Chapter Eleven - Set Apart This Dream

”Hey Sooyoung, it’s been a while.”

Sooyoung turned around to see Hyoyeon standing a short distance away to her right with a wide smile on her face. It really had been some time.

“Hyoyeon! It’s you isn’t it?” Sooyoung and Hyoyeon both ran to each other embracing in a tight hug. Unlike Jessica, Sooyoung had seen and talked to Hyoyeon in the months between after she had moved out of the shrine. Her friend felt huggable as ever while her familiar scent filled Sooyoung’s nostrils. She felt at home. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m in here because of Sunny. She is missing and the girl there is part of the problem and solution.”

Sooyoung looked behind Hyoyeon where there was another person, a tall beautiful woman. Sooyoung’s eyes widened as she realized who it was.

“Yoona?!” She let go of Hyoyeon and looked at the girl questioningly. Yoona was holding her hands together shyly, unsure of what was going on and her expression was blank like a new sheet of paper.

Hyoyeon looked at Sooyoung and then back at Yoona, just as confused of the situation as Yoona was.

“You know her?”

“You know me? Wait… am I not…”

Yoona looked at herself, her hands, her feet, her body. She touched her face feeling her own features and ran her fingers through her hair. She felt her whole body, it was her own.

“I’m, I’m not Sunny! I’m myself!” A glorious smile spread on her face and Yoona as tears of joy welled in her eyes, finally back in her own body. “Seo I’m…”

Looking around her she only now noticed that Seohyun was nowhere to be found. She couldn’t see her anywhere.

“Hyoyeon! Where is Seo?!” With panic tinting her voice she franticly looked around as Hyoyeon noticed Seohyun’s absence as well.

“Seems like she wasn’t able to pass through to here. Don’t worry, it just means that she is fully awake with Jessica back in the real world. And the reason why you are in your own body is that; when you come into the dream world you leave the physical body you were in, whether it was your own or somebody else’s, and since your mind and soul are linked to what you really look like it manifests itself in the dream world too. But…” Hyoyeon turned to look back at Sooyoung, “You know her?”

“Yes. I met her earlier a while ago in the dream world. Or someone who looked just like her but went by the name Saebyuk. Someone is copying you, Yoona.”

“Co-co-copying me?”

“Like some echo in the dream world?” Hyoyeon questioned as Yoona slowly walked closer to the two.

“Nope, proper abilities. She could manipulate the world and she is the one who actually banished me here.”

“Here? So this isn’t the dream world?” Yoona asked. Weren’t they supposed to be in the dream world?

“Nope. This is the level above the dream world. It’s kinda like… a world that ties with your memories and your past. A time sink if you will. If you want to be in this world you should travel as a whole, along with your body and not just with your mind alone. Think of it as a whole other dimension instead of a part of the real world so to speak. At the moment all of us are totally severed from our bodies. It’s the same as back then Hyo…”

“This is bad,” Hyoyeon said shaking her head, “very bad.”

With her eyes wide questioning everything Yoona had no idea what was going on. All she knew was the simple plan of going to the dream world, meeting Sooyoung and finding Sunny, had just become more difficult.

“Wh-what is it?” Yoona asked carefully.

“What it means is that at the moment our bodies are totally empty vessels and since the body has no tie to our minds right now, there is nothing to keep them from being invaded. Since Jessica is looking after them they are safe… for a while. If your body doesn’t have any mind for an extended period of time, whether be it our own minds or a foreign one, it dies.”

Hyoyeon turned to look at Yoona who only now noticed what was different with Hyoyeon’s eyes. They were perfectly black with hints of red swirling in them, like red eels swimming in a pitch black pool. The sight of Hyoyeon’s eyes startled Yoona and she let out a high pitched squeek and took a few steps back. Her voice trembled but she tried to compose herself.

“Wh-wh-what is... your eyes…”

“It’s what happens when your body is invaded by a foreign entity and you force yourself back into your own body with the foreign being in it.”

“Foreign being?”

“She got possessed by a spirit a long time ago. They were unable to pull it out without killing Hyoyeon’s body so instead they suppressed it and it lives underneath Hyoyeon’s consciousness,” Sooyoung said with a comforting smile.

Yoona was trying to wrap her mind around everything that was being said. Apparently Seohyun had not made it to the dream world, except the three of them currently were not in the dream world but a totally different plane of existence, one that required them to travel to it with both physical bodies. Sooyoung had met a copy of her who banished Sooyoung to this place, and Hyoyeon had a scary possessing being inside of her and that made her even more anxious. Was it safe to be around Hyoyeon?

