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[Well then, that wraps up today’s broadcast…]
Kim Soleum closed his eyes with a bitter smile, and a salty burn of tears in the corner of his eyes made him swallow a heavy "farewell" stuck in his throat.
[Cut!]
‘Goodnight, Mr. Host…’
No answer came. Instinctively, he reached for the front pocket of his suit, but no soft fur met his touch. In this space between the worlds he was alone. Taking a deep breath, Kim Soleum allowed the few muffled sounds from outside the membrane in. Whispers, concerned lines shot back and forth. The voices of people he had spent a year with, living, dying, dying once more and that on repeat. In retrospect, he could not believe he himself had not given up a few deaths in, still pushing towards… this very moment.
Reaching out to the warm lightly pulsating membrane, he pushed his hand in, hearing the voices move closer, as if noticing his presence.
It was the time for goodbyes, the time for farewells…
He said them all: the “thank you”’s and the “take care”’s. With a painful tug in his chest somewhere around his heart, Kim Soleum held back on the “see you”’s and “till next time”’s.
Farewells are meant to be forever.
To his team. To his colleagues. To the agents. To all the people who made this world special, when he read about it from the comfort of his routine job, and then safe when he risked his own life to see the end of his own story unfold. And now, as the voices of his co-stars faded just like the comments of his ever-present spectator, all that was left was to take the final step.
[Dark Exploration Records
Pop-up store ----->]
A step that had become a leap to another world, to another narration he was never supposed to be a part of. Now, this step was his salvation. So why was there a moment of hesitation, a feeling of immense anxiety as if something had been forgotten? And as the Host’s voice didn’t come through with a playful reminder, he clutched at the fabric of his cheap company assigned shirt and took a deep breath, steadying himself.
This was the moment he had waited for. The moment his will should be unshaken and unchanged. In the tight walls of the cocoon, he took a step, feeling his shoes brush at the edge of the first stair.
RIPP----
A sound of something like a cloth shredding penetrated the space loud enough to make Soleum jolt and look around, seeing the walls of the membrane shrink as rumbling of voices and arguments poured in. Feeling like his own legs were about to give up, he clutched at the wall and looked around.
‘No no, not now, it can not fail!’
Suddenly, a bright speck of blue trailed somewhere in the corner, and turning around, Soleum let out a gasp.
‘No… this isn’t right!’
“Grapes.”
Agent Choi stood in the void with him, the walls around them ceasing to shake as the tear in the membrane closed off, drowning the voices from the outside in the numbness of their confinement.
In the seconds that passed, the time slowed to unbearable infinity, with only Kim Soleum’s raging heart counting the flow of it in an unsteady rhythm. And still, he stood silent.
“Grapes.”
A familiar smile, a familiar glimmer in those bright blue eyes. The agent who once handed him fruit when he first opened his eyes after days spent in the Looky Mart. The agent who shielded him with his own body on duty and threw him in glass prison when the timing was too unfortunate. The agent who chased after him, never betraying the hope to reunite. The agent who listened, but didn’t follow…
“Grapes, listen-”
“No!” The rage that slipped through the voice startled Soleum himself. Rage mixed with desperation and sorrow of not even being able to say his last goodbyes. “Why are you here?! No, please, this isn’t the time!”
Afraid to look into the blue eyes tinted with a smile that was so familiar, Soleum looked at the floor, feeling his fists clench. This was the same whiplash he had when realising the difference in their plans back at the cave. This was the same sinking feeling dragging his insides down into a painful knot that threatened to force a choked cry out of him.
“Grapes, I merely wish to say a proper goodbye.”
He choked.
Looking up, he felt tears in his eyes when the dark eyes met the blue: unsmiling, serious and yet softened with an emotion that could not be put into words.
