Chapter Fourteen -  Beyond This Life

“Okay, so you are fine coming over tomorrow?”

“Yes, your subject sounds most interesting and I’ve been meaning to get out of town for a while now.”

“Great! I’ll tell the others and we’ll expect you over here tomorrow then, let’s say at around two?”

“Two sounds great. Oh, by the way, is it okay if I bring along a few friends of mine?”

“I don’t see why it would be a problem, sure.”

“Alright, wonderful! I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Bye.”

Tiffany ended the call and lowered her hand to her lap still gripping on her cell phone. She looked up at the expecting eyes of Taeyeon and Yuri who were waiting for her to explain what the phone call was about since it had cut their conversation conveniently at a critical point.

Just a moment earlier the three had sat down in the living room and almost immediately Taeyeon had inquired about her father and what she knew about him and what he did. Tiffany had attempted to evade the questions to the best of her abilities but it had gotten to the point where she knew that Taeyeon knew something and could no longer hide behind vague and pointless answers.

Taeyeon leaned her head in towards Tiffany and crossed her legs, a gesture prompting Tiffany to begin once more.

“That was Sooyoung, if you can remember the one I have met a couple of times in the dream world. She wants to meet up.”

“Why is that?”

“She has a friend who seems to be unable to dream at all. I’ve never met anyone like this yet and with my machine we can see if this holds true. Everyone dreams with my machine.”

“So… we’re all going there tomorrow then?” Yuri, who had so far that evening been quiet while Taeyeon had been asking the questions, spoke up.

“Yes. It would seem so. I don’t have a car to get there and it will probably benefit your investigations if you meet Sooyoung. She most likely has something of interest to tell you.”

“That sounds good,” Taeyeon leaned back on the sofa focusing her gaze directly at Tiffany. “Getting back to our earlier conversation you were about to tell me; where was he all these years? Where is your father now and what is he doing? What have you been doing?”

Tiffany’s whole body went rigid her muscles tightening and she found herself biting her bottom lip. She had been keeping everything a secret for years, her whole childhood had been a secret; her whole life was a secret. She could not just tell them everything now, or should she? The two had been honest to her and helped her. Taeyeon was not one to be fooled and it seemed that Yuri, the one she had hoped would have warmed up to her, showed signs of suspicion.

“I…” Tiffany stopped for a moment, breathed in a couple of deep breathes to get her muscles to relax. The tenseness of her muscles were beginning to cause her pain and she stretched her arms out while breathing, eventually placing her hands on her lap.

“I should probably start from when we met. I told you that I was researching dreams and that I was in that machine when someone, probably my colleague would have set the timer off. Well, the only colleague that I had was… my father.”

“What?” Taeyeon immediately rose from her laid back position perching herself at the edge of her sofa. She had not expected this. “So does this mean that-”

“That my father is the one who set the timer off from my machine. I had been working with him since I graduated. He had lived alone for years researching and I had lived with my uncle. He would visit every now and then and told me that once I graduate we would be together again. This is what got me through school; it is why I chose the same line of work as him, the prospect of being with my father once more.

“So when I did graduate we worked on the dream machines and researched them. We were supposed to enhance on the research and material that he had gathered before his hiding. It was supposed to be for doctors and for the good of the people! We were supposed to help people! That was what he told me, that was what I was working for… Obviously he was only using this to help with reaching his real goal.

“I found out about it eventually, about his connections, his financial backers. I confronted him about it. He told me it was not what I thought it was and that he had been approached but declined. I had my suspicions and so I hid lots of the information on my own project away from him, the portable dream machine that I’ve been working on. I guess he realized I didn’t believe him cause that’s where you two stumbled in…

“So here I am, betrayed and hunted by my own father. When Yuri and I went back to the apartment for our stuff and those men came in… I guess he couldn’t lose me. Even if the research and his goals have consumed him mostly, he still loves me… in a way. He probably would have tried to convince me to work with him or then lock me away for the time being until he was done. I… ”

A tear escaped from Tiffany. The thought of her father’s betrayal, the thought of being used for her father’s own ends, the thought that her father didn’t truly love her to give up on his plans; all of this she had had to keep inside of her and hide it from everyone. And so she had immediately locked it away. She had not wanted to think about it at all, and had not thought about it until now that Taeyeon asked about it.

