Chapter Seventeen - Staple It Together
Project 86Chapter Seventeen – Staple It Together
The sun still high in the sky, three figures sat in a car speeding down the highway out of the city. The air conditioner was working its hardest to keep the transport sufficiently cool on this exceptionally boiling day. They were listening to the news from the radio, the latest report just coming to a close as they turned off the highway onto a country road leading into the mountains.
“As a result of last night’s special anomaly and the new anomalies experienced earlier this afternoon, all air traffic has been cancelled until further notice. Authorities say that flights can return to their normal schedule once it has been at least 24 hours since the last anomaly sighting.”
The driver turned the radio off and sighed. What was this world coming to?
“I guess whatever it is that’s causing these things is just picking up speed and not slowing down.”
“We better hurry up as well then.”
The car diverted off a regular country road passing a popular hot spring inn on the way. The rough and worn out tarmac changed to gravel, the car picking up dust behind it enough to wholly cover the view from the rear-view mirror. Soon enough the road s its way into the forest that covered the mountain they were heading for, finally getting shade from the trees that flanked either side of the road creating a solid roof of green cutting off the suns intense glare. A moment of reprieve for the travellers.
A good fifteen minutes later the car arrived at a rather small gravel parking lot, probably big enough for five or six cars in total. They were the only ones there however and so parked the car right next to a set of steps they could see at the end of the lot the three in the car.
They all got out of the car and stared at the intense climb ahead of them. A communal sigh was let out and they began to lounge up steps. Another good fifteen minutes later they finally crossed the threshold of the final steep stone step of the mountain side. As they managed to the top they were greeted with a clearing – a yard that had their destination at the opposite end of the clearing, the shrine. Sweating from the exhausting effort, their necks and backs now covered with uncomfortable splashes of sweat, they walked over to the building and stepped up to the worn oaken porch before one of them gave a weak knock on the door frame.
Inside a few hushed voices spoke and soon hurried footsteps sped towards them, like the pitter patter of a rain on your window. The door was slid open to the side and in front of them stood a fair young lady, flowing brown hair on her shoulders wearing a shrine maidens usual red pleated skirt tied with a red bow and a white haori. Her eyes curious and questioning looked at the three standing on the porch. “Tiffany?”
“Yes that is me. A pleasure to meet you…?”
“Jessica, please do come in,” she gestured to the three to walk past her into the receiving room of the shrine and closed the door after them. She then led them to the shrine room where she did her duties. Sitting on the cushions in the shrine room Sooyoung and Sunny waited for their arrival, both standing up as the guests entered the room.
“Tiffany! It’s about time we finally meet in the flesh.” Sooyoung smiled and jumped up from her cushion, immediately walking over and giving her a hug, much to Tiffany’s surprise. She however hugged back and then smiled as they broke off. Jessica walked past the two huggers to stand next to Sunny further in the room as the final two newcomers stood by the door.
“It is so nice to meet you Sooyoung.”
Taeyeon and Yuri patiently waited to be introduced as Sooyoung, Jessica and Sunny all peered past Tiffany at the duo. Tiffany turned around to look at the two as if suddenly remembering she had not come alone.
“Oh these two are my saviours!” She said beaming a smile at the two before turning back to look at Sooyoung.
Taeyeon took a small step forward and introduced herself.
“My name is Taeyeon,” bowing slightly she continued, “and this is Yuri. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”
“Hi,” Yuri chirped with a little wave and smile, the smile spreading further as she recognized Sooyoung.
“Oh hey it’s you! And Miss Imaginary Friend!” Sooyoung waved back recognizing both Yuri and Taeyeon from a few nights earlier, the latter giving a quirky look at Yuri who merely smiled back at her sheepishly.
“Please do come in and sit down,” Jessica said gesturing for all of them to join them by the cushions. She walked over to a side table and grabbed the tray holding drinks and cups that had been waiting there for the guests. She walked back over to the circle of cushions where the new guests were taking up seats. Sunny sat opposite to the door, Yuri and Taeyeon taking seats opposite to her. Sooyoung sat next to Sunny on the left and Tiffany next to her.
Jessica placed the tray down on the floor and began pouring water into cups and handing them out to their new guests. “You must be extremely thirsty. That climb up the stairs is quite literally murder,” she quipped as she handed out the first cup to Taeyeon who accepted it with a thank you before drinking it in one fell swoop.
“You could say that again,” Taeyeon replied as Jessica handed out drinks to the rest of the crew. “Would it be okay for everyone if we all introduced ourselves before we got started with… whatever it is we are here for?”
Everyone seemed to agree with tiny nods while Jessica set the tray to the side and then kneeled down on one of the cushions between Sunny and Taeyeon.
