「 episode 16; arc 0.9d 」 —fragments of cipher//evanesce— 「 historia iv 」

“While you were falling, you...you killed everyone?”

“It’s the only answer that makes sense to me. I don’t know how else to explain everyone else but me being dead...”

Haseul’s voice shattered a stunned silence that had momentarily draped itself over the area. As quickly as the silence had been slain, however, Hyejoo’s answer promptly resurrected it.

A sharp autumn breeze swept by the group of six. Five pairs of eyes were locked onto Hyejoo, each set b with varying degrees of astonished disbelief as they failed to provide a better answer. After a moment, gazes began to shift back and forth in an awkward manner. The longer Hyejoo went without receiving further response, the more she felt her stomach sink.

Jungeun’s gaze was the first to meet Hyejoo’s anew. Her sharpened eyes which sought understanding reigned supreme over the grimace of confusion set about her face. “You said you don’t know how it happened? So, what, you were thrown in one moment and the next thing you knew, you were back up on solid ground? You don’t recall what happened in the middle?”

“I don’t,” Hyejoo answered weakly. Her small voice and lowered vision were given full attention. 

“I was falling for what felt like forever. Eventually, I heard someone speak to me inside my head, and then I out. When I woke up, I was somewhere else entirely, far away from the portal to Lucifer. A few days had passed, maybe two or three. I started walking, looking for people, but everyone...everyone had…”

The gloomy expressions worn by LOONA’s sorceresses became distorted with depression as Hyejoo lost her words. For a moment, she stood unmoving, simply avoiding their eyes and peering at the dead soil beneath her feet. Fighting to keep her composure, she steeled herself and returned her eyes upward.

“...they died. Everyone had died.”

Tense silence visited the circle of magi once more, but its stay was cut much shorter as Jiwoo spoke up with an inquiry. “You say a voice spoke to you inside your head?”

Odd eyes of azure and violet acknowledged one another as Hyejoo gave Jiwoo a firm nod. “Yeah. Like I said, that’s who you met. Given the date, she’s been at the helm for the past two months…”

“You mean to say that she was in control of your body, then?” Chaewon asked, her voice bringing Hyejoo’s eyes to her. The girl of light almost flinched upon seeing Hyejoo’s temperament visibly shift with anxiety as they locked gazes. “Do you know exactly what’s happening in those instances?”

“I...I don’t, no,” Hyejoo begrudgingly revealed, straining to look at Chaewon for long. “Ever since I first woke up after being thrown in, I would just randomly start blacking out like I did when I fell into the portal. I’d sleep for days and wake up somewhere new each time with a gap in my memory. As time went on, I’d be out for longer and longer periods. This two month stretch is the longest yet...”

Haseul’s deep brown hues were swimming in contemplation as she scanned Hyejoo’s perplexed countenance. As she spoke, she failed to realize the depth of focus that Sooyoung in particular was looking at her with. “Randomly blacking out...was it truly random, I wonder? Can you think of anything that might have been the same each time? Some sort of common link between all of these episodes?”

Still quiet was ushered in as Hyejoo began to think. 

Her thoughts were mostly without form, struggling to provide a concrete answer to the Master sorceress’ question. Her vision wandered as she considered everything she could think of. 

By chance or not, Hyejoo’s gaze landed on Chaewon. Their eyes locked for only a moment before Hyejoo looked away suddenly, discernible apprehension forcing her to look away once again. Hyejoo’s anxiety bred Chaewon’s own, the shorter girl left wondering if she was doing something wrong in some fashion to garner consistent aversion from the soul she merely wished to save.

Looking skyward as her vagabond train of thought restarted, Hyejoo saw something she had already seen more times than she could recall. Though normally a mere everyday sight, it now made her tilt her head. Observing it, fell slightly agape as she considered it.

“Hm...maybe…?”

Silently, the others shared in looking upwards with Hyejoo. Met with nothing aside from the thick, seemingly infinite sheet of corrupted mana that covered the world, they looked back to her as her voice came into being.

“Whenever I breathe in that spiritus, everything hurts,” Hyejoo began. “Just like when I was falling into the portal, my body starts to ache and my head starts to pound. It’s everywhere, and I can’t avoid it if I want to find food and water, so I just deal with it as best I can. Over time, though, it starts to hurt so much that it feels like more than just pains and headaches. I start to feel...sick.

“That feeling of being sick, of being in so much pain that I think I might die...I’ve felt it strongest right before every blackout I’ve had. That’s the only thing I can think of,” the girl of darkness divulged with surefire certainty, her view shifting back to the sorceresses. “The more of that spiritus I’m around and breathe in, the sicker and sicker I get until I eventually blackout. That’s also the only time I can hear her clearly, now that I think about it…”

“You can only hear Olivia at the peak of this sickness?” Haseul pondered aloud, surprised to hear such a statement. “How peculiar...”

“Hyejoo, upon waking up, what sort of condition are you in?” Jiwoo inquired next, her fingers idly running around a collection of gold and silver bangles on her wrist. “Are you still in great pain afterwards? Do you still feel sick, even now…?”

“No, I’m fine now,” Hyejoo said with a small shake of her head. “I usually am. Even if I wake up in places where a lot of that spiritus is raining down, I’m always alright afterwards. It takes a while before everything starts to hurt again, though in the past few months it’s taken less time than usual…”

Jungeun sighed. Crossing her arms, she fixed her eyes on nothing in particular and drummed her fingers. “So these blackouts are happening faster and faster, and you’re staying unconscious for longer and longer while this other...person is in control of your body? Has she ever told you what she’s even doing during those times? She said you two have just been wandering for eleven months, but she didn’t mention anything else…”

“No, she hasn’t. I don’t really know what she does, but I think she’s doing the same thing I’ve been doing.”

“And what would that be…?”

“Surviving.”

