At first glance, death may seem ominous and terrifying to most. I think that's because we don't know what will happen to our consciousness after death, which is why we fear it. After all, humans tend to fear the things they don't know or understand.
But now that darkness has consumed everything and my entire being has come to a complete halt, I no longer fear death. I can't say if I truly am dead at this very moment but what I can say is that it is much more peaceful than the hectic world I was just in.
It's dark and empty but not as scary or haunting as people might think it is. The silent darkness that stretches on for what seems like an eternity actually brings an odd sense of solace to me, knowing that nothing can hurt me now— now that I'm... dead.
I wish to be able to stay in this comfortable silence forever, I wish to get lost in it and never have to face the terrifying realities of my world again.
I've failed my people, my crew, my friends. I've failed Yunho and Taehyung. But most importantly I failed Seonghwa. For reasons like this exact one, I didn't want to promise him that I would come back alive. I knew that it would be impossible yet still foolishly promised that I would return to him.
As I recount my death, I realize that my life didn't flash before my eyes as people said it would. In fact, it all happened so fast that it took me a minute to register that I was no longer alive.
In the distance, I can hear a humming sound coming from a soft and delicate voice, the type of voice that makes you want to fold into yourself and sleep peacefully forever.
The darkness that I was just encased in begins to fade away and murky light illuminates my consciousness, the sound of the woman singing becoming clearer as the light becomes brighter.
I soon realize that the reason for the light is that my eyelids are closed and when I open them, I find myself in a whole new world I had only seen in my dreamscape.
There's a pulsating feeling that starts at my chest and spreads through my torso with each pulse, painful but manageable.
My body feels light and there's no sign of any injury except for the pain where Queen Lee's cursed magic penetrated my chest. I feel reborn, whole, new.
I sit up, scanning where I am to see the green shrubs that surround me everywhere, stretching in for miles in all directions. Flowers and berries of all kinds blossom everywhere, untamed and beautiful. All kinds of splashes of colors, vibrant and dull, fill my eyes, too much for me to perceive it all at once.
I decide to get off of the ground to take a better look at my surroundings when I see that I've even changed garments, swapping my normal pants, shirt, and coat for a silky white dress that cascades around me in enticing folds. Even my hair is braided beautifully, longer than it was when I was alive and healthy.
The green grass under my feet feels warm and the scent of lavender fills the air around me, making me want to stay here forever.
Suddenly, the soft humming of the familiar feminine voice I've heard many times before sounds off in the distance, piquing my curiosity. In the distance, I see a river bank gleaming iridescently under the artificial sun, a sight I'm sure wasn't there a second ago.
Three figures rest by a log that's near the body of water; one of them holding what seems like a fishing rod, the second crouching down by the river, and the third sitting on the log, admiring the sight in front of them.
I slowly make my way toward them, taking in the comforting sound of the voice that hums the song I had heard so many times in my dreams. As I walk toward them, my hands skim all of the plants, my fingers feeling the different textures of each of the flourishing flowers.
When I'm close enough to see who the three people are I see two men and one woman and I instantly freeze where I am. I gasp at the sight of the three people resting peacefully by the iridescent lake, perplexed by the sight of them all interacting with one another.
They seem to sense my presence and they all turn to look at me in unison, each of them with a face of joy and welcome.
"Well, you're early," Yunho laughs, giving me a heart-warming smile that I terribly missed seeing on the Aurora. I clasp a hand over my mouth, tears pricking the corners of my eyes at the sight of him before me.
"You look beautiful, as always." Taehyung compliments, stretching out a hand for me to take which Yunho clicks his tongue at.
"Are you forgetting she's found someone," Yunho reminds the other man, something I'm surprised he even remembers or that Taehyung even knew about.
"I'm just being courteous, it won't hurt." He extends his hand again, encouraging me to take it which makes the woman sitting on the log giggle.
"You boys are always bickering." While I take Taehyung's hand, I look over at the lady and notice our strikingly similar features.
She looks like the exact copy of me from head to toe except that she looks a lot older than me. From her baby-blue hair to her demure poise, we are each other's exact replica. A question scratches at the back of my head and the voice that answers it echoes loudly but I can't be jumping to conclusions now.
The face seems so familiar and I don't know if that's out of some locked away memory or because of our physical similarities. Is it even possible that this woman is my... mother?
"Come child," the woman offers, patting the empty spot in the log for me to side beside her after seeing the look of confusion on my face. "You seem like you need to talk." Her welcoming smile draws me to her and Taehyung helps me walk over to her, holding my hand all the way.
I didn't notice that I was holding it so tightly until he squeezed my hand. Giving him an apologetic smile, I turn around to face the woman and to sit with her.
"W-Who are you?" I ask bluntly, too curious to talk about anything else. She chuckles, laying a hand over mine as she does.
"Straight to the questions, huh? You act so much like your father." She responds avoiding my question but then answering it vaguely when she sees my strong desperation to know in my eyes. "I think you know who I am."
"Hae Yoonah?" The woman nods, urging me to continue, to say what I was inferring this whole time. "You're my mother."