“So, what was it that your father was doing?” Taeyeon carefully probed as Yuri got off the couch to get some tissue paper. She quickly returned and gave it to Tiffany who thanked her for it.

“Sorry,” Tiffany looked up at Taeyeon and flashed her an apologetic smile. “I should have realized it earlier but he was trying to complete his research that he had started a long time ago and which had been halted eleven years ago.”

“Project 86?”

“Yes…” Tiffany looked at Taeyeon, astonished, “how…”

“I have sources,” Taeyeon smiled, “Sorry, continue.”

“Yeah, Project 86,” Tiffany was still staring at Taeyeon with surprise before breaking eye contact. “Back then he had the backing of another scientist politician, a family friend who is now a high ranking employee in the Ministry of Defense. Officially the government stopped their support and funding when the accident happened eleven years ago, but she is secretly funding his research once more.”

“It’s a woman?”

“Her name is Park Luna. Very wealthy. Very shrewd.”

“So…” Yuri interrupted the conversation. Both Tiffany and Taeyeon had almost forgotten her existence while concentrating on their discussion and were quite surprised as she spoke up. Yuri averted their eyes as her cheeks flashed red in embarrassment for disrupting the conversation. “I… heh… just uhm… what is Project 86?”

“Oh… well,” Tiffany paused for a moment, once again seemingly disappearing into her own thoughts. Her eyes blank and lifeless, staring at nothing in particular, she brought her mind back to her childhood to a time over eleven years ago. It was only lately that she had started to think about that time more, what had happened, what she had experienced. To remember the person she had befriended and played with for many years.

“More than what it is, the question is who is Project 86.”

“Who… it is?” Taeyeon and Yuri both leaned in further now even more curious and confused than before.

Still staring into nothingness as if she was barely in the room, in this reality at all, Tiffany began talking.

“It all goes back to when I was seven years old, seventeen years ago. My father’s research had been quite successful and had gone through multiple different projects but now they were looking for something special. It was then that their attention was directed at a little girl at an asylum. Nobody knew her past, her parents, anything about her, only her name.

“But she was special, she had talents. She could use her mind to do things, to show things, to even make things. She was only five years old so she was perfectly uncorrupted. And so they found Project 86, and they took her in to the laboratories where she lived her childhood as did I. We were good friends; I was her only friend after all. Her name was Yoona…”


----


In the centre of the city lights go on at the penthouse of a tall, otherwise pitch dark apartment complex. Coarse fingers wrap around the ringing phone on the nightstand, the receiver is picked up and a low toned sleepy voice answers the call.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry for calling so late sir, but it is an emergency situation.”

“What is it?”

“Saebyuk woke up at the labs scared out of her wits. She was mumbling how she needs more power and attempted to fiddle with the controls of the ‘Bridge’. I only managed to stop her by telling her she could be deleted at any moment. She is now sitting down in one of the chairs but forced me to call you.”

The coarse fingers of the man on the phone ran through his slightly wrinkly forehead and he released a sigh.

“Did she say why she needed more power?”

“Apparently Sooyoung got out of her cage, she doesn’t know how. She said she could probably handle Sooyoung if it was just her, but something new appeared along with her. At first it was a regular female but in an instant it turned into something completely different. She called it the devil, with powers beyond hers and it almost got her and Sunny.”

“The devil?”

“That is what she called it. She is also afraid that the influence of Sooyoung and this devil will quicken the awakening of Yoona. She wants to get it done before it happens otherwise she can’t guarantee results.”

“We can’t just raise the power level just like that; it would attract too much attention. We have already used a lot of people, too many for my liking. Raising the power will use even more.”

“Yes sir. I told her this sir.”