Hyejoo’s answer to Haseul was decisively clear-cut. As she spoke, her sight slowly traversed across the other sorceresses’, meeting them head-on. A palpable determination was bleeding through each of her words, her staggering will to live drenched in undying resolve perceivable with absolutely zero effort.

“I have to continue living. I promised my mother I wouldn’t give up on life, and I can’t break that promise a second time,” Hyejoo announced with a calm, steady tone. “I already broke it once, and if I hadn’t, everyone might still be alive...so I have to live my life, even if that life isn’t a life at all. I’ve already made my peace and resigned myself to this, so...that’s what I’m doing.”

Silence.

Silence was the only answer Hyejoo found in response to the unveiling of her motivations. As with most subjects involving her history thus far, there was little the sorceresses could think to immediately respond with. Their minds could only attempt to fully process the morose reality of her story, shock and pity presiding over most other emotions.

The exception was a strangely quiet Master sorceress who, through continued deliberation of everything she had just heard, found herself furious beyond description.

“Just how the hell did these s manage to do this to you…?”

A nearly inaudible murmur slashed through the growing quiet. Attention shifted to its origin—a troubled Sooyoung with a darkened expression had spoken up for the first time in several moments. Her hands were at her sides, gradually curling into tight fists.

Hyejoo blinked, taken aback by the sight of Sooyoung’s contorted face. It appeared as if she were becoming steadily upset, and the young necromancer wasn’t sure why. “It’s...it’s like I said. They threw me into—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

While the other sorceresses primarily had bewildered dread settle into their hearts in reaction to the trauma which befell Hyejoo, Sooyoung’s heart responded with an extreme opposite. Though those feelings did exist within her, what mainly coursed through Sooyoung was not a profound sadness or sympathetic pity for Hyejoo.

It was an all-consuming contemptuous vexation directed at everyone else.

A maddening rage was building within Sooyoung’s spirit. Well-established feelings of disgust and abhorrence she had long since harbored were multiplying at an alarming rate. Her exponentially growing hatred was aimed towards non-magi—humans. Or, as Sooyoung much preferred to call them, trash.

Though she was normally mindful to keep her numerous grievances against humans in check, the sight of Hyejoo before her had set off a trigger she couldn’t have anticipated. Once Sooyoung realized it, and once she realized that Hyejoo hadn’t, her resentment snowballed almost faster than she could contain it.

The swordswoman shook her head slowly as she watched Hyejoo’s face closely. The nails of her fingers sank into the flesh of her palms as she sought to quell her own rancor. “Are you even aware of it?”

“Sooyoung…?” Haseul said while stepping forward, turning to her friend. Confusion was rampant amongst the rest of the group’s faces, not a single soul coming to the apparent conclusion Sooyoung had. “What are you going on about?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t...I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Hyejoo’s nervous voice came after Haseul’s, agreeing with the general consensus. “What should I be aware of…?”

Sooyoung didn’t respond. 

For what felt like an eternity and a half, she kept her vision entirely locked upon Hyejoo. Her cyan hue clashed with Hyejoo’s lavender, unpliable in its severe intensity even as the younger girl’s eyes began to tremble. The uncomfortably strange silence reached a tipping point, inciting Jungeun to open to speak, but Sooyoung’s voice stopped her.

“The fact that you’re lying not only to us, but more importantly, to yourself. All because of what they did to you.”

With a bold claim setting the stage and rendering everyone speechless, Sooyoung clarified herself in a dignified manner both collectively calm yet openly challenging. “Have you even been listening to yourself? You killed everyone? Everything’s gone because of you? You genuinely think that all of this is your fault, as if it was your choice to dive into that chasm? You’re lying to yourself, Hyejoo, and you don’t even know it. 

“Or maybe you do, but you can’t accept it. I’m sure you’re dealing with a degree of survivor’s guilt that no one could ever truly understand, and it’s within reason that it would make you feel like this is all your fault,” Sooyoung offered in understanding,  respecting the younger girl’s past with care. “I can’t even begin to imagine what’s been going on in your head, wandering by yourself for almost a year through wasteland after wasteland. I’m sure it’s been far from easy.”

An odd sensation rippled out from Hyejoo’s core as Sooyoung continued. She became lost in the older girl’s eye of frost, her words carrying an authority that even the others respected in full. “Your guilt still might make this impossible for you to believe, and that’s fine. I’m going to say it anyway, though, because I think you need to hear it from someone else—the truth.

“The people who did this to you—The Church of the Sacred Fang, whatever they were, whoever they were—this is their fault. You said part of why they threw you in was because of what you are, and that says it all,” Sooyoung surmised, her focus still completely upon Hyejoo’s odd eye. “I don’t know the whole story, but that context isn’t even necessary. As far as I’m concerned, they were scared of you, Hyejoo. Scared of people like you. People like us.”

Sooyoung paused. Through a silent breath, a small cloud of her cyan dust came to life in front of her chest. Her odd eye glossed over with a gentle light as it unhurriedly coalesced into a moderately sized semi-transparent snowflake, crafted with a painstakingly intricate design.

“They’re scared of what we can do,” Sooyoung explained further as she extended her palm, placing her hand underneath it. An abject frown took ownership of her face as she watched her own handiwork begin to dematerialize into dust. “Even when we’re just trying to help, they’re scared of us. They always are. That’s all it ever comes down to, no matter where we end up...”

Hyejoo took notice of the distinct downward shift of Sooyoung’s voice as she began to trail off. 

The swordswoman was staring hard at her own icy residue in her hands. With a grimace that seemed to carry a deep history far beyond what it displayed at a surface level, she watched her essence vanish from existence. Her thoughts escaped her as she shamelessly condemned them, her hatred sizzling through a scathing whisper. “Tossing someone into a manapool just because they were a magus...even for all the worlds we’ve seen, the people here really managed a new level of bigotry. Unbelievable…”

Her hand now empty, Sooyoung’s eyes returned to Hyejoo’s in full. Hyejoo could feel that she had already started to calm down at least somewhat, the aggrieved loathing which perceptibly coated her previous words no longer present. “In the end, this isn’t your fault, Hyejoo. I understand why you might see yourself as one, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a murderer. None of us do.”

