Chapter 15: Guilt and Dreams
A Tale of A Backpacker
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The darkness engulfed me, swallowing me till I was totally gone from the scene. I screamed, but no sound came out. I felt myself thrashing around, yet I was still stuck in this dreamland. The darkness, my forced body movements, and the distant sound of cars, conversations, and screaming were the only things I felt. The guilt began to eat at me, making me suffer in this dreamland. It was painful, and I wanted out.
“Help!” I yelled, “Umma? Appa? Hoya?”
“Hana,” called a voice. The voice was warm, familiar, and had a kind, gentle sound to it. Immediately, I could tell who the voice was.
“Hoya!” I yelled back, but he couldn’t hear me.
He continued to call for me, “Hana, wake up! Hana! Hana! Hana!”
With a rough shake from Hoya, my eyes flew open. He let go of shoulders and asked if I was okay. He heard my screaming and came running. Ignoring Hoya’s presence, I sat up and held onto my heart. My heartbeat was running a mile a minute and I couldn’t help but let several, rough gasps of air out. A droplet of sweat ran down my temple. I was awake, but completely shaken.
“Are you okay?” Hoya asked again, “Bad dream?”
Hoya sat on the edge of my bed, not really looking his best. His eyes were wide with shock, and he dressed in a wife beater with a t-shirt only around his neck. He must have been in the middle of dressing up, and forgotten to put on the rest of his shirt.
“I’m fine,” I lied; “You don’t look to good though.”
Hoya looked down at himself, “I probably should finish dressing up. I’m going out to buy a dress shirt. Do you want to come?”
“For dinner? Sure,” I replied.
Hoya nodded his head and left the room to finish getting dressed. When he shut the door behind him, I let out a large sigh. My hands brushed my hair back from my face. I was tired and shaken. I haven’t had that dream in awhile… I learned to control that dream, but it was slowly coming back. “Still as vivid as ever,” I mumbled while getting out of bed.
Not bothering to change clothes, I walked into the living, hoping to see Woohyun. He was always my rock, and I needed to talk to him about this. But, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, a sleeping apartment welcomed me. Only the faint sounds of Dongwoo’s snoring from down the hallway could be heard.
I decided to just talk to Woohyun about it later. I sat on the living room couch and waited for Hoya to finish dressing up. My eyes wandered around the living room and landed on above the fireplace where several photos stood. One photo in particular caught my eye, pulling me up from my seat to examine it.
“This photo,” I said with a smile while I carefully picked it up.
In the photo two children, a girl and boy, smiled brightly at the camera while being wrapped in the arms of an elder woman. She seemed to be in her 30’s, but it wasn’t her appearance that screamed her age. The woman was clear of wrinkle and her skin glistened with its fair color. Her body could have been one of a seventeen-year-old girl. It was the elegance that she emitted that said she was in her early thirties.
“How are you Omma?” I asked in a low voice. I smiled at the photo of my mother, Woohyun, and I. “Omma, I had the dream of you again… It was frightening…” Thinking back to the dream gave me chills. It wasn’t the first time that I’ve had this dream.
Lost in thought, I barely heard Hoya ask if I was ready to leave. “Huh? Yeah, let’s go,” I replied, setting down the photo.
“Does this look good?” Hoya asked. He pulled a shirt from the rack. The shirt was absolutely atrocious, with giant, pink flowers rested on a green shirt. I wanted to rip it to shreds.
“That’s attractive,” I replied with tons of sarcasm. He laughed, threw it back into the rack, and began searching for another shirt. I looked through the lines of clothing and choose a simple black button up.
“Try it on,” I said. I pushed him into the dressing room and waited for him to come out. A few minutes later, Hoya came out still in his regular clothes. When I asked him if he put it on, he said it looked great and went to pay for the button up.
While walking home, I began thinking of the dream again. The screams, the darkness, and the guilt swirled in my mind. The last image of my mother brought me to a freezing halt.
“Hana,” Hoya called, “What’s up with you? You’ve been a little distant after you woke up from your nap.”
Ignoring his question, I started walking again, and asked Hoya, “Does guilt ever go away? Does it continue to eat at you till you finally just fall?” Hoya didn’t respond. He continued to walk next to me, not replying for several minutes.
I shook my head, “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me—“
“Stop,” Hoya stated, “Guilt goes away. It will leave, but only if you let it. Don’t let the guilt take over your life, because you can just forgive yourself for whatever happened and throw it over your shoulder. Guilt is only a temporary feeling. It is just a matter of how long you hold that guilt.”
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and only slightly smiled at him. “That was deep,” I replied, trying to hide the relief he gave me with sarcasm.
He turned around and brushed off an imaginary substance off his shoulders. “I know! I should just be, like, a prophet or something,” Hoya chuckled, “Let’s hurry and get back. You can vent about your guilt trip during dinner.”
wow. I'm sorry its been a week or two?
I've been busy with school, plus I was sick all week. ><
honestly, I didn't want to put out this chapter, just because of how incomplete it felt to me.
but then I realized it's kind of like a stepping stone for the next chapter, so I was like "yolo". lol
well, hope everyone is doing well. (:
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