In a moment of silence, agent Choi walked up and quietly put his arms around his junior’s shoulders, like the many times they did before. All the times Choi would lean on him jokingly when heading out for lunch, the time Soleum had to support his weight in the Daydream incubator basement, or the moment right after waking up in the cave when he craved grounding and silently let their arms lead into an embrace that drowned his panicked breaths in the comfort of human warmth. Just like that, now, they stood silently feeling each other’s hearts beat out of tune of the peaceful moment that was meant to be a commemoration of the struggles they had overcome.
“You didn’t really intend to leave without giving your sunbae one last hug, Grapes?”
The familiar teasing tone mismatched the desperate strength with which the scarred fingers clenched onto Soleum’s shoulders.
It felt forbidden. It felt like one wrong movement will put all he went through to waste. Every ghost story had rules, and now this massive ghost story was finally allowing him to see the exit, so how could he even consider falling for a temptation that shreds his rationality and pulls at his emotions. Why are his arms rising to bury his fingers in the soft brown hair that was charmingly unevenly cut where a blade had stricken before and fire burnt a few strands shorter than the rest. Soleum’s fingers played with the strands and a smile crept on his face, only to be drowned by the exhaustion of the reality that was settling in.
“This is a goodbye, agent.”
He heard a muffled breath escape Choi, but the strength in his arms remained.
“A goodbye, but not a farewell, right?”
What an odd sensation it was - tasting the very definition of bitter sorrow on the tip of his tongue that weighed down so heavy he could not master a response.
‘There would be no goodbye.’
How accustomed he had become to having someone read his mind without something as useless and unnecessary as words…
“I have to go, agent.”
A statement. A “farewell”.
The agent’s head pressed deeper into the crook of his neck, Choi’s voice echoing as a vibration on his skin.
“Do you?”
Soleum felt his finger nails scratch at his own skin to distract him from the suffocating feeling in his chest.
“Do you have to?”
A question, soon to turn into a statement he had no strength to dispute. Behind the agent a white paper sign stared at him with a simple arrow:
Down.
“I do. This world is yours, it was never meant to have me,” pushing the arms away, Soleum freed himself from the embrace, still too afraid to meet the agent’s eyes directly. “I would be honoured if you kept me in your memories. Maybe, you could keep my note on the board in the break room.”
He smiled, knowing neither of them would laugh at this. It was for the better that he never got to see that the board stood clean, wiped by the agent some time during the time of his employment in the security team. Another one of Choi’s regrets he will chastise himself for.
He came into this world unannounced, and he will leave without a trace. Will anything stay behind?
Choi felt his anxiety pull his teeth into a nervous grind.
Will the memories of him remain once he leaves?
“When you told me you are not from this world,” he started, watching his hoobae’s eyes locked on the paper above the staircase, careful as if one wrong word would send the younger man running, disappearing like a mirage. “I didn’t believe you.”
It hurt. But Kim Soleum knew that much.
“I didn’t believe your story,” Choi scratched at his neck, feeling the uneven tissue of his scar under his nails. “But I believed you.”
A fear of losing something you won’t even remember having.
“I believed your conviction, I believed there was a way to make you happier. But Grapes… Are you sure this is the way?”
Kim Soleum finally looked up and the determination in his eyes along with bitter melancholy made Choi pause, rearranging his words.
“I’ve been in this line of duty a long time, man, longer than one is expected to,” he chucked. That familiar warmth of laughter, as if they were talking about local bureau gossip over lunch. “I’ve seen death, birth, I’ve seen madness and clarity, I’ve seen people lose paths and gain them. When I first started, do you know what my first case was?”
Kim Soleum caught himself staring back at the agent. He didn’t. Even in the wiki it was an area blurred out in a fog of mystery to keep the agent’s story more intriguing: an open invitation to personal interpretation. He didn’t want to know. He… had to know.
“It was soon after my acceptance to the bureau. Just like you, I got my jacket handed to me in a rush and they placed me on the back of my supervisor’s bike as we rushed to the call. Huh, we didn’t even have enough bikes back then, how embarrassing, you really have it good now!” he chuckled, and Soleum lost against the temptation to return a faint smile. “It was at a plastic surgery clinic. Needless to say - a lot of blades, needles and skin. Still, when I rushed into one of the waiting rooms I saw a girl. Around 6 of age, at best. She was crying, looking for her mother.”
