taeils~ (nine_tails) wrote in gyeongsang, @ 2019-06-10 12:55:00 |
|
|||
Daybreak.
A sharp streak of light pierced through the curtains, hitting Taeil right in the eye. He awoke with a start, frozen for a moment as a thousand memories seemed to flood into his mind all at once. It stung. He winced, pressed his palms into his eyes and slowly rested his head back down on his pillow with a groan. His mind throbbed to the beat of his heart, as if he'd been hit with a lead pipe on the head. Had he been out drinking the night before? He was such a terrible lightweight that it would be no surprise at all if he'd forgotten all about it. But no... that wasn't it. There was.... more. So much more.
Flashes of images appeared before him quickly before fading out. Memories of a watch flickering, ticking, going in and out of focus. And a flower garden of tulips and dandelions. His sister. His friends. Screams. Blood. Death. He gasped, gripping at his shirt as if that would stop the beating of his heart from its prestissimo pace. What were these images? They felt so real. Was he reliving his most recent dream, or was this something else? He had memories he never recalled having before, of his friends as monsters of some sort, though simultaneously, he still remembered them as normal as well.
Thoroughly confused and wishing to rid himself of the impending headache he was only too sure would come, he tossed his covers aside and ran straight into the bathroom. Usually, he was a terrible morning person, but on this morning he found himself to be perfectly awake as he splashed some water on his face. It took a moment for the coolness of the water to calm him, but once that happened, something else started to filter into his mind. Were those.... numbers? No... equations. So many equations. Time, Space, Matter, Metaphysics, Chemistry, Biology, Astrophysics. What in the hell? He shook his head, glancing up at himself in the mirror and wondering if he had finally just lost his mind.
Suddenly, all sorts of alarm clocks started going off around his apartment, signaling something he had to do but in that moment, he had no idea what that was... because they didn't actually tell time. Some experiment back at the lab, his mind reminded him, though he couldn't for the life of him understand what that meant. Whatever. He had to get to work, his real work at the radio station. He had to bring Nick his coffee. He had to forget about whatever weird thing was happening right now. And so he went about doing just that, finding some clothes to wear and heading off on his usual routine, despite there being a very different routine in his mind now as well. No, that's not it. Focus, Taeils. Just get to Nick's and everything will be fine.
"Nicky!" he called out as he kicked the door in lieu of knocking, but also just letting himself in as he always did. It was early in the morning, but the sun was already out. Of course, Nicky lived in a basement practically, so it was pretty dark as Taeils tried to navigate Nick's messy apartment. "You haven't woken up yet? Should I just leave you your coffee here?" Normally, he would hear a grunt or some sort of response to that, and Taeils would know what he had to do. But he heard nothing. Moreover, it appeared as if his bed hadn't even been slept in. "Nicky?"
Turning around, Taeil nearly dropped his coffees as he gazed upon a most horrid sight. Was... Was that a... a monster? A stone monster? No.... those had names, didn't they? Gargoyles? Since when did Nicky have a gargoyle in his place? And like.... why? Perhaps to scare people the way he'd scared Taeil just now? Well, that wasn't nice. "Nicky... was is this thing? Where are you?" He looked around for a moment before returning his attention to the gargoyle. Something about it looked.... familiar. And the more Taeil inspected it, the creepier it go until a random thought entered his mind.
He really did drop his coffee this time and it clattered to the floor with an explosive splash as he took several steps away from the gargoyle, mouth gaping and heart racing. "No.... no this isn't.... This isn't real." It couldn't be. It absolutely couldn't be real, because now that he thought about it, that gargoyle was unmistakably Nick. Not just a stone carving of him. It was him, and Taeil couldn't help the way he was now starting to hyperventilate.
For as long as she can remember, Taeun has always had wild, vivid dreams. Nightmares are about as normal as eating omelets for breakfast or wearing white nightgowns to bed. As a child, she would often dream of people dying, or of catastrophes that signal the end of the world. It was so prevalent that her habit of journaling every dream as soon as she woke up led to a job at a national newspaper. She was, perhaps, the only girl in the newsroom who had the guts and the ability to cover major fires and accidents before they even happened.
