Jong Kook was walking down the beach. His feet weren’t touching the ground and he looked down, finding that strange. He put one foot in front of the other, watching himself walking but feeling nothing but air. “If It’s You” began to play, the opening notes of the piano merging with the sounds of the waves crashing ashore. His arm was outstretched toward the ocean. He looked down his shoulder to his bicep, to his forearm, down to his hand, which was holding someone else’s hand, and when he looked up to see whose hand he was holding, he saw her. Jennifer. He could see through her body to the ocean beyond; she was faded but she was there. And he felt like crying. He was so happy.

They walked together down the beach until the song ended. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her that entire time, worried that if he did, even for a moment, he would lose her. But when the song was over and they stopped walking, his back to the ocean as he faced her, he saw that flower again, growing in that spot near the tree, just beyond the sand where the line of the greenery began. He walked toward it, just like he had that day he proposed, and leaned down to pluck it from the earth. But it wouldn’t come out of the ground.

He held both hands around its stem and felt it begin to release, and when it finally did, when he finally pulled it from the ground, he saw that the stem had morphed into the twig-like legs of a black crow. He tried to let go but it clutched onto his hand, digging its talons deep into Jong Kook’s skin, and he soon fell to the ground. He tilted his head back toward the ocean, looking for Jennifer. He saw her, more faded than she had been before and then dissolving into nothing right before his eyes. When he turned back to look at the crow, it wasn’t there anymore.

Jong Kook’s body sank deeper and deeper in the white sand. It was like quicksand, soon burying him. But he felt a hand grab his then, pulling him from the sand. And when he looked up, he saw Ji Hyo. Wake up, she said. You’re dreaming… 

Jong Kook opened his eyes.

“You’re dreaming.” Ji Hyo was leaning over his bed, her white t-shirt reflecting the moonlight that shined in through his bedroom window.

“Am I still dreaming?” Jong Kook said.

Ji Hyo shook her head. “I heard you crying,” she said. “I came to check on you.”

He rubbed his eyes.

“Go back to bed,” Ji Hyo said.

She left his room and walked down the hall, her legs seemingly pushed by something other than her freewill. She found herself in the backyard. She couldn’t remember walkin