|| ??? ||

The garden was incredibly beautiful by day, but by night it had an aura about it that seemed to make a person feel like it should not be there. It was a good thing I knew what I was doing there, because if I didn't, the darkness was enough to drive me insane. 

I swallowed hard. The fear building up inside my body was starting to make its existence known to me as my hands started trembling. I had to get to my destination before the fear swallowed me whole. After all, the garden was very much protected by the Fear Curse so that evil entities might run away right after they entered the area. And though I am not an evil entity, it is sad to say that this Curse may work on me in a few minutes, so I had to move.

I felt around the oak trees, searching for which tree might have the sign. The Witch never really trusted anyone--except perhaps me, so she had to change the tree in which the sign was engraved every single night. And I, as her most loyal... subject, had to search for that sign just so I could report to her.

Eventually I found the sign, a little something like crossroads, and I muttered the password as I touched it, wishing to be brought to my destination.

There was a bright flash of light, and in a blink I wasn't in the dark garden anymore.

-xxx-

"Is it you?"

"Yes, my Witch. It is I." I removed the cape I was wearing. "Yes, it is I, Sungjin."

The Witch finally appeared before me, her beauty indeed endearing and comforting. She smiled. "Sungjin."

But the smile she wore on her face nearly a second ago vanished just as quick as it arrived and she grasped my hands tightly. 

"They have been found."

There was a silence so deafening inside the Witch's hideout.

"They have been found."

The girls... Have been found?

I broke free of the Witch's hold. "Do not bluff around like that."

Her eyes held a look so excited yet so sad at the same time. "I wish I could tell you that this was a lie. But it isn't. The glass beads have told me so."

"The glass beads have told me so..."

"What exactly did they tell you?" I inquired, urging her to sit on the velvet futon. "How many glass beads showed up?"

The Witch looked up at me from her seat. "Six. Six glass beads."

"Six? Then six persons?" I asked in an incredulous tone. She only nodded absently as she plucked a feather from her white dress.

As much as I adore the Witch and everything, I have been serving her for twelve years now, and that was the only time I've seen her very much confused. But I had a slightly accurate guess on why she was perplexed by what the glass beads have told her.

We are Dreamcatchers. We help specifically chosen human beings achieve their goals in an otherworldly way. We help them get their dreams but in a different manner. But how we help them... It's another story.

Dreamcatchers bring humans to our land, Memoria, and we have them challenge the Labyrinth, a mysterious maze of decisions with at least a million rooms. If they can leave the Labyrinth and choose the right final path for their decisions, their dreams may be achieved. But if they choose the wrong path, they might face punishment... And eventually, maybe the end of their lives.

Every year on the first day of January, our glass beads as big as persimmons--which are the only means of communication between the gods, the universe, and us Dreamcatchers--send us information of the next human we are to challenge.

As the Witch's assistant for twelve years, I have only assisted her in guiding twelve human beings in the Labyrinth. Six have survived, and six have met... Unspeakable fates, as we call it.

In my fifth year as the Witch's assistant, an oracle's glass bead has been sent to us that seven years and fifteen days into the future, six girls will change the course of the Labyrinth--and maybe even the future of Memoria. We didn't pay much attention to that oracle, but now, seeing that it had been exactly seven years and fifteen days after it was sent to us...

The Witch stood up. "The Prophecy! Sungjin, it is to happen this year!" She pointed at the calendar with an unexplainable emotion, something between exhilaration and panic. "That's why--look!"

We rushed to where the calendar was hung, looking at the date today.