Sooyoung studied Yoona as the latter was trying to make sense of all she had just heard. It seemed like the real Yoona had arrived yet she clearly didn’t know anything about what was going on. She had forgotten everything. Sooyoung’s recently resurfaced memories of Yoona made her mind sink deeper into melancholy. Nobody remembered a thing. But that was a worry for another day, for now the business of Sunny was priority.

“Now, what was this thing about Sunny? Is she caught in a dream? Cause I bumped into a Sunny earlier,” Sooyoung questioned Hyoyeon. She had known about Sunny but had never met her in real life let alone know what she looked like. If that girl she had met earlier was the Sunny they were looking for, it would explain how a copy of Yoona was the root of the problem and why it banished her into her memories.

“You saw Sunny?! Where?!” Hyoyeon pinned Sooyoung and Yoona was fully alert of this news. Sooyoung knew where Sunny was?

“Yes, I met her just before Saebyuk came in and banished me here. She didn’t want me to help Sunny out of here.”

“Damn it, so things are even more complicated. Why was this Saebyuk preventing you from helping Sunny?”

Sooyoung looked past Hyoyeon at Yoona who stood there half understanding what was going on while the other half of her was totally lost.

“She said they needed Sunny to get to her.”

Hyoyeon turned around as Yoona’s mouth widened in shock not knowing what was going on any better than the other two. Hyoyeon’s bottomless pools of black eyes and the circling crimson in them caused her hair to rise, not helping with calming Yoona’s shock any bit and she felt like she was going to get mauled to death any minute.

”We need to get out of here,” Sooyoung started, turning back to face the tall concrete building in front of them.

“Where is the door?” Hyoyeon turned back to look at Sooyoung before following her stare to the building as well. “In there?”

“Yeah…”

“Door?” Yoona once again questioned. She knew that all of these questions must have been getting tiring for the two but she was out of her element in this place. Out of her body certainly.

“In this plane the only way to get out is through a doorway. An escape. The problem is that it is always in the place that you fear the most,” Sooyoung explained.

Hyoyeon took a step closer to Sooyoung and took hold of her hand to comfort her. Sooyoung had told Hyoyeon about her childhood and from what she could gather this was her childhood home, the place of all the abuse and torture she had to go through before saved by Jessica’s mother all those years ago.

“So this is the place then…” Hyoyeon said softly and could feel Sooyoung grip her hand tighter, so tight that her nails were about to burrow into Hyoyeon’s skin and she could feel her bones in her hand crunch up together from the force. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Yoona will also, right?”

Yoona wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do and she was still careful about Hyoyeon, but nodded in response.

“So shall we go?” Hyoyeon questioned Sooyoung who shook her head.

“I don’t want to go anywhere near that place. Just looking at it hurts.”

Hyoyeon let go of Sooyoung’s hand and took hold of Yoona’s dragging her along with her past Sooyoung towards the door. Yoona opened to protest but nothing came out. Looking at the back of Hyoyeon’s head she could feel an aura radiate from her, something that made Yoona’s skin crawl and robbed her of any words of protest she might have had.

“Don’t worry, Yoona and I will take care of it.”

They walked up to the front door and Hyoyeon let her fist bang loud with fury, making sure that everyone in the house could hear it. Sooyoung flinched each time Hyoyeon pounded, scared of what was to come, of who was inside.

“Open the door! We need to talk!” Hyoyeon let her voice rip.


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Seohyun felt as Yoona’s hand no longer gripped hers and she opened her eyes to see the tiny body of Sunny which Yoona was in, sit limply on the cushions with her eyes closed. She glanced at Hyoyeon who was also asleep in a similar fashion. She let go of Yoona’s hand and got up from the cushion.

“You’re an odd one.”

Seohyun turned to look at Jessica who had gotten off her own cushion and walked over to Hyoyeon with a stack of blankets in hand. She kneeled and gently laid Hyoyeon down on the floor to sleep.

“What’s going on? Why are they asleep and I’m not?”

Jessica moved the strands of hair that were loosely scattered on Hyoyeon’s face, straightened them to the side and gently her cheeks. “I can’t send you to sleep.”

“Why? I did everything you told me.”

“I know, you did everything right and I did everything as usual.”