What she doesn't cover for the newspaper, however, were intentional deaths. Murders, homicides, suicides, and the like made her uneasy, even scared. The idea that a life could be cut short so quickly and so brutally by another being terrified her. Which was why she didn't expect to find herself in the middle of an abandoned warehouse with a decapitated human body, barefooted and still in her white nightgown. She woke up because of a blood-curdling wail and immediately felt her blood rushing in her body, the cold air hitting her skin, her head spinning a little before her toes touched the pool of fresh blood on the cement. "Oh my fucking..." She gasped, stepping away from the disgusting sight before her as fast as possible. "Oh my god."
The next thing Taeun did when her senses came back fully was to call her twin brother. "Taeils, help me." She said, without even saying hello. She was shaking, and tears were falling from her eyes as she heaved for air. "It happened again. I did it again. I-I... I sleep walked and I..." She turned to the body slowly and tried to make out who or what it was. "I don't know what happened b-but there's a... A dead... A body and I..." Every word came out with a staggered breath. Her eyes felt hot with tears but her body felt so, so cold. She could only see because of the light of the moon that showed through the thin windows near the ceiling and the brightness of her phone, which she places habitually in the pocket of her nightgown for times like that. Through the slats of the window overhead she could make out the sounds and shadows of airplanes passing overhead.
"Please come find me, I'm at a warehouse in... Incheon, I think... Somewhere near the airport." It was slowly coming back to her, the senses of a journalist. Despite the fact that she was feeling weak in the knees and nauseated, her adrenaline kept her from completely falling apart. It was fear and adrenaline mixed together that made her realize that it had been happening a lot recently. Hyper realistic dreams of people's deaths and sleep walking. She knew that Taeil was the only person who could figure out what was going on with her.
"Yeobseyo?"
Ah, his sister. The epitome of logic and reason. She was the grounded one, the journalist mind to his creative one. How could twins born only minutes apart think so differently? But it had always been that way. Taeun thrived on real life events and anything that happened in the real world, while Taeil sought out more other worldly things. He liked knowing what made people tick rather than just reporting on what he saw. He liked to dig deep and discover that bit of humanity within a serial killer than no one would ever see, and he would capitalize on that, just to make people feel even a tiny bit sorry for a murderer.
So after the day he was having, it was nice to see his sister's name popping up on his cell phone. Of course... he wasn't actually expecting to hear what she had to say. "You.... what? A.... A body?" Again? Confusion struck him like a knife, but someone else's memory (his own?) produced a slew of other moments when his sister had called him asking for his help. She would walk into things unexpectedly, things where she had no business being. How did he even know that? This day was getting weirder and weirder, and he hadn't even had his coffee yet.
"Okay... calm down. Just... breathe. I'm coming to find you." He flipped his phone around to look at the screen and tap his location app that would direct him to his sister. Luckily, she didn't appear to be that far away from him, though the warehouses were on the more secluded side of town. "Okay, I've got your location. Uhm... how did you even get there anyway? Doesn't that place have a huge fence all around it?" He called himself an Uber that was coming around the corner already and asked him to hurry to the address he'd plugged in.
Then, he lowered his voice as he spoke in the car. "Do you recognize the body? I mean, is it someone important or someone you know? Can you... tell how it died?" Okay so maybe he was just a little too interested in the gory details as he had a one track mine with regards to his writing, but there was something seriously wrong with his sister just showing up to a crime scene like that. Not to mention all the other weird things he had seen lately. He really wished someone would explain things to him and quick before he really lost his mind. "Right here," he said to the driver. "Here's fine, thanks." Before getting out of the car to gaze at a warehouse where his sister apparently was standing in front of a dead body…
"Okay... Okay..." Inhale. Exhale.
