S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
HAN YUHWA // TWENTY-TWO
OFFICE WORKER
LOADING PASSENGER INFO G3981...
they wanted a big family, her parents. instead they waste away, single and child-less, for the better part of their lives. han yuhwa is a mistake, to some degree, a small blimp in their carefully thought out lives. but they are believers in fate, worshippers of destiny and han yuhwa is their little, happy mistake.
but there’s no space for them on earth, yuhwa finds that she wants everything that is out of her reach. there is nothing left on this greying, decaying planet for her to lay her claim to. every chance she gets slips through her hands, robbed by girls with pretty pink lips, tighter bodies, and daddies with just enough connections. she burns, smiles, boils, and curses her rotten luck.
she laughs, drunk on wine bought with someone else’s money. i was a noble, in another life. i was set to marry a would-be king. non sense drips from her lips, bitter in her mouth because that isn’t the way things would go even in her own fantasies. han yuhwa knows, that even in her past life, she would have been delegated to simply being one of many of the would-be king’s concubines. yuhwa reaches for another glass, and another. she stumbles when she walks, she returns home to her waiting parents.
her mom and dad tell yuhwa, a fresh faced adult with more questions than answers on the eve of her twentieth birthday, that they’ve been saving up. she holds her mother in one hand and her father in the other from across the table. it starts like a fairy-tale, a long winded recollection of memories on the verge of being forgotten. it continues as affirmations of their trust in her, their admiration of her determination. it ends with an offering: a chance to leave a planet on the verge of death and begin anew.
she weighs the slip of paper in one hand, presses it against her cheek. a chance to start anew. and for as much as she had disregarded her parents, she trembles at the thought of waking up alone. it’s simple, yuhwa thinks, she curls into herself and cries.
the day she is set to leave restlessness radiates off of her, yuhwa forces smiles and shrinks under tight hugs given by extended family she could not care less about. but her mother holds her hand, presses her lips to yuhwa’s smooth cheek and cries. yuhwa will cry, too, later and in the comfort of the luxury of a gold ticket room. later she will catch a glimpse of the earth’s ever retreating form before they pull the blinds down, and feel her chest constrict with a feeling she is not familiar with ( this is yuhwa’s first, of many, encounters with pure, unadulterated fear ).
her parents will die twenty years into her seemingly never ending voyage. they will succumb to their exhaustion, and pray something will become of their only daughter han yuhwa. their only daughter stirs in her sleep for just a moment, their existence only an after thought in even her dreams.
she holds hands with a boy she’s been on five dates with, he squeezes tighter and she smiles. i want to get to know the real han yuhwa, he breathes against her cheek. she pushes him away (playfully), laughs behind the palm of her hand (bitterly), and looks up at him through her eyelashes (coyly). this is as real as she gets, she whispers back.
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
LEE HYEMI // TWENTY-FIVE
TATTOO ARTIST
LOADING PASSENGER INFO P1829...
Hyemi’s adoptive family took her in around the age of 7. Anything before that isn’t exactly clear in her mind, most likely due to disassociation– something Hyemi has accepted for what she assumes is the better alternative. Yet, at the age of 15, the father left her mother and little sister behind, forever instilling feelings of doubt towards others. In actuality, Hyemi would like to believe in the good of people, which is why she does take conscious effort to do small things for others. She displays her care for others in small actions, having always been observant to others’ desires. But, to the same degree, she’s taken care to not let other know of what she does. Her personality can easily be described as likable or unlikable. Lukewarm feelings towards her are entirely misplaced. Often, the types of jokes she makes are followed by a pause and then laughter once people process what she’s said.
Hyemi came to the Avalon in an attempt to forget the Earth behind her. Once the one thing anchoring her to the planet was killed, she felt no need to stay any longer. With the money earned from her established years as a premier tattoo artist, she left wordlessly– only a short letter to explain to her mother and little sister that she was fine. Of course, this isn’t unexpected her for her. Hyemi has always been callous, blunt in how she speaks and always calm. Despite knowing the pain her mother and sister would feel, she felt no remorse considering her lack of true connection to them in the first place.