Sooyoung’s defense of Hyejoo’s innocence came to its conclusion with unanimous agreement from her comrades. Her declaration was supported by a round of slowly lightening expressions all aimed towards the girl without a place to call home. The odd sensation that resonated within Hyejoo began to intensify as she found herself the recipient of unconditional understanding. She identified it as a bestilling warmth which slowly overtook her, comforting in its heat as it reached every end of her body. 

Hyejoo was not aware of it yet, but the warm smiles and commiserating eyes free of judgment which graced her were gently guiding her on the first steps of her long road to recovery. The very same survivor’s guilt Sooyoung spoke of which Hyejoo had spent the past near year struggling with was finally starting to come undone, even if only slightly.

From the very first moments in her newfound solitary hell, it had quickly become a hopeless endeavor for Hyejoo to see herself as anything but a mass murderer while traversing the graveyards that used to be centers of life. With her accusers gone alongside everyone else, she struggled to place the blame on the deserving culprits, regardless of how innocent she knew she truly was. It had been the underlying cause of the many sleepless nights and countless tears she shed during her aimless wandering, and fighting it only debilitated her further. 

Thinking of herself as entirely removed from the cause of catastrophe might have been possible had it not been for the unceasing ocean of corpses she had to navigate just to survive. Her surroundings were always an ever present reminder of what used to be, and her lack of understanding as to why she was forsaken from the otherwise unbiased calamity of her world became the basis of her self-deception.

Thus, as Sooyoung deduced, lies became truth. It was a necessary step for Hyejoo to live with herself, and to live was all she had left to do. 

Just as swiftly as she had previously fallen into her darkness and accepted her fate, however, Hyejoo was finding herself suddenly overwhelmed. The same warmth which radiated across the boundaries of her soul continued to expand. Not only had she found other people alive and well, but they were beginning to convince her of her innocence through their kind hearts and open minds. 

In truth, it seemed too good to be true.

“Hyejoo…?”

A tender voice called to the girl of darkness. It was Chaewon, stepping forward slowly with an unfortunate return of her previously worried visage. 

Hyejoo hadn’t realized it, but in her brief escape of introspection, her own eyes had fallen to the ground and had curled into a frown. She failed to reply in a timely manner, all on a count of a nagging feeling pulling at her mind.

It was the feeling that it was too good to be true. 

She knew it. Even if she wasn’t at fault for the widespread disaster that stole her life away from her, there was one death Hyejoo was positive could only ever fall on her shoulders. A weight that she carried with pained regret even eleven months later, one that she was sure would continue weighing her down for as long as she lived.

It seemed only appropriate that it be brought forward. Hyejoo could not hide such information in good conscience, even if it might mean a reversal in opinion. All the same, she felt she was missing a key piece of information herself, leading her to seek it out in full.

“You should know the full story,” Hyejoo began, lifting her head after a short breath. Her eyes shifted across the five sorceresses, exuding an aged penitence as she overtly showcased a small frown. “Even if you don’t think you need to hear the context, there’s a lot of it. Remember, I did say they threw me in because of an accident, too. But even if it was an accident, I still…”

Flashing visions of her mother’s lifeless shell in a pool of her own blood disrupted Hyejoo’s focus. 

She bit her lip in depressed frustration. Pushing past the memory as best she could, Hyejoo steeled herself to prevent the advent of tears. She had already done enough crying to last her several lifetimes.

“What is it, Hyejoo? We’ll listen for as long as you need us to.”

Chaewon’s support was answered by a somewhat disturbed glance from Hyejoo. 

The girl of light blinked as Hyejoo held her stare for a moment, keeping incredulous eyes on her. To Chaewon’s confusion, much like when she woke up, Hyejoo was once again openly gawking at her in flustered stupefaction. It was as if the necromancer simply couldn’t understand the concept of Chaewon specifically standing in front of her. 

The others caught on to the apparent tension Hyejoo seemed to be perpetuating towards Chaewon, but before anyone could think on it for long, she spoke.

“Before I explain, you guys still never told me who you really are or where you came from,” Hyejoo reminded the group. “Are there more of you? Do you have a camp or a base somewhere? Did the dark spiritus in the sky start going away over there? Have you seen any heartbroken? And are all of you necromancers…?”

As her barrage of well-deserved questions was met with complete silence and uncertain glances, Hyejoo blinked.

Scratching the back of her head, Sooyoung sighed as she looked at her traveling party before settling her sights on Haseul. “Not gonna lie, I was hoping we could leave Kahei to handle this part like usual when we got back with her…”

“When we got back with her?” Haseul disapprovingly mimicked in disbelief. “Not if? Sooyoung, you know we can’t just drag people through the door! They need to be made fully aware of where they’re going and how they realistically will never be able to come back!”

“Don’t you think that rule kind of gets thrown out the window when there’s widespread corruption on the planet that’s already killed literally everyone else? And even if she could come back, what is there left to even come back to?”

A ruffled Haseul couldn’t answer Sooyoung’s legitimate proposal properly, even if she still felt it inappropriate. To her relief, however, her partner at her side shared the same sentiments and eloquently expressed them where she couldn’t. 

“We must be consistent, Sooyoung. This isn’t a procedure to selectively break, even if logic deems it reasonable,” Jiwoo rationally adjudicated. “For all we know, she may wish to remain a wanderer here for any number of reasons, and if so, that is perfectly fine. It isn’t our place to judge.”

A stern ruling from a cool-headed Jiwoo brought forth a slow breath from Sooyoung. Looking to Jungeun and Chaewon, she received equal looks of disagreement, though markedly less severe. 

