Chapter 3: Episode 1 - Open Eyes (3)

The darkness was an intense environment. It did not matter the situation, nor even where she had stood.

When the moon had gone missing, and the sun had faded away behind the mountainscape, Ji-Ho was left to scavenge for her own sense of direction with bare hands and quiet lips.

She could hear voices calling out from the edges of the darkness, but it was impossible to find her way through it to greet them simply. Had only she stayed behind on that day, could she have then avoided the constant regret within her heart.

Fighting a war underneath a midnight moon, damning the consequences of a tragic calamity, would many choose to gather in the darkness.

Long before it had chosen to follow Ji-Ho specifically, the Decay would sense this gathering of humanity, and sprint from the edges of the Earth to seek them out.

While Ji-Ho was busy avoiding the bright flashes of cascading bullets within the darkness, she and everyone else had failed to notice the shadows that crept up so carefully, prepared to swallow the entirety of their memory of personage.

Not that it mattered. Within the wartime of a fallen Earth, everyone had resigned themselves to sit within an empty grave.

—-

Ji-Ho awoke to the quiet sound of embers crackling against the char of a wooded fireplace. Sweat dripping from her brow, she clutched at her chest as she tried to shake the anxiety out of her heart.

She rustled her hand through her midnight hair, seeing nothing through her own eyes but the glimmering rays of light that burst through the holes in the ceiling with an argent glow.

Birds were left to chirp within the morning air, a quiet song hanging at the edge of a gentle breeze. It was strangely peaceful to Ji-Ho, how such a calamitous force could leave animals alive, yet hold such a bloodlust for humanity.

The Decay was like humans in that way.

Ji-Ho had been wrapped wholly with a blanket, the warmth of the room enveloping the entirety of her body. Nowhere in sight did she lay her eyes upon an angel, however.

For a moment she was brought to wonder if it was simply some fever-induced dream she had been experiencing, of a beautiful girl sent to save her life.

Suddenly, Ji-Ho heard a loud, erratic screeching sound erupt from behind her. Turning to meet it, she was once again able to lay eyes upon a beauty underneath the morning sun.

"So even beauty will spill from my dreams to sit before my eyes, won't it?" Ji-Ho smiled softly.

"Surface-level compliments will get you nowhere." Meihua sighed, shutting the steel frame covering the hole behind her as she stepped inside.

She carried a large wicker basket alongside her, shoddily woven. It was filled with various assortments, piled atop one another in such an unorganised fashion that it brought a smile to Ji-Ho's face.

Perhaps she had started to understand the personality of Zhou Meihua.

"Even if I mean them wholeheartedly?" Ji-Ho continued. "Never will my love cease for you, for I have fallen for my saviour; my guardian angel underneath the sunlight."

Meihua felt her face flush as she sat beside the midnight-haired woman, her legs crossed as she smiled softly. "If you joke too much, you'll lose the truth behind words. People will begin to see you as a liar."

"I don't mind being a liar." Ji-Ho dismissed the statement.

Ignoring Ji-Ho's comment, Meihua continued.

"I gathered a few things while I was out, not that I was able to find much." Meihua spoke in a soft tone, rustling through the basket. "These days, I've found myself needing to wander farther and farther into the city to find a semblance of anything useful..."

"You went out gathering, when that monstrosity lies below us?" Ji-Ho's eyes widened.

"Well, it's not as if I had another choice..." Meihua sighed. "I do have another mouth to feed now, after all."

Ji-Ho held a look of regret upon her face in that moment.

"Sorry to burden you so much..."

Meihua waved her hands nervously, as if to ward off any doubt Ji-Ho had with her own presence.

"It's nothing like that, don't worry." Meihua smiled. "It's just gotten quite difficult to navigate the city when I can't even touch the ground. I have begun to wonder why it's here. Why now, when it's likely only us two that choose to reside here?"

Ji-Ho sat in silence, staring off at the dust that would hang so ceremoniously within the rays of sunlight peering through the cracks within the ceiling.

"I do not know why it has grown to love me..." Ji-Ho sighed. "Perhaps me staying here is a mistake, for as long as I sit around, its malice will pervade within this cityscape."

"You mean that it would follow you personally?"

