Forget It Quickly
Where was this? She had lain down in comfort, and opened her eyes on a strange world.
A dream?
White above, drab earth below, a horizon running out without end. It felt like a place cut off from the world. She wanted to wake. For the first time in a long while the bed had been a pleasant one, and she had no wish to let a dream like this spoil it.
"Because of you."
Hong Yumin turned toward the voice that had come from nowhere. Black flame wavered there. What was that?
"It's your fault."
The flame spat the words—dark, and thick with grudge.
"Who are you."
The sound alone scraped at the mind. It was foul to hear.
"Did you think you were fine?"
She flinched. The words shook Hong Yumin through.
The flame roared and swelled. Fire born in empty air took on a shape: forelegs, then hind legs, a muzzle lengthening, a body growing thick. Fangs punched through the cheeks and flashed. A tiger made of fire looked at Hong Yumin.
"You—you are...!"
She could not forget that shape. Akho. A plague of a thing, gnawing at her.
"Did peace taste sweet?"
Akho stretched out a paw. Flame roared up. Fire climbed wherever the paw touched, wavered, and made shadows, and the shadows swayed until they wore the shapes of people.
"I hate this."
"Kill me."
"I want out."
"Save me."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Kh—!"
She clutched her head against the sound ringing in her ears.
"Th-this is—!"
"Thoughts that hate you."
Akho circled her, and with every turn resentment bloomed. It changed into girls, boys, adults, elders, children. They pointed at Hong Yumin.
"Wicked woman."
"A sin born into the world."
"Something like you should never have been born!"
"Why are you still alive!"
Veins stood out. Her vision went red. She shook her head, hard.
"Nonsense!"
"You deny it."
Akho drew near. Eyes of flame stared straight into her.
"The sin of those you failed to protect."
Akho whispered it, touching the truth Hong Yumin kept turning from.
"A sin of your own making."
"Begone!"
Hong Yumin swept her hand. A fierce wind coiled around her. The flame scattered, and the thoughts vanished with it. Only Akho remained.
"Running away again."
Akho sneered, and there was pity in the laugh as well.
"Go back to where you belong!"
Hong Yumin bit down and chanted. The words rushed out, gathered into one, and became a chain, and the chain bound Akho.
"We will meet soon."
"We shall never meet. Not through all eternity."
Hong Yumin declared it. The thing had come into her dream, but it was a bound creature at best. Aside from tormenting her like this, it could do nothing.
"Is that so?"
Akho looked up at the sky. An ill feeling made Hong Yumin look up as well.
"......!"
There was a moon overhead—round, and close enough to touch.
"The full moon comes."
Akho murmured it. Resentment and grudge. A gaze in which every evil was mixed turned upon Hong Yumin.
"You will not be able to avoid it."
Hong Yumin recalled a single sentence.
It cannot be avoided.
"How petty!"
She brought her hand down. The ground heaved and split, and a pit deep beyond deep swallowed Akho.
"You will pay the price."
Hong Yumin ignored the words. A loser's muttering. The moon in the sky mattered more.
"Not a shred of help, from first to last!"
Hong Yumin seized the empty air. The moon, swelling by the moment, stopped all at once.
"Kh!"
Blood ran from her mouth. A typhoon raged around the moon.
"Haaah!"
Stopping it was not enough. She forged the wind into a hammer and made the earth into a person. The earth rose like a human being and gripped the hammer of wind—a miracle possible only because this was a dream, and not the waking world. The earthen figure swung and shattered the moon. In a single blow it broke and became dust.
"Hah. Hah."
Even in a dream, the cost was great.
"Is it over?"
"Does it seem over to you?"
"What!"
The ground split left and right. No—an eye opened in what she had taken for ground.
"It cannot be avoided."
It was not the ground. It was the moon. A moon of black light stared at Hong Yumin.
"You will be devoured by your own sin."
Her feet sank.
"Damn it!"
She tried to flee, and could not.
"Look upon your sin."
"No......!"
In the space of a blink she was buried to the face.
"Mmph!"
The hand she flung out, pitiful, was eaten by the flame. She could not even scream. She vanished into sin.
"It draws near."
Akho closed its eyes. When she looked upon her sin, it would be that much freer.
The children were playing ball.
"Hey! You can't hog it all to yourself!"
"Nyah-nyah! If you've got a problem, come take it!"
A ball of pigskin stuffed with air bounced this way and that. A girl watched it.
"Aren't you going to play?"
A woman with a basket on her head spoke to the girl.
"......"
The girl looked at her. Scales lay over the woman's skin, as if a human and a lizard had been stirred together. Vertical pupils split her eyes. She set the basket down.
"Try asking them to play with you."
"......I'm fine."
The girl said it sullenly and turned her head.
"Don't be like that. Go play with them."
The girl looked at the children again. They were not ordinary. One had a dog's tail, and another's arms were long. Horns grew from one head; another's skin was blue. Even the child who looked plain enough breathed fire from their hands.
"Hey, hey! Fire is cheating!"
"It's not even hot!"
The children swarmed the one who had breathed fire.
"You cheated, so it's punishment!"
"Catch them! Catch them and drag them to the uncles!"
