Chapter 5: Episode 1 - Open Eyes (5)
The air was cold against her skin. Standing within the darkness, she felt piercing eyes glare down upon her from a blanketed skyscape. Glancing around, she was unable to grasp her location. It wasn't until the sky lit up a bright orange that she was able to see clearly where she stood.
An explosion like a second sun upon the horizon, she could gaze clearly upon the shocked faces of those that stood beside her.
In turn did a shocked expression grow upon her face. Before her stood those she loved, and those she thought dead.
"Eh?" She spoke with an unattuned and surprised tone hanging at the edge of your words.
They all turned toward her in an instant, nine shadowed figures with blood-red eyes glaring their sharpened teeth underneath the light of a midnight sun.
"You guys... you're all alive?" Ji-Ho asked of them, hope hanging at the edge of her voice.
'No.' She had thought. They couldn't have been alive. Readjusting her heart, she stood up straight as she faced them all. Within her own delusion was her only opportunity to atone. She was suddenly aware that she had died, the same as them.
"Even though you're not real..." Ji-Ho spoke softly and regretfully. "I'll get the apologies out of the way regardless."
She knelt down on the ground, her forehead against the muddied soil as she held a fervent sadness in her tone.
"I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you all." Ji-Ho spoke, her words wavering as they stuck within her throat, sentences choked by the tears she tried desperately to hold back. "You all put your trust in me, and I wasn't able to keep my promises..."
She glanced up only to meet the face of a man she knew well, one who was older than herself, with citrine skin and a head of curly walnut hair.
"You haunted me most in the middle of the night-"
Her words were cut short, the figure kneeling down to meet her gaze, placing his lips on hers to interrupt her sorrows. She sunk into his touch, her hand on his cheek as she kissed him back.
It was a touch she had long wanted back, something she had forgotten so easily.
Yet, when she pulled away from his lips, the one that she once fell in loved with was not the one she was facing. Instead she met a face that stood so horrifying to her heart that she immediately fell nauseous.
Ji-Ho's whole body seemed to freeze in an intense, incomparable fear. The man stood knelt down next to her, brushing her hair back as he whispered into her quieted ears.
"You know..." He spoke softly into her ear. "They all blame you. How does that make you feel... knowing that your comrades blamed you for the deaths of the people that I myself killed?"
He placed a hand against Ji-Ho's cheek, bringing her gaze to meet his as he spoke simply with a grin upon his face. He had piercing emerald eyes, and a head of golden hair.
"They were so filled with regret when it came to their love and respect for you..." He grinned. "Right before I had them all killed. I told them repeatedly it was all your fault, that you had commanded such an act. I was just a good soldier, following your orders."
Her gaze frozen and shaking, she couldn't help but quiver against his words as he placed the barrel of a gun against her skull, the cold metal against her skin terrifying.
A loud, echoing bang was heard, nine heads turning to meet the blood splatters upon the muddied ground.
For Ji-Ho, laying within her own pooled blood, she felt so many feelings well up within her heart.
But most of all, she just felt cold.
—-
Ji-Ho awoke suddenly, a misty haze against her irises, a blinding light upon the horizon. Her breathing fell upon a gentle breeze, heavy and erratic. Tears had been running down her cheeks, dried upon them under the morning sun.
Yet, despite that, she felt no anxiety in her heart. She only felt warmth enveloping her body as she stared upon the pearlescent girl sitting in the sunbeams. She held Ji-Ho within her arms as she knelt down within the grass.
Laying within a vast field of golden wildflowers, Ji-Ho's gaze softened amidst her flowing tears as she placed a hand upon the angel's cheek.
"Oh poor thing..." Meihua spoke in a calm tone of voice. "Did you have a nightmare?"
Ji-Ho let out a small laugh as she wiped the tears off of her cheek.
"Yes, but none of that could matter when you're still here." Ji-Ho smiled.
"You didn't leave me..." Meihua said. "Just like you promised."
