Song: 'Come Back Home' by 2NE1

Come back home
Can you come back home
Don’t leave me at the end of the cold world
But come back to my side

The light disappeared and Jongdae was engulfed in darkness, once again.  He looked around him to find that he was back in the swamp; this time sinking further and further into the murky depths below.  He sunk down past the long roots that seemed to stretch on endlessly.

The thumping noise returned, but Jongdae no longer felt afraid.  Although he wasn’t sure yet as to what was to come, a part of him knew that everything would be fine.

Then he started hearing the voices, calling out his name.

“Jongdae!”

These were voices that Jongdae knew, but couldn’t put a name or face to any of them.  But they were the only things that he knew in this vast emptiness, so he focused on them.

“Jongdae!”

Their voices became more persistent, as though they were begging for his attention.  Now he was both confused and curious as to who was calling him. 

And that was when faces started appearing around him.  They weren’t the ghoulish ghost-like figures he’d encountered when he first arrived here, but they were faces that felt deeply familiar to him, like he had known them for most, if not all of his life.

There were five of those faces.  Two of them appeared to be middle-aged; they were a man and a woman.  Then there were three men: one who looked slightly younger than Jongdae, while the other two looked about Jongdae’s age.  They all wore varying expressions of worry and concern on their faces; the woman and the younger man were crying, while the other three men looked as though they were pleading for him.

Then one of the faces – the one who was younger than Jongdae – spoke.

“Jongdae, come back to us … please.”

The woman also spoke up.

“Please, Jongdae!  We can’t lose you again!” she cried.

And then Jongdae finally understood.  These were people from down below who desperately needed him, and whom he desperately needed too.  They were people whose livelihoods depended on him, and whom Jongdae couldn’t live without. 

Panic arose in his soul as he realised that if he didn’t go back to those people, he would be all alone – and he never wanted to be alone again.

He began to descend faster and faster into the void below, desperate to be with the people who were so important to him.  He had to go back down there to be with them.  The swamp was disappearing from view, and as he kept falling faster and faster, everything around him got darker and darker, until he couldn’t see anything and was entirely surrounded by blackness.

The whole time, the voices kept calling for him.

“Please, come back to us.”

✨🕊✨