“Can you not look so scared Mark? I’ve got a beer can in my hand not a knife.” Youngjae says, settled back into the space he’s made for himself on the sofa.

Mark’s still frozen on the floor, staring down at the crushed can of beer. There’s an odd combination of numb and fear that blooms in his veins and melds together in his blood. The only thing keeping Mark running is the questions sparking in his head.

“What- who are you?” He forces out between his teeth, the words come out strangled, the air caught in his throat. He’d thought about bolting out of the apartment for a moment but the incessant need for answers nailed him to the ground, and Barrick. Definitely Barrick, there was a kindling fire of anger bubbling away somewhere inside that didn’t belong to Mark.

“Choi Youngjae,” He replies back flatly while propping his can of beer onto the coffee table. He has a contemplative look on his face, like he evidently wasn’t prepared to be caught out at this particular moment and was working through the cogs on how to repair it. “Seriously, Mark, there’s no need to be so stiff. I don’t know what you know-”

“I know enough, I know more than I should probably,” Mark almost snaps but he in the malice and wills himself to calm down. He isn’t entirely sure what he’s getting upset about particularly, the fact Youngjae was lying to him? Pretended to be someone he isn’t? “Nothing makes sense.”

“How much do you know then?” Youngjae asks, there’s a tone in his voice, like the slight prick of a needle biting into his words that Mark catches.

“Why should I tell you?” Mark retorts.

He sighs at that, and goes to take his glasses off slowly, settling them beside him gently upon the files beside him. “Does it matter much? I know more than you and Jinyoung combined, I’m sure you have questions.”

“What I want to understand is how this is even possible? Why is it you? You of all people?”

Youngjae half-smiles, the turn of his lips edged with a line of bitterness. “I’ve asked myself that a couple of hundred years, you know? Of all the billions of people in the world, why me?”

Mark’s taken back by that, unease swimming through his body. He didn’t understand how to react, he didn’t know how to look at Youngjae when he looked like Youngjae. The kind man that looked after him when he first moved to Seoul, the one who cared about others, cared about his students, someone that swallowed other people’s worries and made them his own. “Are you a lie?”

Youngjae looks at Mark directly, his eye’s open, wide open and Mark realises then the guise Youngjae had on for the past year, the veil upon him so delicate and thin it was almost translucent. Mark hadn’t seen him. “I am me, and I am all of them.”

Mark frowns at the response, “Don’t speak cryptic to me.”

Youngjae laughs shortly, “I don’t mean it, but it’s hard to be specific as well. My point is I have better control and understanding of my memories than Jinyoung per say.”

“So you know?”

“Of course I know.”

“So...you brought me all the way from America to here and put me next to Jinyoung for what exactly? For some twisted play in seeing us meet only to kill us in the end?” Mark’s angry, he doesn’t know if the feeling ebbed its way into him through Barrick but now it belongs to him, and he’s fully ready to inflict it.

“You make it sound like some shakespearean play…” Youngjae mutters under his breath and then takes a loud deep breath. “Honestly? When I requested for your transfer I wasn’t even completely sure it was you.”

“What?”

“The thing is, I only know who you are when I meet you face to face, and I don’t always meet you. But the world has progressed and finding people is much easier than it was back then, so I guess you were luck? Coincidence?” He says the words like they’re a game, or some time of secret joke. It makes Mark feel sick to his stomach.

“Then how did you-”

“My father was a parapsychologist, he followed a lot of Ian Stevenson’s work on reincarnation after I was born. You see I grew up speaking hundreds of languages and turned him into a fanatic. He started searching for more people like me, convinced he’d made a breakthrough, unfortunately he died way before he could publish anything on the matter. However about a year ago when my mother died, I was cleaning out their home and I found some of his reports, he’d investigated several children around the world. I saw your name...it seemed familiar, it’d nagged me for a while until I remembered your thesis on reincarnation. Of course, it was a wild guess, but you were the only one that my father had recorded as speaking a fluent language without the influence of anyone or anything. Also your thesis referred to an anonymous participant who recollected memories from Finland in the 19th century.” Youngjae explains, lying back into the sofa.