A cliche, and yet, Soleum felt his breath halt.
“I picked her up, promising that I will get her out. However, even as she calmed down in my arms, she kept telling me she had to leave, but not with me. She told me her mom was waiting for her deeper in the saloon. The girl was so sweet, she tried to laugh at my jokes. Her bright red hair and freckles… I could not turn to look back where a patch of similar hair and a face full of the same freckles hung left at an operation table just a room away.”
The agent paused, struggling to keep talking.
“I dragged her out, despite her cries and pleads to let her go. Back then, never having seen it before I repeated to myself - contamination, it was contamination, she will be alright.”
“Did she recover?”
“She never made it out,” Choi’s head lifted and a pained smile crooked on his face. “Up to this day I don’t know what happened. I ran to the exit, her in my arms, and yet the moment I stepped into the bright daylight she was gone. I stood there on the backstreet trying to wrap my arms over thin air, still feeling her warmth.”
Recalling his own first mission and the dread of Looky Mart, Kim Soleum stood quiet.
“Then, two years later, I was assigned to monitor the Mermaid Palace, you remember it right? Of course you do,” Choi added, remembering their conversations about the other worlds. “Every time I would go there I’d seek her bright red hair among the kids, thinking that maybe she was lost on her way. Thinking that if I were to see her again, I’d hold her tighter, making sure she leaves with me.”
The children of the Mermaid palace, souls lost without an origin, mixed together in an endless playtime.
“I can’t let you leave not knowing where you are going, Grapes.”
His head hurt, a painful throb going all the way from his heart.
“I am going home, agent. And before you ask, yes, I am sure it is my home.”
“You trust a wish ticket of a company that chained you with a contract that ate at your humanity, you trusted a note left by someone you have never met with no record of existing, you put your fate into the hands of an organisation that crumbled under the consequences of their own research. You trust all of them, but not me?”
How did it come to this? He simply wanted to say his last goodbyes, then why was Choi feeling this bubbling anger inside of him: anger at his own inability to keep someone important to him safe. Why was Kim Soleum so determined to dive into the unknown when he himself witnessed the horrors of the world firsthand? Why? Why?
“Why?”
“Because I know where these stairs lead. Because I know more about this than you do, and yes, you have to put your faith in me blindly the way I blindly trusted that note or the very facility that brought me here. You have to trust me.”
“But I can’t.”
“Why?”
It was hard to word in any other way but:
“I am afraid.”
Ah, Kim Soleum thought, it was about fear. The very fundamental animalistic feature he himself grew to understand the importance of. Looking at the walls of the cocoon, the sign and the pitch black staircase a mere step away from him, Soleum finally saw it: the fear of uncertainty that must have tugged at the agent’s heart and by all means should have been screaming in his own head as well. Still, there was a difference between them, the difference in the knowledge of this world.
Turning around to face the agent, he smiled.
“There is no need. I know where these stairs lead. Just behind the door at the end of them, there will be a world without darkness, without disasters and urban legends. The world that the Cheerful Research Institution called “paradise”, but I took for granted. The world in which…”
‘In which you are a story I once admired.’
“Grapes?”
He could not bring himself to say that.
“It’s a world I call my own. A world where I belong.”
Taking a step, he leveled himself with the descend and turned back to meet the agent’s eyes for the last time.
“When I was first dropped here, it was a subway darkness that asked me where it was I was heading to. Now, this is my final stop. This is where I get off. Farewell, agent Choi! May your life be safer now that you hold memories of me.”
First step.
His shoes softly stepped down once, twice, before an echo of rapid footsteps came from behind, a shadow dropping from where the entrance of the staircase still let the light of the cocoon through.
“Soleum!”