In defeat, Sooyoung gave the group a nod of respect, not wishing to overstep any boundaries as she had mere hours prior. “Yeah, alright. Bad call on my part. Guess my head’s not in the right place today,” she lamented with honesty while pocketing her hands. She avoided looking at anyone in particular as she made her way back towards Jungeun’s still burning campfire.

“Someone else can do it, though,” Sooyoung insisted while seating herself in front of the fire. “Explaining alternate realities and the multiverse is a chore. Dunno how Kahei has so much fun talking about it.”

Looking to an entirely addled Hyejoo, Jungeun gave the lost girl a small smirk as she suggested the group follow Sooyoung’s lead with a movement of her head. “Might as well sit down for this. Could take a little while.”

With slight trepidation in her step, Hyejoo followed LOONA’s magi towards the campfire. She feared not whatever she might hear from the group, but instead what she would ultimately have to share with them.

Sooyoung had transitioned to relaxedly laying on her back as Jiwoo and Haseul sat down next to her. Across them, Hyejoo seated herself between Jungeun and Chaewon. She brought her legs close to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, staring into the fire for a moment and relishing in the combined warmth of its blaze and Chaewon’s mana tether.

“I suppose I can lead the explanation this time,” Jiwoo offered with a kind smile, her mixed hues settling on Hyejoo. Returning Jiwoo’s focus with her undivided attention, the girl of darkness was led into a discussion which provided her with an unexpected answer to her most pressing question.

“Hyejoo,” the diviner began, her smile widening ever so slightly, “have you heard of the multiverse theory?”

「 ⮜⮜⮜ ★ ⮜⮜⮜ 」

“You said your name was Park Chaewon? And that you’re an acquaintance of hers?”

“Much more than an acquaintance, but...yes. Hyejoo is my best friend. I came from out of town to visit her. Is she inside? May I please speak with her?”

A question posed by a short girl with well-kept blonde hair and warm eyes of hazel was answered by the unsettling sound of silence.

In the middle of an apartment building’s outside hallway, a visibly worried Chaewon clutched hard at the strap of a mint green messenger bag slung around her shoulder. A male and female officer donned in the black and white uniform of the Lupus Central Police Department stood in front of her, guarding the barely open door to Hyejoo’s home. They looked at each other uncomfortably for a moment, finding great difficulty in choosing their words.

Chaewon took a step back as a forensic investigator clad in all white approached them from a nearby staircase. Seeking access to the crime scene with a nod towards the two officers, he slipped past them and Chaewon without a word through the door which had been opened for him. When she was met with downcast gazes from both of the sentries as they closed the door behind them, Chaewon felt a twinge of anxiety attack her from within.

“Is...is Hyejoo alright?” Chaewon asked meekly, her unease festering. Her nervous eyes unable to settle on either officer, her fingers found a bracelet around her wrist. She fidgeted with the stylized butterfly-shaped clasp in slight tension. “Did something happen…?”

“Miss Park, your friend was taken into custody roughly three hours ago,” the female officer began as calmly as she could. Despite her controlled tone, Chaewon’s eyes widened with every word she spoke, in tandem with the gradual sinking of her heart. “Son Hyejoo is the sole suspect in a homicide case.”

“Homicide? Excuse me?”

The police officers could only respond to Chaewon’s outwardly expressed disbelief with a shared sigh. “What are you even saying? Hyejoo wouldn’t ever harm anyone like that...there’s absolutely no way. That’s completely impossible!”

Met with continued silence, Chaewon’s nails dug into the fabric of her bag’s strap as rampant confusion made itself at home in her mind. It settled in cozily right next to a steadily growing grievance towards the officers’ ongoing lack of further explanation, inciting her to take matters into her own hands.

“If she’s been arrested, she’ll be at the police station, correct?” Chaewon asked. As weakened as her voice was by the disquieting image of her undoubtedly innocent friend behind bars, she pushed her worries aside and made her intentions clear. “It’s not even five thirty yet...visitation hours should still be in effect. I can speak with her myself at the station, then, right?”

“If...if she’s still there, yes.”

“What do you mean ‘if?’”

Chaewon’s headspace was assailed by a rising fear of uncertainty as she watched the male officer’s expression fall. It was in reaction to a sharp glare that his coworker had suddenly directed towards him, informing Chaewon that his inability to clarify his words was beyond his own faults.

“We can’t answer that,” the female officer decisively stated, bringing her eyes to Chaewon. “Some aspects of the case are still confidential. The LCPD will release a statement when it’s ready. For now, you can go to the station and speak with her, provided she hasn’t been relocated already.”

“Where would she even be relocated to? And why?”

Chaewon bit her lip in frustration as she was completely ignored in the name of police confidentiality. The female officer had simply raised her gaze away from her, looking ahead and keeping a calm focus on the apartment building’s courtyard below. Contrarily, the accompanying sentry looked around awkwardly, aiming his eyes every which way away from Chaewon’s as she looked to him.

Their unflinching dedication to secrecy made crystal clear, Chaewon forfeited with a small sigh of defeat as she nodded. “Okay. Thank you for your time, officers. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

Her new destination in mind, Chaewon excused herself and turned around, making her way downstairs towards the main grounds of the apartment complex. 

She kept her eyes ahead as she stepped through a small courtyard decorated with a circular fountain and accompanying benches around it. The lack of any human presence nearby allowed a dreadfully quiet atmosphere to surround her, amplifying the volume of her worried thoughts.

As viscerally loud as her mind had become through its apprehensive nervousness towards the open question of her best friend’s current situation, all of it ended with a crash at onset of two sounds. They were the click of a door being shut, and alongside it—

“And so we have come to this specific moment in history once again.”

—an unknown voice materializing behind her.

Proceeding her thoughts, Chaewon’s body came to a collective stop. Turning around swiftly, the blonde haired girl was taken aback by the sight of a figure standing a short distance away.