“You’re telling me all those tiny clues is what made you put the effort in asking for my transfer here?”

“I tried my luck, I wasn’t going to lose anything besides I was running out of options.” Youngjae huffs, he has his glasses back in his hands, rubbing away at the lenses with the bottom of his jumper.

“What do you mean?” Mark murmurs, the confusion spilling into his voice. If he thought he never understood anything before, he really never understood anything now.

“How much do you know Mark, really?” Youngjae asks in that same low tone, that soft tone that he’d keep for the two of them only when they were alone, when they were friends and not colleagues.

“Not much,” Mark replies in force. “I remember almost everything about a life in Finland.”

“Do you know who I am there?” Youngjae asks, but Mark can hear something in his voice, he can hear worry.

“No, I don’t. Barrick’s blocking things from me.”

“Blocking?” Youngjae frowns. “Well, you weren’t meant to remember anyway.”

“No, I wasn’t so what’s happened? What did you do?”

Youngjae raises his eyes up to Mark, a hard expression his face. “Things have changed, Mark. Things way out of my control.”

“So what’s in your control, or what was? How did this start?” Mark raises his voice, the anger slowly numbing him, and Barrick’s presence so strong like any second he was going to make Mark’s limbs his own. He wants to strangle Youngjae, to see the blood drain from his face, and he knows these feelings don’t initially belong to him, but somehow he doesn’t mind the thought of letting himself be taken over with them.

“How much does Jinyoung know now?”

“I’m not telling you anything more now, you can answer my questions.” He snaps, and Youngjae looks unphased. “Why did you bring me here? As far as I’m concerned I’m not meant to remember, I’m not in the middle of this infinite revenge plot you have going on.”

“You’re right, you’re not meant to be remember, but the thing is, Jinyoung is. And yet, he didn’t remember a single thing. In all our lives, he’s been the only one along side me, the only one that had experienced everything I had. But he forgot everything, he forgot on his own and nothing I could do would trigger them back. For a while I was convinced he wasn’t the same person I’d spend the past five hundred years with, but I saw them, I sense them. I’d run out of options, at most he could speak Arabic but there wasn’t anything more. You were my last option, and you worked.” He looks at Mark in wonder, like a miracle before his eyes in this twisted performance of death and revenge and it made Mark want to gag.

“What do you mean I worked?” Mark’s breathless, his heart thrumming in his chest.

“Didn’t you think it’s a bit strange?” Youngjae says, leaning forward in his seat. “That just a month after you arrived at the university, after he started taking your class, he started to change? Speaking and writing in different languages? His mood swings, his nightmares and his behaviour progressively getting worse and worse over the past few months? Nothing I did to him or tried to triggered him like your presence did.” Youngjae explains, sighing contently almost as if relieved with the result.

Mark in a shaky breath, “It was me…? What did I do?”

“Well it’s not like you did something particularly,” Youngjae says as he gets up to his feet, Mark finds himself flinching away as he walks past him and into the kitchen, grabbing the apple juice carton and pouring himself a drink in the glass cup. “Your presence seemed to be enough to trigger it.”

“Trigger what?”

“The memories, Mark. His memories, the ghosts returned, not in the most cleanest way but I’m optimistic.” Youngjae says melodically and downs the cup of apple and vodka.

“Optimistic?” Mark echoes and now the anger has injected into his breath. “Optimistic? He tried to kill himself twice, Youngjae.” Mark gets up to his feet then, his hands clenched by his side.

Youngjae looks at him from the shadows of the kitchen, he isn’t wearing his glasses so the usual light he’d see reflected in their lenses instead directly hit his dark eyes, and Mark cringes back to find nothing in them.

“There are far worse ways to die, Mark.” Youngjae says flatly, something heavy weighed on the words, crushing them.

“What did you accomplish then? What is all this?” Mark demands, gesturing to the files.

“I told you Mark, something’s changed. In you, Jinyoung...and me.” Youngjae’s eyes twitch together ever so slightly.

“Why? How is that possible? I don’t understand anything…” Mark rubs at his face furiously, frustration bursting in him. He wanted to throw things, rip them apart and burn them. He wanted to do them all to Youngjae.