Do not turn back. This is a ghost story. This is the final trial of your resolve.
Footsteps approached him and hesitantly paused, a few steps down the staircase.
“Soleum.”
Do not turn back. Do not look. Move.
He took another three steps, hearing the soft footsteps of worn out shoes behind him follow.
“I know this world has been more than cruel to you, but there are people who died for you, came back to life and would still do it all over again just to know you are in their life.”
“No, agent, they did it to know I was safe. There is a difference. I am going to where I am safe.”
“Do you really think so? Do you think I am the only one who watched you in that machinery with unspoken bitter protest, knowing quite well there is a chance you are dooming yourself? Do you think everyone has blind faith that what you are doing is right?”
It was the same as in the cave, except now he could not turn to see the face of the agent he once trusted with the very secret of his existence.
Unfair.
“Still, they let me take this leap of faith, knowing I’d be happier to die trying than running away.”
“You are not brave, Grapes. You are a coward.”
At the words, Soleum laughed. It was the first time he let out a genuine, lighthearted laugh, feeling it stiff in the narrow staircase they were descending.
“You held up well at first, but I know it’s not acting, you really pushed yourself through all of this trembling with fear. So why are you most determined now when your existence is at stake?”
“Maybe it’s precisely because I am tired of pretending to be brave? Maybe I just want to let it all go and take my last chance in comfort of hope for the better?”
A hand landed on his shoulder, heavy yet gentle.
“You don’t have to jump in blind just because you need a break from doing this on your own. You have me. I can-”
“Like I had you when I told you about my story and you nodded saying you believe me? Do I have you the way I had you when you went along with your own plan while lying to me? Do I have like I had you saying goodbye to me, telling me I should return to where I belong? What is it really, agent?”
Taking a step down, Soleum shook the arm on his shoulder off, just for it to return grabbing onto his arm: hard and persistent, the fingers digging painfully into his muscle through the fabric of the suit.
“Soleum, I could turn you around now by force.”
A chill went down his spine at the words. Unable to see the agent’s face, only feeling the force on his arm, Kim Soleum let out a muffled half-sob half-gasp.
“Agent.”
He knew Choi wouldn't.
“Agent Choi.”
The grip on his arm shook a little.
“You would not do that.”
“How do you know that?”
“Like I said, I know more than you think,” smiling to himself as if a faint distant memory was reawakened in his head, Soleum whispered. “I admired you.”
The fingers around his arm weakened, falling down only to stop and grasp around his wrist, feeling the painfully calm heartbeat under the raging pulse betraying the agent’s inner conflict.
“I know you would not jeopardise the safety of a civilian over your own ideas. After all, you are one of the earliest Bureau agents.”
Feeling the shaking in the fingers, Soleum reached out and gently wrapped his fingers over Choi’s hand and drew soothing circles on the rough scarred skin.
“I know you can be sporadic and chaotic, I know you can use methods that are irrational at the moment, but I also know that all you do is for the sake of the promise to save as many civilians as you can.”
“But you are not a civilian, you are Grapes.”
“And you are my sunbae.”
“And you don’t know what you are talking about.”
Soleum sighed, torn between the walls of defence he had built in his world and the dim light of the door at the end of the stairs. It didn’t matter now.
“I know that you hate the cold because it brings back the memories of the cold storage. I know that in that room you were not alone: you watched 7 civilians and 2 of your colleagues on the hooks next to you as you struggled to keep your weight for hours, preventing the hook from slicing through the last centimeters of your neck, keeping your artery safe.”
The hand on his wrist went limp and dropped.
“I know that you have nightmares about that time almost every week. I could see it in your eyes in the morning sometimes. You never told anyone, but I knew. I also know that the big scar on your back is from a circus disaster when a whip struck it. I know that your right hand has scars of three fingers all from the time they got stuck in saw, severed and stitched back after you pulled a woman away from her imminent death. I know that every scar on your body is a story of your bravery.”
