30…50…80…

The hand of the speedometer continues to rise, not faltering or slowing down. Moon Luna has never broken a rule in her whole life. She was never a rule-breaker, but this time, this once, she would be one.

She’s driving so fast that she’s sure that the cops are trailing behind her, but she doesn’t care. As of the moment, all she cares about is her uncle—his smile, his dorky actions, his weird experiments, his fatherly eyes, his left feet, even his concoctions, and once she started to think about him, it all abruptly came crashing down on her endlessly. She swallowed the tight lump in and the back of her eyes burned, and something in her chest hurt. Breathing hurts. Keeping her eyes open hurts. Moving hurts. Pain is a good thing for it reminds her of reality, but it’s truly painful.

Moon Luna was also never fond of fear or anxiety, but this time, this once, she found herself being scared for life.

She’s scared and even if she’s already past the normal speed, she still stepped on the accelerator and continued changing lines, uncaring and oblivious to the other cars almost bumping into each other as she sped by. Any mistake and would cause damage to other people, but Luna is a selfish person. This time it just made her worse, but then again, she doesn’t care.

She only cares for her uncle.

The thought of him—this time it was his whole face printing in her mind—made her turn a blind eye to the honks and a deaf ear to the irate yells of the drivers around, not even the sirens could make her cease. The roof of her convertible is wide open, making her obsidian thick strands flew around her face, and the wind was too loud in her ears to decipher any sounds aside from her ragged and harsh harsh breathing. But it still feels loud, or maybe it’s just actually the sound of her pounding heart that’s grating in her ears. She fears it will burst out of her chest in her anxiety and fear.

This isn’t supposed to be like this. She was just in her office and was impatiently waiting for the next patient to come and Doc Nam has even persuaded her to come to eat lunch with him even if she doesn’t really want to, and suddenly, she got a phone call. She had immediately left everything behind, took her car keys, and fled to the parking lot in heels and still clad in her medical coat. She drove as if some mad woman—maybe she really is—because what clouds her mind is, if I don’t reach fast enough, I might not see him anymore. The fire, the fire might burn him already if I reached late.

Déjà vu. It feels like déjà vu and she hates that it feels that way. She loathes it.

But she wouldn’t let it. No matter what it takes her, to which extent, even if it kills her, she will not let it.

What actually is only a few minutes felt like forever before she finally neared the gates of her house, the house she called home, and for a moment it froze her to the spot upon being greeted at the horrendous sight it was. Her stomach twisted and she felt bile rising in , a sickening feeling settling inside her and somehow, she felt like it’s going to dwell for a long time. She knows she should move, but as she stares up to the house she goes home to, sleeps at, eats at, lives at, stays at with him, she found herself being unable to. For a long agonizing moment, she can’t exactly move—lift a finger or leave the car as she should, watching instead as her home get swallowed by the ravishing fire, sizzling hotly as it smokes and burns.

And her uncle is inside.

It was her nightmare.

She pulled to a stop and didn’t care even if she haphazardly parked her car, or how she left the keys still inserted in the ignition and the car doors still wide open. She ran and her eyes shook. Sudden familiar images and flashbacks crossed her mind, a nagging voice in the back of her brain telling her don’t come inside, it’s dangerous, you might get yourself killed. Don’t make the past repeat itself. The images and the flashbacks made her knees wobble, and the fear only grew.

And then like static—a very annoying static—it rang in her mind, in her ears, in her body. Don’t let the past repeat itself. Don’t let the past repeat itself.

It triggered her greatly. Her blank face seemed like a blank canvas that was now splashed with multiple colors, bright and dark. The thoughts start to eat her slowly and painfully, torturing her. She stared up to the burning house and it all abruptly sunk in her mind. It’s fire, and oh God, the house is looming and it’s burning and in a fire. The static grew louder, deafening, and it was flight that her rationality and what’s left of her consciousness is telling her to do. She took a step back, almost instinctively yet unbeknownst to herself, and bumped into one of the rushing heavy-equipped firemen who is carrying a large, long hose.

The touch to a stranger, for once, didn’t deter her.

“Step back, Miss! We need to kill the fire before it spreads more!” The fireman’s muffled voice yelled, and she stepped away from him, almost dizzy.

She never left her aghast gaze from the sight of her house to the house she and her uncle lived at in their whole lives, on fire and with him inside, she started to lose track of everything and all she could see, hear, grasp—is how the fire all the corners and sides of the house, the sound of the almost distinct crackling and heating of all of it outside and inside akin to frying food, and the feeling of all danger and death. She started to hyperventilate and her breaths gradually yet also abruptly grew battered, shallow, and it’s suddenly hard to breathe. Like a fast slideshow or a movie played in double speed, the images she had all kept in since before appeared and hit her like a tidal wave—like the barriers of the dams finally cracked, broke, and the high, deep, scary and deep-drowning waters carried out and approached to her. Just as fast as the fire swallow her home and possibly her uncle, is just as immediate it all swallow and drown her deep deep inside.

It was almost ironic.