Very few things have been able to shake her, and it’s deprived her of learning how to cope with tragedy. Her only solution was to leave. Completely leave. What’s left for her here? Her mother said “come home”, but, with her gaze held towards the clouds, she only listened to the stars telling her the same thing.
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
JUNG JOONYOUNG // TWENTY-EIGHT
MUSICIAN
LOADING PASSENGER INFO P2317...
“February 21, 2950; a star was born.”
Quotations included because Joonyoung has, on multiple occasions, allowed those words to slip off his very own silver tongue.
It seemed Joonyoung was born to raise hell. From the moment he could crawl, he was off like a rocket and getting into more trouble than seemed humanly possible. Not one to let anything get him down or to let anyone hold him back, Joonyoung stampeded through youth, determined; aspiring to greatness. His journey toward celebrity was rocky for a very inconvenient reason; he was ugly as sin. There’s no sugar-coating it. He was an unpleasant looking child and his personality was no help.
Joonyoung didn’t care what anyone thought of him; he wasn’t going to fail. As nice as getting by on his looks would’ve been, he instead had to resort to actually finding a talent. It came in the form of a guitar. He practiced until his fingers bled and managed to get songwriting down to a science; schoolwork be damned. It seemed Lady Luck herself smiled upon him when puberty arrived. Along with model proportions and a face that anyone’s mother could love, his voice dropped to a rich baritone that was perfect for crooning out the rock anthems and ballads he could churn out like a jukebox.
Joonyoung was already a sensation by the time he managed (barely) to graduate from school. Thanks to social media, his fan base was monstrous and for the next ten years, he partied and loved and rocked his heart out.
New Years Eve, 2977 - Joonyoung was still at the top but the floor dropped out from beneath him, seemingly all at once. Not only did he nearly die from a drug overdose, when he woke in the hospital recovery room, a girl he’d hooked up with a few months earlier was there waiting with his parents and a positive pregnancy test. His parents pleaded with him to stop his rock star lifestyle. He was getting older; it was time to settle down and this was the perfect opportunity to step out of the limelight…become a husband, a father…a has been.
Joonyoung agreed and it kept the scandals from breaking to the public.
It was a very, very long six weeks until he could board the AVN 063. He didn’t tell a single soul about his departure; all the people who supposedly loved him could rot. Force him to settle down? Force him to give up the life he loved? No fame? No fortune? No glory? No, thanks.
His parents were afraid he wouldn’t live to see thirty. Well, he’d certainly show them when he woke up a fresh, bright-eyed 228-year-old ready to rock Homestead II like it had never been rocked before.
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
SONG YONGSUN // TWENTY-SEVEN
OWNER OF UNYQ
LOADING PASSENGER INFO P1507...
Background: As a child Yongsun always had a strong interest in all things mechanical, from bionic organs to the latest technologies though that didn’t fully kick in until his early teens when a horrible accident left him crippled with a grim outlook. In order to lead a normal life once more he’d need assistance from the very thing he’d always adored. His family could do nothing to convince the then teen otherwise, ultimately giving up while awaiting the outcome of such invasive surgery on someone so young.
As he worked to get the prosthetic that had become his left arm, a bionic eye to replace the one he’d lost, and the foot of his right leg to work fully, his mind filled with countless ideas for the future that could aid others in similar positions as himself. A limited option of color and size, his prosthetics were meant more for adults rather than his younger frame. It took years to regain a normal way of life but he’d done it, by then his self-owned business was up and running with such a good outlook that he could use high-end technology to blend the robotic parts of his body into his own skin, only scars hinting at past injury.He had many that worked for him across the country at this point in his life, able to retire anytime he’d wish to though he refused.