The man finally stood up from the bed and ruffled his hair. Things had been escalating very quickly and nothing had gone exactly as planned. Although he had prepared a lot of precautions and knew there were risks, these new incidents were variables that he in no way could have known about beforehand. It seemed like in the coming weeks he would have to personally oversee everything. No time to sleep in his apartment.

“Tell her to calm down and get back into the dream world. Nobody touch anything until I get down there myself. We need to do some calibrating before changing anything.”

“Yes sir.”

“And bring Seohyun in the first thing when she arrives to work. We are going to need her.”

“Of course sir.”

“And JongKook…”

“Yes sir?”

The man paused for a second.

“Any news on Miyoung?”

“Not yet sir. But we are constantly looking for her. We will find her sir.”

The man ended the call and dialed in a number. It rang a couple of times before another tired voice answered. From its higher mellow and shaky tone you could tell it was a middle-aged woman.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Park.”

“Mr. Hwang, why are you calling at such a time?”

“Some issues have arisen. Unfortunately we will need to use more resources, just thought I’d give you the heads up.”

“Problems?”

“Minor issues.”

“Well, I have something to tell you as well, something you might like us to look into. Somebody managed to pinch some sensitive information.”

“How sensitive?”

“Project 86. Tiffany. You.”

The line went quiet for a moment as the man, Mr. Hwang, let the hand holding his phone drop to the side as he massaged his forehead with the other. Everything was falling apart.

“Thomas?”

“Here. Do you know who?”

“A local police detective called Kangin.”

“I would appreciate it if you did.”

“Not at all, Thomas. A lot is riding on your success. You know I vouched for you and if you can’t deliver the others won’t like it.”

The woman, Mrs. Park, chimed into the phone and let out a small chuckle. To her it was all a dangerous game she liked to play. If things went wrong she would not lose too much, there was no real risk to her. He instead was risking much more.

“Don’t worry, Luna,” Thomas Hwang huffed into the phone stressing her name, “if you take care of the detective everything will be riding smoothly soon enough. Now I have to go and work. Good night.”

“Good night.” She chuckled once more before Thomas Hwang put the phone back into the holder. He walked over to the window that framed the city landscape in front of him. Outside, the dark night sky and the cityscape that glowed with warmth and wrapped itself in an envelope of its own separated its boundaries from the pitch black of the countryside. There would be even fewer lights on tomorrow night. The city was losing its light, soon to be taken over by the dark that surrounded it.


----


Yoona carefully opened her eyes to the sun shining on her face, the blinding rays forcing her to rapidly blink and look away. She lifted her head up to take a look and found herself sleeping on a sofa. Taking a quick look around her she realized that once again she was in Seohyun’s apartment. The last thing she could remember was that she was going to sleep at that shrine. Was she dreaming again? She must be, that is the only explanation. But was the shrine not supposed to prevent her from dreaming?

She got up from the sofa and walked over to the window. The view from Seohyun’s apartment looked ever familiar; the small green garden in front of the apartment building giving some colour to the dull surroundings, the narrow road that ran in front of the apartment dotted with small stores and shops, restaurants and the like. To the left there were more high-rise buildings that reflected the afternoon sun off the windows. Yoona looked at the watch on her wrist trying to see the time, but all she could see was a whirlpool of incoherent mush. She couldn’t tell the time.

It seemed like in the dreams it was always afternoon. It was probably because she loved warm afternoons. She touched the window surface, the warmth soothing her finger tips before she moved away towards the door. She should explore the dream world now that she was conscience in it.

Yoona walked over to the apartment’s front door and carefully opened it. The same sight spread in front of her as had earlier that day, a vast hot desert. She took the first step out and immediately felt how the scorching sand trickled into her shoes and the heat of the area radiated through her soles. To her surprise it did not burn her. It was extremely hot yet comfortable at the same time.

She stepped fully outside and closed the apartment door behind her. Looking around her, at the open expanse of the desert and wondered where she could go. There was nothing on the horizon except for what looked like pyramids from afar. She wondered what they were doing there in the middle of her dream, but then again she was in a desert and pyramids in a desert did make sense. With no real goal she started to walk towards the them.

