Triangular Flight (3)
Dreams that chew over the past were always the same nightmare.
"Come out!"
My mentor's roar wasn't human. "Where are you hiding?!"
Jet-black tentacles, glistening darkly, filled the narrow alley and surged forward. Gasping for breath, running wildly, I saw my mentor's reaching hand like a torrent of black tar. Concrete brick walls slathered in cement crumbled to either side, slate roof fragments exploding from the shattered building. The rented room from my childhood collapsed just like that.
"Come—out—!"
My mentor's thunderous rage echoed. I knew it was a dream, yet I couldn't stop running. In this dream, my consciousness was trapped inside my past self. My skull filled with the pounding of my heart. Even running this frantically, I felt no wind. Heavy air clung like damp mucosa. It felt like wandering inside a monster's stomach.
The maze-like landscape, with repeating forks, suddenly skipped across changing seasons. This was the mental world of my past self. An abstract space where all my memories from then connected infinitely, randomly, like ragged patches. The boundaries between different memories looked like a curtain of shattered mirror shards reflecting disparate times. I could vaguely see beyond them, but my mentor, not the owner of those memories, seemed unable.
That difference was the precarious power enabling my escape.
Rumble—
Looking back, my barely escaped childhood crumbled like an earthquake. Beyond the billowing dust clouds, my enraged mentor loomed. A shadow far larger than his form. But this realm blurred the line between substance and shadow from the start.
Missing a step crossing a new memory boundary, I tumbled with a scream.
"There you are."
My mentor spread darkness into wings. A few fierce flaps carried him over the clouds; he dove like a raptor spotting prey across the boundary. Lightning claws tore the entire landscape. Chaos of the unconscious rippled in the cracks.
I rolled into the sewer below the ruined path. Flailing, I swallowed filth from the sewer floor several times, crawled up on all fours coughing, and ran again. Huff, huff, huff.
Liquefied mentor poured into the hole I'd tumbled through. Expanding and contracting, he mimicked a black-scaled serpent. In the darkness, a pair of yellow eyes blazed like amber pierced by sun. The snake became a horizontal waterfall, smashing iron bars and slamming walls. Cracks spiderwebbed the ceiling, concrete dust raining down.
Even as a clueless novice then, I instinctively knew capture meant the end. That thing was a soul-devouring serpent.
Fortune favored me: my memories were familiar to me, alien to my mentor. Rarely, a space he knew appeared, but only fragments. In this labyrinth of endlessly flooding memories—times and places jumbled chaotically—shallow knowledge was little different from total ignorance.
One more thing. I didn't know it then, but the labyrinth's randomness was influenced by my desperate wish. A single desire: survive, evading my mentor.
The sewer side path led to a tubular tunnel draining rainwater. Twisting and bending beyond reality, yet somehow familiar, its end shimmered with another boundary veil.
The black serpent's shadow flickered in pale lamplight, gale-like breath tousling my hair. The pursuer's speed offsetting the maze's complexity—that instant, I escaped the tunnel in a split-second step.
Crossing the memory boundary flipped gravity. "Aaaargh!"
A scream I couldn't control as my present self. I fell from sky below my feet to stream above my head. The serpent crossing after twisted midair. Then rushing water slammed my body.
Abnormally fierce current swept me downstream. The serpent's gaping maw pierced the surface with a roar, snapping at my space. Enraged at the miss, my mentor adapted to the new environment.
He had no choice. Most spells acting on physical reality failed here.
Before he finished mimicking, past me swam frantically to shore. There loomed the orphanage complex where he'd taken me in. Blood-red sky unleashed surreal downpour. Swept by swollen waters, my mentor drifted toward unfamiliar boundaries. The mirror-shard curtain swallowed the rapids. The distorted serpent faded into hazy memory depths.
The 14 orphanage buildings formed a precise pattern: connecting them drew a heptagram of seven lines. Facilities stood at intersections and vertices.
Past me ran along those lines, entranced. The grounds were narrow for so many buildings.