Much taller than her in stature with their hands behind their back, the individual was adorned in layered robes of ebony with a hood hiding their face from the light of day. An emblem of fangs arranged in a circle that Chaewon knew all too well was imprinted into the center of his garments, the shadow of a howling wolf within them making her all the more uncomfortable.

Silently, the hooded individual raised their hands. Grabbing the edges of their cowl, they pulled it down, revealing their true self to Chaewon. 

The solemn, slightly wrinkled face of a middle-aged man greeted her. Short black hair was parted down the middle, a small section of bangs hiding the ends of an ancient scar. From above his right eyebrow all the way down to his chin in a diagonal line, it ran deep into his skin, appearing decades old. Curiously, the left side of his face was shielded by gray cloth fashioned around his head.

As his voice resumed, his right eye of deep brown scrutinously took in the girl’s own hues. “Park Chaewon...the selfsame name. The selfsame hair, the selfsame eyes...the resemblance is so painfully striking. For as many times as we have repeated this moment, part of me cannot help but be taken aback in every instance.”

Chaewon’s grip on her bag tightened as her darting eyes briefly scanned the courtyard. 

Despite the full view of the area she had as she was walking, she had seen no sign of anyone else nearby. Furthermore, in defiance of her now noteworthy distance away from any doors of any kind, the noise of one shutting she had heard sounded far closer, as if it had come from just behind the man. 

However, more prevalent than the question of where the man had come from was the question of his knowledge. Peaking above in priority, Chaewon sought that answer before all else. “Why do you know my name? Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t,” he spoke plainly. “To no fault of your own, though we have convened here time and time again, you have no recollection of our previous encounters.”

A curious statement that was entirely incomprehensible to Chaewon stalled her for a moment. She swallowed hard, maintaining her view on the individual in front of her as she pressed him further beyond his strange claims. “You’re from the Church, aren’t you? I’m not of your faith, and I don’t actually live in Lupus. I’m visiting from out of town, so...why and how do you know who I am?”

“Given what’s about to happen, that information is not relevant,” the Church member replied quietly, indiscreetly sidestepping the question. Chaewon’s annoyance towards his ongoing vagueness was rapidly supplanted by surprise as he continued. “You’re looking for your friend, are you not? Son Hyejoo?”

To no discernible reaction of the holy man, hazel hues widened as Chaewon stepped forward. Her misgivings of his knowledge dissipated at the mere sound of her best friend’s name. “Do you know anything about what’s happened to her? Is the Church somehow involved in the case…?”

“Yes. If you would like to know what fate has befallen your friend, I will oblige,” he revealed. “You have a right to know, though I have not the time to go into great detail. This universe’s lease on life runs short.”

Chaewon had an inkling that any attempt to decipher the man’s abstract statements would be a waste of time. She simply gave him a small nod as she held her breath. She wasn’t sure what to expect from him or if any of what he had to share would even be perspicuous, but with no one else to obtain information from, she was at the mercy of the enigma before her.

“Approximately three hours ago, Son Hyejoo’s true potential was realized with her first breath of mana,” he began. “The girl is not human. She is a magus born of darkness.”

“A magus…?” Chaewon asked slowly, logic already failing her. “What do you mean? What’s a magus? And what is mana…?”

“Forgive me,” the mysterious man apologized. “I have misplaced my wording. This world is not my own. In the context of this timeline, the proper terminology would be a necromancer. Son Hyejoo bears the ability to manipulate spiritus.”

“What...?”

Chaewon’s question was immediate. Her voice flat with mistrust, the disbelief that assailed her made itself easily visible through a grimace paired with strained eyes. “Hyejoo...a necromancer? You can’t be serious. She would’ve told me something like that. She...she trusts me...”

“Bear in my mind what I have told you—her potential was born on this very day, mere hours ago. It is not something she has kept secret.”

“Then...that’s why you’re involved? That’s why the Church is involved? If she’s a necromancer, then you’re going to…”

As the realization hit her, Chaewon fell deathly quiet. A horribly uncomfortable chill ran down her spine. She found her words slowly, her tone seized by an equal split of evolving horror and carefully restrained anger. “What have you done with her...?”

“Preparations for Son Hyejoo’s execution were completed a short while ago, but she will not be slain on this day. She has a far greater role to play in the grand scheme of things. History cannot be replicated without her.”

The ominous claim brought a wave of relief which washed away much of the darkness encroaching upon Chaewon’s headspace. All the same, her confusion only multiplied, now reaching a point where she could no longer sweep the holy man’s indeterminate words under the rug. “What exactly are you implying?”

“Her safety,” he answered Chaewon. “Despite the suffering she is currently enduring, Son Hyejoo will be safe.”

“Then can you take me to her? I want to see her,” Chaewon pleaded, sincerity clear as day in her eyes and in her forlorn frown.

“You are asking for the impossible.”

Chaewon felt an oddly placed sorrow shroud the area between the two of them as he spoke with palpable regret. 

“Unfortunately, that is not a request I can fulfill, for it is already too late. Beyond that, such an encounter cannot be allowed to occur, for it never occurred in the first place. You have already had the last meeting with Son Hyejoo you will ever have. To put it simply, you are an irrelevant version of Park Chaewon, and for that, I apologize.”

Chaewon blinked in silence as the man abruptly sought forgiveness for a bizarre claim. She remained without words while he briefly collected himself in mirrored quietude. Bringing his hand up, he pulled at the sleeve of his robe, revealing a remarkably expensive looking watch. He gazed at it pensively for a moment before returning his sight to Chaewon. “Precisely a quarter past five o’ clock in the afternoon...that is to say, we have exactly one minute left.”

“Until what...?”

“Until Son Hyejoo inadvertently lays waste to this planet.”