“It would seem even demons have things they don’t wish to remember,” Youngjae murmurs, his eyes now lost, staring out past his windows into the nightscape of Seoul.

“Tell me one thing, Youngjae, did you- or whoever you were, did you start this? Start whatever this curse is?”

Youngjae returns his look towards Mark and sighs, “No, I didn’t. Jinyoung did.”

Turku, 1827

The carriage ride back to Turku was tedious and painful. Barrick had tried to distract himself with reading, drawing and sketches. But there was only so much he could do before the bumps in the carriage dove him in out of concentration, jagged his lines and blotted his pages. Eventually he could do nothing but give into this pit of darkness he’d been avoiding, dancing on the edges and playing with the idea of falling in.

He didn’t know how much days had passed with him descending, the darkness swallowing him up and eating at his insides. There’s nothing in this pit but the sound of his sister’s voice, twisted and disoriented, blaming him for leaving her, blaming him for avoiding her, blaming him for not being the brother he should have been.

Barrick wasn’t an illogical person, he realised there was nothing he could have done if it was intended for her to be taken so early in life. He knew, essentially, his presence would do nothing. But he couldn’t help it, the crushing guilt that sat on his chest, and broke into his ribs. He hoped, in some way, that maybe he’ll just die this way, in feelings so strong they’d rot his organs away and turn the marrow in his bones to dust. He wanted to disappear, to turn into nothing.

The first voice he hears in a long time that doesn’t belong to the demons in his head comes from the carriage man steering the horses. “Sir, we cannot go any further.”

Barrick blinks out of his daze and peers through the darkness of his carriage windows. Night had fell upon them and he’d assumed they were stopping to feed the horses and have a break. It’d usually be Barrick requesting for stops, knowing full well the carriage man would not stop his travels until other wise requested but Barrick hadn’t been hungry, nor had sleep visited him for the past couple of days, and the hours seemingly blended into one another.

“Are we taking a break?” Barrick calls out to the front. “How far till we arrive in Turku?”

“No, sir, we have to stop our journey here. We cannot go any closer at risk,” The carriage man shouts. The horses neigh and stomp in agitation, their hooves harsh against the gravel ground and Barrick can sense unease.

“What’s going on? What risk?” Barrick asks, sliding closer to the door.

“Do you not see it sir?”

“See what?” Barrick says stepping, pushing open the carriage door and stepping out.

“The smoke.” He says as Barrick looks up and ahead of the carriage and the horses, towards the surrounding forest and just into the skyline where in the blanket of night it was almost easy to miss the engulfing black smoke that clouded the sky.

Seoul, 2016

Mark returns home to silence. However, for the first time he’s returned to light. The hallway is illuminated in it’s ugly orange light in some sort of welcome. If it was any other day he’d smile to himself, he’d even say he’d wake up early to make Insook breakfast for once, only for it to completely backfire the next morning. But today it just makes the heavy sadness in him even more stark. He reaches out to the light on the wall beside him and flicks the switch off.

The darkness doesn’t help wash the feelings away but it eases him ever so slightly, just enough to find the will to make his way up the stairs and down the hallway. It’s already past midnight, and he’d assumed Insook and Jinyoung must have already gone to bed but in the darkness of the hallway he see’s Jinyoung’s door bordered with light.

Unease, relief, and hope all bubble inside him as he contemplates heading into the room. Jinyoung, Jinyoung, Jinyoung. His name had run through him the second he’d left Youngjae’s apartment, the disoriented ride home and now it pricks inside him like a thousand needles to the flesh. The sorry and the regret, the sick thoughts of guilt that grappled at his lungs and crushed at him became even more prominent now. It’s my fault, it’s my fault.

If he’d never come, if he never accepted the carer position, if he’d done everything differently up until now maybe Jinyoung would have been okay. If he just stayed away from South Korea, from this university, Jinyoung would be fine. He’d be live his life in ignorant bliss, he’d continue to contemplate the inevitable future without looking into a past so far away and so close to hell, he’d be continuously be playing with life and death.