Taeun walked slowly, away from the body to find a door, an exit. She could feel the fine dust underneath her feet. She looked down momentarily, wiggling her toes as Taeil continued to question her over the phone. "I-I don't know. I was sleeping and then I heard a really, really loud scream. And then I woke up and I'm here and the body is just... Right there..."
There were splotches of red blood on the tips of her toes but her feet were otherwise clean. She shivered. Taeil's question about how she got into a fenced, closed off warehouse puzzled her too. How the heck did she get in when the only way was through a huge opening on the roof and the slats of the window above her. If she was indeed sleep walking then why did her feet look like she barely got out of bed? "I can't tell who it is it's so dark here and I don't want to touch it it's... Decapitated. Like I think it's missing a fucking head." She tried not to sound too scared. It wasn't the first time she saw a chopped off body anyway. In her dreams and in her job as an investigative journalist, she has seen hundreds of dead people, burnt bodies, decomposing carcasses. She could drink coffee and eat a donut in front of an embalming table on a normal day. But this specific death felt abnormal and creepy. Her involvement wasn't just unwanted it was... A curious case.
"Are you close? I have no idea how to get out I can't find an open door." One thing Taeun wouldn't realize until her brother found her was her own appearance, given the lack of mirrors in the warehouse. She looked wretched. Her straight black hair was a mess, strewn across her face, eyes bloodshot and face looking pale and sallow. Her white dress billowed as the door opened, the gust of wind sending the dust on her feet flying. All she could think about when she saw Taeil was that she needed to stay with him from then on. If she sleepwalks into a crime scene again, someone had to be there to see her and not just rescue but come with her. Because something at the back of her head told her this wouldn't be the last time.
Taeil wasn't great at comforting others, especially when he himself was freaking out. Everything was so confusing to him. His thoughts seemed to be of two separate lives that intersected at certain places but for the most part were completely separate. He could see time like streamers before his eyes, and he'd only just realized this as he was listening to Taeun over the phone. So many possibilities, so many ways out of one situation. It almost made him dizzy. It almost made him want to puke. Was he... really some sort of time traveler? Was this even real life? It felt like a dream, but no matter how many times he pinched himself, it always hurt.
"Okay, okay, just calm down," he replied, looking all around him as the streamers representing different timelines undulated with the movement of his head. He knew how to read these streamers, he realized. He could look through one and see all the way to the end of time if he wanted, which made him gasp and forced butterflies to take flight in his stomach. The end of time? It was something he would have to ponder later. For the moment, he had to figure out a way to get his sister out of there and fast. "I'm here, I'm right outside, just relax. I'll get you out."
He said this even though he couldn't really figure out a way to do that, but somehow he knew that was what he had to say in that moment. Just when he thought all hope was lost and not a single streamer held the right answer for him, he saw a dim streamer almost disappearing from view off to his periphery. He wasn't sure why that streamer was so opaque, but it made him curious. Reaching out for it, he grabbed it and tugged it closer. To the non-supernatural eye, it would appear as if he was just grabbing invisible things out of thin air, but Taeil could see the future through this streamer. And it held all the answers he needed to help his sister.
Stepping out of the car, he held his breath and walked toward the entrance, looking up at the tall fence that encircled the property. It was impossible to climb and he didn't have the right tools on him to cut through it. So, he needed the next best thing.... luck. Just as he saw in the streamer of time, he walked toward the gate where a set of keys were conveniently placed inside the lock already. All he had to do was turn it and the lock would click. And so he did, just as he'd seen in his vision of the future. "Wah... so weird..." He pushed open the fence and ran toward the warehouse, noting that Taeun's observations were true. There didn't appear to be an entrance, and his frail, skinny self could hardly break through the walls. Instead, he turned back to his vision of the future for the answer to this too.
"Sis... run your hands along the walls. Find a section that feels different from the rest. And when you get there, pound on it really hard so I can find you. Got it?"
"O-Okay..." Taeun wanted to believe that her disposition was the only reason she couldn't think straight. She could've pounded the walls sooner, could have tried to call for help. Then again not a lot of people resided near the area she was in. Otherwise the killers would not have dumped a dead body in there. So she did as she was told, putting her phone on speaker mode and placing it inside her gown's pocket before helplessly groping walls for something. Anything.
"Taeils... I-I... I can't... I can't feel anything." She said, panic rising. She ran her hands against the concrete around her, hoping for something. Anything. "Ugh, this is fucking... Hold on. Bro I'm gonna try to use my phone's LED light. Keep an ear out for me."
Taeun, thankful that the haze and sleep are finally clearing up from her mind, fished for her phone and ended the call. Her battery is at 20%. "Fuck!" She prayed her phone would last until she's out. She opened the torch and hoped for the best, opening her eyes as much as she could. It seemed that she was at the far end of the building. It was huge. Bigger than how she saw it in her head, in the dark.
As she walked barefoot she tried to remember her dream. The building had been in there somewhere but she saw it from above, not from below as Taeil had. In her dream the massive garage door of the concrete and metal warehouse was way upfront. It wasn't facing the gate, which was why Taeil probably couldn't find her.
She walked straight, feet shuffling faster as the memory flashed back before her eyes. Taeil was in her dream. She saw him going through the fence with a key. Saw him looking at a certain direction because of an explosion. The death came back too, in horrible snippets that made her heart race and motivated her to run. 10%. She dialed Taeil's number again, certain now. "Taeils? My phone is dying but I remember it now. My dream? It's to your left, you're at the side of the building. I'm running to the front now and I..." The stench of blood faded away but in her head there were clear pictures of the body being slaughtered. She didn't know the person but she could remember an alias and the face. She also remembered parts of her involvement. Her room. Her window. Her feet. The night breeze and the moon. "I remember now... How I got here. Taeils I... I flew..."
The call got cut off and her phone ultimately died. But from where she was she could see the outline of the door. She rushed to it and tried to push upwards but the door won't give. So she pounded against stainless steel, mind spinning because of all the new information. "Taeil! Taeil I'm here!" The banging went along with more gory details that made her sob. The body was headless, indeed. Her dream revealed that the head was lost somewhere in the woods. It was of a hunter who went by name Black Boar. But his remains were transferred here so he could be found once the carcass decomposes to serve as a warning not just to fellow hunters but to supernatural creatures as well. Those like Black Boar who secretly protected supernaturals, will be in danger. The killers, she now realized, were dressed in all black. Were knowledgeable and skilled. There was a symbol on their back and the image sent a wave of unexplainable panic that made tears spring from Taeun's eyes as she pounded the door. "Help! Someone please help me!" She cried.
Her cries grew louder until it turned into a wail and the wailing reverberated against the door and the floor. The walls shook and everything started going fuzzy... hazy. Taeun dropped to the floor as her screams escaped her and it was so loud. So loud that it paralyzed her. She didn't even hear or feel the door explode until it was over. It was when she realized that the sounds she woke up to... That was her. And she was in danger too.
Taeil's head was still so foggy. His two lives colliding and separating violently before his eyes. He could see Time and everything in between, but none of it meant anything if his sister was in danger. In this and in any lifetime, he would always care about his sister. They were twins but moreover, they were each others first friends. Taeil couldn't remember in which world it was, but he remembered growing up shy and peculiar. Perhaps this was true of both worlds even. It was his sister who was always there for him. He found strength to be whomever and whatever he was because of her, and he wasn't about to let her down now.
"Taeun!" Her phone kept cutting in and out, and his anxiety was skyrocketing to insane heights. Some part of him was trying to assimilate this new (old?) world, while the other was trying to figure out how to use these powers he had here in order to help his sister. Unlike in the world he'd just been, he felt more powerful here (once he allowed himself to think more clearly). He knew he could do so many things, but the details of it all were still foggy. Something about notebooks... something about... a muse. Why couldn't he remember? Or why did he think he had forgotten?
Still terribly confused and believing the life he had just lived was his real one (was it?), he struggled to push past it all as he tried to get back in contact with his sister. Finally, their phones reconnected again, and before he could answer he was already hearing Taeun's panicked voice. "Where?! Taeun!" His ears prickled as he caught a sound that seemed almost just out of his range. "Is that.... Is that you?" He ran around to the other side, kicking up dust and sand as he went. Some version of him would have coughed and probably not been able to run the rest of the way as a result, but this version of him was used to adventure, it seemed. Or at least his heart was.
"Keep pounding! I think I hear-- Taeun...? Taeun?" His eyes went wide as some part of him already knew somehow what was about to happen. Unconsciously taking a few steps back, he gasped as the whole door and part of the wall blew off and fell out the other side. How he had known that was going to happen, he couldn't say. Even catching a glimpse of it in his time stream didn't make him realize that the reason the door blew off was his very own sister. Or did he? "Sis!" Without a second thought, he climbed in through the rubble and found his sister on the other side, reaching her in an instant. "Sis? Sis, we gotta go. Come on... I'll call us an Uber." Oh, if he could only teleport....
Growing up it had always been Taeil that grounded her. He was the one who woke her up, locked the doors and the windows when Taeun started sleepwalking. He would shake her out of her nightmares, and soothe her with words. He had been there to prove she wasn't insane, and had been the force that made her want to stay sane. The hands that reached her as she started gravitating off the ground were the same hands that held hers through the years. Pulling her back. Keeping her in the now. So although she felt woozy as her feet landed on the floor, her knees buckling under her, she felt assured. Taeil was there and that was all that mattered.
Funnily enough, Taeil was the one who habitually skipped through time. She used to hate that she seemed to have gotten the short end of the stick, inheriting powers from her grandmother instead of her parents. But with the way Taeil looked lost and terrified as Taeun came back to her senses, she knew something was amiss. She took deep breaths and stood up, holding on to Taeil as they wobbled out of the warehouse. The word Uber and the wild look in his eyes somehow shook her out of her reverie. "Uber? I... O-okay..." She stared at her brother, trying to remember when she last saw him. There was no doubt that the reason they were both waiting for a car instead of teleporting was because he just came back from time traveling again. And at that moment, she didn't feel envious of him at all.
"Taeil?" She said, in the dull silence that accompanied their wait. "I missed you..."
Though he couldn't remember growing up in this world as Taeun could at the moment, he did still remember growing up with Taeun in the alternate universe he'd just come from. Maybe he wasn't a time traveler (or whatever he was) nor could he see the strands of time in that world, but he had grown up to be very close to his sister. They were still polar opposites in that world, only he was the weak one with Taeun always looking out for him then too. It only felt right that he be here by her side when she needed him. Whether he remembered this world or not didn't matter. She was his sister, she would always be no matter what. And he was going to do anything and everything to help her and keep her safe.
Holding her in his arms, he tried to maneuver around her while taking his phone out to hail another Uber over. It surprised him just how strong and agile he was that he could do all of this while still holding his sister up, but some of that was coming back to him too. "It's okay. It should be close," he reassured her, draping her arm over his shoulder to be able to support her better. It was only her comment that made him blink over at her in confusion. He'd been gone? Yes... yes, he'd been gone. But for how long? Had he... meant to leave? He knew he hadn't meant to leave the other world, but were things in this world just crazy that he wanted out? How did he manage to get here if he was powerless in the other world?
"I... I missed you too." He didn't know what else to say, but he wanted to put her at ease in that moment. "Are you okay?" Luckily, the Uber pulled up right away, and he was able to get her inside without much hassle. Still, his mind hummed with everything that had happened today, trying to sort it all out but finding it impossible. "I'm.... I'm sorry but I'm really confused right now. I feel like I have two sets of memories in my head right now. Two lives lived. Am I.... Am I going crazy?"