“As the shrine maiden and keeper of this establishment I suppose I should start. My name is Jessica, I’m the shrine maiden of this here Bunhal Shrine. It has been passed down for generations in my family and I inherited the position from my mother a few years back. I take care of the spiritual needs of people whether it be with guidance, assisting with dreams, possession and driving spirits away – those sorts of things.”
Taeyeon, Yuri and Tiffany all looked at her with hint of disbelief and a little bit of reverence. She had stated all of this so matter of factly and believed it to be true. Considering however, that travelling to people’s dreams was possible and that you could adventure into some primal dream ether that connected everyone, what Jessica did was no longer in the realm of the completely impossible.
As Taeyeon sat next to Jessica, she turned back to face the centre of their little circle and cleared .
“My name is Taeyeon as I said earlier. I’m a private investigator with Yuri here, and I’m here today because I was investigating the mass coma epidemic sweeping the city. It led us to Tiffany over there and… yeah. That’s why we are here.”
She flashed a smile before nodding at Yuri who didn’t have much to add. “I’m Yuri. I’m Taeyeon’s partner in crime. I’m here for the same reasons as her.”
“This sounds awful lot like an AA-meeting or something. Hi my name is Sooyoung and I’m a dreamer,” Sooyoung remarked from the opposite side with a little laugh, getting the whole troupe to chuckle a little at the notion. The situation had some glaring resemblance to a rehabilitation group session, everybody introducing who they are and why they are there.
Tiffany was up next. “Hi my name is Tiffany and I’m a neuroscientist.”
As if on cue, the rest of the group replied in a monotonous tone, “Hi Tiffany.”
The whole group almost instantly erupted in laughter. Sunny threw her head back with a rapid flurry of giggles escaping her, Sooyoung laughed while slapping her thighs with an audible smack and Tiffany clapped her hands rapidly together, her eyes disappearing into two crescents. Yuri keeled over and Taeyeon turned to lean on Yuri’s back while hiding her face from the rest, her tiny frame bouncing from laughter as if she was having a horrible coughing fit. Jessica’s usual porcelain white countenance had turned bright red as she held her hands in front of trying to muffle the brewing giggles in the pit of her stomach.
As the laughter steadily died down and the keeling figures managed to upright themselves, they heard sound coming from outside. Heavy boots on the wooden porch before the front sliding door was opened. Everyone turned to face the door into the shrine room as from the entrance hallway and into the reception room stepped a blonde haired woman, wearing a tank top with red flannel shirt, jeans and black heavy boots.
Seeing this figure Sunny shot up from her seat, her eyes welling up immediately and a weak smile of relief spreading on her lips. Hyoyeon having just entered the building saw Sunny and her lips began to quiver. As she had been preparing to leave the city to come to the shrine she had received a call from Sooyoung - Sunny is back in her body.
“Sunny?”
“Hyoyeon! Hyoraengi!” Sunny scrambled forward almost tripping in the process but managed to stay upright. Yuri and Taeyeon parted the way in between them to let her through as she steamrolled past. Hyoyeon moved forward and received her in her arms. They embraced in the hall, tightly squeezing each other as a tsunami of relief washed over Hyoyeon, enough to make her knees buckle and she had to hold her friend tighter to keep her upright. The same tsunami broke the damns holding her tears back as the knowledge that her friend was safe finally hit home.
Sunny had barely had a chance to get accustomed to being back in a physical body. Of course she had lived in this body for most of her life, but even a few days of being completely out of it had been incredibly disorienting and she still had moments where she questioned if she was dreaming or not. That was the worst part of it all, the lingering doubt that this was all a dream. As a stereotypical as the advice sounded, she was told that whenever she had a sense of doubt she should see what time it was, or read a magazine and turn the page, then return the previous one and see if the contents of it stayed the same. There was no consistency in dreams. You couldn’t tell time properly and the content of any reading material was either illegible or changed unsuspectingly. Sooyoung and Jessica had been very patient with her and talked through her experiences with her and she was extremely thankful for it. However all of this self doubt of dreaming made this situation seem so unreal to her. Was she really hugging Hyoyeon? Was her friend really here? Were these hot tears in her eyes that washed her cheeks and drenched Hyoyeon’s shoulder not fantasy?
Jessica watched the interaction, side eyeing them for a moment before returning to look at the floor in front of her. She was happy for Hyoyeon and that her friend was safe, but knowing this still didn’t help her jealousy. She was extremely jealous. It had only been a day since Hyoyeon had returned to her fold and they still had issues to work through. Even though she knew that Hyoyeon had never abandoned them and it was more an insecurity on her side, she still felt this way. And this fight inside her raged on as she tried to keep a straight face. Nobody noticed the slight twitch in her eye or the nervous smile, as most of them concentrated on the happy reunion. Nobody but Sooyoung.
