My finger twitches? Sweat forms? Lung expands? What is this? Why is this happening?
Stab.
*
Sohee trusted me. I can't—
*
Stop—no more.
It's making me sick to remember more.
Ears ring—head throbbing. My hand slams on the glass, trying to keep me up. I want to throw up. But it won't help.
It's not in my stomach. But my brain. Like a worm, there has to be one digging in the flesh right now.
Get it out.
Stab.
*
I was the third-best student in the Center a few years ago.
*
No, you are not a worm.
*
I'll be different.
*
You are me.
I get it now. This is not my body. You: my mind, making a place in this brain, eating out his memories.
You want us to have this body as our own.
"Sunbae?" the voice of the girl.
A warm hand touches my shoulder.
"Sunbae, are you okay?"
I'm not. And not the person you think I am.
I was dead. Surely dead. Holes in my stomach.
Now none.
Maybe that was never real?
But the pain... it still stings even now.
No, that was real.
Have I failed to die?
Hah... Haha...
And now I'm back with the living? Is someone pulling a joke on me? The gods did?
How am I supposed to make sense out of this?
"Sunbae?"
Sunbae? Is that supposed to be me?
Why are your eyes beautiful and pink? Why are you making a face as if I'm the weird one here?
Maybe because I'm laughing? Ah that must be it. I guess I should stop doing that. Yet, you still look at me funny.
Maybe you want me to talk? What were your questions again? Oh, right. Sure. Whoever put me here probably wanted me to say this anyway.
"Yeah, I'm okay," the first words out of my mouth in this body.
And they were lies.
*
1st Loop: 1st
*