Seeing a grand future on Homestead II he uses a large chunk of finances to fund going, bidding his family a very fond “see you soon” as they’d been booked for the travel after his. With a gummy smile spread across his lips Yongsun steps onto the ship, ready for a space adventure he never thought possible as a child. The thought of leaving the planet he’d lived on gives a shiver of terror up his spine though he does place trust in the crew, the knowledge that others have made it giving some comfort.
Personality: Yongsun is a very sweet, uplifting person with a bright smile and the longing to give those around him joy. Not a single mean bone resides in the man’s body, his focus primarily optimistic even in the face of terror, though admittedly if it involves certain phobia he will run to the comfort of a small Tigger plushie. Due to the accident from his childhood Yongsun suffers from severe anxiety and as such is prone to panic attacks, ptsd also there though much less common to be seen by others as the trigger is very specific.
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
HEO JIEUN // TWENTY-EIGHT
DAUGHTER OF HEO ENTERTAINMENT
LOADING PASSENGER INFO P1941...
– personality
She’s kind and thoughtful, always with her head in the clouds. Her feet were never on the ground, even on Earth. She thinks nothing of money, content with her own little worldly treasures – movies, books, her writing utensils (both pencil and laptop) – and so she spends it on those she comes to care for. She’s blunt, but never means to cause harm to anyone, and if she knows she’s hurt you, she’ll want to make it up to you. Don’t think of her as just some loony with her thoughts scattered far and wide, though, she’s quite smart and she’s teasing and full of mischief. Her clumsiness is quite a downfall and it’s why she was never as good at modeling as her sister, but she has a beauty about her that’s natural – not manmade by make-ups and perfumes. She is Heo Jieun, simple yet complicated.
– bio (trigger warning: car crash ; death/mercy death ; illness)
i. somniate [to dream]
Late February brings a light in the form of two cherub-faced baby girls, both with full heads of hair and powerful lungs. Jieun and Jihye grow up side by side, never leaving one another for anything other than asked for personal space – and even then it’s rare. Their mother and father love them both and dote on them and they take them to beautiful cities, places most would only dream of going. Jieun develops a love of fantasy, things people can only describe on paper, with a pen, or typed on a computer while Jihye gets lost in the stars.
Together, they imagine whole scenarios and stories – of people they know, people they want to meet, people they know could never exist. Their parents let them have that, let them enjoy their time as children – playing and laughing, throwing the occasional tantrum when they don’t get their way. And they’re so in-sync, just as some twins are.
Their childhood is full of love, and laughter, and dreams never-ending.
ii. traümerei [daydreaming]
All dreams must end, however, and by the time they’re ten, their father has them in the limelight. They become their parents’ label’s first children models. First it’s school uniforms, then it’s pillows and pajamas. At some point, singing is added and they’re learning music. The cameras never stop, but neither does Jieun and Jihye’s love of fantasy. They still love their parents and do what their father and mother ask of them – after all, isn’t it a dream to appear on television and in magazines? Most little girls don’t get that.
At fifteen, their lives are already too much for them. They’re talked about constantly, they’re harassed for autographs, and pushed and shoved for attention. They never let go of each other’s hands, and they let their parents handle the media. Charges are filed, and they continue on.
Jieun is more adept at singing than modeling (even though she’d rather be writing), and so they’re split sometimes and Jieun will sing while Jihye watches her, cheering her on happily. But Jieun sees the sadness in Jihye’s eyes – everyone talks and what they say is harsh.
(Not good enough, no talent, just use her face and nothing more.)
And Jieun holds her sister at night when she cries and cries, the sun rising up on them and then they’re at it again. Jieun copes by writing her stories, sometimes getting them published – sometimes her stories are just for her and her sister.
Jieun doesn’t allow them to use her name on the soundtracks ever – she always signs Jihye’s name then. She gives her sister the credit for her voice, and she lets her sister be praised at galas and parties their parents take them to. Jieun’s father isn’t happy, but he doesn’t press the issue after Jieun threatens to stop singing altogether.
