Amnesia

XVI.

Trigger Warning: direct mentions of suicide

Remy probably should have stopped asking questions then. After all, someone telling you they dreamt that they shot and killed themselves with a crossbow in a dream should deserve a break.

But no one ever gave Remy credit for being socially intelligent. So, continue asking Jeongguk questions is exactly what she did. "And then what happened?"

"What do you think happened? I died."

She fought the urge to smile at the snappish tone. "I don't know, it was a dream. For all I know, you could have been teleported to Mars."

"Have you ever been teleported to Mars after getting shot with a crossbow?"

Remy made a show of acting like she was thinking about it. "No. But then again, I've also never been shot with a crossbow. General rule of shooting a crossbow: don't be the guy that gets stuck with the pointy end of the arrow."

Finally, that got a laugh from him. "I think there's a theme here."

Remy shrugged. "They're quite genius rules. And very easy to follow."

She didn't know why it was so important to her that Jeongguk was smiling, even though they were in a survival situation. It hurt her to see him with tears in his eyes. Maybe it was the fact that he was the one she was closest to in age. But also, even though he had just told her what his dream had been, something still seemed wrong. Something he had said was bothering her.

"What did the lady on the phone say to you?" Remy asked.

He shook his head. "I don't think she was talking to me. She was looking for someone and was worried about them." He snapped his fingers in the way people do when they're trying to recall a faint memory. "A girl's name. Laurie? No."

Remy felt the blood drain from her face. "Lacie?"

He stared at her. "How did you know?"

"Uh," she said, her mouth dry. "I-"

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know anything at that moment. All words fled from her mind, and she staggered backward. Some dim memory, something she had seen only in flashes, screamed out an alarm in her head. The world was spinning around her in a blur of horrible colors. She fell to her knees, and she could vaguely hear Jeongguk yelling at her, could feel the whispering touch of his hand gripping her arm. But she was too far away from all that now, and too far in her own head.

Remy clamped her eyes shut, hoping the blur would go away, hoping that the ringing in her ears would go away, hoping that the alarm screaming in her head would go away, hoping that everything except Jeongguk's touch and voice would fade to nothing.

But she wasn't that lucky. She tasted the bitter acidity of bile in her mouth, then absolutely everything faded away into a loud, silent darkness.

Remy wasn't dreaming. She knew she wasn't, because she could hear the boys talking around her. They must have not known she could hear them, because they were speaking Korean and she couldn't understand what they were saying. Which was fine.

She opened her eyes. They were back in the parlor of the house, she could tell that from the faded pastel blue paint on the ceiling. But the light in the room seemed all wrong. What time was it?

The boys kept talking around her. They didn't seem to notice that she was awake. She was lying on her back on the floor, which was weird. Then again, the couch was probably all covered in blood, and that would be gross.

They didn't have time to be just sitting around talking! Something was going on here, and she was so close to figuring it out. There were just a few puzzle pieces missing that needed to come into their places. Remy wanted to find Jeongguk. They needed to finish the puzzle. But for some reason, her eyes couldn't move from their spot on the ceiling.