05/ / dead or missing

The word “recruit” echoed in Soojung’s mind like a cassette player that was stuck in a loop.  She didn’t know that such a word would hurt her feelings, that Mon and Jin wanted to use her and not genuinely want to be her friend.  It made her question all her interactions with them thus far.  And it was hard to deny the tugging sensation of betrayal spreading through her chest like wild fire. 

But Soojung wanted to hear Mon out anyway. 

Soojung would always choose the bitter truth to the sweet lies.

“Those who can slip are attracted to the cracks between our dimension and other dimensions.  We call those cracks ‘dimension gaps’.  There are people who are slip sensitive who have accidentally slipped into the gaps and disappeared off the face of this one.”

“How did you know I am slip sensitive?” 

“Because I have observed you unconscious walk close to gaps when they are near you.  You are being pulled towards them.  We are as well.  It is a blessing and a curse.”

Strangely, there was no bitterness in Mon’s last words.  She had found Mon a mysterious person who didn’t expose much about himself and was a hard person to read. 

It wasn’t that he was hard to get along with, quite the opposite really.  He was mature for his young age and she noticed that a lot of the other students looked up to him.  When someone asked him for help, he would always willing give him or her a hand, no matter how busy he was.  It was also the reason why she had admired Mon herself, even harbour a tiny crush she didn’t want to admit.

But she felt that Mon was someone who was extremely careful with his words and found some of his words very cryptic and full of double meanings.  Soojung didn’t always catch it or know what Mon was really trying to say.  This was one of the times.  Was he trying to warn her? Or was he trying to imply something else?

Before Soojung could ponder further, Mon tore a page from the magazine he had been reading previously.  He