Her head started throbbing and her chest palpitates and palpitates and palpitates that she could hear it thudding in her ears and on the verge of bursting. It’s scary and she wants to go away, leave, because she’s currently living her nightmare but the only rational part in her mind screams to her of her uncle and his safety and how he’s there inside, in his laboratory and probably burning along with the whole house—and she realized that the nightmare only continues to grow worse as she was hit with the realization that he’s there, he’s there inside, and he might be burning to his death. It seems like the fire is looming until they become a huge monster and it formed eyes and mouth which are so dark and like an endless abyss of deep pits and it feels like it’s coming her way, about to devour her until she disappears and dies. It feels like that, and too caught up in that abyss she’s slowly falling into, she didn’t notice the ambulance and the sirens appearing and the first-aider shaking her awake and asking her if she’s alright.

That’s stupid. Of course, she isn’t.

The huge monster along with the abyss of darkness disappeared in a blink of an eye—like it never appeared in the first place—the moment she felt human touch. She mindlessly turned to him, with eyes of unshed diamonds and lips trembling and her breaths are so quick that she’s gasping. The first-aider immediately knew that it’s a panic attack, and he quickly called for an assistant to assist her to the ambulance but even if she couldn’t clearly hear him, she understood the soundless sound of his lips moving and she wants nothing but to stay.

“Miss! It’s dangerous here! The firemen will ensure the safety of your family so please calm down and there’s a nebulizer inside the van!”

Then it all silenced. Suddenly it was all about her uncle. The only visible sound in her ears is his laughter when he plays with Hermione, his squeals when he would have a mishap in his laboratory, his yells as he berates her to eat more food, his corny jokes, nonsense puns, his advice, his wise words, his voice, his smile, his eyes—him.

She has to save him—the only person and reason why she’s living, fighting life, enduring, the only significant person in her life. And she realized that even if it’s a huge monster or her nightmare, what matters is him.

Because the moment she loses him, she loses herself too.

All at once, she awoke, and she immediately removed herself from his grasp and ran to the porch, where smoke could clearly be seen and the firemen trying their best to enter. The fire hasn’t spread on the whole house yet, as it’s huge, but it’s starting to get to the first floor already. She’s about to enter, warning bells chiming in her mind, and she started having a panic attack again, black spots appearing in her vision. She made it to the doors and the smoke entered her nose, and the familiar smoke made her mind hazy. It’s happening again, like before. She pushed it away and locked back inside the images in the deepest corner of her mind. She’s gasping for air, and as if her feet grew roots and rooted her to the spot in the foyer, she couldn’t walk inside anymore.

And so she opted to just call for him instead, “Uncle! Uncle!” But it was just all echoes, and she didn’t know if it resonated in the house or just in her hazy mind. She inhaled the smoke and coughed. She couldn’t give up. She leaned on the nearest wall and cried out, “Uncle, I’m here! Uncle, where are you!?”

She didn’t know it was all just in her mind.

“Uncle, don’t leave me!”

All of a sudden, large hands pulled her back from stepping more inside, vaguely hearing a gruff voice yelling if she wants to die. She didn’t budge and continued crying out to her uncle. Then there were arms forcefully removing her out of the way, and she thrashed around, not knowing what is real or not anymore. Reality became so blurry and lines are too distorted.

“Uncle, come down I’m home!”

She craned her neck, persistent to go back inside, and managed just in the last second to see two firemen dragging a body on fire and burning from the second floor. It was like the last thread that’s holding her up finally lost its strength and snapped.

Uncle, I’m home…

She wants to see him, even for the last time, alive, but before she could even do so, the black spots became bigger, larger, until darkness engulfed her vision. The huge monster won.

In the end, she also fell into the abyss.

~

Moon Luna has always been viewed as a person devoid of emotions. Someone who has no feelings. Someone who only cares for herself. Someone who is not capable of being sympathetic. It might be true, but they might have forgotten the fact that like any other, she’s also just a human.

Moon Luna is a human as well, like them.

Even so, rather than feeling real, humane emotions, she feels so empty. She feels so empty that she couldn’t feel a thing, couldn’t hear the voices and the hushed whispers of the people around her, and couldn’t see the whole brightness and the four white walls of the place. She’s used to the color white as she’s a doctor and that she almost practically lives in the hospital. Nonetheless, ironically, she suddenly hates the whiteness of it all—the pureness it reflects. She thinks that there must be some color to add to it, to cover up its all too realistic essence and ugly truth. As she ponders on the color’s disfigurement and grim aspect, she sat motionlessly at the front, just before his coffin, staring mindlessly at the also white and fresh flowers decorated around his expensive deathbed. All of those flowers were given by the countless people who know, adore, and are friends with him.

All of a sudden, a memory of him giving her a metal rose that he invented for Valentine’s Day resurfaced in her mind. He had promised that every year on the exact date, he would give her one. For sure that metal rose had been burnt too, like him.

Uncle Moon Joohyuk is loved and adored by so many people. He’s a respectable kind man known for being a great doctor who treated patients as if they were family. He healed and saved so many people. He was a good admirable surgeon for almost 20 years, as he gr