Eighteen comes and both sisters decide to travel together, with their parents’ permission, and they head to an unpronounceable place and get lost in the culture and the city for two weeks. They experience a life they’d only dreamed of – total freedom. They love their parents, but they can’t say no to them. Jieun can’t anyways, and Jihye doesn’t leave her sister ever.
When they return, they go back to their modeling and singing, keeping their parents’ happy, but always dreaming together. Their getaways become annual, and then it’s twice a year they disappear for a few weeks at a time. Always, always, together.
iii. oneirodynia [nightmare]
Just like dreams, a sense of ‘always’ and ‘togetherness’ has to draw to a close.
It starts slowly – Jihye unable to keep up with photo shoots, unable to rest. She’s not eating right and weight drops right off of her. Everyone thinks it’s depression, but they don’t see that she’s trying. Jieun does. She knows her sister as well as she knows herself, and they go together to the doctor. Examination, after examination, nothing is found, but Jieun pushes – begging and pleading with them to make her sister better.
Two weeks after their twenty-fifth birthday, Jihye gets a call. Jieun eavesdrops, holds her sister’s hand as the doctors tell her there’s something wrong. Something inside of her, and neither of them can pronounce it and they don’t care to. Jihye is sick with a disease – one that should’ve been caught at birth, but wasn’t. They’re both scared.
With no cure and few treatments, Jihye’s on her deathbed at twenty-six, hooked up to machines to help her in breathing and eating. And Jieun mourns for her sister, lies in bed with her to keep her company. Together, in those last few days, they watch the news and Jieun offers Jihye the ideas of them leaving together on Avalon, sleeping for two hundred years together and waking to medical knowledge that could save her.
Jihye knows she won’t make it. But Jieun still could, so when Jieun slips out to get something to eat, Jihye records a message on her phone, and programs her personal android to pull her life support plug for her.
When Jieun returns, her sister is gone. She doesn’t fight it, she doesn’t ask for her sister to be brought back because he knows she suffered in the last few months. Jieun suffers most afterwards, no more singing, no more modeling. She doesn’t come out of her and her sister’s shared room unless it’s a necessity.
iv. oneirocosm [a dream place]
On the morning that should be Jieun and Jihye’s bi-annual trip, Jieun slips out of bed, gets dressed, and heads out. Recklessly, she hasn’t eaten much in days, and she’s weak, too tired to be behind the wheel of a car. She crashes just two miles from her parents’ mansion and is rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
A punctured lung and fractured face are easily fixed, though there are scars. Her parents want them fixed, but Jieun doesn’t. She opts to keep her scars, to let them heal naturally and if they’re still visible years later, then that will be a story to tell the people she loves. She wears them with pride, even when people no longer compliment her on her beauty.
Like this, two years slip by; Jieun copes without her sister, she stops modeling, and she doesn’t sing anymore because her sister isn’t around to take the credit and receive all the love she deserves. She presses her nose into her laptop and she writes – sometimes about her sister, sometimes about worlds upon worlds that people could only ever dream of. In them, her characters experience tragedy, but they get through it – they live, and are happy. There’s the occasional bittersweet ending – Jihye would like them, she was the more realistic of them. Jieun dedicates those to her sister.
Just weeks before Avalon is set to launch, Jieun convinces her parents to let her go. She knows she’s their only child now, but she has dreams to achieve, and her feet have never been planted firmly in one place – certainly not the ground. Her head is far above the clouds, wishing to touch the stars. Jihye would’ve wanted it.
They buy her a Platinum class ticket and spend the next few weeks with her, spending time together as a family, and setting up accounts for her for when she arrives on Homestead II.
