The night Donghae's father died had been like any other. There had been nothing unusual about it, save for the unnerving calm and quiet atmosphere that had descended over the cottage. One moment his father was breathing, and the next a rattling had settled in his throat. As quickly as it had started; it was snuffed out like a candle in the wind. His father's soul extinguished. Just like that, and yet life continued on, undettered. The priest had been called, but Donghae couldn't stay in that cramped bedroom, not with the ever encompassing sense of death that pressed down upon him, smothering him. He wandered down to the coast, stepping out onto the dock, eyeing the boat he and his father had spent hours on together. When he stepped down into the boat, he didn't think his tears would ever stop flowing. 

How often as a child, and even only moments, days, weeks ago, did he dream of taking his father out on this very boat to escape to another land? To simply leave everything behind and start aknew. It was a foolish hope and a child's dream thinking that by simply reaching a new land his father's sickness would vanish, but he clung to that dream like a life line up until the very last moment. He stayed out there in the boat, watching from the distance as the priest exited their home. His home now. The body would stay in there until tomorrow when, at first light, the Priest would return with the undertaker to remove the body as was customary.

He never went back into his cabin, as he curled up on the floor of his boat.  His eyes closed, the gentle rocking of the waves lulling him to sleep under the blanket of darkness and glimmer of stars. And he dreamed, oh how he dreamed.

He was a little boy again, running after his father along the shoreline, hands stretched out in front of him as he chased his fathers back. Desperate to catch up, but his legs were too short, and his fathers strides too wide as the distance between them grew. The moon was melting as the stars turned red. A roar echoed throughout the land as a beast tore from the sea. It's white eyes blazing as they turned to the shore. He screamed, oh how he screamed and screamed until his throat was raw and bleeding. Begging his dad to run as the unending monser continued to slither out from the water, its jaws opening wide to devour the very moon itself as a red hue was cast upon the land.

His dad stood upon a cliff, his hand outstretched towards his son, but the beast saw him. No matter how much he begged, nor how hard he ran, he couldn't reach his father in time as the monster fell upon his father, taking the very cliff with him in his jaws. The beast turned towards him, a sinister grin spreading over its long jaw, exposing rows of sharp teeth as bits of rock continued to fall down like rain into the dark ocean. It surged towards him jaws open wide----

Donghae woke with a jolt, eyes wide as he panted, drenched in a mixture of cold sweat and mist. His body trembling, staring into the hidden sky above him. A fog had rolled in at some point during the night, slowly, on weak limbs, he dragged himself back onto the deck. Feeling his way to the hard wood. "Donghae!" 

Who was calling him?

"Donghae!"

Did it matter? 

Everything spun around him, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he knew no more.