I find myself back in my room, back at my desk. The moon's light shined through the window above my desk, illumining my desk with it's glistening, blue-white light. Shockingly, tonight was the night of a full moon.
The entire house was silent. Everyone, from father to mother, to Ji-ho, everyone was asleep. Neorong and Rei had bid their farewells long ago. After Rei dropped off the guns to my father, he took Neorong to her home. Despite my house being farther from the city than theirs', they followed me to mine. They... were like the opposite of my father.
I only hear the sound of the forest outside, as owls hooted, and mice squeaked. I stand near my desk, and I look up at the gleaming moon. I see the moon, and stars of all sorts yet again. I stare at the stars, as they dance and flicker in the darkened sky. Some stars faded and vanished, while some's effulgence grew brighter. I lean over my desk. Stars fascinated me, while at the same time, destroyed me from within.
I shape my fingers in a way to create two L shapes. Then, I stack them to create something that looked like a camera's lens. I aim it at the starlit sky. I did it know why I was doing this—It was just a capricious thought of mine. I shut an eye, and look through my newly formed 'window.'
Then, those thorns, those barbs, return. They return and obstruct my view once again. They swindle me, and twirl together, complicating their knots and completely obstructing my view. They obscured the light behind them. I tried to shake them away, but deception was something I found difficult to recognize.
My gaze begins to trail towards the end of my desk. Despite how the twists and twirls the thorns and barbs had created obscured the moon light, I could see perfectly fine. I was being delusional with those thorns and barbs once again, and there was nothing I could do about it.
My eye catches a...quill feather? It laid on the far corner of my desk. I squint, and rub my eyes. I've never seen one a quill feather before; it was just... quite a shocker.
Curiosity crept its way into me, and I picked up the quill feather with my hand. I hold it over my desk, up to my face, and examine it. The feather was white, pure white. It was fluffy-looking, and awfully soft. I twirled it in between my thumb and index finger, over and over again.
I stopped twirling the feather, and sudden raven-black ink began to engulf the white feather. The ink crept its way up the feather like a plague, consuming the white feather entirely.
Once the white feather was darkened, the ink began to trickle onto my hand, and it began to fall down to my desk. I watch the ink, as it rages on to consume and expand itself. It was like a parasite, a pest, wrecking the life in its path. A ravenous disease.
Plop. Plop. Plop. I hear the ink repeatedly collide with itself. I see puddles, splotches and splotches of ink sprawling across my desk. I see more splotches than last time. More, dark, black splotches.
The ink walks its way up my arm and consumes me entirely. The ink had domination over me. It spreads itself all over my desk, and all over me. The ink stops once it had finished consuming its prey, my desk and me. I did not move myself for a few seconds, then, I dropped the cursed feather back onto my desk.
The ink immediately begins to retract back towards the feather, then, before I realized it, the feather and the ink, was long gone. My room was back to what it was. There was no ink all over the table. There was no ink over me. There were no splotches, no puddles. None of that. Yet again, just like I thought, I was being exceptionally delusional. What was up with ink and I?
I clutch the curtains with both of my hands. Before closing the curtains, I look and see that the thorns and barbs are still there. I sigh, then I pull together the curtains. The rays of moonlight were then cut off, ridding me of my sight. I feel my way around my room, then I turn on the light.
I lean back into my bed, and put the covers over me. I stare at the ceiling of my room, before turning off the light next to my bed. My thoughts jump and hop about, as I kept asking questions to myself. As I kept immersing myself in those bright, joyful thoughts and those dark, depressing thoughts. All those types of questions, of which asked for truths, of which tried to reveal lies, of which were just a simple: "Who are you?" play themselves in my mind. I could not answer any of these questions. I do not think I will get an answer to these questions. I can ask time and time again, only to be replied with something completely unrelated to my initial question. Because, after all, I am prohibited from asking such ridiculed questions.
I could not tell what my father meant by 'ridiculed question.' What is wrong with asking a mere question? Why could I not ask? My prohibition from asking certain types of questions left me with more questions. All I could hope for, however, is that one day, I would somehow get answers. I will never know how to get answers. I will never be able to reach it. I could half-heartedly care right now though.
I think about my father. His horrendous deeds to me. How he would 'wear a mask' when around my mother, and 'take off a mask' while around Ji-ho and I. Not one of us had informed mother of who my father truly was. That would cause for problems to escalate within our household—as if we weren't already dealing with enough problems. I did not want to bother. We've all gotten used to obeying my father, his commanding voice, and abusive demeanor. He controls Ji-ho and I through fear, while also blinding others around us from knowing the truth.