She walked.

And walked.

And walked some more. For what felt like eternity and a half she walked. Whether it had been a long time or not she couldn’t tell, time seemed to feel all the same here. It was eternity and a millisecond all mashed into one at the same time. Yoona was surprised at how boring the dream world was. Were there not supposed to be freaky creatures, crazy landscapes, all the impossible? And where were all the cities? She had not seen a single, town, village, city or commune of any sort. She wished she could sit down at a city park; and then she was, sitting at a park bench in the middle of what looked like a city.

“Wha-…” Yoona eyed her surroundings. How had she gotten here? Where did the city appear from, a second earlier she had been in the desert and now...

She stood up from the bench carefully taking steps on the crushed rock paths of the park, with her head perched forward she looked around her in wonder. It was a lush green park, quite sizable with trees, a small pond a short distance away with flower beds lining the edge of every place where materiality changed. Beyond in the background she could see concrete buildings; brick and block worked surfaces and fully glazed building facades.

“Hmmm.”

“You’re wondering how you got here aren’t you?”

Yoona turned around towards the voice speaking to her. “You!”

Saebyuk smiled at her as she lightly skipped along the path towards Yoona, stopping at a short distance from her when Yoona took a step back. “Stay there! Just… a moment okay.”

“Sure thing.”

Yoona looked at Saebyuk, her eyes scrunching up as she measured the other girl up. She was suspicious, confused and now slightly scared. That was the person who was faking to be her, made to be her and was holding Sunny. She was the one who had made all this bad happen. But now that she thought of it, this was her chance to make things right. She could get Sunny back.

“I just want to know what this place is, why me? And where is Sunny?” Yoona leaned to the side, as if trying to look behind Saebyuk to see if Sunny was somehow magically hiding behind the back of Saebyuk. She was not. “You just want me right? If you can tell me why me, and if you release Sunny… you can have me.”

Saebyuk smiled, looking very pleased. She was still cautious about her surroundings. The demon girl and Sooyoung might be lurking somewhere but she had made sure there was nothing in the surrounding area or dreamscape before she appeared. It should be alright.

“Okay. Deal. Where are your friends?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I have no clue why this, whatever this is, is happening again,” Yoona looked away from the cheerful eyes of Saebyuk. It annoyed her how much she was her. It was her yet something about it felt out of place all the time. That feeling inched its way up her spine, nudging on the individual vertebrae making her back sting and spasm from each itch.

“Oh well. I’ll indulge you. This is the dream world. The reason you suddenly shifted into the city was because you wished so. When you are in a waking dream everything is under your control. I found you because I felt the change in the dream world. Shifting and changing around makes you visible. Bad idea,” Saebyuk laughed wiggling her right pointer as if reprimanding Yoona.

“Now, why you? Because it’s all about you. You don’t remember anything from the past do you? Everything before eleven years ago is lost to you isn’t it?”

Yoona’s mouth dropped and she could almost hear her jaw fall from their sockets. “How…”

“I am you. Or, I am what you were eleven years ago. You see, you were a very talented kid. You were found and brought up in a lab where they experimented with you and the dream world. You were what they called Project no. 86, or P-86 for short. Before you there had been some other people and children, but all of them proved to be unsatisfactory. But you, you were different. You had the power to create, to control, to do whatever you wanted. You had the powers of God!

“The scientists researched where these powers came from and found out they were linked to the dream world and somewhere beyond. And like any good scientist, they tried to tap into that energy, that power. They tested, built and engineered a highly sophisticated machine and wanted to use you as a bridge. What they didn’t account for is that you are human in the end and your interactions with other humans had corrupted you. You didn’t want to do what they asked you to.

“So when the big night of opening the bridge came you went against them. You fought against them and won, in a sense. You broke their machine; you destroyed their lab and consumed everything in half a kilometers radius, made it all disappear. Everything was gone except the humans. You could not bring yourself to kill or hurt anyone and so they were spared. You disappeared as well and… you know the rest. You woke up somewhere, we don’t know where but you do and obviously lived your life normally until you came to work for Omnicorp. It was a of luck. We had found the bridge again. P-86 was back.”

