“And that, is how you would exclude natural classes,” said the professor, as he concluded the powerpoint for one of Sungjong’s electives, linguistics, a rather interesting change of experience, on top of his major. He liked philosophy, but he felt that there was that extra something which the university did not seem to offer but needed to take him a little step further in life. It was his third year at Chongshin University, being a philosophy major.

Sungjong looked like your average university student, but there was something about him that separated him from the other students. He was psychic, and able to predict his and other peoples’ futures, and have visions of other people or objects. But what also made him special was the fact that he was also able to connect with the dead, namely ghosts. For him to possess this ability would be a blessing, yet hard to prove as not many people would believe the supernatural would exist. Yet his deep interest in ghosts and the supernatural was what prompted him, as well as his mother who ultimately suggested the major, to studying philosophy at university.

His very close companion, Myungsoo, also known as L, believed him, much to Sungjong’s delight, as he was interested in ghosts, despite not possessing the superpower that Sungjong had. They knew each other well since Philosophy 100 in their freshman year, and had always sat next to each other in the lecture hall and in the library.

The noon hour flew by and it was time for Philosophy 310, the same class that Sungjong and L would go to. The two sat together as they watched a documentary of the Gwangju massacre, which happened in Sungjong’s hometown way before he was born, but rang a bell since it was his hometown and growing up there, teaching that in history class would be essential so the kids would know how it affected daily life today in the country.

Sungjong was watching the documentary continuously until there was something about it that made him cringe, something that interested the curious psychic. After a scene showed camera footage of children and mothers screaming and weeping as they ran for safety, while being chased by soldiers in war tanks, it eventually shifted to another scene in the present day, showing a local woman talking about how her two teenage sons, the young Yoonhyuk, and the older Junghyuk, were murdered and shot by the corrupt government’s soldiers, and how she was left displaced when her house was bombed.

The documentary was over, but Sungjong was still stiff and frozen.

“Sungjong! Sungjong! Are you okay?” asked L. It took a long while for Sungjong to react despite all the shaking and the rattling done by his friend.

“Huh….woo…mwaaa?” mumbled Sungjong, shaking his head and finally snapping back into reality.

“Are you okay man? Class is over!”

Sungjong was still sitting there, stiff and frozen.

“I felt it….” he mumbled.

“What?”

“I know her….”

“What? Who?”

“The woman in the video,”

“You got to be freaking kidding! The woman whose two sons died?”

Nod.

“How do you know?”

“We can walk and talk and I can explain to you,” said Sungjong as he grinned and they packed their stuff as they headed out the hall.

Sungjong walked back to the dorms with L as he explained.

“My soul,” said Sungjong, “Of Yoonhyuk’s…..is still buried here,” Sungjong pointed to his chest. “I am a reincarnation of that boy,”

“What makes you say that?”

“I believe that when people die, contrary to the popular belief that you immediately get sent to heaven or hell, I have a slightly different approach. You know about how Billy from Billy the Cat got turned into a cat after he died right? Because he was reincarnated as a cat. When people die, it’s only their body parts and souls that get treasured in heaven, so they don’t ever get forgotten under the rotting flesh. It’s the spirits in the sky that treasure those who have potential to lead a better life by changing that person into a whole new mature one,”

“So what has that got to do with the documentary?”

“That woman feels so familiar somehow, because I believe that I was Yoonhyuk. When I died, I was given a second chance, because my brother tried to protect me, and I tried to protect him,”

L was puzzled. It was one thing for Sungjong to see ghosts, since he encountered several times the corpse of a girl who was anorexic, hence having already died in the middle of class from lack of food in middle school, but to him this was absurd.

“Hold still,” said Sungjong, “I want to try something,”

Sungjong put his ear and the left side of his face towards L’s chest.

“Don’t move,” said Sungjong.

“What are you doing man?” said L, “This is getting a little….”

But something seemed to interest L as well, so he decided to give him a chance.

“I feel it,” said Sungjong, “Your heart is beeping the same rate as Junghyuk’s. You also have the same soul that Yoonhyuk had. I thought so. Souls get passed on to people who are born after they die. You are….”

“But that’s impossible!” said L, “How can it be possible? We have different birthdays, different parents, we went to different schools, and we never knew each other before we came here, and not just because we come from different hometowns,”

“No,” said Sungjong, “But sometimes you get the feeling, a deja-vu like atmosphere. You feel something is familiar, but you just don’t know what,”

The two walked on when Sungjong stopped.

“Well?” said L, “Aren’t you going back?”

“I just remembered something,” said Sungjong. “When they showed the photographs are Yoonhyuk and Junghyuk, I knew that there was something familiar about them,”

“Why?” asked L.

“Because, those faces appeared in my dreams recurrently. When I was five, and I was hiking with my parents, I believe I saw the ghosts of those two boys in the mountains too,”

FLASHBACK SEQUENCE:

Sungjong as a five year old

“This is such a beautiful spot!” squealed Sungjong’s mother.

“It sure is!” agreed his father.

“Mommy, Daddy, chase me if you can!” giggled Sungjong as he ran down the slope, “You can’t catch me! Merong!”

“Not now honey,” said his mother, “I am still holding a cup of coffee. Maybe when we find a bin, we will. But for now, I will sit down to drink,” She sat on the edge of the slope and sat, admiring the view of the trees and the sound of the flowing river, along with the cooing of the squirrels and chirping birds.

“This is boring,” muttered Sungjong. He slowly headed down the slope himself. He was wandering about when he heard heavy breathing behind him.