Jessica took one of the blankets from her stack and gently placed it over Hyoyeon covering her all around and making sure that she was sleeping comfortably. Her chest slowly rose and fell again and Jessica’s body began tingling, a warm sensation was filling her. A sensation that she had missed so much. She had really missed Hyoyeon.

She stood up and made her way around to Sunny’s body. Once again she kneeled down and lowered the small figure of Sunny on the floor and covered her with a blanket.

“Then what happened?”

Jessica got up from the floor and motioned with her hand for Seohyun to follow her into the lobby. Seohyun walked past Jessica who followed her out after closing the door behind her and then directed Seohyun back through the lobby into the kitchen.

“Would you like a drink? Coffee, tea, juice, water? We have some coke too if you’d like.”

“Water is fine, thank you.”

Jessica poured water for both of them and they sat down by the kitchen tables. Seohyun was feeling rather tense. After all the scepticism she had felt towards all of this, after initially meeting Jessica she had finally believed that it really was Yoona in Sunny’s body. But now for some reason she was the only one who could not go beyond this world. It started to sound like an awful scam once again.

“Do you dream Seohyun?”

“What?”

“Do you see dreams when you sleep?”

“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

Seohyun looked at Jessica and huffed through her nose, her nostrils flaring. Why would she not dream?

“If you do dream, can you remember a single dream of yours? Can you tell me of a dream you’ve seen? Any dream will do.”

“Of co-”

Seohyun’s mind began shooting blanks. She was sure she had dreamt had she not? Everyone could see dreams. She was certain that she had seen dreams before but as she sat by the little kitchen table next to Jessica, not a single dream popped into her head. She had no recollection or memory of any of the sorts. Could it really be that she had never seen a single dream in her life? Was that even possible?

Jessica eyed the girl sitting across from her. Beautiful as a sculpture of an ancient Greek goddess with her straight black hair parted from the middle, she seemed like a very pure and upright person. And yet Jessica could spot the slight quiver in the girl’s lip, the uncertainty oozing from her, radiating at her like the smell of cooking from an apartment you are passing by on the street. Teasing you with its existence but never allowing you to taste it. This is how Seohyun was.

“I… I don’t think… I can’t seem to remember,” Seohyun said carefully as she looked up at Jessica. “I never really gave any thought to it, never tried to remember a dream or think whether I did. I just assumed I did but now I can’t seem to remember a thing.”

Seohyun’s head sank down as realization hit her and her eyes showed the shock that this revelation brought upon her.

“Well, that would explain it partially. I thought I sensed it from you and it seems I was correct. You are one of the rare cases that can’t access the dream world. Why I don’t know yet but it is very rare that someone is denied total access to the dream. Even people who very rarely see dreams and can’t remember them are able to get there when I send them. But you…”

“What does it mean?”

“For now, it just means that you can’t go where everyone else can. Whether it has larger implications is hard to say yet.”

Seohyun kept staring at her hands cupping the glass of water. She could see small ripples on the surface of it, evidence of her nervousness of the situation. Jessica took a small sip of water and waited for Seohyun to continue. They always had more questions and wanted to talk, they just needed a little time for all the information to sink in.

“So, what happens next?” Seohyun lifted her gaze to look at Jessica who smiled at her comfortingly.

“Well, they’ll meet up with Sooyoung who’ll help them find Sunny or she’ll look around. If she has already met them she would tell them about it.”

“So if they find Sunny?”

“Then we…” Jessica paused for a moment. In her anger towards Hyoyeon she had forgotten to explain what would happen if they did find Sunny. She carefully looked at the expecting Seohyun, her eyes round and to the point. There was no fooling her.

“Well, since we don’t have Yoona’s original body or know where it is, we can’t do a simple body swap. We’re going to have to purge Yoona, bring Sunny back to her own body and…”

“And?”

“And have Yoona enter me.”

Seohyun’s eyes widened in shock once more.

“What?! You’re going to just swap Yoona into another body? Your body?” Seohyun’s voice raised up a few notches, a hint of threat in it as she stared at Jessica who could only look back at her with honest and slightly apologetic eyes.

“Yes, but I’m a shrine maiden after all. I’ve been trained to host souls and spirits in my body. It is my job.”