A warm feeling of recalling familiar stories washed over him, dimmed by the realisation that the very person wounded and scarred by them was beside him.
“I also know that your own curiosity can lead you to the worst outcomes. I know that it would also lead to your death.”
It was hard to say it, but he had to.
“You were meant to die in a darkness we are both familiar with. I know how it would have happened, and this whole time I dreaded the possibility of us going there together thinking I would not be able to convince you to leave.”
They stood in silence.
“Then stay.”
Choi's words, hollow and yet full of indescribable desperation were once again not a question, a statement. Not a farewell, but an invitation, a plea.
“Stay to make sure I don’t walk away like you are trying to now. Stay to pull me back, to hold my hand the way I am trying to hold yours. If you say you know my own death, that’s fine, that’s whatever, really! I always knew I’d be my own demise, but… Soleum. Soleum, do you know your own ending?”
His voice cracked.
“Soleum, if you are telling me all this, why can’t you see you are doing the same thing to me now?”
The fingers, now gentle and slow, touched at the palm of Soleum’s hand, as if hesitant and shy.
“What darkness was it that would be the one to kill me?”
Kim Soleum shifted his weight, uneasy, feeling the numbness in his feet.
“The Looky Mart.”
“Ah, that’s fun. And how would I die?”
The agent did his best to sound cheerful, but even without seeing his face, Soleum could sense the strength it took to say those words. He believed him, even while denying it, Choi felt the sincerity in the words of the man who rushed into Sekwang city alone, believing in his plan that sounded absurd. And it worked. It worked as if he knew from the start it would.
“You would climb the stairs to the top floor to investigate, never to come back.”
“What a stupid death, oh god, really?”
He laughed.
It was a sincere laugh with an after-taste of something sticky and stiff: fear.
“I will try not to go to Looky Mart duty ever again. But, what of the civilians, Grapes? If I get called, I will have to go. Would you be there to pull me out?”
Soleum caught Choi’s fingers in a tight grip and squeezed them with force.
“Don’t do this to me.”
“Grapes, if you were to know that one day, if the memory of you disappears the moment you open that door down there, I would stand on that staircase in the Looky Mart, feeling that something about it was important, that something about it would have been haunting me for years… If you were to know that in that moment, seeking the truth behind that feeling, I would do something as stupid as to abandon my years of experience screaming at me to turn away, unlocking the door and taking steps all the way up into the forbidden… Knowing all that, do you want to leave me behind, alone?”
The death of one of the most popular named characters, agent Choi, a haunting example of contamination overshadowing experience, of emotion prevailing over reason, stirred the community and stayed discussed for months. Just like the others, Soleum was fascinated by the cruelty of death that didn’t pick favourites. Fascinated, startled and… intrigued. Why would he do that? What was it that prompted an agent to stray off duty, exploring a part that was off limits when lives of civilians were put at stake? Was there something else, between the lines, out of sight of the reader? Something like a reason? Something like a… premonition.
Soleum felt his blood cool.
No.
Not like this!
He felt like turning around and staring at the agent’s face, desperate to see a smile telling him it's only a joke, a light tease. Not an ominous understanding of the inevitability of the narration.
“Just then,” Choi continued. “Would you grab my hand the way I am holding yours, knowing I am safer not knowing?”
Unfair. So, so unfair!
“Look at me, Grapes.”
He can’t. Not now.
“Soleum.”
He shut his eyes until sparks of colour popped under the lids, trying to steady his legs, taking another step.
“This world is doomed, agent. Doomed in ways I can not tell you. Doomed in a way that someone from the world of no ghost stories and daily horrors would only dismiss as a fictional story written for pure amusement. That’s my world. I read it, I wrote it, I admired and feared it, and yet, despite nightmares and fear of reading in the dark, I could not stop myself.”
“Then why stop now.”
“Because I reached my limit. From here on - it’s the unknown I am not prepared for. I have to go home.”