And then, they say goodbye and ‘I love you’ for the last time as she exits the car.
v. euneirophrenia [peaceful state of mind following a pleasant dream]
There’s dreams, so many endless dreams, and none of them she remembers when she’s awoken. Bright lights that flicker are what greets her, but she exits her chamber, struggling to stand properly and nausea swimming in her stomach, head clouded from her slumber. Had two hundred years passed? No. They had not – she hears ‘malfunction’, but there’s nothing visibly wrong that she can see.
They’re up too early, and Jieun finds herself not minding it one bit. An adventure, and the perfect idea for another story.
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
OH JITAE // TWENTY-FOUR
CONCERMASTER
LOADING PASSENGER INFO P1628...
He’d heard of Avalon in passing. People he knew well, whose opinion he respected considered it an option, an opportunity. But his daily five hours of sleep were unsettling enough. His body would inevitably fold and dry if left alone for so long. Arteries shriveled, and lungs weak not knowing how to pump, trying to catch up with lost time. Muscles seized up through disuse. Face shrunken, reduced to a vague visual.
His father didn’t mind the idea as much. And he knew his father to be resilient from experience. All his childhood he refused to bend, a skewed version of outwardly, confucian masculinity. Like reflex, the body unaccustomed to the backdrop of gender construction.
He’d never been significantly close to his mother. Both his parents had always been very preoccupied with themselves and very little with him. And that’s how life kept him on his toes.
Then he met Park Taeri.
She used to like children’s books, he remembers that. Her condo, at around five hundred square foot, felt congested with bookshelves, alphabetically sorted, with sticky notes peeking out in yellow and pink. She’d have him experience the type of life she used to live. Grand ballets, and gala events. And he’d tell her that he’d never felt as cultured.
They met through his former music theory professor who hadn’t been interested in him as a violinist much. She was forty-nine, and introduced herself as a beneficiary, when she took him out for the first time, promising him complete financial support. But it fell through when his orchestra dropped in him in favor of someone with a less convoluted family background. “It’s quite unfortunate that we have to let you go. But you have to see it from our perspective. How about trying to apply for SICO? They’d be thrilled to have you.” And he tells her about the humiliation and the shame. And she’s warm and pliant and understanding. They laugh at the idea of him playing in a community orchestra.
His parents flee the country and leave him behind. He’s twenty-two and in his evening politics class for an undergrad he’s been forced into and he’s subjected to the following: “(…) and so our former minister of defense, Oh Minsu, joins an extensive list of corrupt government officials in our country. An estimate of 190 billion won were offered to him through a third party, by AgustaWestland, an Italian helicopter manufacturer, to falsify evaluation reports. The investigation has been part of a major investigation into corruption in arms procurement in our country. So far, over five three field-grade naval officers have been detained and convicted. We have to ask ourselves how the passive nature of our society plays part in accepting regressive politics.”
There used to a certain quality to his performative compliance. He thinks about his mother who’d lived life like she’d forgotten she had a son. As if some sort of self defense mechanism. Who had refused to acknowledge loss of the house she had grown up in to the bank because of the man she married.
The last time Taeri sees him holding a violin, he’s in a tailored suit she’d paid for. It’s his last solo, his last time holding a bow. He’s adamant on Strauss, refuses to play a crowd favorite. Des Helden Gefährtin starts with a whiny violin jump. She’s there to listen, with a bouquet in her lap. And she’s the first to raise and applaud, and he’s floored with what he knows will inevitably transpire.
She promises him he’ll never have to work to sustain himself, that she’ll take care of him. And there’s a distinction, an understanding of their agreement, of what they were supposed to be, that is entirely lost. She buys him an apartment and he doesn’t give her an answer. “A statement regarding the former Minister of Defense, Oh Minsu’s involvement with an underaged escort has been made by the police this morning. The seventeen year old would-be model has admitted to the relationship and has agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Oh Minsu has yet to issue a statement.” His family name is reduced to buzzwords and headlines and he doesn’t know how to compartmentalize.