Mark takes the tip of his fingers and lets them glide delicately over the handle. He imagines unlocking the door and stepping in, wrapping Jinyoung in touches, and warmth, in hope of good dreams to come and comfort for the bad ones. But reality cuts through the image too quickly, how could he possibly comfort Jinyoung for the one thing he’d caused?

Maybe he really should have left, even if it was too late by then, he should have left the same day he decided he was going to. Maybe it would settled the memories, maybe they would have stopped, maybe he’d forgot everything-

“What are you thinking about while standing in front of my door?” Jinyoung’s voice is like cold air on a foggy morning. It makes Mark want to wrap up in blankets and caress away the creases between his eyebrows.

“Of how to come in?” Mark responds.

“Well, you see, and watch closely now,” Jinyoung says with one finger pointed upwards. “You reach for the door knob and you turn it, when it makes that clicky sound, it’s open! Then you walk in.”

“Just like that?” Mark snorts.

“Just like that.” Jinyoung grins wide, eyes sparkling with amusement and maybe a tinge of happiness. The crippling guilt reappears and Mark tries his best not to crumble down in front of Jinyoung, anyone but Jinyoung. “Coming in?” He asks, and Mark can’t do anything but follow the trail of hope Jinyoung leaves as he steps back into his room and gives Mark space to choose.

Of course, Mark chooses to come in, shutting the door behind him quietly like he would shut a chest of secrets. He watches Jinyoung settle back into the dent he’s made in the bed, his laptop beside him upon the covers.

“What were you doing? I thought you’d be asleep?” Mark asks, carefully stepping round the end of the bed.

“I was surfing the internet, delved a bit deep and got a bit lost,” Jinyoung laughs lightly, scratching at the back of his head. His hair is slightly ruffled up at the sides, like he’d spent the last few hours scratching at his scalp in thought. Mark inhales slowly as he makes his way towards Jinyoung, sitting beside him at the edge of the bed where he takes a hand to his hair and tucks the strands back in place.

Jinyoung doesn’t flinch or move, he just watches Mark through his eyelashes. “This feels a little bit like a dream.” Jinyoung murmurs softly like velvet against the skin and Mark doesn’t make an effort to move his hand away from Jinyoung’s face even after he’s done with brushing away the disarray strands.

“A dream?” Mark repeats.

“I’d never thought, in a million years, we’d become any closer than a student and his professor. There was no chance, I was convinced. You…always looked at things as if there were a pane of glass before you, I thought it was impossible to get through it.” He murmurs, looking up at Mark with this expression of adoration that Mark wanted to swallow instantly, to drink it into his system and revel in the softness.

“You can still see through glass,” Mark whispers.

“But you can’t touch.” Jinyoung whispers back, taking his own hand to mirror Mark’s, where he glides his long fingers into the strands of Mark hair, gentle like a painter with his brush, his fingers leaving trails of colour on Mark’s skin.

“There’s no glass now Jinyoung, you can touch me.” Mark’s pretty sure someone’s taken over him now because there’s no way the person he knows himself to be would say something like that. There’s no way the person he knows he is would give in to affection and wanting, to play around with the idea of temptation and budding feelings that tasted so much like over sweetened coffee and icing on a cake.

Yet, here he is, waiting for Jinyoung to make an inclination that he’d give into the words Mark seemed to set out like a trap. He wants him to give in. In the choked clogs in his head, Mark sets aside the guilt that’d been eating at him to give in to a feeling that seemed to only sprout along side Jinyoung, a feeling like unravelling a ribbon on a present.

For a long time, Jinyoung doesn’t move, maybe swimming in contradicting thoughts of his own. But eventually, a side wins over the other and Mark holds his breath as Jinyoung glides his hand down the edge of Mark’s jaw, his fingertips dancing on the very corner as if playing with the tip of a knife. His hands slide lower where they wrap around Mark’s neck and where for a brief moment, Mark thinks he might just suffocate him. Maybe he knows what’s he’s done. But his thumb moves slowly across his adam's-apple and follows it up and down as Mark swallows a hot breath.

