I Love You So ✓ Squid Game

027. time truly heals it all

There were no sign of cherry seeds that littered the floor, no sign of Ji-yeong and Mi-nyeo chuckling together harmoniously.

Four.

The picnic basket, blanket and its goods flittered into nothing. Ali Abdul's chirpy laughter was faint, the light chatters from his family were practically nonexistent.

Five.

A lone butterfly kite flew into a mass of clouds, it soared into the sky, some pretty bubbles surrounded it too. Though, the owners of the butterfly kite were nowhere to be seen. Sang-woo, Gi-hun and Ga-yeong were out of the picture.

Six.

The mass of children lining up to buy some of the overly popular matcha ice cream, vanished without a trace. The stall was empty, Mrs. Cho wasn't there. Just the sound of the ice cream stall curtains could be heard, as it flapped against the strong, festering winds.

Seven.

The air grew cold. Life seemed almost rare as everything dulled in colour.

Eight.

The clouds grew greyer, they formed in clusters, hovering manically above both Aera and Sae-byeok.

Nine.

Sae-byeok's gentle touch seemed faraway. Her soft skin felt lifeless, almost like nothing against Aera's hands. Aera frantically turned around, her eyes were filled with tender tears, her bottom lip aquiver as she found herself looking at Sae-byeok's fragile expression. Sae-byeok's jubilant smile was replaced with the same, destroyed face that she held when Hwang Aera sacrificed herself for the life of Mi-nyeo and her baby.

Ten.

In a large exhale, Hwang Aera faded away from her make believe world, away from the life she wanted, away from the ideal life she created within her head. Instead, as Aera slowly awoke from her slumber, she could indistinctly hear Sae-byeok's cry, "HWANG AERA," a yell that was identical to the one she croaked out when a bullet punctured Aera's chest.

"SAE?- KANG SAE-BYEOK?" Tossing around within her damp sheets, the distressed girl let out a choked cry. Finding her cheeks, drenched, in a couple hundred tears, Aera gradually departed from Dreamland and awoke with a blocked nose and a skull pounding headache. A messy weep forced itself out of her tired throat when she found herself trapped, temporarily, within four walls.

Still confined within the facility.

Aera's reddened eyes were tender from crying during her deep slumber, thus making her vision blurry as she trailed her eyes onto her surroundings.

Almost as if she were iron bolted down on to her bed, her back ached immensely as she tried propping herself up onto her sore elbows. Thankfully, the small room she was confined in, had soft yellow lights, making it pleasing to the eye. It was almost identical to the ones within the marble game room. A devastating blow could be felt within her chest- which surprised Aera since her chest felt extremely hollow.

With a staggering breath, Aera's eyes followed the blank, dark, walls. There were intricate designs painted along the surface of them, if you looked closely enough, it was as though they were painted in gold. The detailed designs, only, consisted of: a circle, a triangle, a square. All these familiar shapes rang a bell within the back of Aera's mind- these shapes were everywhere. They were usually found on the guard's masks, mostly were predominantly triangles, and the only person allowed to speak, usually, were the ones with a square painted upon their masks.