"To the ends of the Earth..." Ji-Ho replied regretfully. "If you wish me to leave after hearing such a revelation, I'll be up in near a minute."

Meihua sat within silence for a moment, a choice gripping tight around her heart as she weighed her feelings upon a scale.

"Well, who would I be to force you to leave?" Meihua smiled. "It's not as if it's my city, anyway."

"You're too kind..." Ji-Ho spoke in response. "However, I will leave soon. I cannot subject you to a catastrophy that was likely brought here by my own doing. It would be selfish, and I happen to be a wonderful person."

"How could you even think to do such a thing to me, one who has not had a semblance of human interaction in months?" Meihua cried with an astute dramaticisation.

"For months you say?" Ji-Ho grinned. "Try a years time, with only the thoughts within your head to keep you company."

"Truly, you've been cursed."

She had been joking, but Meihua felt her heart tense up. It had only been a night, but she was hesitant to see Ji-Ho go. Loneliness had become far more terrifying than calamity.

Ji-Ho glanced at the basket Meihua had brought inside, one that had been filled to the brim with bits and ends leftover from a civilisation that faced a bitter end.

"How can you even manage to find food after all this time?" Ji-Ho asked of her.

Meihua reached into the basket, pulling out a cloth which in turn held dozens of brightly coloured berries.

"Atop a building to the west, I set up a garden that stands bathed within the sunlight." Meihua spoke with confidence. "Although while I do have enough food to eat, I don't exactly have the skill to cook it..."

"Well then, truly are you lucky to have met me." Ji-Ho spoke with confidence. "It seems all I know how to do these days is cook..."

"It's not a bad skill to have." Meihua replied suddenly, leaning in towards Ji-Ho. "It's an attractive skill to have."

"If you keep speaking with a silken tongue so close to me, I may be forced to kiss you." Ji-Ho spoke, humoured.

Meihua backed up suddenly, her face reddened as she glanced away, her mind scrambling to grasp hold of her thoughts.

Anxiety still pervaded her heart, and Ji-Ho had remembered that she had almost forgotten herself; she had forgotten who she was. She was a stranger to this woman.

In that moment, Ji-Ho's tone of body shifted, a chill hanging upon her lips.

"Hey, Meihua..." Ji-Ho said suddenly. "I know we joked amiably about it, and I've been going along with the tone for the sake of appearances, but I still can't understand why you would invite someone like me into your own home."

Ji-Ho's eyes grew dark and serious, tense with thought as she stared at Meihua. The time she had reserved for jokes had run dry.

"What do you mean?"

"You must have gathered it by now, yes?" Ji-Ho continued with a graveness lingering about her speech. "The blood that has long soaked into my clothes... is not mine."

It was something that Meihua had long-since noticed. It was hard to tell, because Ji-Ho's cloak was pitch-black, and so the stains were almost hidden from sight. But she had grown accustomed to the scent, sickly and metallic. Because Ji-Ho had no visible wounds on her exposed skin, she had come to believe the fact that it wasn't her blood.

Her gaze was sharpened, darkened like midnight as she sat amidst her killer revelation. Still, Meihua couldn't help but crack a soft smile, a laugh at the edge of her tongue.

"I do not fear you, Ahn Ji-Ho, no matter how dark and mysterious you try to act. Of course, at first I was hesitant." Meihua said simply. "But to me, you are simply another person I have had the pleasure to meet within this cruel world."

"I could have killed you..."

"And some days I would have thanked you kindly for it." Meihua responded. "But you didn't. Rather, you made me smile for the first time in a very long time. I could never fear someone who resembles a child when they sleep."

"I hold no remorse for the things I've done... whether they were for the sake of people I cared for or not..." Ji-Ho spoke. "I do not regret a single life that has been extinguished by my hands."

"Decay or not, killer or not, I chose to see something brighter within you, Ji-Ho." Meihua spoke softly. "So forget all of that for a moment. Will you, as a person above all else, be my friend?"

Ji-Ho stared at the ground with a bitter gaze, her apprehension bleeding at the lip as she bit down with her teeth. Her imminent decisions clashed within her mind, and her heart felt shredded by her own indecisive nature. She had almost forgotten why she was wandering. It was because she had to be alone, that she was. Without a second thought, she responded.

"No."