𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐗 ✓

36: CRYPTIC COMMOTION

"The old me, the new me and a bunch of tragedies ..."

...

Nobody knows, and nobody will ever know the truth. There are whispers and rumours, tales that have been passed down through generations. But the truth, the real truth, remains hidden in the shadows, waiting to be revealed to those who dare to seek it.

...

It swept through his body like wildfire, as if he were being tortured. The melatonin that he had been thinking would be tranquil turned out to be agonising and horrible. As darkness engulfed him and refused to let go, he trembled and muttered beneath his breath.

Pain indeed was a personified metaphor, a blunt feeling to heart of the bearer and eyes of the observer.

A cackle assailed him in the darkness, and Seojin drew a quick breath, twisting in all directions to obtain a glimpse of his captor. He felt lonely and restricted on this miserable black trail.

Seojin attuned himself to his footsteps; he had walked five miles today, but he had managed to learn that distance was only relative, relative to belief. Belief could traverse any barrier; faith, he knew, was absolute. The roads of Massachusetts, on the other hand, felt enslaving to him.

A single droplet of sweat caused the entire town to blur and arch in front of him. He brushed his palm over his face, wiping the sweat off his face, which had previously been white but was now tanned and even crimson in some spots from the moon's struts.

It had taken him a lot to get out of the hellhole, and it wasn't really an approbation, but the blast appeared to be a blessing in his case. The brimming fire had pulled out a havoc, the intensity of the blast forcing the three men apart, blazing down the whole lab nonetheless, and his vision had turned white. And it happened right before he could be jabbed into unconsciousness.

He did fall unconscious from bearing down on the blast, but that was still much safer, as Sejin had proved to be a human shield unintentionally, and that didn't prove anywhere near fatal.

So, when the situation imbursed his senses, he had taken the jolt to tread his eyes around the surrounding to find Sejin and Jaden still pretty unconscious, injured but good enough to survive since the fire had died down.

With hunched legs, he had crawled on the floor, desperately searching for any means of escape. The room was dark and dusty, filled with the stench of decay. Months, maybe even years, had been spent in this prison. But today was different. Today, he had found one of the broken ventilations that served as a gateway to the outer world.

He cautiously made his way through the narrow passage, inching forward with each painful step. As he emerged on the other side, a sense of freedom washed over him. This was his chance to leave behind the confinement and despair that had consumed his existence.

Stepping onto the deserted highway, he looked around, realizing that there was not a soul anywhere close. The abandoned cars and empty streets stood as a haunting reminder of a world once filled with life. A silence, heavy and all-encompassing, settled upon the desolate landscape.

He hadn't yet accepted the whole thing that Sejin had thrown at him. Waking up fifty-four years later, him not marrying Ahyun— it all felt blurry. Reiko, Yoshi, everyone was too real to be made up. More than that, it was Ahyun's and Sihee's body that caused a railing havoc to drain his blood out of the body. They looked so lifeless, yet their eyes were shiny and serene, as if at any moment they would speak up and talk to him.

All of it felt so overwhelming to his already drained body that he felt like giving up, falling to his knees, and crying until death would take over. The mere tug of war had no winner; where could he possibly go, and who would be waiting for him in this city? Unspoken words kept clawing at his bare skin, trying to creep out and scream into the void, but he was stronger.

He was unable to think of anything beyond regrets. The regrets pried at the seams of his heart. Why couldn't it have been someone else, why couldn't it have been anyone but him? And for all those miles he had walked until now, they blurred out in the blink of an eye, and the lights tapering around him blanched out as he fell flat on his face; disinterred and gone.