Warning: There may be a few graphic scenes involved.

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"I had a sad dream with you in my arms."

- SAVIOR (이하이)

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Like I said, I'm still repulsive about their notion to skedaddle outside. It isn't really much benefit, if you ponder about it. Living in sempiternal trepidation, having blood pressures shooting up with just a glance of the black clothes... That isn't the sort of ideal life that the humans yearn for. And I know that.

This is, however, the acme of how much I can nudge my nose into their matters. Not that I have a nose, but just for the sake of a likely metaphor... I might as well make a use of that.

I watched Fores, with her eyes shut close, her eyebrows crashing down every once in a while coupled with the slight jerking of her head. She had clearly been hit with a shot of the memory that she'd tucked away so professionally.

Waking up in cold sweat, the green hues of her irises shook as she took in her surroundings. A wave of relief washed over her as she recovered from the ordeal. Her palms immediately went to her temple, rubbing small, yet rigid circles there to relieve her from the blues.

"You're awake?"

I heard the shuffling of feet and Taylor had appeared with her hand clutching a small wet cloth. She pressed it against Fores' forehead, ready to look for any signs of weaknesses. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked.

"I guess so."

Taylor kept up with her habitual solicitude. "Good thing Taehong carried you back here. You look so pale," she remarked, brushing the stray strands of Fores' hair away from her face. "Want anything to eat, Fores?"

"Not right now." Her answers were curt, like they had been cut short. She really didn't want to expend the energy that she had left. There were just ounces of it, though. She was close to losing all of it in the next few seconds.

Just as she was about to close her eyes for a moment to reel herself back to her former vigour, she felt a heat radiating through her palm.

"You good?" he asked. Taehong, I mean. "You feeling okay?"

She nodded, slightly. She had to keep away from any sort of travail.

"This is why I told you not to venture outside. It's so much better in here, Fores." Taylor was desperate enough to pull out the protective card. She'd been holding back for so long. And just as she'd said that, she rubbed her child's back in soothing circles.

"B-But..."

"Shh. I don't want to hear anything right now." Her voice was obdurate and she wasn't willing to hear any opinion different from hers then.

I sighed. If only I could've watched over Fores back when I'd collected her father. Would things have turned out so desperate for her? Would it have been the retelling of a dolorous tale?

"I want to go, mom," Fores whispered. "I still do. Really."

"Fores..."

"I know you're worried, mom. But there's something I'd promised my father." Her eyes were indicative of the fact that she'd been talking about the father she'd lost to the ruthless hands. "Please," she whispered, the final ounces of strength ebbing away, slowly.

"We'll think about that later. Right now, you need to eat something." Taylor rushed away from her side, her feet shuffling as she made her way to the kitchen.

Taehong wrapped his bony digits around Fores' forearm, steadying her. Being her support in whatever way she'd required. "Why are you being so stubborn, Fores? There's a lot of them and one of you. If I come along, then just two of us. They're... Prepotent."

"Stubborn, Tae?" She scoffed in stupefaction. "I'm merely keeping my promise. Besides, you do know that something has to happen for them to think about all the shit that they've done."

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She had been doing nothing for the whole while she was there. Nothing. Nothing at all. Her eyes were open, her lips weren't sealed shut. There were so many things she could do. But she just couldn't. She stiffened up. She had failed.

It was the same old ordeal she dealt with, on a daily basis. I watched Fores open her eyes, her pupils blown in the darkness that she had been sheathed in. Her face so crumpled she couldn't form coherent expressions.

"Where am I?" she whispered to herself, her hands blindly tapping at the ground beneath her. "I'm back to where I always revert back, aren't I?"

Fores prised herself to a standing position, still staggering with the lack of strength in her lower limbs. Her hands wrapped around her torso, her feet thrusted forward so that she could navigate in the Stygian locality. She seemed blinded, but yet so used to such a feeling. A lot experience, she must've had, I guess.