Choi tsk’d but immediately coughed, ashamed of his emotion slipping through. His hand turned to wrap around Soleum’s fingers. He gave a little tug.
“I lived my whole life in the unknown.”
Harsh reality.
“Don’t leave me to deal with it alone now.”
Soleum took a step forward, descending lower, still holding the agent’s hand in his, feeling it hold the grip strong as no footsteps followed.
“You are not alone. You never were, even before I showed up: a spy, a traitor, a person with no attachment to this world, ready to leave at any moment.”
“Even now?”
“Even now.”
Quick footsteps, and Soleum jolted when an arm embraced him from the back, warmth of the agent’s face in the crook of his neck.
“What is there that calls to you stronger than me?”
Soleum bit his lip, bringing their intertwined fingers closer to his chest, wishing he could turn to share the embrace, to answer this desperate plea for comfort he knew the pain of.
“My home. My family and friends.”
“You never spoke of them. Who is it? Can you tell me the names?”
Soleum closed his eyes.
“Their names, ages. Where do you live? Do you have siblings? Can you tell me? You say you know everything about this world, but you can’t say anything about your own. Don’t you see the irony…”
“I don’t remember their names, agent ■ ■ ■ ■ .”
A gasp escaped Choi’s mouth as a painful stab punched him in the lungs.
“What di-”
“I don’t remember, that’s why I want to know. I want to know what is hidden away from me, so agent, if you don’t wish to stay alone,” Soelum took two steps down, escaping from the weakened embrace. “If you can’t let go, if you can’t allow me to leave where you can’t follow…”
Soleum bent his arm, waving in an invitation.
“Well, you can follow. To see what I want to see. To let me show you the world where you don’t have to wake up in cold sweat from the nightmares of not saving a soul that trusted you.”
With his other hand, Soleum reached and turned the handle on the exit door.
“We can make sure neither of us has to go into the unknown alone.”
With a soft click, the door closed.
[Darkness Exploration Records
Pop-up store]
Three months, two weeks and one day. Three phone books, hundreds of bookmarks in the browser, a permanently turned on laptop. Registries, news, articles, social media accounts, shelters, military websites, crematorium announcements.
Putting the phone down, Kim Soleum hit his head into the steering wheel of his car and let out a grunt. Another shelter has no news for him. At this point, they recognised his voice and would probably soon block his number, he feared. Still, the staff diligently listened to his request every time, checking the registry. Or pretending to.
No matches.
Agent Choi was gone without a trace.
Once Kim Soleum’s eyes adjusted to the light, he looked down at the merch box in his hands, picking up the small pink rabbit and turning it around, admiring the quality. Yes, he had to take a day off to come here. It was not to be a complete waste, as he admired the merch with a smile, heading out. The sun was at the zenith, the weather was good and his sister sent a few teasing messages, reminding him of his sibling obligations. For now, with the rest of the day to spare, he jumped into his bed, feeling a lot more exhausted than was justifiable: sore muscles and aching bones.
From the pillow, he looked at the plush rabbit on his night stand and smiled.
"Good night, Friend.”
Peaceful rest.
When he woke up, sweat dripping from his face onto the cotton of the sheets, he jumped from the bed and turned on the lights, checking if the door was locked. Rushing into his small living room, he opened the windows and breathed in the night air.
Not locked. He was safe. This was not a ghost story. He was still alive. His sleep was just a night sleep, his waking was just a normal morning. He was safe.
Sliding to the floor, he gripped his head, pulsating at the pain of the memories flushing in, clashing with the peaceful recollection of his routine workdays just last week.
Lunch at the corner cafe - the screams of the marching band on the streets of Sekwang city.
A visit to his sister’s place - the rotting smell of the oozing flesh on the bodies of children in the Mermaid palace.
A grocery trip on Thursday - the rows of arms protruding from the walls in the faceless market.
Where was he? Was he still in the fiction? Was he in reality? Was reality the fiction and fiction the real world? Was the DER world written to exist as an extension of his own world or was his world created on a whim of the research as an addition to the DER universe…
No, this is too much.