The bad outweighs the good. She doesn’t know how to lessen her grip.
He’s twenty-four when he finds out about a two year old trust fund account under his name established by his father. Real estate, stocks and an overwhelming amount of money left accessible to him. It’s sad how bad both of them are at apologizes.
It didn’t take long for Taeri to find out. She had stood at the bedroom doorway wearing his shirt. And until then it had never occurred to him that she was that tiny. He’d never even considered to notice. Perhaps she knew he was going to leave, that the essential groundwork of their relationship was worn. He remembers thinking that maybe she would make peace with the steady dissolution of their state. This was as far as he would go for her.
He carries around so much of her: her preferences, her habits, her customs.
He thinks about the cusp of space, the immense weight of minus two hundred and twenty celsius beating his body dormant. The way two hundred years into the future no one will know him as the son of a corrupt politician, or as a failed violinist. A schoolyard reject preceded by his family’s shortcomings. There’ll be no traces of Oh Jitae. Nor Park Taeri.
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
PARK CHAEYOUNG // TWENTY-THREE
DAUGHTER OF KIM INVESTMENTS
LOADING PASSENGER INFO G4821...
xxx.
her Mother graces the world on carpets soaked with the red nectar of men, venus amongst mortals.
she is the apotheosis of beauty.
but that is neither here nor there, for chaeyoung is not her Mother.
no, for chaeyoung is merely a demigod, and she spends every day in the crowds of admiration.
her Mother is a paragon in her father’s crown, a glittering diamond perfect in every way. in their wedding photos, she is picturesque. on her head, a flower crown of acme pultritude. but she is always looking elsewhere.
but that is neither here nor there, for chaeyoung is not her Mother.
the rumour mill spins. faster and faster, round and round. there is only bitter winter in their summer villa, rapid fire hail of seething words and cold, cold silence. whispers of infidelity destroys a family of three.
father casts them out into the street. chaeyoung’s knees kisses the pavement and bleeds for it. oh, how she cries.
but her Mother does not scream, nor does she cry.
but that is neither here nor there, for chaeyoung is not her Mother –
[ like Mother like daughter ] her father’s spit lands at the corner of her eye.
chaeyoung smiles. what a compliment.
xxx.
there is a new man. ( isn’t there always? )
at first, he lives to kiss the bottom of her Mother’s shoes, and she lets him. when she is bored of it, she kicks him aside like she would an animal.
But then, Mother keeps him. A starving dog on a leash; a minor business barely afloat. chaeyoung frowns because Mother could do much better.
And so her Mother tells her [ don’t you know one needs more than 30 pieces of silver to pay the devil on the slow descent to hell? ] she smiles, eyes dull but all the more frigid.
she reaches over to light a cigarette, and the bathrobe falls slightly to reveal rib bones. her trembling fingers are feeble, and they stumble as she strikes the lighter. once. twice. thrice. then, her fingers struggle to put the cancer stick into the soft parting of her lips. she shakes her head wearily, and in the midst of her thin, wispy hair, snow white spots could be seen. in them, a vessel jumps. slowly, languishingly.
and suddenly, Mother is mortal, and chaeyoung feels the weight of the world on her shoulders.
xxx.
here she is, screaming underneath the weight of the world, an atlas without titan strength.
enter: a boy down yonder, young and tender. not yet a man and despicably dewy-eyed.
don’t you see? she wails and yet he hears a siren’s serenade.
and so, desperate; the circe unfurls to beckon from underneath the colossal weight of the world, ever the selfish coquette.
[ you are my moon and stars ] and so the boy says. a zealot at her feet.
so she leans forward, a debauched little thing who wears her deception like the vibrant, lingering imprint of lipstick on a married man’s lovingly starched collars, and smiles winningly, emptily.
there, the forbidden fruit of her ruby lips lands on his naïve lips, and he takes a wonderous bite. she permanently brands him with the carmine dionaea of her lips, and sears scarlet tinges of passionate lies into his flesh.
she opens her lips and out falls the glittering, poisonous scales of snakes.
here is the downfall of man; the apogee of the temptress.