First building: 1 dead child.
Second: 8 dead children.
Third: 12 dead children.
Fourth: 9 dead children.
Thus, across one side of the heptagram—four small dorms—30 dead boys and girls. Turning at the fourth to the seventh: 30 more corpses. Seventh to tenth: another 30. Every line tallied exactly 30.
A magic square where each side summed to 30.
Unlike my ignorant past self, I now knew its meaning. The heptagram, with all sides 30, completes to 31 when the ritualist walks the seven lines to the star's center. 31 symbolizes El, God's name in numerology—also meaning "sailing." A voyage toward divinity.
The heptagram's 7 evokes eternity and life; the magic square, inner balance and closed perfection. Thus, this horrific ritual sacrificing 105 boys and girls was a rite for one craving eternal life: sailing toward godhood.
And the result? Christian divinity includes resurrection. Devouring souls, usurping bodies for renewed youth. The sorcerer repeats at life's end, advancing toward eternity. The aged imperialist's long-designed immortality. Its first enactment.
Reaching the heptagram's center, I saw bound past me and my standing mentor's apparition. Moments before the nightmare began.
Grrr rumble—
The ground shook. My mentor's mind returned, defying memory boundaries. The intensifying tremors conveyed his colossal rage indirectly.
Past me wiped tears with filthy hands. Where lime-washed walls should be rippled a new memory boundary. Time for endless flight anew.
Leaping into it blackened my vision.
…….
………….
Bzzz. Bzzz.
"...Damn it."
Different noise dragged my eyes open to the hotel ceiling. The smartphone alarm vibrating by my head had woken me from the nightmare. High chance of nightmares per sleep led to hourly alarms; this saved me again. Third nightmare tonight alone.
Hand to forehead, I exhaled deeply. Deep sleep felt like a foggy memory now. Eyelids burned inside.
Closing them briefly, the quieted alarm buzzed once more. Lit screen: 4:05 a.m. Swiped it off, disabling others—then saw a new message.
It happened sometimes. Better if I'd woken to it. Eyelids burned, but no more sleep today. A couple hours on the return flight.
Cold shower done, I room-phoned a café latte. Not on room service, but concierge handles high-end requests. Coffee arrived in 15 minutes; tipped the staffer $100.
Stirring with cinnamon stick, letting it infuse, I pulled my tablet from the bag. Read till dawn.
Grabbed a world modern history primer. Pages crawled like a tortoise. Nightmare haze scattered focus; shallow Western-centric views felt pathetic. An hour wasted deleting it from my library. Generic mass-produced fluff.
News channels: no major incidents. Ditch books for journals? Phone buzzed. Messenger notification.
Time: 6:01 a.m. Suyeon's message.
Dawn errand unknown, but I had words for her alone. Maybe she anticipated, striking first.
Sent: "Take your time."
Ten minutes later: knock. Knock, knock, knock.
Chain on, opened: Suyeon in suit already. Unlatched for her.
"Pardon the intrusion," she entered, eyed the dry coffee cup with faint regret. "You must be tired."
"Just woke a bit earlier than usual. Sit."
Waited for her to settle. "What's up?"
Hands clasped, hesitating, then blunt: "Hyungnim. Will I still be of use to you going forward?"
"Still?"
"If we ultimately have to fight that 'London'."
"…."
Leaning jaw on hand: "You'll be useful enough. Awakening's open to you too; worst case, I'll etch or refine your circuit myself."
"Is that so?"
"Like I said yesterday, not as precise as mine. But rare even among primitive ability users. Should suffice. No matter the hotshot mage, a bullet to the head kills 'em same. Just need solid firepower."
Primitive magic often awakened life basics first. Diverse directions, but mostly physical enhancement. Meaning portable firepower boost. A threat even to true mages in prepared fights.
But.
"The issue isn't usefulness."
"…."
"Suyeon. You owe me nothing."
That moment, turmoil flickered in her listening eyes. A whirl of grievance, anxiety, loss.