Every Angel Is Terror

It is very quiet. Very peaceful.

I gave it water. Every time a scream came tearing up from somewhere below my throat, I drank.

I gave it light. Until the glow of the light shards I'd found in the maze burned itself out.

I gave it song. Because when I sang that song, no saltwater spilled from my eyes.

I waited.

Waiting, and waiting again. With no promise of when.

Until the seed inside me grew.

(At this rate, it looks like you'll clear it without any real trouble... From what I can tell, the maze was the hardest part by far, so however did you get through it so quickly...)

"Now it just feels like simple, repetitive labor."

There's no more fun in finding the way, and even the monsters and traps that lurch out at me now and then have grown tedious.

So I fed the fertilizer to the character.

A monster resembling a minotaur, with white horns growing from either side of its head.

It would grow as well as it ate.

I can feel something alive inside my body. Something that feeds on my blood and grows — a thing I can't even begin to name.

That is what frightens me most. More than not knowing what I'll become when the seed matures, it's the not-knowing of what this thing still inside me is. The fact that someone I don't know is living inside my body.

I want to split my chest open if that's what it takes to tear it out. I want to peel the skin from my belly if I have to rip it free.

I screamed, clawing at the walls.

No. That is not an interaction permitted to me.

(Um, Hosu...? Mr. Host?)

(Yes, Miss Nahyeon. I am the Host, you see. Please call me Hosu.)

(In this game, winning brings nothing glad, and losing brings nothing sad, you see.)

(Yeah, tell me about it. Still, at least now we know that much — so, the Guild Master... is he planning to do something, by any chance...?)

If I ran, I would return myself to where I stood with the press of a button (no), thin out my own limbs (there would be no need), and wait for me to calm down on my own (I wouldn't run).

It's all right.

I know that I will come to understand. Myself.

I can feel the gap where my consciousness forked in two slowly widening.

The sense of our senses and our thoughts no longer being fully shared. The feeling of being connected across a single button, and yet severed.

No. It might be a delusion. Even this feeling might be a hallucination I manufactured myself. It may have become so only because I wished it so.

I.

...Me?

Who am I? What am I? Me? Am I me? Who is me? The thing out there, steering me? The thing in here, unable to move a single step without me? Is that thing me too? Who is that thing? What is that thing?

That thing doesn't seem like a 'person' anymore. Not anymore.

(Miss Nahyeon. Shall we enjoy a round of 'True Stories'?)

(I... don't really follow.)

(This game is the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠'True Stories' that I made myself, you see.)

(Uh— ah, aah, yes...)

Time flows like eternity. I think about eternity. I know someone who lives forever. Someone who will go on living even after I die.

No. A woman who wouldn't even permit my death — who would live on forever, gnawing at me.

That's why I felt as though I would live forever too. Me, together with her. As if I would never, ever escape her. Even grown. Even as an adult.

I had to kill that woman.

I was right. I was wrong.

That woman will never die. Not inside a me that is dying, forever.

Too many living things dwell inside me.

It's moving. It's moving, isn't it. It's moving, I said. It's moving, I'm telling you.

You parasite. Why should I have to feed and raise something like you? Why should I have to look after somebody else's brat now, too? What did I ever do so wrong? Doesn't anyone feel sorry for me?

It is very quiet and peaceful. And that is excruciating.

Silence is not permitted to me. Too many sounds reach my ears. The voices of people I can never meet again. The voices of them resenting me. The voice of me cursing myself.

Answers are not permitted to me. Because everyone is speaking nothing but the truth.

The thing growing inside me keeps swelling, bloated and fat. Somehow my body feels heavy. Somehow my heart feels light. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠As if this thing is devouring not my body but my mind.

Such a good child.

I am alive.

And it feels as though I have been dead for a very long time. Since long before I misstepped on the emergency stairs of the Jaerae Building. Before I was paid for keeping my mouth shut about what happened in that village. Before I burned the woman and the man. Before I climbed a winter mountain wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. Before I flushed that woman's ashes down the toilet. Before I stood frozen at a red light. Before the car carrying the three of us overturned.

Even further back than that. Much, much further.

Before I ever breathed my first breath.

From some single point in the impossibly distant past and the impossibly distant future, all the way down to the present — it feels as though I have been dying, all this time.

My body may not be mine. But my mind belongs to me alone.

My heart. My thoughts.

I am free — at least inside my own head. Even if that is not necessarily a good thing.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I'm lost, I would repeat in my head, every time I entered the maze to restock on light shards and fertilizer. By now I know the maze's layout well enough to wander it with my eyes closed, and yet still — I'm lost. Let me go back.

And whenever I thought that, that shadow-like stalker of a thing would appear without fail and ask its question.

Then Seon Yuhan had to give the correct answer. Of course, failing to produce it didn't mean Root would kill him or hurt him. It would simply carry me off into a darkness where I couldn't see whether this was my home or anything at all, stand me there like an ornament for an entire day, and then dump me back out into the middle of the maze. That was all.

Seon Yuhan had never once given the correct answer.

Psyche. Eros. Aphrodite. Apollo. Swan. Gardener. Garden. Earth. Root. Seed. Branch. Stem. Leaf. Fruit. Tree. Daphne. Soul. Love. Beauty. Sun. God. Angel. Terror. Sorrow. Song. Mother. Father. Parent. Past. Present. Future. Infinity. Eternity....

Any of these could be an answer to who you were. None of them could be an answer to who you are.

Seon Yuhan didn't know. I think I do now.

Only at the moment I understood that difference could I finally accept it. That I would never go back. That I could not leave this garden.

Because we had already become beings far too different from each other.

Which meant that I, too, would become so.

It is very quiet and peaceful.

I am not alone.

"I can't wait to meet you."

It's all right. Because I understand. You.

One year has passed.