I wonder how my harsh father, and how my kind mother came to be. How did they come to know of each other? How have they even become close in any way? They were opposites of each other, they're personalities countered each other. So many questions. So many unheard-of answers. If only I could read minds, and pry out the answers from the minds of others.
My thoughts retrace themselves to the ink. This time, it leaked from a quill feather. Last time, it was a pen. This time, I did not bother with cleaning the ink. I did not know why I did not choose to move. I just kept telling myself it was an illusion. I was being ridiculous. Ink cannot leak from feathers. Perhaps they can from pens, but not enough to spread themselves all around the desk.
I still did not understand why I was spontaneously seeing leaking ink. I do not know why.
I quit my pondering. I hold my hand into the air. While I looked at it, I feel the sleepiness I should've felt long ago finally come up to me.
My hand falls, my eyes close, and I fall asleep.
~*~
I see the same boy. He is crumpled up into a ball. Tears stream down his face, wetting his filthy and dirty, ragged clothes. I see those scars. The evidence of beatings. The boy does not see me. His head is down, his gaze is looking down at the ground. A metal chain connecting to the wall is latched around his neck, trapping him.
The room radiated off hideous scents. The place stunk.
I try to speak to the boy. I get up, and walk towards him. I run into that 'invisible barrier' yet again.
"Hello?" I say in an attempt to spark a conversation with him, "Who are you?"
The boy hears me. His ears perk up, but I see him trembling with fear. His head stays drooped, facing the floor. He wipes his tears, with his sordid hands. He does not say anything to me. He must've thought that I was that man, that man with the whip who I assumed held some devastating relationship with the boy, based on my first impression. I still did not know much about the world around me, so I had to stick with an abstract and strange assumption. However, as said before, I shouldn't be jumping to conclusions.
I think about reassuring the boy somehow. I didn't care if he was just some random boy I'm seeing in a dream. Perhaps I should declaim something? I... was unsure.
I hesitate for a minute, then I open my mouth to speak. Before I uttered a single letter, a man behind me opens that galling mouth of his. At once, I recognize that voice to be the man with the whip, the one who was cursing and swearing.
"Did you piece of shit fucking kill her?" I hear the man snap. I turn around, to see the man glowering—once again—at the boy. He holds a gun in his hand, and points it at the boy's head. The man growls the next part, "I've already given you forty-five minutes. Give me an answer now, or I'll pull the trigger."
I wave my arms in front of the man in response, before the boy spoke up. I try to gain his attention. The boy sees me, but the man does not. Was I only visible to the boy or something? Well, I guess, after all, it was just a dream.
The man's finger rests on the trigger on the gun. A few, eerie moments pass, where the boy remained silent. The man, who I guessed had lost his temper, pulls the trigger. I watch the bullet slide past me, through me, and in front of the boy. So, I basically was a ghost here after all, huh.
"Answer my question." The man demands, firing another warning shot at the boy. The boy, yet again, does not respond. He is frozen, like a stone statue. As if he were turned into stone or frozen in thick ice.
The man fires a shot at the boy's arm. Boom.
"Don't think I will kill you, boy. I'm not letting you go free. However, I can still inflict shit loads of pain on shit, isn't that right?" He threatens the boy. I see the boy's blood pour onto the ground, clouting the atmosphere with the scent of his own blood. I almost gag at the overwhelming scent of the blood.
That man walks up to the boy, and kicks him on the side. The bleeding, feeble, and flimsy boy falls to the ground. His eyes lock with my eyes, and his mood drops. I did not know how his mood could drop from the state it already was, but it did.
Like the previous time, I read his expression, 'Are you...one of them?"
Then, another quill feather flies in front of me, and the dream ends.
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A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. The context in this chapter will play a major role later on in the story, just to let you know! There's a reason why Myeong keeps dreaming of the boy & seeing a leaking object of which leaked ink~
Stay tuned!
-Ripplestream
Wait, I'm at 1951 words. I'm just going to type 43 more to reach 2000. Boom bam bang bang kaboom karate karate-chop tornado kick flying banana pogo stick potato tomato hehehe don't judge me, I'm just listing absolutely random phrases and words to reach it. 7 left to go now. 2. 1.