‘Stop, no, this is behind me now, I left, I quit, I remember, but it doesn’t matter,’ he painfully clutched at his hair, trying to distract himself. ‘I quit, I walked down the stairs after making the wish, I opened the door and left, pulling the age-’
The pain stopped.
The ticking of the clock in his room measured seconds, slow and precise.
‘I pulled the agent with me.’
Three months, two weeks and one day. Three phone books, hundreds of bookmarks in the browser, a permanently turned on laptop.
He looked up from the wheel into the dark of the highway. Agent Choi was never registered to any facility, hospital, shelter or military base. He was not declared dead or sighted anywhere around. How hard is it to find a man with a visible scar over his neck?
‘If he still has one…’
What if, he entertained the thought, the scar was gone just like the memories, and the very existence of the urban legends.
The thought was pleasant, soothing. Melancholic.
He had to know.
Turning around, he reached out and lightly tapped on the nose of the Good Friend plush fastened to the passenger seat with the belt.
“You think he is just out there living a normal life? Do you think I am the only one who remembers? Do you think I am insane?”
The plush didn’t respond. It never did.
“Hm, that would be a better outcome. Really, it would.”
Smiling, he started the car and turned into the main road, driving into another motel. There was still time, there was still a lot left unsaid.
“Ah, you must be bored, Braun. Sorry, this isn’t what I promised you, I swear we will go to the movies tomorrow, how’s that?” Talking to himself, Soelum adjusted the rear view mirror and checked that the street was completely empty in the night. “I know it’s less exciting than watching me run for my life in a darkness, but people say the latest James Bond movie isn’t half bad. He reminds me of you, you know?”
Gesturing in an elegant manner, Soleum tipped his invisible hat.
“Elegant, pleasant and a smooth talker. Yeah, we can go watch it. If you don’t like the idea, you better tell me now, or we are in for a three hour spectacle. But for now, we still have half an hour to go, sit tight.”
Reaching for the radio, Soleum pressed the ‘on’ button and spinned to a random station, feeling a little sense of nostalgia…
Or was it deja-vu?
[To those driving a long ride in the dark, let this Host be your company for the night!]
Hand gripping into the wheel, Soleum’s body almost went flying into the front window as he pushed his foot all the way down on the brakes.
[Sometimes, when lost in the thought, driving unknown streets in search of a familiar landmark, what helps us avoid the panic is a familiar voice of an old Friend, don’t you think?]
Not believing his ears, Soleum leaned to touch the stereo, looking at the toy next to him. The plush sat motionless. As always.
“Braun?”
[So late in the night, and here I am, called by my loyal audience in need of this Host’s company. What shall it be tonight, my Friend on the other side of the radio wave connecting us: music? Jokes? A friendly banter? Or something else?]
Soelum swallowed.
[What is it that you’d love to request from your dear Friend tonight? It’s such a special night, after all!]
“A reunion,” Soleum mouthed, hand on the console and eyes staring at the Good Friend, pleading. “A reunion with a familiar face.”
[As excited as I am to fulfil your every wish tonight, my sweet audience, the radio format is an awfully limited form, so let’s see… A soothing tune will do for now!]
A familiar melody poured from the speaker: the Cheerful Theme Park jingle.
Feeling his hope drain with a growing exhaustion in his whole body, Soleum leaned back in his seat.
“Thank you, Friend.”
[Those of you who are done with the routine work and hustle of the day, I urge you to spend the night seeking new encounters, new possibilities and familiar faces.]
Soleum perked up.
[So, what do you say, Friend? Is it time to open yet another door?]
Slowly, yet eagerly, Soleum put his hand on the car door handle, remembering to pick the pink plush and put it into his front pocket. Closing the laptop on the passenger seat, he nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Host.”
When he stepped out from the car, his shoe stepped onto something soft and bright. Having shut the door behind himself, Kim Soleum let the familiar scent of the studio into his lungs.
