15/ / too high

Soojung empathised with the parents of the missing child.  She knew how painful it was to not know where your loved ones were.  It was a state of unease she could never get rid of, no matter how much time had passed.  After sitting for a while on the bench with Mon, she stood up and faced him with a determined look.

“Let’s go and have a look.”  She looked towards the brick wall again.

Mon looked up at her with an unsure look on his face.  “You don’t have to force yourself Soojung.  I don’t want you do get hurt.  I can try again with you tomorrow.  I can ask Jin to come and help me search.”

“No, I’m perfectly fine.”  She looked steadfast at Mon, hoping he could feel her resolution. 

“That’s what everyone said and very bad things have happened.”  He stood up as well but she could sense his reluctance.  She wished that she was closer to Mon so that he would share more of his story.

“I know how it feels to have my loved ones go missing.  I want to help these parents find their kid.”

Mon must have sensed the desperation in her voice because he seemed to have understood that Soojung wasn’t joking around and so he finally said, “Ok, let’s go.  But if you don’t feel good, you need to tell me.”

Mon took Soojung’s hand and with the look of understanding between them, they started to speed up to the brick wall.  Soojung let herself believe that the brick wall wasn’t going to hit them and same magnetic force like yesterday pulled her into the gap and the landscape turn blurry and spin into darkness around them.  As they finally reached their destination, Soojung refocused her eyes on her surroundings. 

The sun was bright, casting a blazing heat onto the rocky land around them.  There were odd pieces of junk everywhere.  Soojung could spot a broken baseball bat, a deflated soccer ball and a few tennis balls lying around.  There was also an assortment of metal pieces scattered all around.

“How did all of this get here?”  Soojung asked as she looked towards Mon.

“It must have been picked up by the magnetic pull of the gap.  There are a lot of things though.  I’ve never seen so many human made objects in any of the other dimensions.  I would not like to go to this boy’s school.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of negativity must have been produced for all these things to have been pulled across.  The gap we saw was not strong before, but it may have been a lot worse before.”

Before they starting walking away, Mon had taken out a spray can he had been keeping in his cardigan pocket, shook it a few times and marked a red “X” on the ground.

“This is our exit.  If we lose it, it will be hard to go back.  There are other gaps but they are very hard to find on this side.  There are no people on this side to create wider gaps.”

Soojung nodded at Mon’s explanation and let Mon guide her along, their hands still clasped to