The Church member’s tirade of nonsense continued still, baffling Chaewon to seemingly no end. “Beyond her own control, Son Hyejoo’s will to live is the beginning of the end for this entire universe. She shall render this timeline void of life by means of unwittingly spreading corruption, starting with this very city. Such is the unintended result of her refusal to break a promise a second time.”

Before Chaewon could even question what she had just heard, she was delivered what the man might have considered further explanation. Unfortunately, it raised only more questions and brought no answers or comfort to her frazzled mind, giving rise to growing frustration with every word.

“Even had I the power and had we time, I could not grant you the meeting with Son Hyejoo that you seek. As I said, such a meeting never even occurred in the first place. History must be replicated as it originally happened. Such is the reason we are meeting here at this exact moment in time as we always have, and such is the basis for everything I have orchestrated. Everything is preordained. Everything must occur with as little deviation from history as possible.”

“What the hell are you going on about?!”

Chaewon’s voice gave birth to a sudden outburst, her tolerance for ominous foreboding at its limit. “I don’t understand a single thing you’re saying! I just want to see my friend!”

“You are not at fault for your lack of understanding,” he revealed, unfazed by her anger. “In truth, you are not meant to understand. Simply take solace in the fact that the person you care for most will be safe. Son Hyejoo will survive. Live the rest of your life knowing this and not worrying about her future, no matter how short that life may be.”

“No matter how short that life may be?” Chaewon repeated slowly, an expression of disturbed unease settling into her face in place of her exasperation. “You’re saying that as if I’m—”

“One minute has passed,” the abstruse holy man interrupted. His glance drifted away from Chaewon, looking up to the sky above. “The time is now five-sixteen PM. The date is the twenty-first moon of the eleventh cycle during the 831st succession of the Noble Wolf. As per the course of history, Son Hyejoo’s refusal to forfeit her life will now end all.”

At the precise moment his words came to a stop, Chaewon heard it.

From miles away, a monumentally thunderous boom unlike anything she had ever heard before resounded in the air. Had she been near its source, she was sure she would have gone deaf.

Turning around to face the noise, Chaewon was met with a sight that she could not immediately process. Far off in the horizon, visible well above the skyline of Lupus, a gargantuan, unfathomably thick spire of dark gray spiritus rose several miles in the air. At the top, it billowed outwards, looking eerily similar to a fresh mushroom cloud resulting from a nuclear bomb.

In the following moment, another ear-splitting blast resonated through the atmosphere from the same far-off source, and with it, the spiritus flew outwards in all directions. Chaewon’s eyes shook with fright as she watched the light of day slowly vanish from sight, the dust rushing across the sky and blanketing the world from the sun above.

“Insincere as it may sound, I am truly sorry for what you are about to witness and experience.”

From behind Chaewon, the holy man spoke once more.

Turning halfway, the girl’s face contorted with perplexion as she watched him procure a small rock from a pouch on his waist. With his free hand, he undid the cloth eyepatch tied around his head, and Chaewon was met with a sight that only bred more questions.

“In time, I will achieve my goals, and when I do, you will never have to suffer the following moments ever again,” he promised, his voice falling slightly. His mismatched left eye of faded dark gray revealed, Chaewon was left speechless as it suddenly gave off a steady light. With the illumination of his odd eye came a cloud of similarly colored spiritus after a still breath, his dust surrounding the crystal between his fingers.

“Until then, we will meet each other at this precise moment in time ad nauseam. However many times this reality must relive its complete destruction, I will replicate history until I find the solution to true eternity. Seek not understanding. All you must know is that the solution cannot be realized without suffering and sacrifice.”

Chaewon was left with zero chance to ponder the uncovered necromancer’s words as his dust quickly increased in density, seizing her thoughts. 

His spiritus coalescing in full, the man dropped the crystal from his grasp. It fell nowhere, its descent halted by a triangular prism manifested from his dust, imprisoning it within its clear walls. Floating in the air in front of him, the lack of emotion on his face remained in full as his odd eye flashed momentarily.

In an instant, the prism vanished from sight. It blinked out of existence as it collapsed in on itself, the crystal inside shattering with its sudden compression. From its remains, more spiritus came forth. The dust from within the crystal relocated itself behind the man with haste, spreading out and taking the shape of a standing rectangle. 

From the coalescence of the spiritus, a featureless door of black steel materialized. The frame of it radiated a charcoal aura that unsettled Chaewon greatly, emitting an outwardly sinister vibe. She was frozen and without words as the man turned around to face it, placing an open palm against its center and pushing forward. 

Dark gray light pouring out from the other side as he gradually opened it further and further, the man stepped past the doorway and into the sea of marred luminescence. Turning around, he paused before fully pushing the door closed, his eyes locked onto a paralyzed Chaewon. With an eerily calm temperament, he imparted his final words to the hopelessly flummoxed girl.

“Should it be of any consolation,” he offered, “her promise to you lives on. Son Hyejoo will stop at nothing to protect you. Though it may be a parallel version of yourself hailing from an alternate reality—a Park Chaewon she recognizes but does not know—she remembers you. I suppose, in the end, you were blessed with what most would consider a genuine soulmate.”

Click.

The industrial looking door shut closed quietly, mimicking the same noise Chaewon had heard just before the holy man turned necromancer first spoke. Simultaneous with its shutting, it wasted no time evaporating into nothing, hastily erasing itself from existence.

Seconds which felt like elongated eras passed a paralyzed Chaewon by. Her mind was absolutely alight with a nonstop storm of question after question, all of which she feared she would never make sense of. The implications of having met the man several times in the past despite her lack of memory, of a member of the Church itself committing the supposed great sin of being a necromancer, of Hyejoo’s promised safety and of the fact that she would never see her again…

It all weighed heavily on Chaewon’s mind. Her unanswered queries were like iron restraints, anchoring her to where she stood and preventing her from moving elsewhere or thinking about anything else. She desperately tried to find even a single shred of logic in everything she had just heard, but when she came up short, she felt a discomforting depression sink into her heart.