A sudden scintillation, and her eyes had screwed shut. In those lights, her retinas lit up like a thousand fireflies and all she'd seen was white. Sometimes, overbearing light could be so similar to the dark, I presume.

"This has not happened before," she whispered again. Her palms were securing her eyes from the beam that could potentially blind her. "W-What's happening?"

All of a sudden, the lights dimmed. A gloomy air surrounded her. The sparkle of the powerful beam had dies down, and she let her arms fall to her sides.

"D-Dad?"

Staggering, her steps pulled her back. She almost fell to the ground, as she dragged her feet far away from the shadow of the crouched man.

"Fores. It's me," the man said. His voice had a magnetic core, something that ignited the deepest corners of Fores' withered mind. Soul, rather. "It's me," he reiterated.

A small smile played at the corner of her lips and her vigor had been restored. She'd craved to see a glimpse of him during one of these expeditions. Not expeditions... Dreams, rather.

She took deliberate steps towards the man she recognized as her father. "Dad," she uttered, her footsteps gaining speed and becoming more nimble.

Once she'd reached in front of the crouched man, she let out her hands. She could feel her eyesight become blurry on account of all the tears that had accumulated in her eyes, not one drop of it making an attempt to dissipate.

When the man, slowly but surely, turned his head up to face Fores, she'd known she'd made a mistake. An egregious blunder.

"You're... You're not my dad," she mumbled, taking unsteady steps as she backed away from the man, who was then stretching to his full height.

Taller than an average man, he was lanky, bony with the least bit of flesh surrounding his bones. Perhaps, it had only been his skin shrouding the bones.

"But I am, Fores." He tried convincing her. "Look at me."

"No!" she screamed. It had surpassed what she could bear. What she could handle. "No!"

Her loud ringing tone made the man wince in repugnance. "Believe me, Fores." He was still keeping up his act. Anyone who'd seen her father would know that the man impersonating him was just... A hoax.

His hands reached forward, his digits resembling mere twigs of a tree.

"Get away from me," Fores cried. She was practically bawling her eyes out, the bloodshot hues accentuating the green tints within. "Leave me alone!"

But he didn't stop. His grip on Fores was stronger than what a twig would be capable of. The digits pierced into her skin and wrapped around her wrist like a shroud covering the dead. The blood oozed out of the pores; it had made like a meandering river.

In the darkness, there was no perception of where it's finger ended and where Fores' skin started. The blood didn't gush in a constant flow, but in time with the beating of her heart. At first it came thick and strong, flowing through its fingers as they clasped the ripped flesh. She felt the blood move over the foreign twigs, the thick fluid no warmer or cooler than her own skin.

Her tears lit the furnace of her soul alive. They were cascading down her cheeks expeditiously, not waiting for the previous one to dry up.

Her words didn't seem coherent anymore. She blabbered. She ran her mouth. To no avail, though.

The warped withe stood up taller, its back straightening as it strengthened his grip on her. She was losing blood, in record time. Her eyes lost the vigor they once had. The hues of nature painted onto her irises became dull and bland.

"It's because you didn't believe me," it said.

There was nothing Fores could respond with. She was losing all her feelings. Losing all the feelings in her limbs. When Fores had imagined fainting it was with delicate femininity; reality was different. She felt sick and then went down like a sack of onions, hitting her face on the murky floor.

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She screamed. Loud and clear. Her eyes shut close and a warmth seeped through her body. She felt arms being wrapped around her shoulders, and she tries to pry them off in the memory of the appalling man. But there was comfort in them, the feeling of home.

"It's okay, Fores. You're okay." Taylor was right beside her when she needed her. And that was all that mattered. "You're okay."

Minutes later, it was simple sobbing. Her cries had died down. Fores was ready to leave her nightmarish illusion for good. But she knew it would come back. Because it always did. It always came back, starting from when she'd lost everything.

'I need to end this.'

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"When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried along with him."

- Madeline Miller

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