[You made it, Friend!]
He smiled.
“No, I should be happy YOU made it, Braun.”
The TV screen lit up with a bright yellow smile.
[You held on quite well without your dear companion, this Braun is relieved to see you well and safe.]
Safe - yes. Well - questionable.
“Yes, I am happy to see you again, Braun.”
It was genuine gratitude of familiarity, shown by how he tapped at the huge gloved hand on his shoulder.
“But how are you here, Braun, this world…”
[A bit dull and uninspiring, I know, Friend.] The emoticon on the screen switched into a pouting face. [How do you even live like this? Good thing this Braun’s connection to his dear Friend was strong enough to finally interfere. Albeit, it is sad to admit I can no longer follow you directly in your day to day life, however uneventful it may be…]
“But… where are we?”
[Oh, in the little cozy space between what you call fiction and what you perceive reality, of course!]
A big gloved finger lightly tapped at Soelum’s forehead.
[In your mind.]
‘Oh.’
[No, no, do not be discouraged, Friend. With the magic of special effects, surely you don’t believe this to be a mere figment of your imagination. In the studio we built together, everything is possible.]
Kim Soleum chuckled at the familiar theatrics he realised he missed dearly.
“Everything?”
The face on the screen went a little more serious.
[With enough commitment to the script. Friend.]
Looking around, he saw the studio exactly as he remembered it: glamorous, spacious, extravagant.
[You run into the world where I can not follow, yet you were eager to invite me back. What a difficult dilemma.]
The emoticon was deep in thought.
[Still, this Braun had never believed the final “cut” to be final. Any ending is a beginning of a new episode, a spin off, a remake or a new part in the story!]
Kim Soleum closed his eyes. A decision.
[Friend, one can not linger between two worlds without making a choice. The rope you thread is steady this second but the longer you hesitate to pick a side the higher the chance you will fall into the unknown any moment! And what a shame it would be to leave this IP catching dust on the shelves of an archive!]
“No, of course no, you deserve a better ending, Braun.”
The two laughed, sincerely.
“So, my options are…”
[A world without ghost stories would be one. Another would be returning to where the inevitability of doom will come pressing onto your deepest fears.]
“And the third?”
Braun’s face lit up with an exclamation mark.
“The void where I could fall?”
[Why, what a daring concept. A world without darkness where you refuse to let go of the darkness,] Braun hummed. [A world where the horrors it’s not prepared for will come pouring in: murder, disappearance, ghosts and nightmares fit for those horror movies you tried to show me! How exciting!]
Kim Soleum frowned.
“And if-”
“No, Grapes.”
Frozen in place, he turned around, seeing the familiar face. Agent Choi stood in the entrance to the break room panting after running. His hair, slicked back before, was now slightly dishevelled, and the familiar scar peeked from under a well ironed shirt under an expensive suit. Confused, Soleum looked up at Braun.
[To keep our connection, this Braun had to resort to every link between us he could find in this world. However crude they might be…]
Unable to finish his sentence, Braun gasped, electric and scratching in the air, at the arms that wrapped around his waist.
“Thank you!”
[My oh my, Friend! Don’t you worry about it, anything that makes my friend happy and motivated is an excellent premise to a new show!]
Looking at the agent, safe and visibly conscious, aware and attentive, Kim Soleum walked up to him and extended his arm.
“Agent?”
Choi’s eyes glimmered with moisture betraying his distressed state. Still, he smiled, accepting the handshake.
“Grapes?”
Unable to hold it back, Kim Soleum burst out laughing, leaning in, holding the agent in an embrace that spoke of the relief and joy of a long separation finally coming to an end.
Looking over his shoulder at the Host, Choi nodded and returned the embrace as the Darkness turned off his screen and walked away.
There was a lot to do to upkeep this promise, this balance and this unusual situation they found themselves in.
But that didn’t matter.
Gently, he put his scarred hand onto the soft black hair and let himself cry.