Yoona took a couple of steps back, stumbling back onto the park bench. She was an experiment?

“Then, what are you? What happened? Why was I in Sunny?”

“That we don’t know. I was created from all the research material and memories of the original you eleven years ago. So I am essentially you before the accident, except my mind was moulded into a subservient adult mind. I can be controlled; I don’t go against their wishes like you as human did. My purpose was to take over your body so you would not go crazy like you did a long time ago. For some reason, while we tried to do this, your mind began to interfere with Sunny’s and then when the time came for the switch you left your body into Sunny’s just as I entered yours. You ran away again.”

“So what do they want?”

“They just want you. Think of what good tapping into the world beyond could do. You don’t remember but the lead scientist was like a father to you. He raised you from when you were five years old! And you had a loving sister in her daughter as well. You could have that again. A family. That’s why they have been searching for you. Famine, energy crisis, natural disasters, you can stop it. All of it!”

“What were their names?” Yoona looked up at Saebyuk. She had been brought up by an elder couple and they were the closest she had to parents. But they were old when they had found her already so she always felt they were her grandparents, and that is what they told her as well.

“Thomas and Tiffany Hwang.”

“So if I come with you, Sunny gets her own body back, you enter me and I get to see them?”

Saebyuk nodded, her usually cheeky and tense expression having relaxed to what seemed like a natural smile, as natural as she could be.

“Do they… still remember me?”

“Yes. Ever since you disappeared they have been searching for you. You were their family. Tiffany especially, she has been the most active out of all to get you back. Ever since we found you she has been itching to meet you again, hug you, and be sisters once more. But she held back and has patiently been waiting. ”

“So all that time I was working in Omnicorp, you knew? I was being followed, prepared? What about Seohyun?”

“Seohyun is what she is; she has nothing to do with it. Don’t worry your friendship is real. But since you started working or ever since you applied to work at Omnicorp we have been watching and waiting.”

Yoona looked away at the gravel path. She had been playing with the ground, drawing circles with her feet trying to fight the anxiety and fear that was building up in her from all the unknown factors. Her life, everything she had known so far, all of it was just a side story from what her real life had been, from what she had really been.

“Can… where…” Yoona had a hard time focusing her thoughts and form any kind of sensible sentence. Her thoughts of who she thought she was and what she had been told were clashing, breaking and taking over all of her thought process.

“Sunny?” Saebyuk asked with a slight smile and in that moment the cute and short hazel haired girl was standing in front of her, confused and shocked.

“Wha-” both Yoona and Sunny staggered back, Yoona in her seat and Sunny on the path slipping slightly as her feet dug into the flower bed that lined the road.

“She is now completely free. Now, I held my end of the bargain so you should hold yours.”

Yoona looked at Sunny who was still staring at her with a confused and helpless look, unaware of anything that had happened, of anything and everything that they had done so far. Yoona smiled at her, the way that Sunny had smiled at her back in the café when they had first met. With that smile Sunny knew and she smiled back, a warm thank you hidden within.

Yoona got up from her seat and walked towards Saebyuk. She reached her hand out as did Yoona and just as they were about to touch, the watch on Yoona’s wrist flashed and an arm appeared out of nowhere, grabbing on the hand of Saebyuk.

“Gotcha!” Sooyoung flashed into existence from Yoona’s watch and as Saebyuk tried to release the hold she created a wave of energy that ripped apart their surroundings. The trees uprooted, flower beds over turned and the grass pulled out ravaging the park, creating an open wound to the skin and earth of the area. Saebyuk had been fooled, this was a trap.

Sooyoung held on tight all the while protecting Yoona and Sunny from the blast. “You aren’t going anywhere!”

“LET! ME! GO!” Saebyuk lashed out again, Sooyoung countering it with the same ferocity, waves and waves of pure energy clashing against each other.