There’s a curious look in Jinyoung’s eyes, his breath even as he stares at the skin he touches so lightly. He goes to grab the collar of Mark’s blazer and tugs a little bit for it to slide off Mark’s shoulders, the piece of clothing crumbling up onto the bed behind him. He’s wearing a plain t-shirt beneath, loose on his waist and lining his collar bones slightly where Jinyoung dips his fingers in. His thumb brushing the jagged bones that protrude tightly from beneath the skin.

Jinyoung pauses then, and Mark see’s the slight twitch in his face as he contemplates something. The interval doesn’t last long and then Mark finds Jinyoung pressing his palm against his chest, pushing him. At first Mark thought he’d wanted him to move away from him but he quickly comes to realise that Jinyoung wants him to lie back. Sparks of nerves burst in the back of Mark’s head as he follows Jinyoung willingly, feeling a little vulnerable and exposed as he leans into the bed, his breath shortening and his eyes furiously blinking up at the ceiling above him.

Jinyoung also moves to lean over him, and he stares down at Mark in silent question, a very slight down turn of his lips. “Can I…?” He murmurs almost too quietly as he tugs at the hem of Mark’s shirt. Mark has no idea what he’s referring to but he nods anyway, his body running on automatic.

There’s a quiet moment in the room, nothing but the hum of the atmosphere around them. Mark’s swallowing down his heavy breaths, trying so hard not to let the heat that he’s drowning internally to show on the outside. He bites his lip as he feels Jinyoung bring a hand beneath his shirt, his hands are warm against his navel but the touch still has him in a breath. Jinyoung watches his hand from beneath Mark’s shirt, almost seeing the pale skin beneath Mark’s clothes, seeing the way his thumb runs against the bone of his ribs, his palm pressed to his stomach.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be so smooth,” Jinyoung mutters absentmindedly.

Mark raises an eyebrow, “What did you expect? Chest hair?”

“Maybe?” Jinyoung smirks for a second but it quickly disappears the moment he brings his hand down to Mark’s waist. Mark holds his breath, his eyes shooting across the room as Jinyoung continues to lower his touch till it’s reaching a dangerous close to v-line that drags from between his hips and disappears beneath the band of his boxers.

Jinyoung quickly shrinks back then and goes to flop onto the bed beside Mark. “, I’m sorry.” Jinyoung mutters and presses the heel of his hands to his eyes. He makes a squeaky sound and rolls to his side, giving Mark his back.

Mark, on the other hand, is still frozen in place, silently burning in the heat. He goes to clutch at the hem of shirt and drags as low as he can, his hand shaking ever so slightly. “What are you apologizing for?” Mark says, a tremble in his voice as he shuts his eyes tightly, composure a lost cause.

“I chickened out…” Jinyoung groans into his covers. “I’ve never touched a guy before, I’m sorry.”

“Are you confused?” Mark asks, insecurity a new found gem in the treasure chest of secrets he’s kept inside him.

“No, I’m nervous, stupidly excited like I’m some stupid eight year old kid going home hand in hand with my crush.” Jinyoung moans, his hands clawed deep into the covers. “You’re another world to me, Professor. You’re new and different, and mysterious, and I’m me. All awkward and malfunctioning.”

“I feel like you’re talking about me,” Mark chuckles to himself. “You make me sound cool almost.”

“But you are.” Jinyoung swivels round to face Mark with those big eyes of his and Mark returns his expression with fondness. “You don’t know much your studies were used in our circulliam, you were someone so far away, you were a name, and then you were here.”

“I’m here,” Mark says and rolls on his side, curving his back so his head tucked a little close to Jinyoung’s. “I’m not far away, or behind a glass pane, I’m here.” He says softly, reaching out towards Jinyoung’s sprawled out a hand. He locks a finger with him, a light touch, and tugs at him.

“Like I said, it feels like a dream,” Jinyoung murmurs, staring down at their hands. “But I’m glad it’s not. I’ve been stuck in my own head for too long.” His eyes flutter, and his breathing grows more shallow.

“How are the memories?” Mark asks caressing a thumb to the finger he has interlocked.

“Awful,” Jinyoung replies quietly. “I keep seeing shadows, and a bird falling from the sky, but I don’t know what it means or what it is.”

“Is that what you been up searching about all night?” Mark asks.

