April

“I mean who would want to get engaged with that narcissist jerk…he thinks he is something like the whole world revolves around him…” The conversation with Ha Ri goes on with me while I put all my concentration into making kimbap roll. When she noticed a silence from this side she again checked on me.

“Hey are alive there?”

“Yes, I am…I’m just making a Gimbap roll” I informed her and then her conversation continued again and I agreed to her from time to time.

“I was thinking about doing mass murder will you help me?” she said getting fed up.

“Of course baby, don’t worry at all I have all the equipment” finally finishing my cooking I said and we both laughed together. I put the plates on the table and searched for the remote to turn on the TV.

“Aunt soo hee haven’t come?”

“na uh… but she is on the way,” I said while searching the remote that was nowhere to be found and it made me frustrated every damn time. I looked at the bookshelf mounted on the wall and searched for the remote, but I couldn't find it. oh, sweet Jesus I hate this when I can't find something,  I stood up quickly and accidentally bumped into a wall painting, and it crashed on me.

 “Hey, are you dead there?” Ha Ri asked from that side, her concerns always filled with sarcasm.

“Freaking hell!” I exhaled, blowing away the messy hair from my face. “Yes, I'm fine, just got bumped into the…” rest of the words left in my mouth when I saw a weird compartment in the wall that was behind the painting.

“Bumped in what?...” Ha Ri’s goes on but I stood up and saw that compartment with a proper view. its kind of a drawer with slide doors in the wall.

“A safe?” I said to myself with confusion.

“A safe? Your mushroom head got bumped into a safe?”

“no Ha Ri… I bumped into the painting and there is a safe behind it” I cleared her confusion but she didn’t settle there.

“Really! What safe? Does it have a code? Or password?” she immediately got excited and wanted to jump from the phone.

“Actually it has none of it,” I said and slid the door of that little storage safe that every Korean house had usually. I peeked into it, saw a box, and pulled it out with my hands.

“There is a box” I updated her.

“What’s in it? Jewels? Or fingers? Oh wait… some underwear of men, I told you she is into this stuff” She kept blabbering and I didn’t listen to half of what she said. I opened that box and got further confused.

“Tapes!” I said

“Tapes? Like video Tapes?”

“Yes!”

There were 5 tapes and below them, there were two diaries that I immediately recall that were my father’s diaries.

“oh my god!” it was Ha Ri who said that makes me nervous as well.

“What? What happened?” I asked. She paused and my curiosity leveled up

“April! I knew aunt soo hee watched Japanese porn”

“oh God Ha Ri shut up!” I said but she kept blabbering.

I thought of playing the Tapes but as soon as I could move I heard the doorbell.

“Aunt soo hee”

“Aunt soo hee”

We both said in sync.

“Bye!” I said and hung up the call immediately. I took the box into my room, slid it under my bed and hung the painting in its right place, and finally opened the door.

“April what took you so long to open the door” she immediately hugged me quickly.

"you just knocked !" I said and I followed her in. She always came with so many things whenever she came from Busan. No matter how much this 55-year-old woman triggered me sometimes, she is everything to me. we talked for hours that night with some soju shots.  She told me that she had sold the only small property she had in Busan and saved all the money for my further studies. 

We talked and after many episodes of past histories, crying, how she opened her own store by saving money, and how badly his husband cheated on her, she slept on the floor after drinking two bottles. I put a blanket on her and then I  locked my room and pulled out that box. Those tapes were arranged in numbers written on them so I took the first one out.

I wish I could take Ha Ri on call but I can’t take risks on the noises because no matter how much aunt soo hee is sweet to me, she also terrified the shit out of me sometimes.

A folder pops up on to my screen as soon as I play the tape in the player. I nervously get ready and pull my hair to tie it in a bun but my hairband is not on my wrist where it should be. suddenly, I recall someone pulling it out from my hair a day ago but didn’t recall him returning it to me.

Suddenly what else I remember, were those warm fingertips that touched my neck, and even for instance, I can even recall in what pattern his fingerprints were, a cold shiver traveled down my spine and it jinxed me. I realize my hand was on my neck but when did I do that? I looked at my hand weirdly trying to remember a sudden slip my memory did in seconds. It scares me.

“How much weird can I be?” I whispered to myself and immediately shook my head and clicked on the folder, there was only one video there and I played it.

My eyes got round with the image on the screen. A 45-year-old man with glasses in a white laboratory coat trying to record the video that I am currently watching.

It was my father on screen. Falcon Meyers. It has been so many years since I haven’t seen his face in any picture, it feels as if I almost forgot his face. My eyes immediately got welled up. I put my headphones on and with a click, I played the video.