Seohyun sank in her seat. Everything was out of this world, literally. It just blew over her head and nothing that she had learned as true in this world could explain the situation they were now in or the explanation that Jessica was giving her. Sure she had read books about this kind of stuff but she never actually gave much thought to it. But the seriousness in which Jessica was talking to her and the voice coated with professionalism and sureness in her craft told Seohyun that there was something to this that she had missed before.

“So, what now? Do we just wait?”

“Pretty much.”

“Don’t you have to do something? Watch over them? Concentrate, do rites?”

Jessica let out a small laugh as she stood up from her chair.

“Sometimes I do, depending on the circumstance. But this time they are basically just in a waking dream and they are with Sooyoung. I can feel the change in the feel, atmosphere and spirit of this building once I need to get involved again. So in the mean time, I do my chores.”

Seohyun had not expected this. Jessica seemed very relaxed and nonchalant. The woman casually strode across the kitchen with a gentle smile. Nothing in her mannerisms or voice would have told that she was performing some kind of ritual.

“What kind of chores?”

Jessica turned around and looked over to the kitchen counter and the huge double sink. It had plates, pots, pans and cutlery stacked into huge piles, all dirty from use. She looked back at Seohyun who opened slightly in acknowledgment.

“I also prepare food for the people once they wake up. Usually they are quite hungry afterwards.”

“You cook?”

Jessica looked down at the floor shyly, shifting her legs around.

“Yes… I mean, I can cook fried rice. Usually Sooyoung cooks proper food and Hyoyeon used to cook before she left, but for the past month since Sooyoung has been gone I’ve only been cooking that really. I’m going to definitely ask Sooyoung to teach me more things to cook once she gets back.”

Seohyun finished her glass of water before getting up from her chair and walking over to the pile of dishes.

“Well I guess we’ll do this now since there is nothing much to do.”

Jessica walked next to Seohyun and pulled out two pairs of rubber gloves from the drawer next to the sink.

“I’ll scrub you can rinse.”


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“Open up!”

Hyoyeon banged harder on the door of the building. Sooyoung made her way towards Hyoyeon and Yoona with trepidation, still keeping at good distance. Yoona looked at Sooyoung and could see how carefully she approached them, the uncertainty in her steps and the terrified look in her eyes. Had this place been so awful to her?

“You useless trash go open the door now! See who’s asking.”

Hyoyeon stopped banging the door and a few seconds later hurried steps could be heard from the inside of the building, the door finally unlocking and slowly pulled open. The same yellow shirted girl that Sooyoung had seen a moment earlier was peeking out from behind the door.

“What is it?”

Hyoyeon blinked a couple of times at the girl. She looked exactly like Sooyoung as a kid. Everything about her looked similar except for how small and dirty she was. Hyoyeon looked back over her shoulder at Sooyoung, then back at the little girl.

“We’re coming in for a visit, would that be okay?” Hyoyeon smiled warmly at the little girl. Yoona also gave a small smile and the girl opened the door letting Hyoyeon and Yoona inside. The girl looked at Sooyoung who was still standing outside at a distance from the door.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

Sooyoung hesitated for a moment before she carefully walked up the steps and into the house. The girl closed the door behind her and then walked past the three of them standing in the hallway and they followed her into the living room.

The place was about to fall apart. The wallpaper was torn and falling off from multiple places, the corners of the rooms were riddled with mould as dark as the deadly abyss of a black hole. The floorboards creaked and occasionally felt like they would crack under their weight. The whole place reeked as if it had never been cleaned since the day it had been built.

The girl walked off into another room and soon an older lady in her fifties came out, a typical neighbourhood aunt. From behind her you could see a bright light shining from the room, and the quality of the room the woman came from compared to the rest of the house was astounding. It looked habitable unlike everything else in this building.

At the sight of the woman Sooyoung latched onto Hyoyeon taking hold of her hand and holding it tight. Hyoyeon peeked over her shoulder to look at the worried expression on Sooyoung’s face.

“What do you want?” The woman asked the three. Hyoyeon was still looking at Sooyoung as she herself was not sure what they were supposed to do or look for. Sooyoung kept looking down on the ground without saying a thing.

The little girl re-entered the room and as she walked past the older woman she slapped her in the back of the head which sent the girl tripping forward. Sooyoung immediately darted forward embracing the girl into a hug. Her eyes flared with anger as she stared at the lady who had a wicked smile on her face.