"I offered the last lifeline of my heart to you." Ji-Ho replied as she glanced off at the sunrise suspended above the mountains. "You are the one thing I have left."
The two sat within the waving wildflowers as they stared off at the glowing horizon, Ji-Ho still within Meihua's lap as she smiled softly.
"Tell me... how long has it been since you've felt a peace like this?" Meihua asked.
"It would be a crazy assumption to assume I have ever been able to feel a peace like this." Ji-Ho spoke in reply. "Now, in this moment with you, is the first time my heart has felt calm."
They both relaxed as they listened to the wind blow amidst a field of wildflowers. Softly did it rush over the blades of grass like waves, an ocean of invisibility within open air.
"Within that dream, I saw the faces of the people who's deaths I am held responsible for..."
Meihua glanced down at her with worried eyes as she brushed Ji-Ho's forelocks out of her face.
"Within that dream however... I felt something I had been long missing..."
Ji-Ho brushed her fingers against her lips, a fading memory within her mind as she tried desperately to recall how her heart had once leapt. She looked up at Meihua in that moment, who stared down at her with a face that left her heart with that same, bubbly and warm feeling.
"Mei, can I kiss you?" Ji-Ho spoke simply as she stared into the angel's eyes.
Meihua's face lit up a bright red underneath the sunset as she met Ji-Ho's gaze.
She tried to formulate a sentence, but could not think of a single thing to say in response. So, she just nodded her head.
Ji-Ho held a look of surprise on her face. Despite her heart, her tongue had been mostly joking. Now that she had been met with the opportunity however, how could she refuse the acceptance of someone she had promised to spend a forever-amount of time with?
Ji-Ho placed a hand on Meihua's cheek once again. Her skin was pearlescent, softened like velvet, and a wonder to Ji-Ho's heart as she brushed her hand against it.
Meeting Meihua's gaze, her eyes were a glimmering ocean within her irises, holding flecks of colour like pebbles upon a seafloor. Quite beautiful, she thought.
Propping herself up with her other arm, she leaned in softly as she placed her lips against Meihua's. So soft were hers, a pleasant taste lingering against them. Once again in that moment did her heart flutter.
She almost didn't want to let go, so the light and bouncy feelings within her mind could last forever. But as she pulled away, she parted her lips with a smile to speak.
"Your kiss is uniquely sweet."
"That was my first-" Meihua spoke in response, fingers placed against her lips as she recalled the feelings. "And it was wonderful... perhaps you are a dangerous woman after all."
Within spring, Ji-Ho felt the sting of the cold amidst a familiar warmth. They sat amidst each others company once again as they enjoyed their surroundings.
"Then, today was a perfect day to die."
The cream-coloured sun hung at the edge of the horizon, teasing a sunrise so monumentally gorgeous that the word 'beauty' would tremble upon its gaze.
"We've been here quite a while." Meihua spoke. "Do you not think by now, Death would have visited us simply to claim our souls?"
"Now that you speak of it, I suppose we should begin to wonder where we have been left." Ji-Ho laughed. "I was too busy enjoying your company to even think of such a thing."
Glancing around her environment, aside from all of the wildflowers and snow capped mountains in the distance, Ji-Ho could spot lights upon the horizon; lamplights signaling the presence of civilisation.
Besides that, she could spot withing her peripheral vision an annoyance, a blinking orange light she had failed to see when she had been staring at a sunset of the same colour.
Simply by noticing the light, it brought up a floating window in front of her. Surprised, Ji-Ho fell backward onto Meihua.
"What's wrong?" Meihua asked, holding Ji-Ho within her arms.
"Meihua, within the corner of your vision, do you see a blinking orange light?" Ji-Ho asked of her, still glancing at the window that had appeared in front of her.
"Now that you mention it... I do." Meihua replied.
Within an instant, Meihua let out a surprised gasp as a window appeared in front of her as well.
Upon it read a singular message.
[Welcome to Nowhere.]