Chapter – 05
“If you’re going to ignore me, you should ignore me properly, shouldn’t you?”
The man in the helmet said it playfully, as though he were aiming at the skull. The smile on its surface seemed to snicker behind a pair of sunglasses.
I stiffly moved only my eyes and stared at the helmeted man’s hand. It had been empty just moments ago, but now there was something in it.
“You two were whispering without me. That makes me sad. This is why I don’t like odd numbers.”
……That’s a handgun too.
I take back what I said about not being scared.
“There’s no need to be so frightened. I’m purely trying to help, you know?”
The helmeted man spoke in a soothing voice. It wasn’t particularly convincing when he was saying it while pointing a gun at us.
Purely trying to help, my ass. While holding a gun?
“Ms. Myeong Sena.”
At that moment, the man wearing the skull mask called out to me.
“I’ll let you go right now, so promise me one thing.”
Bang!
“You said you’d be upset if I talked without you?”
The man standing in front of me staggered slightly. He had obviously been shot.
For a moment, I almost screamed, but he didn’t fall.
“After you go back, when we meet again…”
Instead, he steadied himself and continued what he hadn’t finished saying.
“Promise me you’ll join hands with me.”
“……”
“Will you?”
Only after hearing the question did I realize what the condition the helmeted man had mentioned was.
“Ah, seriously…… Move. I can’t hit him because you’re in the way.”
In the meantime, the helmeted man muttered.
The smile drawn on the surface of his helmet spun in place. The yellow face that had been smiling changed into a bright red, angry face.
I glanced at the emoticon before whispering so quietly that only the man in front of me could hear.
“That’s your request?”
“Yes.”
“Then…… will you tell me? How to get home?”
“Yes. I will.”
The direction of the gun the helmeted man was pointing shifted slightly. Apparently, he was trying to aim at me……
But wait.
Can you even get shot while you’re a soul?
There was no way the helmeted man didn’t know that I was a soul. The two men pointing guns at each other knew it as well.
This was supposed to be a city of souls. I still didn’t know what exactly those two were, but it was clear that they were in a state similar to mine.
And yet they were pointing guns at each other like this……
That had to mean those guns could somehow affect souls, right?
If one actually hit me, then what would happen?
Wow.
I really didn’t even want to think about it.
Whatever happened, I definitely didn’t want to get shot.
“Ah, fine. I’ll do it.”
I answered hurriedly.
There was no one here I could trust, but unfortunately, the only person I could cling to was the skull.
Come to think of it, his request wasn’t really that big a deal, was it?
If it meant I could get home, I could at least shake his hand!
“Then it’s a promise.”
“I said I would! So please just……”
But I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Because the man had turned around and was pointing his gun at me.
“……”
I stared blankly at the gun in front of me, then at the skull mask, and finally at the helmeted man pointing his gun from behind him.
What?
What the hell……?
“Then I’ll come find you soon.”
With those words, the man pressed the muzzle of his gun against my forehead.
“Wait for me until then.”
His finger slowly pulled the trigger.
You son of a—
Bang!
“……!”
Gasp.
“Sena!”
The first thing that filled my vision when I opened my eyes was Mom’s face.
Then Dad’s face squeezed into the remaining space.
Apparently, simply making eye contact with me wasn’t enough. Mom immediately grabbed my cheeks and held my face in place.
Then, with an anxious expression, she asked,
“Sena, are you awake? Do you recognize Mom and Dad? Huh?”
All I could do in response to the barrage of questions was tell her yes.
I was lucid enough to notice even the tears beginning to gather in my parents’ eyes and the subtle way their expressions crumpled.
I slowly nodded while she held my face.
The expressions on my parents’ faces as they looked down at me twisted with relief and sorrow, and then tears began to fall one after another.
The tears that landed on my skin were lukewarm and damp.
It might sound obvious, but to me, it was anything but.
I blinked as I felt Mom wrap me tightly in her arms and Dad leave to call the medical staff.
A softly lit room.
The ceiling of a hospital.
The smell of medicine.
The sound of Mom sobbing against the back of my neck.
“……”
I had finally returned from the brink of death.
And that, on the day after my birthday.
According to my parents, I had been unconscious for an entire day.
It had been Sunday night, the day before Halloween and my birthday.
At the time, I had been on a city bus.
I had met up with my friends, received their birthday wishes, had dinner with them, and was on my way home.
Since it was the last bus of the night, there weren’t many passengers.
There had probably only been five or six people, including me.
The problem occurred the moment the bus entered an intersection.
And it happened in the blink of an eye.
A passenger car that had ignored the traffic signal slammed into the side of the bus.
The driver and passenger of the other vehicle died in the accident, while the bus driver and the other passengers suffered various bruises.
I hadn’t escaped the accident unscathed either.
Apparently, by the time the driver came over to check on me, I was already unconscious.
It seemed I had hit something when the bus suddenly swerved.
Well, after that, things unfolded exactly the way anyone would expect.
I was taken to the hospital without regaining consciousness.
In the meantime, my parents were contacted.
They rushed over and checked on my condition……
Fortunately, the hospital gave me a positive prognosis.
There were signs of external trauma, but they hadn’t found any internal damage, so they expected me to regain consciousness by the next day.
After finally waking up, I spent another entire day undergoing tests.
I don’t really remember what kind of tests they were.
It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with my body.
I was simply that out of it.
On the other hand, another set of memories remained painfully vivid in my mind.
My experience in that absurd city.
The confusion I felt when I first woke up in that unfamiliar place.
The sudden pursuit.
The terror of jumping out of the car.
The gunshots.
The chilling sensation of a bullet piercing my forehead.
The black skull mask.
The helmet with the smiley face on it.
All of it was still lodged in my head, tormenting me.
These days, the first thing I did whenever I woke up was look around in alarm.
That alone should tell you enough.
Could this be considered a side effect of the accident……?
Of course, I hadn’t told anyone about it.
Not my family.
Not my friends.
Not even the medical staff.
Was it because I was afraid people wouldn’t believe me?
No.
‘It’s better to just pretend none of it happened.’
Did I really have to admit with my own mouth that it had been real?
Honestly, I didn’t even want to dismiss it as a stupid dream.
I hated the idea of talking about it myself even more.
It felt like the best thing for my mental health was to treat it as though it had never existed in the first place.
So let’s just forget about it.
Let’s say I hallucinated because of the shock.
While I desperately tried to ignore everything, another day passed, and the test results came back.
The results were, of course, normal.
Although for my parents, the word ‘relief’ was probably more appropriate than ‘of course.’
To be honest, I felt like I could have been discharged immediately.
However, the hospital recommended that I stay for a few more days so they could monitor my condition, and my parents agreed.
So I had no choice but to remain a hospital patient.
How much does a private room cost per day?
If they were only monitoring my condition, couldn’t I move to a six-person room instead?
While I was worrying about things like that, my friends came to visit me the next day.
“Sena……”
The moment they saw me, they all burst into tears.
The friends who had eaten dinner with me on the night of the accident cried even harder.
They had apparently been crying so much that they were already covered in tears before they even opened the hospital-room door.
“Sena, thank God. You’re really okay. We thought something terrible had happened to you.”
My friends gathered around me like a flock of penguins huddling together to escape the cold.
Crying faces and sobs completely surrounded me.
“Waaahhh…….”
And……
Surrounded by a flock of crying penguins,
I cried my eyes out with them.
Being welcomed by familiar people in a familiar place finally made it sink in.
I was really back in the reality I knew.