“Don’t you ever hit her again you hear! Ever!” Sooyoung shouted at the lady. She could feel the girl tighten her hold around Sooyoung, her small frail arms holding onto the warm figure holding her, protecting her. She had never been held with such compassion and it overwhelmed the girl, suddenly feeling like everything was alright.

“Who are you to tell me what to do? Let go of the little devil!” The woman reached out to grab hold of Sooyoung when Hyoyeon stepped in front, changed. Her eyes were glowing red, her body was emitting a black aura as if smoke was seething through the pores in her skin and made it look like something underneath her skin was crawling. The black smoke appeared boiling hot as if steam and both Yoona and the woman took a step back as a reaction.

“Never hit her again. You hear?” Hyoyeon’s voice low, huskier than usual. It almost growled as the words slipped from her tongue and her stare burned into the woman, right through to the back of her skull. Staring into Hyoyeon’s eyes made the woman feel like the vitreous gel in her eyes would boil in agonizing pain forcing her to look away.

“Wh-wh-what do you think you can do huh?” The woman trembled and shuddered as she backed off a few steps from Hyoyeon.

Sooyoung stood up releasing the girl from her hug and walked past her towards the woman. Her gut wrenched hard as she walked towards the woman that she had feared her whole childhood, the one who had abused her until she had finally had enough. The same fear that she had felt through her early life was flowing through her veins, taking place in every part of her body.

But she fought back so she could get out of this place. She had to face her fear. Even if she knew that what she did here would have no effect in the real world, that this was just a time loop of her memories, it would give her absolution. She knew what was going to happen soon after this moment and it gave her slight satisfaction to be able to say it to her face, to stand up to her and make the woman tremble.

“You’ll be dead in a week,” Sooyoung’s mouth spread into a slight smile. She knew it was a horrible thing to say but she felt her fear wash away, a warm comforting feeling envelope her as she knew that in the end she had beaten it all, she had lived and survived through this episode in her life and was living fourteen years onwards. The satisfaction of being able to strike fear into the abusive woman’s heart made her smile.

The woman tripped on her feet, crashing onto the floor and scrambling to back away from Sooyoung who towered over the woman with her full height. The little girl she had held earlier walked up and took hold of Sooyoung’s legs, holding onto them as she watched the woman in front of her scramble in fear and try to quickly disappear into the adjacent room. A smile spread on the girl’s lips in the same way that Sooyoung felt great satisfaction.

Sooyoung looked down and caressed the little girl’s hair before kneeling to be at level with her eyes. Both of them smiled with confidence and felt their fears dissipate in that short instant.

“Just hold on for a week longer okay? It’ll all get better then, Sooyoung.”

The little girl’s eyes widened with surprise at the fact that Sooyoung knew her name. She struggled to say something but Sooyoung stood up and ruffled the girl’s head one more time before walking to a smiling Hyoyeon and a baffled Yoona. Yoona had been watching the whole scene play out from the side of the room and was absolutely baffled with what had happened.

“She… her… you… she’s you?” She managed to ask as Sooyoung started to make her way up the stairs that were at the end of the corridor where they had been standing. Hyoyeon nudged Yoona to follow Sooyoung and waved to the little girl, the little Sooyoung, before following the other two up the stairs.

“Wha- what was that?” Yoona asked Sooyoung as they reached the third floor corridor.

“I’ll explain it once we wake up but first let’s get out of here.”

She continued walking along the corridor until she reached the end and there were two doors to each side. Sooyoung opened the door on the left and walked in, Yoona and Hyoyeon right on her trail. Hyoyeon closed the door behind them as Sooyoung made her way to the opposite corner of the room from the door. There she kneeled down and pulled off a couple of boards off the wall revealing a small hole that lead through the wall to some place.

“This used to be my hiding place, my escape back when I was a kid,” Sooyoung looked up from the corner at Yoona and Hyoyeon before she got on all fours “This is the way out.”

Hyoyeon urged Yoona to go in who carefully made her way into the hole before everything flashed blue and then black in her eyes. Yoona disappeared into the hole, a small blue flash emitting from it after her. Hyoyeon went next following Yoona in and disappearing the same way.

Sooyoung was the last to go in and before she crawled fully in she glanced over her shoulder at her old room; the dirty, rotten fowl smelling room she had lived in for many years as a child. A shiver ran through her spine as she looked at it, prompting her to continue crawling.

As she disappeared into the hole the world that they had been in collapsed in on itself leaving all that had inhabited this memory of Sooyoung behind, finally ceasing to exist.