[ carry this for me, darling ]
comes the soft shackle of her words.
( she hands the weight of the world to him and finds solace in his bank. )
xxx.
the boy’s heart opens as it ensnares in her web, and so does the fragrant leather of his wallet. once again, chaeyoung suckles at the open breast of wealth, savoring the sweet cornucopia of luxury. in return, the siren sings him a serenade, and lures him with her saccharine syllables. he falls deep into her waters.
( gluttonously, she bleeds the gold out of his blood.
greedily, she watches as the flush returns to her Mother’s face. )
this is how she lives, with abundant avarice; watching the world rise and fall at her sharp stilettos.
this is how she falls:
behind the boy’s back, a man beckons; same age, wallet equally loose. one night turning into two. two turning into every. the sticky, musky scent of intimacy lingering on his gifts. behind the man’s back another wolf beckons. she lets them dig their fangs into her smooth flesh.
and the naive boy drowns. and when he emerges – an embittered man screams and rages until no remnants of her remain inside him. he looms and strips the siren of her feathers. he rips them out one by one, frenzied and yet deliberate, until she drowns in the depths of her own waters, where the sun cannot reach. there she lies, reputation in tatters.
( she opens her eyes: darkness. she closes her eyes: darkness. )
oh, for that piece of happiness that she once enjoyed – and for that same piece that she can no longer enjoy, chaeyoung will decimate it. if she cannot have it, then no one could.
[ clink. clink. clink. ]
oh, for the allure of 30 pieces of silver –
bury me in the red, red depths of potter’s field.
xxx.
[ beware the ides of march ]
it seems she is still human enough to dream.
in her mind’s eye, he lies still, as if in death. in his chest, 23 stabs of betrayal.
his conspirators titter as she walks in. amongst them, her bedmates. a flash of teeth and their blade is hers once more.
oh, so unrepent is she, that chaeyoung swings the leaden, bloodied blade in her smooth fingers and makes it 24. here, she dethrones her lover with her hard edges, all acerbic and cutting ruthlessness.
ah! –
[ et tu, brute? ] comes a broken, halting whisper through bloodless lips, and she leans down to savor it. his eyes shutters, pale eyelids stricken with stark blue veins of dolour; as if to close. as if to rest.
no, no. that won’t do.
( so with a sly smile she rises from her ashes to whisper his dirty secrets into the night, between the sheets of many lovers and flutters of sooty eyelashes. she takes his name down, down, to be trampled into the tartarus depths of villainy, and laughs gleefully as his world is set aflame once more. )
and in doing so, chaeyoung reaches for the embosom between the blade and the blackened visages of his heart – so intertwined it might as well be one - and twists.
oh, how he [ roars ], pain warring with delicious rage and disbelief.
he meets her gaze with scorching heat of a dying star, and in his fiery paroxysm barely contained within his dilated irises, she could see her own enraptured gaze; icarus in wonder. that’s it, she laughs, that bell-like sound he so once loved. you’ve always been just as bad as me, don’t you think? there, she leans forward to admire her debauched face reflected in his eyes, the way her tongue peeks out to lick her sly lips, eyes ravenous and wanting – for the inception of their reflected inhumanity is forever captured within each other’s eyes; from one monster to another.
she smiles, and her reflection echoes.
he snarls, and his reflection imprints a facsimile in the flecks of her irises. malice disfigures them both. and there – he rises to locks her into an eternal chokehold of hate and lost love and everlasting; wrathful orbit of rancor.
[ then fall, caesar! ] they screamed in tandem.