“Mmmm…” Jinyoung hums, his eyes now shut. “It was keeping me up but now that I’ve seen you, I feel like I can almost...relax.” He says, his face half smothered into the covers below the two of them. Mark stares at him, takes in the curve of his eyelashes, the dip in his nose and lines of his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Mark whispers the words unheard. Jinyoung asleep, his finger now tightened around Mark’s. There’s a lot of things that run through Mark’s head; if he should leave? How could he protect Jinyoung? What did Youngjae mean? Was he telling the truth to begin with?

It’d seem the more Mark tried to unravel the mysteries surrounding the two of them, the more questions that arose. He’s realised however that no matter what happens, no matter what he finds out, he has to protect Jinyoung. No matter the cost.

Turku, 1827

Turku had drowned in a fire that lasted all night. Barrick arrived to the northern border of the city, an area in the forest the fire hadn’t touched, but he had seen from a distance that the fire had jumped the Aura river where the Turku Cathedral and the Imperial Building of Turku had succumb to the flames.

He’d tried to make his way through the crowds of people seeking protection, and the officers barricading the roads. They needed extinguishers, the people had said a lot of the city folks had left to Tampere for a market so they were low on manpower. But there was no safe entrance into the city from where Barrick had come from, the fire completely consuming the entire northern eastern part.

He’d never seen fire like it before, flames so large and high it was as if a part of the sun itself had landed upon the eart. Hell has risen, he’d heard someone say, a mother of two children nestled between her legs beneath a thin blanket. It is then with blinding fear he remembered Hanna and the twins, as far as he was concerned, his home and area of the city was already burnt to a cinder.

This area was the closest safe spot for people in the eastern part of Turku so he’d spent the next few hours searching for them among the crowds. Calling out their name hoping for at least one of the twins to hear him, for anyone to tell him if they’d seen them. But they weren’t in sight, and no one had any news of them. Panic started to overcome him, the image of his sister’s grave flashing before his eyes and he’d spent a good half hour vomiting out nothing but saliva behind a tree trunk.

His next course of actions was to get in, find a way round the forest and into the city where he could at least help put the fire out and search for Hanna. Once he’d find them and made sure they were safe, he’d check on Henrikka, who he was sure would be safe anyway, her asylum was far out of the cities reach.

Evidently, it was easier said than done. One the officials had seen him make a move to the forest where he could bypass their barricades and quickly caught up to him, cuffing him up and placing him between their watch. “You’ll just burn to death, Mr Nieminen. Stay put.”

“I’d rather burn to death then stay here and do nothing, let me go. No one will hold you responsible.” Barrick demands, his voice high and powerful and the official almost wavers.

“You can’t do that Mr Nieminen,” A woman from behind him says, he finds it to be one of the ladies from his neighbourhood, an old woman who runs the bakery at the markets. “Who will help build our city after it all burns down?”

“All burns down?” Barrick repeated the words with dread churning in his stomach. He looks back up over the tips of the trees, where the black smoke has clogged the sky in an overbearing darkness filled with ash.

The whole city is burning down.

By the time the officials has claimed it to be safe to reenter the city, it was past noon the next day. The people soon came to make their way back into Turku where they were to be greeted with their homes having turned into nothing but black and dust, ashes for their beds and roofs crumbled to the ground.

Barrick had returned to his home to find it had caved in on itself, he could almost see how it might have come down. First the legs, then the head. The house must have first crumbled down before it was rendered to ashes. He stares nervously at the next house, Hanna’s house that must have come down in the same fashion. Men were currently going through the rubble, and somewhere in the back of Barrick’s mind he knows he needs to help them, to put his weight into helping the community but his feet were stoned to the ground.

“Barrick?” A rough, ragged voice comes from behind him, followed by the heavy tap of a hand to his shoulder. Barrick looks over to find Iisakki Nurmi by his side, his face covered in soot, exhaustion weighing in his eyes.

“Iisakki!” Barrick almost laughed with the relief that bursts in him at the side of Hanna’s husband altogether in one condition. “Oh thank god you’re okay.” He brings the man into a tight embrace.