“it’s the 16^th of January, I am Dr. Meyers and this is my first recording of Project Synapse. From today I'm gonna be working with Kingston’s laboratories on this drug. It's not an official work but it's big for me.” He exhaled and paused “So, I proposed a hypothesis of a formula for a drug for Georg’s mother. they have this weird mental problem in their bloodline. She has been observed having fits and screaming in the middle of sleep, and she often can recall memories and sensations from the unconscious part of her mind, which is impossible for a human. These kinds of patients can actually be aware of events in the future, which can be called in psychology, precognition, telepathy, and much beyond any known senses it can caused by some trauma, but I think it's genetic. So this drug “synapse” will be a cure for this, Hopefully!” he moved to a table “ I have these notes on every possible way to create this drug” The first video ended. For a few moments, my brain didn’t work. I didn’t understand anything neither I can recall any of the people he mentioned in the video. Who is George? Kingston’s laboratories? Why do I feel like I have heard this name before? But where?

I searched in the box and picked up the brown-colored diary. It is filled with chemical equations, molecular breakdowns, and notes.

“Ray Brian Kingston Wallace” his voice travels in my ear and I remember where I heard that name.

I immediately typed “Kingston’s laboratories” into a search engine and Google gave the official website of Kingston and Co. I clicked on it and read all about it. The first thing that appeared in a big square was a picture of a beautiful woman.

“Gloria Kingston, the founder of Kingston and Co,” I murmured beneath my breath the name of that woman. She must be the mother of Ray. But who is George Kingston then?

I further scrolled but no hunch of information on that site so I specifically wrote his name on Google and something came up. He is the CEO of “The Crown” the largest diamond trading company in Europe.

I got curious and picked up the second Tape. Again my father appeared on the screen with a worn-out and exhausted face.

“Today is 20^th April and this is the happiest day of my life because” he smiled with teary eyes and showed a little bottle with some strange liquid in it “ I finally discovered this drug and my daughter was just born today” he couldn’t stop smiling with happiness and it makes me smile as well when I see his happiness.

“I have made three samples, We are going to test it on Georg’s mother first, for at least 3 weeks and this drug is going to be given in vapor form so it can have an immediate effect” The tape ended there so I picked up the third one and played it.

“it has been 4 weeks but no symptoms can be seen in her, I think I have failed” he exhaled with disappointment on the screen and I saw a sense of failure on his face. Suddenly, the tape switched to another clip, showing a man in tattered clothes inhaling fumes. His expression transformed as if he was transported to paradise, a wide smile replacing his worries. The scene shifted again.

"It's October 7th," my father's voice echoed from the screen. "I initially recommended halting work on this drug, but Mr. Kingston has insisted we continue. so, We're testing it on a healthy subject, and while it seems to behave like a typical drug, its effects remain uncertain."

As the tape ended, I grabbed the fourth one. An emergency scene displayed on the screen, the same man from before now screaming in terror, his face bloodied and torn. As if he scratched his whole face with nails. My stomach twisted at the gruesome sight.

My father appeared on screen, his own face marked with injury. "Today is October 21st," he spoke with a grim tone. "The effects of Synapse are far worse than anticipated. He attacked me and harmed himself in the cell. He shows no signs of hunger or thirst, so we stopped giving him the dose but his condition gets worse every time without the drug."

My father paused, his voice heavy. "He has no emotional memory. He doesn't remember his family, love, or sadness. he feels no pain" he exhaled in silence and I saw an uncertain fear on his face while the voice of screams of that person suddenly stopped, so the staff and my father rushed towards the cell and opened the door to check on him and as soon as they opened the door one of the staff ran away for help immediately and my father rushed back to the camera and I saw his face covered in sweat and fear.

“He…. He killed himself....oh god…what have I done” The camera turned off.

the silence spilled all over in the room. The only sound I could hear was the sound of a cold breeze coming from my window. My father was shaking, terribly. How does it feel like killing someone? It’s the only question traveling inside my brain. he made that drug with the motive of helping someone but actually, someone got killed by it.

I picked up the second diary from the box, the blue one. The diary was filled with the notes in my father’s handwriting. He composed a summary on the effect of synapse and how dangerous it is for normal people because it was specially made for George Kingston's mother so the effect of synapse is opposite on normal people. This drug, synapse, can level up the sensory memories and all the implicit memories by increasing the flow of norepinephrine in the brain and normal brain of a human cannot bear so much information which is why they start to go insane and might kill themselves.

He further wrote, “The condition of George's mother's brain is genetic but it is triggered by trauma I have failed in the invention of this drug I will pray to find my salvation from what my actions cause someone because I got lost in the succession of this drug that I almost forget to think as a human being."  The paragraph finished and the next few pages were torn off. There were no other diaries in the box except these and I have very blurred memories of my father writing something in this diary but it's unfinished. I saw the last tape in the box and with a long exhale I decided to watch it.

It was my father’s office. He adjusted the camera and looked suspicious like he didn’t want to be seen while recording.

“George….he.... he wants to sell off this drug to CIA, to make soldiers. We…we hide the one last sample of synapse….” Suddenly he got interrupted because of someone. A man rushed into him.

“falcon…. Falcon you need to go…” a rush voice occurred behind the camera and the whole camera got buzzed off and the tape ended with a long beep sound.

What happened next? I thought to myself in the silence.