“Huh?” he thought. He turned around.

Standing above him were two boys, holding hands together as they stood side by side, each wearing ragged white pyjamas, were barefoot and had glaring looks.

Very scared, Sungjong started to back a little.

“Hello, Sungjong,” whispered the two boys. Sungjong wanted to say something, but he was so scared that he could not respond.

Then, the two boys started uttering something, but he could not make it out, not because of his limited vocabulary as a five-year-old, but because the sounds to him sounded very incomprehensible and condensed all at once. The uttering continued until what filled his ears sounded like a prolonged croak, followed by a blood-curdling scream. What frightened Sungjong most was the fact that the two boys’ bodies started to hunch forward, and their jaws started to droop all the way to their chests, some blood trickling out of their mouths, as their heads began to jerk back and forth and back and forth.

They headed for the edge of the slope, and stood on one leg each, posing like a ballerina. Tears streamed down their faces. Sungjong wanted to ask them what was going on so badly, but all of this was so surreal to him that he could not interpret anything. The two turned to Sungjong’s direction, and then finally whispered a clear, crisp, “Goodbye.....” The two raised their arms as they flung themselves off the cliff.

“Sungjong!” called some voices as the silence finally broke.

His mother and father were racing down the hill.

“You silly boy. Where were you? Don’t just run off like that,”

“Mom! Dad! Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“There were two boys, and they were screaming, and then they threw themselves off the mountain!”

“No, we didn’t hear anything, you were not very far from us in fact, even though we lost sight of you,”

“Really? You didn’t?”

“No, Sungjong, it has to be your imagination,”

PRESENT:

“A few days went by, and I felt that the ghosts of the two were hovering over me. I forget about how I should have known that they were the two boys in the video, Yoonhyuk and Junghyuk. One was taller and the other was shorter, just like in the photograph in the documentary,” Sungjong continued.

“Then what happened?” asked L.

“I don’t remember. But I did start to have recurring dreams,”

“What dreams?”

“I don’t know, but I dreamed that I was one of the boys in the dreams,”

DREAM SEQUENCE:

“Come on, hurry up! The soldiers are coming, quickly!” an older boy screamed as he dragged Sungjong out of the house. “They’re coming! Run, and don’t look back!”

Sungjong looked down. He was shorter, not enough to be a primary school student, but more or less a thirteen year old. He had spiky black hair, buzzed in a crew-cut style, while literally all he was wearing was a pair of baggy shorts that did not even fit his tiny waist.

They dodged several guns and ran past tanks. They ran across the city, quickly trying to get away from the attacks, the protesting students and the policemen. They ran on and on underneath the burning sun as they did. Before long, they were drowned as they were separated from each other due to the crowd of the student protests and policemen taking over.

“Go on, run,” the voice called again. “Keep going, and don’t look back. Run out the city and never return,”

He ran and ran until he slipped, but did not scrape himself. He finally pulled himself out the crowd, and after several gunshots and screams, the crowd started to disperse and die out as Sungjong headed for a shelter to hide.

As soon as the coast was clear, he headed out in relief.

“We made it!” said Sungjong with a grin. But no one was there.

“Hello?” he called out, “Where are you?”

PRESENT:

“I gotta do something,” said Sungjong. “Wanna visit my hometown this Saturday?”

“Why?” said L.

“I feel a need to go there. You should come too. I know exactly where to go,”

“Oh alright,” said L.

Saturday came, and L and Sungjong went to the metro station to buy day tickets for Gwangju. It took several hours since it was not express service, but at least they finally arrived.

“Now, follow me,” said Sungjong.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“I know,” said Sungjong.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked L.

“Trust me,”

L shrugged as he followed suit. After riding a bus as they passed through the new, bustling and lively city of Gwangju, full of happy people, skyscrapers, and joyous conversations, they reached a path leading to a mountain trail.

“I know it’s here,” said Sungjong, “My heart tells me so,”

They walked up and up the mountain.

“Are we there yet?” panted L as they continued.

“Almost,” said Sungjong.

They continued until they finally turned a corner and headed towards a small house.

“There it is!” said Sungjong.

They walked towards the house, which happened to look just like the one in the documentary.

Sungjong knocked on the door.

“Come in,” said a sad, raspy voice.

Sungjong turned the knob slowly.

There, a woman had her back turned to them. She slowly turned around.

Sungjong and L gasped in disbelief. It was the exact same woman they had seen in the documentary.

The woman stared at them too, as if she knew them too personally.

“No way…..” she gasped, “It can’t be…..”

She ran up to them and hugged, as she cried in happiness and relief.

“You….Yoonhyuk, Junghyuk?”

“I told you so,” whispered Sungjong to L.

“Whoa!” muttered L, “You are right! I never knew that this could really happen!”

She ran up to them and embraced them.

“You came back,” she said, “Even though you two may not physically look like my real sons, I can still see their souls within you two. No matter what, we will always be together inside. Do come and visit often!”

“Sure,” said Sungjong, “We will,”

Sungjong and L headed outside the house as they headed down the mountain.

“There is nothing to be scared of anymore,” said Sungjong with a grin, “Because I have finally solved something I wanted to for a very long time,”

“What if they still return?” asked L.

“Well, what else then?” said Sungjong, “You can still try to talk to ghosts. There are plenty of friendly and nice ghosts in the world too. I do hope the next person who has this soul in a hundred years time makes the most out of in his or her life,”

L turned to Sungjong and grinned in agreement as he chuckled.