Sooyoung had been the last of their little trio to have joined them at the shrine years ago as a kid. By that time Jessica and Hyoyeon had been best of friends for quite a number of years. They were the closest but nonetheless took her in as a sister immediately. She suspected it had a lot to do with Jessica’s mother, with the way she raised them. Of course Hyoyeon’s parents had a role in raising that ball of energy to become an upstanding citizen, but within the shrine it was Jessica’s mother who then became her mother too after being officially adopted by her. She had managed to forge a bond between the three closer than anything Sooyoung had ever known before and since.
Sooyoung had been gently tapping the floor with her fingers just in view of Jessica who had been staring at the floor. She eventually noticed this tiny tapping and looked up to see Sooyoung looking at her with a gentle but concerned smile. Jessica quickly wiped any semblance of a tear from the corner of her eyes and smiled back at Sooyoung mouthing to her “I’m fine”. Sooyoung tilted her head with a “You sure?”. Jessica nodded once more, quickly recovering her genuine smile. She had to be happy for Hyoyeon.
As the two huggers eventually seemed to loosen their grip on each other Sooyoung stood up from her cushion to invite the two in. “I think it’ll be best to explain everything and everyone involved here.” She paused before realizing that someone was missing from the group. “Hyoyeon, where is Seohyun? Wasn’t she supposed to come with you?”
“She was, but slightly before I was supposed to come get her she called me saying she had to attend some meeting with her boss and she’d come here later.”
“Oh, alright then. I guess that should be fine,” she turned to look at Tiffany. “Seohyun was the one you were supposed to take a look at. Is it okay if that happens a bit later in the evening?”
“Of course. I have nowhere to be really but here.”
“Great. I guess we’ll wait until Seohyun arrives to tell her what happened last night?” Sooyoung looked around for affirmation.
“I agree. It’s best to tell her in person than over the phone. Please Sunny, Hyoyeon, have a seat. I think we need to reconcile the two sides to this story with one another and catch everyone up to speed. It would seem we will be working as a group now to figure this all out,” Jessica said as she stood up with a smile. She gently motioned to the two still standing by the doorway to go have a seat, catching Hyoyeon’s gaze for a moment before shyly turning away to pick up the drinks and offered one to her just as she sat down next to Sunny.
“Thanks,” Hyoyeon received the drink and much like Taeyeon finished in a single gulp.
Jessica sat back down in between Hyoyeon and Taeyeon.
“I guess we better get explaining then.”
Tiffany started her explanation with a little bit about her background and then her research, meeting up with Sooyoung and working together to find out about the coma, how her work was sabotaged and how she was rescued by Taeyeon and Yuri. She explained that Yoona was something called Project 86 that her father had started but that had failed and Yoona had been missing until a couple years ago.
This news caused a bit of shock in the room to most, even Sooyoung as her mind arduously tried to piece this information together. Yes, that had to be it. All those years ago she had tried to encourage Yoona to go out for little adventures out of her new foster home. After Yoona had been taken away from their old foster home Sooyoung had been extremely sad and lonely. It would be a few years before she herself would be taken in by Jessica’s mother. However, due to both of their abilities she could still play with Yoona in the dream world and was privy to information about her condition and as a result she had helped her with something big years ago. It must have been this incident Tiffany was talking about.
Taeyeon and Yuri then picked up on this explaining their part in the coma investigation and finding Tiffany. They had been more or less just riding the waves and seeing where they took them and were pretty quickly done explaining their part. Taeyeon was more interested in taking notes of what the others had to tell them. Everything was so fascinating.
Sooyoung told parts of her story, going into a coma, noticing lots of new coma patients and deciding to stay in a coma, meeting Tiffany and working with her, the appearance of Yoona and Hyoyeon, battle with Saebyuk and the rescue of Sunny culminating in the disappearance of Yoona. Saebyuk was a new variable to the investigator trio of Taeyeon, Yuri and Tiffany and they questioned a little more on her existence. Tiffany especially was fascinated by the creation of an artificial consciousness or soul, and was also increasingly furious at her father keeping all of this as a secret from her. She had no idea who that man was anymore.
As Sooyoung ended her telling of the events of last night it was Sunny’s turn. Encouraged by Hyoyeon’s arrival and the constant positive support of Sooyoung she began to recount her experiences these last few days.
A week or so before the loss of her body, she had started to get very strong headaches. The first time it had been in the morning, waking up before work to an incredible painful sting. Of course she had brushed this off as just a headache. The rest of that day she continued as normal and together with Hyoyeon, her friend and co-worker, they had gone to the festival event at the grand park in town to relax. There she had felt faint and had another headache once more. This time it had another element to it however, she felt like she was being watched.