“I’m glad you’re okay my friend,” Iisakki says tiredly into his embrace. “It seems you managed to avoid the fire with your travels.”

“Yes, but how are the twins? Hanna?” Barrick urgently asks, pulling back from the man.

“They are fine, they’d gone to market with Hanna’s mother.” Iisakki informs him, smiling a little behind the ash the clung to his skin.

Barrick crumbles to his knees, his hands still to Iisakki’s wrist. “Thank god, thank god. Everyone is okay.” Iisakki bends to his knees to meet Barrick’s eyes at the same level, two hands to his cheeks to lift his face up.

“Barrick, I feared the worst for you, my man,” Iisakki said.

“What do you mean? You knew I was out of town.” Barrick replied.

“Yes but...when the fire went out earlier this morning, I’d taken some men here first. The fire had started further up the hill so most of the casualties would have been in this area. We found a body, I thought it was you, my friend. I had truly feared the worst.” Iisakki trembled a little as he says the words.

“Why would you assume it’s me?”

Iisakki looked him in the eye, worry plaguing his expression. “We found a body under the rubbles of your house.”

“What?” Barrick in a shaky breath. “In my house, you’re sure?”

“Yes, but I’d quickly went to check the body. It was a woman.” Iisakki says. “Were you meeting someone Barrick? Or given someone a key, possibly a family member? Do you know who it might be?”

Barrick toppled back onto the ground. Everything suddenly became muted, he could see Iisakki’s mouth moving but he couldn’t hear the words coming out of them. “No, no, no, no, no.” Barrick tried thinking the words but his cries somehow made their way out, his voice breaking. “Please, please, tell me it’s not her. Please god.” Barrick crawls back, away from Iisakki, his eyes roaming around the rubble reduced city around him.

Everything was blackened and charred, the river clogged with ashes, and the day sky hidden in a constant twilight behind clouds of smoke. There is a pit of darkness Barrick has fallen in, and he knows this time the descent will last forever.

Seoul, 2016

Mark wakes up crying, tears spilling down his eyes and whimpers escaping through trembling lips. He bit down on the feeling to scream, to melt his sorrow into the pillow and drown in the grief that fills his lungs.

Why? Why did you show me this?

You said you wanted to know, Mark. I showed you what he does, what he’s done.

No, no, this isn’t what I wanted to know.

You know now why it’s my fault? I’d given her a key to my home and I told her to wait for when I were to return. I’d left her crying, I wanted to reassure her, but I ended up killing her.

Barrick-

She would have been safe in the asylum. She would have lived. She was meant to live. But it was his fault as much as it was my fault.

Who? The fire...it was an accident Barrick, you could never have known.

No it wasn’t an accident. Only I know who it was, who is capable of it. You know too. You know where the fire started.

Further up the hill…is a mansion.

Carl’s family mansion. He started the fire.

Mark sits up straight from his bed, his vision a blur but he see’s the light through his window. A blue ghost of sunlight piercing through the window panes. Mark looks down at his hands, through the tears, he see’s fingertips dipped in grey.

Youngjae is Carl? He started the fire.

He killed Henrikka.

Mark clutches his stomach and heaves, an empty attempt in vomiting. Cold sweet forms at his temples and plasters his hair to his skin and there’s a tremble in his hand he can’t tell is from his own nauseation or Barrick’s anger.

Barrick, I can’t breathe.

I’ll kill him Mark. I’ll kill him. You’re the first one to remember me, it took so much for me to break through, and now I finally have the chance, I’ll burn him down like he did to Henrikka.

“Barrick,” Mark gasps out loud, clutching at his chest. What are you talking about? How can you break through? You’re just memories.

We’re ghosts, Mark. Souls. That’s the curse that’s fallen upon us. We’re souls attached to each other with wisps of strings, and while you are cursed to forget us, and forget Jinyoung, Jinyoung is cursed to remember everything. We are never meant to rest, we are meant to suffer for eternity.

“Barrick, please.” Mark’s not sure why he’s begging, he feels like something heavy is crushing down on him, his ribs pressing into his lung, his insides threatening to implode.

We’re alive, Mark. We may not have bodies, but we’re alive.