Without warning, it sank deeper when she heard a high-pitched shriek of unhinged panic from a short distance away. Deeper and deeper still it continued to sink when other shrill screeches followed, creating a discordant mess of acoustic terror.

One shout in specific was well above its accompanying screams, and it swiftly freed Chaewon from her prison of paralysis. 

“I-it’s the heartbroken! Run!”

Chaewon’s heart began to race. As uncertainty of the unknown was forcefully replaced by uncertainty of her own survival, she felt the significant force of each fear-driven beat in her chest, seeming more than mighty enough to break through her torso.

Her panic wrestling away conscious control of her body’s movements away from her, Chaewon speedily turned around and began to run without much thought. Dashing out of the entrance of the apartment complex, she found herself into the mass chaos that had suddenly claimed Lupus. A sight both wildly peculiar and downright horrifying brought a brief pause to her mind once more, leaving her to gawk with shock at the gruesome scene before her.

A pileup of several wrecked cars had brought a halt to all traffic of the city street in front of her. The cause was clearly visible just ahead of the frontmost vehicle—a young man was being raised into the air by a six foot tall mannequin made of gray plastic, his bloodied neck fully impaled by its sharpened blade of a right arm.

Fully fledged screams were now filling the air around Chaewon as drivers and passengers reacted to the scene by hurriedly escaping their trapped vehicles. While they joined the growing crowd of pedestrians running for their lives down the road, the male at the mercy of his murderer coughed a significant amount of blood as he failed to scream. The doll’s featureless face was bequeathed a sole decoration in the form of dripping splattered crimson.

The faceless beast wasn’t alone for long, however. To Chaewon’s horror, she witnessed for the first time the birth of the monsters which she had been lucky enough to never see in person before.

From the far reaching expanse of dense spiritus above which now painted the sky, small bits of it were falling steadily. Almost looking like dust bunnies, some of the clumps of spiritus came to a stop above ground, defying gravity and floating in a strangely menacing manner. They remained still for a moment before the dust began to increase in density, coalescing in a fashion similar to the display Chaewon had seen from the necromancer no more than a minute ago.

More and more the spiritus consolidated until, with a weak burst of light, crystals materialized in the centers of the floating clouds. Looking remarkably comparable to the crystal the man held, they gave off a faint light as the remaining spiritus surrounding them began to reorganize itself. 

As if being moved by an invisible force, the spiritus took the vague shape of humans. With the crystals placed center as the hearts, bodies were outlined by dust. The crystal hearts themselves began to emit further spiritus, the fresh dust thinning and spreading out into a complex web which connected it to the rest of the frame.

The spectacle seized the attention of a few other civilians much like Chaewon, certain individuals in the crowd now immobilized in frightened awe as the bodies shaped by spiritus suddenly began to coalesce. From the dust, the heartbrokens’ physical forms flashed into existence piece by piece. An arm, a leg, the opposite arm, the opposite leg, the blank head. Finally, encasing their rocky cores and veiling their origins from prying eyes, the torso as the centerpiece came last, linking them all together.

What was originally a single heartbroken in the center of the city street was now over a dozen. With more and more of them being actively birthed by the spiritus which fell from the sky above, the lives brought to an end by their indiscriminate carnage would multiply just as quickly as their ranks.

In a manner so calm it could be seen as disturbing, the heartbroken at the center of the expanding legion grabbed a shoulder of its now deceased prey. Pushing the corpse off its blade, it lowered its weapon and turned its head as the lifeless husk fell to the concrete below with a loud thud. It seemed to be scanning the environment, idly looking between the members of the audience who were too struck by fear to run.

Tilting its bloodstained head, it ultimately settled its murderous focus on a new target. It was a blonde-haired, white-knuckled girl with widened hazel eyes and shaky legs trembling in horror, anxiously grasping onto the strap of her messenger bag tighter than ever before.

Chaewon’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. The sight of the bladed heartbroken suddenly breaking into a furious sprint towards her consumed all stretches of her mind, leaving room for only a single thought.

Run.

In that moment, something Chaewon had never experienced before sparked within her.

I have to run.

It was animalistic self-preservation in its rawest form. Pure instinct to simply survive began to course through every individual fiber of her being, subconsciously calling her feet to action.

I need to run.

There was zero thought to her movements, zero thought to the people around her. Set free from her stunned shock, Chaewon felt an intense burn in the muscles of her legs as she turned towards the length of the street and started to dash without deliberation.

I’m going to die if I don’t run.

Chaewon ran. 

Don’t stop running.

As fast as her legs could carry her and as far as her stamina would allow her to, Chaewon ran. 

With unbreaking focus, her characterless aggressor chased after her in a frenzy, maintaining an uncomfortably close distance to her. Had Chaewon been even a fraction slower, it would have just barely been in range to strike her down. By the excruciating, burning pain surging through her swiftly moving legs, however, Chaewon had delayed death itself.

Unfortunately, others who could not shake themselves away from their fear to answer the call of self-preservation were not so lucky. 

One by one, paralyzed onlookers were mercilessly struck down, meeting their ends at the hands of the plastic monstrosities. Out of the corner of her eye, Chaewon witnessed an older woman being stabbed deep into her gut. Her silent terror continued without fanfare as her attacker ripped its serrated sword arm out of her stomach, dodging the downward path of her falling body with a sidestep.

Similar sights assailed Chaewon’s crumbling composure as her body strained itself to continue running. Swathes of people all around her fell dead into pools of their own blood as more and more of the heartbroken came to life within the boundaries of one of mankind’s supposed sanctuaries. They descended from rooftops above and emerged from the insides of buildings to kill without end, going about what could only be classified as full-blown genocide. 

As Chaewon turned the corner onto another road, her focused mind was momentarily displaced by the harsh sound of tires skidding followed by an immediate crash. 