"Hey! Wait!"
A child made of earth pushed through the fire and seized them.
"Fire. Dangerous."
"Let me go! I was wrong!"
"Compromise. None."
The earthen child spun round and round.
"Aigoo. They'll cause another accident at this rate."
The woman stood, rubbing the small of her back, gathered the basket into her arms, and went to the children.
"You rascals! You can't play so recklessly!"
At the woman's bellow the girl covered her ears. It was a cry fit to bring the sky to its knees.
"Aaah! It's Dragon Sister!"
"It's the lizard monster!"
"An auntie with no husband!"
"Who are you calling an auntie!"
The woman breathed fire. In an instant horns sprouted from her head, and a tail showed beneath her skirt.
"Ah! The raccoon aunt mended this for me!"
The clothes were ruined, and her face crumpled as if she might cry.
"You don't have a man because you're so careless!"
"Lizard women aren't popular!"
"Fine! Want to try dying?"
A growl rolled out of her. She set the basket aside and charged the children.
"Another mess is about to break out."
When the uproar rose in the center of the village, a stooped old man came.
"......"
The girl looked at him.
"Hm? You were here too."
The old man stroked her head.
"A child mustn't wear the face of someone who has already lived a whole life."
He was gentle.
"Come now. Hurry over there and play."
"......May I go?"
"Of course you may."
He gave her a push between the shoulders, and the girl went, unwilling.
"Oh? A pretty kid."
As she drew near, one of the children shouted.
"Whoa. Red hair."
"Face. Pretty."
Abandoning the woman they had been roughhousing with, the children closed around the girl.
"So you're the kid the uncles brought."
"A new friend?"
"What's your ability?"
Their chatter left the girl at a loss.
"Hah. Hah."
Breathing hard, the woman took her place at the girl's back.
"You shouldn't ask her like that."
"A grown-up butting in is a problem too."
"And an auntie, at that."
"Boo."
The woman's muzzle lengthened.
"What. Did. You. Say?"
"I didn't say anything."
"I'll listen well and be a good child."
Under those ferocious eyes the children snapped to attention.
"Hoo...... You mustn't tease your elders."
"Yes......"
"Answer."
"Yes!"
"Good."
Having bent the children to her will, the woman smiled.
"You came all this way. I'm proud of you."
She pinched the girl's cheek and beckoned the children.
"She's a new friend, so you have to get along."
The children stared at the girl. The woman watched from a step away.
"......May I play with you?"
The girl gathered her courage and spoke. One of the children held out a hand.
"You're not going to play?"
"......I shall."
The girl slowly reached out.
"Let's go play over there!"
The moment the child's hand met hers, the child's hand was severed.
"......Huh?"
The wrist was cut through and dangled. Blood and bone spilled out and soaked the clothes. The child who had been laughing a moment ago was gone. In their place stood a child drenched in blood, entrails bared, half the face missing.
"Ugh......"
The girl stumbled backward. The ownerless hand dropped, pitiful. She turned her back.
"Where are you going?"
"Let's play together!"
"Kyaaaah!"
Thud. Thud. Twisted sounds came from behind: flesh tearing, something punched through, feet cut away. The girl was afraid.
The world went dark. Black flame shot upward, and the shadows it lit ran in every direction. Voices rose.
"Catch them! They're all money!"
"There was gold here!"
"Kill the old and the men!"
"Even if you kill them, leave the corpses! Corpses sell too!"
A shadow stabbed a person. A shadow raised fire. A shadow fell upon a woman. The girl ran and ran.
Between the shadows, a tiger appeared.
"Wh-what kind of tiger is doing here?!"
"Don't come! Save me!"
"Why won't it die!"
Other screams rose. The girl covered her ears and ran.
Thud.
"Huk!"
She caught her foot and fell. Rubbing her knee, she looked back.
"It's...... because of you......"
"Huk......!"
The woman they had called Dragon Sister crawled toward her with nothing left but her upper body.
"Because you came here......"
"S-save me."
The girl wept. She looked around to call for help, but all she could see were corpses, and those corpses were crawling toward her too.
"D-die!"
"Kyaaah!"
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Something burst, wet.
"Keu......"
"Hik!"
A spray struck her face.
"Grrrrr."
At the beast's growl she opened her eyes a sliver. A black tiger was staring at her.
"Kyaaaah!"
"Graaaah!"
The tiger—and the girl—
"Aaaaaah!"
She bolted upright. Screaming, Hong Yumin sat up, sweat pouring off her, and looked around. There were no corpses. No tiger. Nothing of the kind.
"A d-dream? Was it a dream?"
"Mmm...... What's wrong?"
Mi Soryeong sat up, rubbing her eyes.
"Ah. It is nothing."
"Is it? Hnnngh!"
Mi Soryeong yawned and stretched.
"Mmm...... What time is it?"
The sight of her smoothed something in Hong Yumin.
"Hah."
Nothing but a nightmare. A false dream that Akho had made.
Tampering with my dreams. It had killed them all itself, and still it mocked her.
Forget it. Quickly.
Hong Yumin forgot the dream. It was something she had done times beyond counting—and a turning away she had made just as often.