They didn’t spend long at the festival as she felt pretty sick after that experience, obviously brushing the feeling of being watched aside as paranoia. But this sickening feeling and pain continued, coming in and out every now and then until a couple days before her body snatching she had a particularly horrible day. Every half an hour or so she would feel the same feeling, a wave of nausea and headaches rushing over her and a constant feeling that eyes were glued to the back of the head. That someone was always there, but every time she turned around it there was no one. It was driving her insane. These bouts of pain had been increasing and she decided that she should go see a doctor the next day.
The day before she would disappear there were no instances of pain, nothing at all. She was confused and scared wondering if everything she had been experiencing was just in her head. She had been confiding in Hyoyeon who supported her and kept telling her she wasn’t going crazy. It really helped her keep sane. Because of the lack of pain she skipped on going to the doctors. Not that the doctors could’ve helped her situation anyway, she knew that now.
The final day she was in her body, before her disappearance, started out wonderful and she felt well. This ended during lunch when she was at her regular coffee shop. Just as she was at the counter she felt a tidal wave of nausea and sickness hit her, an instant migraine and she felt the blood drain from her head. She must have looked like a vampire to anyone around her. It was the feeling of someone staring at her again, but this time she knew exactly where it was coming from. She had turned around to see Yoona standing by the café door and as soon as she did she no longer felt the eyes in the back of her head. All she could do was smile at Yoona, who looking terrified had run away from the café that instant. Sunny had called Hyoyeon over the phone to tell her that she couldn’t come to work as she was feeling unusually terrible, more so than the past few days and so went home to rest. That was the last thing she could remember from the real world before losing her body.
“That… is incredible,” was all Yuri could say.
“What about in the dream world? What happened there?” Tiffany inquired. This body snatching was something she had not encountered before. It was absolutely unbelievable and fascinating.
“Well…” Sunny collected herself for a moment before continuing. It was all still rather odd and confusing to her. “I lost track of time there really. It just felt unreal. Most of my time I just sat at this oasis that reminded me of my childhood. I had met Saebyuk by then a few times, though of course I thought it was Yoona at the time. She always just stood in the distance looking at me and I would scream at her to go away, and after a short moment she would for a time. Until I met Sooyoung.”
Sunny turned to her left to look at Sooyoung who smiled at her once again encouragingly. “She was kind and made me feel safer. But that’s when Saebyuk came and forcefully took me away as Sooyoung already explained. After that I… it’s hard to think. I felt like I was offline, like I didn’t exist. I would experience events one after another and the times in between there was nothing. It was very disorienting.”
Sunny turned back and faced forward looking at the floor. Her eyes were wide and were looking somewhere into the distance. Lost in another world, you could feel that she was back in the dream.
“Sometimes Saebyuk would bring me back into existence to ask questions. I ignored her mostly and then I would once again just… disappear. And the next thing I would remember is being at another place suddenly. Like the moments in between these events didn’t exist.
“The last I remember was Yoona who had come to the dream world and confronted Saebyuk. She was willing to give herself up so I could be free. Then Sooyoung appeared and a fight broke out and Yoona held on to me as Sooyoung fought Saebyuk before I woke up here.”
As Sunny stopped her story the only sound was the faint scribbles that Taeyeon made into her notepad. She had been taking notes of everything as carefully as she could. As the professional investigator that she was, she had been asking questions here and there for clarification. Mindfully and calmly without interrupting the stories she managed to navigate any interview well.
“So like Sooyoung said earlier Yoona disappeared into…” Taeyeon flipped the pages on her pad to find what she had written down, “the beyond? What is this Beyond place?”
Sunny looked at Sooyoung for assistance in explaining since she herself had no clue.
“The Beyond is, well- Jessica would you mind explaining all this?” Sooyoung asked pleading to her adoptive sister. She was the expert after all. “You could use the explanation your mother gave me. It’s a pretty good way of explaining it!”
“You think so only because you like food,” Jessica jested before glancing over everyone. Particularly Sunny, Tiffany, Taeyeon and Yuri were eager to here this as Hyoyeon and Sooyoung already knew what she was about to say.
“But before that however,” Jessica said as she stood up from the cushion and straightened her dress from the crumples it had received from sitting down. “We should eat, especially since the explanation will make everyone hungry.”
One by one they all got up from their cushions. Both Yuri and Sooyoung noticed that one of their legs had fallen asleep; Yuri took hold of Taeyeon as she limped towards the kitchen while Sooyoung decided to hop on one leg. Jessica and Hyoyeon were the last to move out of the room right after Sunny.
“I’ll try calling Seohyun to see if she is on the way,” Hyoyeon stopped walking right at the entrance to the shrine room. Jessica turned to look at her nodding before moving to the kitchen to serve her guests as Hyoyeon walked back into the shrine room dialling Seohyun’s number.
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