A city bus had just unexpectedly swerved into the side of a building, and with it, the sound of despair-ridden screams increased. The cause was a heartbroken leaping through the windshield of the bus, sending glass in every direction and strangling the driver as he jerked the steering wheel in a panic.

Escaping the vehicle through its emergency exit, passengers of Lupus’ public transport joined the general crowd that Chaewon was running with. Like a mindless horde of startled cattle, the group stampeded down the road in utter chaos. People pushed others without consideration as they struggled to separate themselves from what was now an army of heartbroken chasing them down. Passing a major four-way intersection, more and more people from the crossing roads joined the scramble in an effort to escape.

Short and lightweight, Chaewon found her body being tossed like a ragdoll as the forward sprinting fray around her magnified further and further in size. In the center of the ongoing rush of people, it became exceedingly difficult for her to maintain her footing, helplessly at the mercy of the crowd’s current.

Keep running...I have to keep—

Chaewon’s thoughts were cut off by a guttural wail originating from right behind her. With it, the center section of the cluster she was in came to a sudden halt. 

Bumping into the person in front of her, Chaewon was forced to a stop. Her heart’s breakneck pace was now in opposition to her lack of forward movement, setting the stage for undue confusion in her mind. She had to keep running. They all had to. So why had they stopped?

Unlike her encounter with the necromancer prior, Chaewon was given a meaningful answer for her question. It came in the form of continued screaming from the people closest to her, simultaneous with the sudden sensation of something piercing her abdomen all the way through.

Looking down slowly, Chaewon caught a glimpse of the sharpened plastic which had torn her stomach asunder. The bladed appendage left her vision as it was pulled out from behind her, leaving her to stare at her gaping wound in wide-eyed bemusement.

Not once losing focus on her during its persistent chase, the heartbroken hunting Chaewon had made its move when the expanding herd of people slowed her down. With seismic force and pinpoint accuracy, it launched itself off the ground from behind the pack and knocked others aside in order to land right behind her, finishing what it had set out to accomplish.

Slowly stumbling down to her knees, Chaewon became the center of pandemonium as the entire flock of hysterical civilians began to disperse from around her. Bedlam unfolded as people ran in random directions, seeking to distance themselves from the creature that had infiltrated the pack from above. 

As a small clearing was made around her by way of everyone fleeing her general vicinity, a kneeling Chaewon inched her trembling hands towards her stomach. The blood pouring from the hole in her flesh painted her skin and shirt alike a sickly vermilion, and with every moment she spent looking at it, her senses began to disintegrate.

Her strength failing her, Chaewon collapsed onto the asphalt below her. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw a plastic figure step forward from behind her. The heartbroken who had attacked her was looking down at her silently, its face without a face seemingly evaluating its work. With the only response coming from Chaewon being spasmodic, ragged breaths, it deemed its task complete and ran off a moment later, continuing its path of destruction without even a hint of hesitation.

As the inside of her body began to break down from its rapid loss of blood, Chaewon’s half-lidded gaze fell upon the bracelet decorating the wrist of her outstretched hand. The sight of the butterfly-shaped clasp brought a single faded image to the front of her decaying mind.

Hyejoo…

Chaewon’s headspace became absorbed by the presence of someone who meant more to her than words could convey. 

The image of Hyejoo superseded every other possible thought that could have come to Chaewon. Beyond her family, beyond the unanswered questions of hell breaking loose around her, and beyond her own growing fear of her forthcoming passing, thoughts of Hyejoo claimed the honored spot of the final thoughts she’d ever have. 

The complete chaos all around Chaewon slowly fell out of focus for her. Her hearing vanishing, the only sound the dying girl registered was a memory of Hyejoo’s contagious laughter in her head, alongside the warm visual of her pure-hearted smile. As small a smile as it was, it managed to make Chaewon feel the same tranquil peace it always did, even when she was approaching death’s door.

As the apocalypse proper was ushered in with more and more victims falling dead all around her, Chaewon continued to fade. 

Though an endless swarm of people continued to rush through the streets, she was paid no mind much like others who had fallen. Seized by their instinct to survive much like she had, those who still drew breath spared no thought to save others. They couldn’t afford to—the heartbroken were now beginning to slowly but surely outnumber the citizens present on the streets, their ongoing births and sweeping hunt alike still unceasing.

Chaewon felt her heart slow to a crawl. Beyond her own control, despite her best efforts to keep them open, her eyes began to close in rebellion. Her consciousness was slipping. Fully cognizant of the reality that she would undeniably never wake again, Chaewon’s expiring mind was silent as it recalled something.

Her promise to you lives on. Hyejoo will stop at nothing to protect you.

As recent as the conversation was, the Church member’s voice was already becoming hazy in Chaewon’s head. His words were fading piece by piece much like her own state of being, but even through death’s gradual embrace, she could hear them.

She remembers you. I suppose, in the end, you were blessed with what most would consider a genuine soulmate.

Though the entirety of her encounter with the enigmatic holy man felt like incomprehensible nonsense, and though part of her still struggled to accept his minacious allegations, Chaewon ultimately found the very consolation he promised in his final goodbye.

The realization put her at ease. Through a promise which would inevitably transcend the boundaries of an entire universe, Chaewon found strength others could only imagine grasping. It easily erased all traces of fear within every stretch of her mind, allowing her the honor of passing on without distress or sorrow.

I don’t need to be scared, do I, Hyejoo…?

A faint smile showed itself on Chaewon’s face. It was as wistful as it was optimistic, and it intensified to a slight extent as Hyejoo’s own smile became reflected in her head once more.

Even if I’m not here, you’ll protect me. I know you will.

Her closest friend now fading from her memory, so too did Chaewon’s sight fade as she slowly closed her eyes of her own volition. Free of fear, she followed next, her transition between life and death blessed with otherworldly equanimity.

Just like you always have...just like you promised.