( for such is the sweetness of a devastation of their own making; of festering sorrow and everything in between and hereafter.
after all, villainy never does itself justice in lonesome;
and torment always diminished with company. )
xxx.
she is the daughter of a gold-digger; raised in the soft breast of riches and suckled at soothing diamond fingers of wealth.
she is the daughter of a gold-digger, and yet, she was weaned on mercury.
she is the daughter of a gold-digger, and yet, she mines coal.
( the golden ticket in her fingers mocks her. it is all they can afford, but you know what they say: second chances don’t come cheap. )
chaeyoung seals her rotted reputation in a box and cast it into the void of space. and there, she lies willingly in the ache of mad-made coldness and knows it is too late for atonement.
instead, underneath the transparent darkness of her fragile eyelids, she wishes to be born anew.
[ instead, she draws her own ruins with thy own hands. ]
S T A T U S: P A S S E N G E R D I S C H A R G E D
SEO JINYI // NINETEEN
DAUGHTER OF IONEC ENERGY
LOADING PASSENGER INFO E0593...
The girl is born in a box. The box looks like this:
PALE PINK LACQUER. ORNATE CARVINGS. MIRRORS. A MOTHER, A FATHER, A BROTHER. A HOUSE ON TOP OF THE HILL AND THE VIEW THAT WATCHES FOR MILES. SILVER SPOONS. DIAMOND DROP EARRINGS. THE WAY SILK SPLITS DOWN THIGHS WHEN YOU ASCEND THE STAIRS AS THE ADULTS START TALKING. SLEEK WHITE HOSPITAL BEDS. MORE MONEY THAN GOD AND NONE OF HIS POWER. RUNNING MASCARA. CHALK POWDER AND STAGE LIGHTS. UNTOUCHED TULLE AND SILK UP YOUR ANKLES.
(you are born as the accompaniment, the addition, the replacement. the family already has their prodigal son, and he is greatness: intelligent, charming, first-born. they are the seos, and they are man-bodied god-handed people who know nothing of tragedy until it slips into their throats with the iron of a sword hilt. the son is perfect but improperly made, strong of mind but weak in the bones. and so they try to bribe fate only to have their thrown coins rained back down over their heads. bribery didn’t work, so next they try to cheat: they give birth to a beautiful baby girl, dark-haired and dark-eyed, just less than five pounds. and an exact genetic match to the boy whose holes they are trying to fill with wellness. you are loved, you are less).
The ballerina spins to music. The music sounds like this:
SWEET, SOFT, LOVELY. DEBUSSY SWELLS AND FAIRYTALE ENDS. THE THUD OF A BODY AGAINST THE FLOOR. MOTHER CRYING IN THE BEDROOM AND GLASS SHATTERED IN THE KITCHEN. THE STEADY BEEP OF A MONITOR. THE UNSTEADY, TWITCHING SOUND OF PAIN.
(there are three spotlights: the first is gold in your foyer, the starshine of headlights coming through the window to turn you into a silhouette. you are the girl that was a gift; pretty creature, weaned on champagne, never cried once while they sanded down your teeth and pulled out your nails. the second is silver, the colour of artemis’ arrows and the faces of the girls she carries. it’s hot and wide and skirts down across the stages you learn with your feet strangled by taut silk and your hips straddled by tulle. this is the only individual pain you are ever allowed, and it burns something holy. the third is white, the colour of temporary blindness caused by ugly round headers as you wake up in a bed next to your brother. the interview of doctor to patient and father to daughter about what you are willing to do next, which percentage of your humble marble body you will carve out to make a package for another. soon, the white covers the silver. then the gold. until all you can see is the absence of anything at all).
Someone closes the box. The darkness looks like this:
FALSE HOPE.
(“it’s our only chance, darling. think about it. he will never get better in our lifetime now. the only thing we cannot buy is time, but we can purchase a temporary pass for it. a stall. everything could be over by the time we wake up. he could be healed, all of this put aside - you could dance again. everything would be as it was, only better.”)
Pandora reaches with trembling hands and opens the box:
