He’ll always remember seeing her for the first time, on their planet other than this one, amongst the streets of a city ready to collapse. He remembers her standing somewhere in between the commotion, besides fallen buildings and bodies with no names. And speaking of names, he remembers hers, because his mother had knifed it into every conversation, etching hers into his skin while hiding him from the rest.
“Remember her name, because she’ll be the only way you’ll live. Remember her name, because she’s your only last chance of survival.” He’s only five when he learns how important names are, especially in the form of numbers. “Remember her name because she’s now your salvation, Three.”
Her name is Four, and it is the only name that’s ever been important, even if forgetting his own.
On this planet, he’s Juwon and she’s Miyoung – and as heavy as names are, these names mean nothing, as much as the facade he pulls on as she wakes from her bad dream. His face folds, serious and into one that seems to care – perhaps his hands carry front stage as the main, in the way they hold her trembles and pretend to carry them in his own palms. His eyes look at her like she’s the only thing he wants to protect, and this bit is the only truth among it all. She is his last salvation, and the world is no longer quiet: the monsters no longer kept out from rooms and just existing in dreamscapes.
“Miyoung, it’s a dream.” His fingers glide through her matted hair, gaze holding her as if she’s the most precious thing he’ll know.
The room is quiet, but there’s enough white noise buzzing around them: the two clocks on opposing walls, the dripping faucet in the kitchen, and the television showing a documentary they hadn’t bothered to turn off.
“It’s just a dream, as it always is.” He speaks to cut through the room, making his presence known. “You’re safe here with me, remember? You’re safe as long as I’m around. I won’t let anything get to you. I wouldn’t dare let anything touch a single hair of you.
You know that.” He finishes with a smile. It’s too tender, and if Miyoung’s observant enough, she’ll see through it.
See through the way how he speaks to himself only through her; how his conversations are always to himself.
“You’re safe here. Don’t ever forget that.”
between four and three there lies one whole number, two halves of a heart and a thousand unasked questions: unasked by four for her fear of death and her love of life, and unanswered by three for reasons four cannot yet fathom and reasons that always, always make her wary. both, nevertheless, flutter and skirt around them.
on another day, at another hour, four would approach three in a half-hesitant way with the words to two sitting at the tip of her tongue, always almost ready to sink into the spaces between them and the spaces between his skin and bones, and ask him:
why did you help me? why were you in cairo?
but she never does, so he never answers. and he never speaks of it, so she remains wary.
she gasps when she feels fingers carding through her hair, when she hears someone speaking in soft, kind, tender ways she can’t explain. all she can grasp is how warm he sounds and how his voice, peach-sweet, fills the room.
it brings her back to earth-616’s cairo, memories of the scorching city and her brother’s burning corpse. she remembers in vivid detail how the sentinels robbed her family of yet another life.
she remembers how her world stilled when the sentinel pulled the trigger for the first time and how her brother fell to his knees some five seconds after the bullet tore through his right thigh. at the second shot, he did not collapse, but climbed with a desperate slowness to his feet (desperate to escape, desperate to fly, desperate to live) and stood upright weakly, with his legs quivering like earthquakes and his wings stirring storms that shattered even the steel walls holding her heart together, attempting in vain to take flight again. she remember the first round of shots, and how the sentinels rendered his wings useless and broke his spine and left him crumpled on the ground in a pool of his own blood.
she remembers how he died, slowly and in great, great agony, but in some world entirely remote from hers, where not even bullets could impact him further. miyoung clenches her fist, and continues to re-live this reality. she remembers seeing her brother lying in his ever-growing scarlet sea of suffering, unable to move and yet unable to die. she tries to forget the sentinels’ cruel and jarring laughter as they poured shot after shot into his heart. each shot seemed to do no damage, for her brother’s tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.
but just like a clock, nine went out with time.
she remembers how close she was to ripping the sentinel closest to her apart, had juwon-
her memory dies, and she gasps herself awake from this dreamscape to find him beside her, coaxing her. his body is warm, solid, alive, and too many other things she doesn’t want to think about. too many things she wishes nine still was, too many things she’d sacrifice her saviour for in a second if it meant bringing nine back.
“im…” she breathes in despair, “…you’re still here,” and exhales tragedy.
titsay
kaledo-art
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