"I am," she affirms my suspicions, lightly poking my cheek. "You've grown magnificently." She comments, tucking a piece of stray hair behind my ear. She caresses my cheek and I find myself at a loss for words.
So many emotions swirl around in my heart for me to express them and too many questions pop up in my head to ask. All I can do at the moment is let my tears build up in my eyes as I study the features of my mother, a face that I'm seeing for the first time in my life after growing up motherless.
Her features are all graceful and soft, even the tiny wrinkles at the edges of her eyes and on the top of her forehead look perfect. There's a lingering curvature at her lips that never seems to go away, not even when her face is resting.
We stare at each other in silence, the other two men with us not paying any attention to us as we have our moment. Hot tears stream down my face and I can feel a tiny hiccup working its way up my throat.
The edges of my lips turn downward as I try to maintain my expression but there are too many emotions for me to handle right now that when my mother smiles at me again I break.
"Why did you just leave me?" I cry, unable to control the tears and the sobs as I melt into the open arms my mother has stretched out for me. I lean into her, letting myself calm down as she slightly rocks me back and forth, rubbing my back to calm me down. "Why didn't you run away with me to somewhere we wouldn't be found? Why did you have to die?"
"Sun-Mi, there was no option for me. I had chosen to get involved with a man that wasn't meant for me and I had to face the consequences sooner or later. If I had run away, your father would have been killed," she explains calmly, a profound regret laced into her words. It angers me how tranquilly she's talking about this while I've worked my brain my whole life to explain why my mother would abandon me.
"Couldn't you both have run away? Did you not love me enough that you decided to abandon me and dad?"
"Oh, sweety, no. Never. I loved you both more than anything in the world which is why I decided to let myself be killed." She pauses, hugging me tighter. "It was the only way Queen Lee would spare both of your lives."
"I'm trying to understand your point, but how could you possibly think that dying would have saved me? I've lived through hell up until now and it's your fault for leaving me," I complain angrily, wanting to rip myself away from her grip but not finding the guts to move away.
"I know, baby. My sweet child, I know it's my fault. And I'm so terribly sorry. I saw what she did to you all these years and I can never forgive myself for putting you through that."
"Then why did you do it?" I inquire, my voice breaking at the end as I feel a new round of tears coming up. "Why did you get into an affair with the King?"
She pulls away from me, cleaning my tender cheeks and smiling weakly at me as she thinks of how to explain this to me. She grabs both of my hands in hers, too ashamed to look at me in the face.
"Your father and I had been secretly together since before he and the queen got married." She begins. "I was the Queen's diplomat. It was a position that my grandmother had agreed on ever since Queen Lee's grandmother defeated mine."
"I was her best friend and I truly did see her as a sister. One of the neighboring kingdoms at the time, Illoriant to be exact, had a certain prince that I found attractive, the feeling was mutual but we couldn't go public about it or be too bold because of the difference in our status."
"So like Taehyung and I."
"Precisely," my mother concedes. "We would meet in secret every time Illoriant and Eohithra had to discuss things and soon our little fling became something bigger. Before we could stop it we fell in love. And sadly, an arranged marriage was made between the prince and my best friend. I didn't have it in me to tell her because I noticed how head over heels she was for him."
"But you could have avoided this whole situation if you had just told her the truth," I tell her, a bit mad that she chose this decision.
"I realize that now but not at the moment. I was young and foolish and in love."
"So what did you do?"
"Well," she thinks back for a moment. "Your father and I tried to break off our relationship and we did it successfully up until a year after he and Queen Lee got married. We started up again with the late-night talks and soon our relationship evolved into more than just good buddies. The King and Queen had about 4 kids if I'm not wrong before I became pregnant with you."
"I was so overjoyed when I found out the news that I wrote to your father and left the note in his office. One of the servants found it and reported it to Queen Lee and that's when everything came to light."
A moment of silence passes between us before I find the courage to continue speaking with my own mother.
"Is it over for me now? Will I stay with you forever?" Another pleasing smile stretches across her features and she pats my head, looking at me in a caring manner.
"No."
"No? What do you mean no?" I inquire, perplexed at the security in her voice.
"You're time isn't up just yet. You still have someone you need to face. There's a whole world that's still waiting on you to save them." She gets up from the log, fixing her garments and I start to panic, not wanting to go back to the real world.
"I have to go back? I-I can't go back. It's so loud, so hectic, so painful. I can't possibly go back to that hellhole I've called home until now!" Hopelessness builds up in my chest and I get up, tugging my mother's arm back and clamping onto it tighter than any animal's jaw, unwilling to let go.
"You're not dead yet, Sun-Mi. It's not your time. You still have a long way to go before your time. You have to go back there to save your friends and loved ones. They're counting on you." I shake my head, new tears of fear and anxiety falling down my face.
"No, you don't understand! I can't. I can't live like that any longer. I can't bear the weight of the enchantress's responsibilities. Every day I feel like I will collapse under the expectations of everyone around me. I'm tired, mom! I want to give up so badly. Please, let me stay!" I plead with her but she continues to shake her head empathetically.
"I'm sorry, but you can't stay. You have a job you need to finish. You have to finish Queen Lee."