To Sunny and Yoona it looked as if continuous bubbles of light burst and exploded repeatedly hundreds of times a second, as the continuous barrage of force dug holes into the ground and landscape. The fighting was getting more violent and in a moment, Sooyoung’s hold slipped. She realized too late how Saebyuk’s burst of energy managed to get past her. Sunny had latched onto Yoona in fear as the ball of light which seemed so warm and alluring calling them with promise of shelter and softness but held death with in it, approached them.

Yoona gripped Sunny as well. Time seemingly standing still everything had slowed down. Something ticked in her, something deep in her burst, the lock on the door had opened and she knew that she had to do something.

Just as the bubble of light scorching the earth rolled over Yoona and Sunny, she hugged the latter and screamed with all her might, and then everything disappeared.


----


In the underground laboratories of Omnicorp Saebyuk woke up screaming and with the ferocity of a tiger ripped herself off the seat and harnesses in the machine, damaging the apparatus. She stumbled off and onto the floor hitting the laboratory floor with an audible thud.

Alarms were ringing and white coats were running around the area, all shouting and pointing trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Somewhere in the labs a fire broke out and smoke was filling the breadth of the roof. Jong Kook appeared hurrying down the steps and ran to the hunched form of Saebyuk who was still lying on the ground. He turned her over and saw how her eyes were pouring tears and was frothing. She was scared again. Second time tonight.

“What happened?!” Jong Kook lifted Saebyuk of the floor forcefully and began dragging the almost lifeless body with him. “What happened?! Speak up!”

“Yoona… Yoona she awoke! She’s awake now! She… she is awake… she,” Saebyuk began mumbling incoherently, her body twitching involuntarily as her mind tried to cope with the shock and experience of what had just happened.

“She woke up? What the hell did you do?” Jong Kook had reached the top of the steps and turned in along the edge of the labs where the main machines were held.

“I did nothing! Nothing! I’m not at fault! It wasn’t me!” Saebyuk screamed as she let her legs fall limp. Jong Kook kept on dragging her along the floor of the labs finally reaching one of the conference rooms. He pulled her in and let go of her, Saebyuk falling limp onto the floor. “I did nothing…”

She began weeping on the floor, curling into a ball and hiding her face with her hands. Jong Kook looked at her with annoyance. She was after all a creation from the mind of an eleven year old. In essence she still was a kid. He hated kids.

Thomas Hwang walked into the room immediately noticing Saebyuk on the floor and Jong Kook pacing back and forth in the room,

“Sir!”

“What happened?”

“We don’t know yet. Saebyuk says that Yoona woke up.”

Thomas looked at Saebyuk and kneeled down, picking her up and forcing her to look at him. “Is it true?”

Saebyuk nodded, her eyes staring deep into Thomas Hwang’s. She knew that she was not real; she knew that she was just an artificial creation, but she still held the memories and feelings that Yoona had eleven years ago. She still felt like Thomas Hwang was like her father. But he really was not and as quickly as the sparkle in her eyes had appeared from the kindness of Mr. Hwang, it faded just as quickly.

“Hmm, that would explain it.”

“What sir?”

“A hole. There is an open hole from the dream world that is pouring material into ours. It is still small, but we can’t let it grow. We need to find Yoona!”¨

“Yes sir!”

“And can somebody bloody well find my daughter!”


----


“What happened?!”

Jessica rushed over to Sooyoung who had just woken up violently, her body immediately jerking up from her lying position and almost flying off the bed.

“I screwed up! Damn it I screwed up big time!”

“What happened?! What is it!”

“I got Sunny but Yoona…”

“What is it?” Jessica sat next to Sooyoung and pulled her in for a hug as Sooyoung’s body released all the tension in her, tears starting pour at the same time.

“She woke up. Her talents, they’ve been pulled out.”

“Is that what I felt? Cause just before you woke up the whole house shook and three of the etchings on the pillars burst and broke.”

“Not only that, she broke the veil.”

Jessica felt her body shiver in reaction, cold shivers running through every inch of her body and even with the proximity of Sooyoung’s body she felt cold.

“Yoona… she is now in the beyond.”