Looking at Myung's novel, going through its pages again, and remembering its plot brought Zachary to thinking back about the incident at school earlier. The novel starred a teenage girl who encountered abnormal incidents after all. It was eerily similar to what was happening. But why should he bother? He thought. It was nothing out of the ordinary.
And that was when his mind kicked in and delved deeper.
Why was it not out of the ordinary? He thought back once again.
Occurrences of students, girls, passing out at school, specifically in front of the entrance, should never be considered ordinary at any point. It was common sense. But it didn’t stop there. The strings of suicide that he heard so much about were certainly something that should make headlines in the town, yet barely anyone ever heard of them outside. For all his habits of avoiding conflicts, this was one he couldn’t believe no one, not even himself, did not bother with. Everyone just moved on and lived as if nothing happened, as if it was all the norm.
「Have I stumbled upon a paranormal conspiracy?」
He chuckled quietly to himself, thinking of the absurdity of the situation.
Such a thing as the paranormal was not so far-fetched. This is a world governed by a great deity, a world of angels and demons, a world of life and afterlife, that much he knew but did not believe. Yet in his own manner, he strived for perfection that a hollow shell could not achieve, a beauty that did not exist within his knowledge. He was not one looking to be a big-shot, making money off his works.
Like any other person, he was once a child with a dream — and he wasn’t going to let it go to naught after all of these years.
Putting those thoughts to rest, for now, he proceeded to read the rest of the chapter.
“It was a pond. A magnificent pond surrounded by light fog from all sides.”
He read the first paragraph.
This chapter was supposed to revolve around the heroine wandering into a mysterious forest and meeting the maiden who would act as the catalyst for the novel’s events.
“It looked neither natural nor artificial. Existing in a serene medium between nature and humanity it welcomed all with its warm water and calming light. It looked like a beacon from afar, shining its light through the dense forest beckoning all to embrace the silent water. Yes… it was silent for there were no fish to disturb its still form and no wind to guide its entropy. It was not surprising; these things are rare now. Within the forest of frozen trees and under the unmoving sky it rested as it always has.”
Before long Zachary found himself shutting his eyes as he read the lines, faced only with quivering darkness thereafter. Reading the story once again would not benefit him at all, which was why he wanted to understand how these words were formed, how they came to be from a mere dream. If he could materialize them within his own canvas of imagination, then maybe there was hope for him.
From just the memory of the rest of the chapter, he let his mind waver to its heart’s content. It was no different than a canvas covered in black. White lines began to form around this void of a surface, slowly drawing and picturing a world of terrifying magnitude, a world only in one’s mind. The dark picture with white faint details soon began to fade and a brighter image, a clear image, came in its place.
What appeared before him was no different than a scene in reality.
For once, he was able to realize a picture within his imagination. Normally such an achievement would cause one’s heart to flutter in excitement after failure for so long, but he was not one to hold such customs. He valued the moment and needn’t waste it on useless sentiments that cause a stir within the heart and mind.
There she was, Zachary could not believe his eyes, a maiden in the pond.
Her appearance was barely visible due to the mist surrounding her. But even from the silhouette, Zachary was able to tell how good of a shape she maintained with her body. She moved in a slow manner, seemingly bathing in the pond’s warm water. This was exactly what Zachary needed, a scene out of his mind so vivid he could write into words.
He knew who this was: the Lady of the Lake, a very prominent character in the novel. Yet he couldn’t formulate what she looked like exactly as she had no definite appearance in the story itself. That was the sole reason why he wanted to move forward, he wanted to see what his mind had hidden away from him, what this beautiful woman he always tried to imagine would actually look like in this dreamscape.
And then she began humming; humming a tune that was unfamiliar to him. It was soothing to the ears.
Zachary moved, slowly creeping his way to the pond and beyond the mist.
The chanting went on, her voice had turned from a young womanly voice to a beautiful voice worth a theater of audience.
“This is…”
This was the wonderful world buried deep within Myung’s books, despite its dark imagery at times, fully realized within his imagination. This was the world he longed for the most: the bright-colored world, a world only those who have reached the dream could see and understand. Perhaps Myung was different, he thought. It could be that she really was happy and content with her life. She was someone who understood very well the dark image of the world yet she managed to portray such an amazing world.
“If this is true, then I want it too. This is amazing!”
“What’s amazing?”
Following that other feminine voice, the world went dark. Zachary opened his eyes. He was back in that warm outmoded room. No pond. No maiden. No song. Just a girl with a stern expression looking down on him.
He quickly covered his notes, preventing the girl from seeing them.
“What are you doing here?” He gave her a cold glare.
The girl before him was his cousin, almost three years older and in the same school as him — due to being held back a few years for an unspecified reason. Though she was a person he tried to avoid as much as possible, despite always listening to her words normally — he had to, she was family above all.
She had a fierce and threatening look in her eyes.
“Aunt Rose asked for you, it’s time for dinner.” She gave him a monotonous stare, one that would be given from one stranger to another. They might have been cousins, but they were far from being alike.
“I am not hungry.” He looked the other way, “Piss off!”
That last line was enough to set her off.
She grit her teeth. “…you’re just the same as ever.”
As the frustration built up within her, she vented it out by slamming her elbow to the back of his head.
Zachary let out an audible grunt. “Hey, what the hell was that for?”
“Stop moping around and grow a pair. It’s not like you do anything else,” her expression was maddening. “Ungrateful prick...”
She was like everyone else in the household. No matter how hard they tried, there was no helping Zachary. They were all angered by his behavior and his rejection of everything. But unlike them, his cousin wasn’t one to hide her emotions behind a facade.
“Get out…” He mumbled. “Shut up and get the hell out of here!” He tried not to raise his voice so as to not attract attention from anyone else in the house.
He stood up and glared at her with an irritated expression. But she was not the least bit afraid and she glared back. However, there was no use to all of this. She knew he wouldn’t listen.
“—Tch…”
She moved aside but kept looking at him from the corners of her eyes as she headed for the door, not letting go of the hostility within. Knowing her, she would probably report back to his mother and more trouble would stir up. But then again, he barely knew anything about her, there was no guarantee she would say anything — and no guarantee she wouldn’t either.
But Zachary did not care.
「I’m tired」
Furious by the previous encounter, he sat back on the chair and struck his fist on the desk that it almost hurt. He wished to shun everyone out, to listen to no one but himself. They had no right to dictate his life, it was his own. However, he knew doing that would only drop ignorance upon him. There had to be boundaries to be set, otherwise, he wasn’t going to make that far in this world.
「I’m really tired.」
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