Finding You

CHAPTER 19

A young girl, around six or seven years of age, was wandering aimlessly in the auditorium as she bawled her eyes out, pulling at her pigtails in frustration. She ducked and stood on tiptoe as she desperately tried to search for someone, making her way to the middle of the large room until she bumped into a slender woman in a sleek black suit.

"I'm sorry, miss," the child apologized in between hiccups. "I was looking for my mom."

Hyo Jin tilted her head down and made an effort to give the girl a half-smile. Nonetheless, in spite of her kind gesture, the child still seemed to be scared for some reason and hurriedly walked away after giving her a quick bow.

"Please do not frighten the kids away," Eon Jin mockingly scolded as she approached Hyo Jin from behind, coming to a stop to stand beside her at the left wing of the chamber. "It's time for their school festival - not the ghost month - for crying out loud."

"It is their instincts, I guess," Hyo Jin sighed. "They can sense danger even if they can't put a finger on it."

Eon Jin crossed her arms and asked, "What are we doing here anyway?"

Hyo Jin did not answer; instead, she pointed towards the stage with her pouted lips.

At the center and under the bright lights stood the god of Death who was eyeing them with the customary arrogance of an immortal, his button nose in the air and his small mouth forming into a scowl. Even as he was in the tiny body of an eight year-old, Death's mere presence exuded an air of menace that made the hair on the backs of the two women's necks stand up.

"That lofty child," Eon Jin snorted to diffuse the dread that loomed between them. "He always required an audience."

As soon as the soft, sporadic welcome applause subsided, the deity approached the lone microphone and began his storytelling.

"Out of nothing, the all-knowing and all-powerful god created a boundless realm," Death said in the feeble voice of the young boy. "The god created everything in it in his likeness and for a period of time, everything was beautiful. However, his creation became stagnant in the long run. There was no movement: things were neither progressing nor regressing."

"The god contemplated for a very long time, trying to find a reason for his failure. He engaged in a series of trial and error to no avail as his creation remained inactive and dull. And then, he realized that for an inert environment to come to life, there should be a catalyst of change."

"He then created man, a living subordinate who will set things to motion under his command," he continued. "Man's birth proved to be a good decision since the realm started to thrive from thereon. The god basked in his success and became complacent until another problem emerged. Man became stagnant like the realm the god molded into existence as he knew nothing but follow the latter's orders like a marionette on a string whose every movement lied on the hands of its puppeteer."

"The god had to come up with a way to solve this problem, as even in being all-knowing and all-powerful, he was not omnipresent. He cannot make man function from wherever he was at all times."

"'What to do, what to do?' he thought to himself."

"Finally, the god decided to give a vital piece of his being to his first living creation: he gave man anima - in layman's term, a soul."

"In the end, the foundation of reality has its laws, and that law requires order," Death narrated, his voice taking a more serious tone. "Hence, the god made a decision to rip himself into multiple entities, enough to oversee all aspects of his creations, consequentially resolving his dilemma of being at all places at the same time."