"But how?!" I sob. "How can I be expected to do that? You can see, can't you? My powers are no match for her. I'm barely beginning to master mine while she's had years to practice it." She grabs my crying face in her hands, drying my tears once again even though more continue to pour out. "I need you, mom. I need you to guide me through this more than ever."
"My poor child. I can feel that you're hurting. I can feel your guilt and how much you blame yourself and those who have hurt you. But you need to learn to forgive. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. That's the only way you'll be able to defeat Queen Lee."
"I-I don't understand. How could forgiveness possibly be the key to defeat someone so powerful? I can't even forgive myself for the people I've lost, how am I supposed to do this?!"
"Learn." Yunho vocalizes after having kept quiet. "Sun-Mi, no one blames you for our deaths so you need to learn to stop blaming yourself. Not even we blame you. We all died because we chose to die for you."
"But you wouldn't have had to if I had been able to protect you all—,"
"Sun-Mi," Taehyung intercedes, setting an arm hesitantly on my shoulder. "We died because it was our time. There's nothing you could have done to save us. So please, learn to forgive yourself. And learn to forgive others. That's all you need to live in peace."
Small hiccups escape my lips as I try to contain my crying. I feel so frustrated and irritated with myself, with others. All of my life, I blamed myself for the terrible things that happened to me. I was so alone and afraid but even now that I have the crew I haven't stopped blaming myself.
The truth is I haven't come to terms with the daily struggle I feel inside. Yes, my life is so much more bearable now than it was when I lived in the castle, but I still heavily blamed myself and the people around me for everything that goes wrong instead of accepting myself and others for our mistakes.
But how could I possibly forgive someone who has hurt me for years? How could I forgive that monster that constantly belittled me and degraded me any chance she had?
"I'm sorry that you have to be the one to fix my wrongdoings when I was alive, but I promise you, once you learn to forgive there's no one more capable of doing this task than you." My mother reaches out for me one last time, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing lightly before she moves her hands to cup my cheeks again.
"Mother, how can I forgive her for what she's done to me?" There's a sad look in my mother's eyes, the wrinkle at the edges of her eyes fading away and the ones on her brow becoming clearer as her expression changes.
"You have to realize that she, too, is hurting inside. I betrayed her and wounded her soul so deeply. She's never learned to forgive. This is why you must learn to forgive so that you don't end up crumbling away from the beautiful soul you've grown into. Learn to accept your faults and your past. Forgive but never forget."
I nod silently, turning my head to look at Taehyung and Yunho who are looking at me with proud smiles.
"When will I see you all again?" I ask and Yunho takes a deep breath.
"When your time is up." He winks, a playful smile itching at the corners of his upturned lip. "Come here," He stretches out his arms, my mom letting go of me so that I could hug my friend. "Go back to tell the others I said hi. Can you do that for me?" I nod, a bit reluctant to let him go which makes them all laugh.
When I do pull away, I realize that there is still one more person I need to say bye to. I angle my body to face the man I once loved, afraid that if I get too close he might disappear.
"So, I see you've found someone else now. I guess you don't need me anymore." Taehyung chuckles awkwardly and I start to feel guilty, knowing that he's talking about Seonghwa. Yunho elbows his ribs, throwing a stern expression his way. "Ouch! I didn't mean it rudely, I'm happy for her." He turns to look back at me. "I really am happy that you've found someone who truly loves you. Now go back to them for me, yeah?"
I bite my lower lip, not knowing how to respond to him and just throwing my arms around him to be able to touch him one last time. Although my feelings for him have slowly begun to fade away, my memories of the times we spent together are still there.
"Thank you," I gush into his chest. "Thank you for helping me through my darkest times." He was surprised to see me hugging him so fiercely but he still reciprocated the action, embracing me gently.
I let go, looking at the three of the people in front of me who are staring at me fondly, waiting to send me back.
"I guess this is goodbye then until it's my time to return." I hold myself, a melancholy feeling blossoming in my chest.
"Go back to the crew, Sun-Mi. They really need you right now." Yunho encourages me one last time.
"Of course."
"We are all so proud of how far you've gotten." My mother praises me. "Now continue to make us all proud. Continue to fight for us." The soft, loving glimmer returns to her eyes as she looks at me. "You're my greatest treasure. Don't forget that."
Finally, the words that had always been locked out of my dreams and muffled by my subconsciousness are revealed to me. All this time, I had been dreaming about my mother. Or was it that my mother was trying to reach me through my dreams?
Either way, the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place as she utters those words. Words that fill my soul correctly. Words that I didn't know I needed to hear until now.
Now that I've heard them I feel needed, appreciated by the figure I had no recollection of throughout all of my childhood. I finally feel the warm love of my mother.
The three people wave at me softly as they all turn to walk away. I watch them head toward the river all of them walking side by side but I don't feel deserted by them because now I know they've been with me all along.
And they will continue to stay with me forever after.
The sight of them walking away brings a warm feeling to my being, knowing that they'll be safe here; wherever it is that this place might be.
Everything around me swirls into a multitude of colors, shining brighter and brighter until there's nothing but pure light left to alert me of my transition back into the real world.
The world where my crew is still waiting for me.