The Sun's Swan

"Huh? It's not dead?"

"No, hold on—isn't this just bones...?"

"Planting anything in this soil as it stood would have invited problems."

I stared at the remains for a long moment, my mind gone blank—at the paradox of a thing rotting away and breathing all at once.

The creature that had once spread those enormous wings now lay forsaken on the dirt, everything that had hidden beneath its feathers bared wide open. Like a shipwreck washed ashore with nothing left of it but the frame. A body that could not die even in death, flickering feebly on.

From that loathsome will to live, I could feel something like a strange beauty. And, at the same time, a shame and humiliation too vile for words.

Click.

Squelch.

On the screen, the character drives the pitchfork down. I am the one tearing the organs loose, raking them out with the tines.

Black, sticky fluid wells out and soaks into the soil. The ground will be all the more fertile for it. This is the proper cycle of things.

"Ah. You killed it."

"Yes. It had to die."

"That's right. Well done."

Yu Hyeonjae nodded, eyes on the screen.

"But what on earth is this bird supposed to be? Everything in a place like this means something, doesn't it?"

Swan or not, whatever it was—while I was busy calculating how many years it would take to clear all this away, a debate broke out among the others.

"It would help to know what kind of bird it is..."

"Difficult to infer from the shape of the remains alone. The size alone is impossible for anything real."

"Oh! A swan! Isn't it a swan?"

Clap!

I stopped short at the crack of Choi Jaeha's hands. From my left ear, the pop of air between his palms came through crisp and clear. From my right, it arrived small and muffled, as if submerged underwater.

"Ah, yeah, I really think that's it. Wow, reading along with my niece's books is finally paying off."

The accountant muttered to himself, shaking his head as though marveling at his own brilliance.

"Choi Jaeha, care to share with the rest of us...? Seon Yuhan is the one playing here..."

"Ah—aaah. Psyche and Eros. That couple's got a bit of history with Apollo, you know. And Apollo means swans."

At the torrent Choi Jaeha delivered so breezily, Hwang Juyeon blinked—the same look she'd worn back when she'd asked what an instance dungeon was.

"Uh... I don't follow any of that."

"Hmm. My parents go to church, and they were the especially sensitive sort."

Mine wasn't quite Hwang Juyeon's situation, but it was similar. The person who raised me wasn't the kind to buy me things like that.

That didn't mean it stayed a story I'd never know, though. Not after I learned that 'labyrinths' traced their origins back to Greek mythology.

"Well, to explain the bad blood between Apollo and Eros, I'd have to start with Daphne."

And with that, Choi Jaeha's three-minute summary of the tale of Psyche drew to a close.

"The problem is that the swan happens to be an animal deeply bound to Apollo."

When Apollo was born, swans were said to have appeared and circled around him; he drove a chariot drawn by swans; and the son who took his own life became a swan.

"Granted, myths come in any number of versions, so the details might differ here and there."

Still, one thing at least could be guessed: Apollo would hold the swan dear.

So I thought, reading over one section of the frequently asked questions. I thought it again, hauling a piece of the buried remains out of the earth.

This place was the Garden of Psyche... and what had been buried here... was the sun's swan.

Which meant—no, surely not. Was the master of this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠garden, this presumed Psyche, saying that she had seized Apollo's swan and buried it alive in the ground?

And I had gone and become the gardener of exactly such a place?

My luck with employment was especially rotten today.

Once the swan's remains were gathered into a single pile, I took down the torch hanging inside the house and carried it out. I set fire to the small hill of bones, blackened here and bone-white there.

Crackle, crackle.

Pixelated flames wavered as if dancing, devouring the last traces of a life.

Gazing into those flames, I was suddenly visited by a familiar feeling. It had been a while since I last burned someone.

In the beginning, I buried them in the mountains. In the end, I couldn't keep up—couldn't dig fast enough for the pace at which the bodies piled up.

I think about the mind that digs, day after day, a grave that will one day be filled. About the mind that, unable to resist the gravity seeping up from that empty pit, falls into it of its own accord.

I crushed the charred fragments of bone to powder and scattered them across the earth. To become ash at last, and return to the soil—that must be the privilege of those who are allowed to live out their lives.

I am one who has no right to it. Even now.

"Whoa, you tilled the whole yard. Good work, Seon Yuhan."

"Though I guess there weren't any seeds or anything in the yard after all."

...Seeds. Why would there be none here?

Suppressing a queasy, creeping unease, I turned my head.

The gray boundary ringed the front yard like a prison wall. Look closely, and the barrier split partway along its length, leaving a gap between wall and wall—a narrow passage made deliberately, not broken open by force.

Perhaps beyond it lay the light that would stand in for the sun. And perhaps the seeds to plant in the garden, too...

As for the water, I couldn't say whether it waited out there or not. It might mean the black liquid in the tank inside the house—or we might have to make the drained well fill up again.

Either way, one conclusion held: we had to take that path.

"There's nothing for it but to head out that way."

...Ha.

I glared at the sentence that had been converted into script, then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shifted my gaze to the narrow gap in the barrier. A cramped, dark crevice where not even the wind made a sound.

Right. We wouldn't be going out that way. We'd be going in.

I crossed the boundary of the front yard and took a single step.

Fwoosh.

The torch died the instant we passed through. On the gloomy screen, the pixelated figure could barely be seen, walking a long horizontal corridor.

If we followed the direction the shadow beneath our feet was pointing, light would be waiting at its end.

Pad, pad.

The only sound was the soft patter of bare feet on the ground. I kept moving forward. Deeper, and deeper still, down a single track with no room to dodge should something come lunging out of the dark.

"How long is this path, seriously?!"

Then, as the path ran on unchanging in its one direction, something appeared for the first time at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left edge of the screen—something other than the straight corridor.

"Huh...? Oh, no. Don't tell me..."

At the end of the passage stretching sideways hung a cross—like the beginning of an atonement. Before us, the path split into three, like the toes of a swan's foot.

"Dear me. A fork in the road."

Indeed. A fork.

Which meant this place was...

"A maze."

So I had walked into the maze under my own power. Not that turning back was an option anymore. From here on, making blindly for the far side of the shadow would mean nothing. What good is a lighthouse in a maze where the path bends every which way?

Without much deliberation, I chose the leftmost of the three paths. If every path had to be walked eventually, it was simplest to take them left to right in order. Hugging one wall was the textbook way to solve a maze, after all. Not that this maze looked likely to surrender to anything so easy.

The pixelated figure turned down the path leading toward the bottom of the screen. I pressed my left hand to the wall and stepped into the leftmost passage.

It did not take long to learn that the path I'd chosen was the wrong one.

A low rumble... An ominous tremor climbed up through the palm braced against the wall and the soles of my feet, and then—

CRACK. Rumble-rumble!

"Whoa—?!"

The path began to collapse. From the bottom of the screen, the pixelated ground crumbled away chunk by chunk, exposing the darkness underneath.

I turned straight ahead without slowing.

Crash... Rumble!

At my back, a hollowness spread, so chilling it set every nerve alight. The abyss beneath my heels was chasing me down, ravenously swallowing the world as it came.

"We can't run?!"

Naturally, there was no feature for sprinting, no matter how hard you mashed the buttons. If anything, the avatar tired and slowed down. It never got faster.

"No."

In other words: take the wrong path, and you are simply meant to die.

Ah.

Of course. That, more than anything, was what a labyrinth was.

Which meant...

"If turning back time were possible, what would you do, Seon Yuhan?"

Then this time, all I'd have to do was not take the wrong path.