Dream Me a Sonatine

24 - Some Would Sing, Some Would Scream

*BIG TW FOR GORE AND SOME BODY HORROR*

'How did the Faceless Greywaren lose his face?'

Once, there was a face, belonging to a man named Choi Yeongsik. A man who was once a boy, with an imagination so strong he could create chronicles and galaxies in his mind within a few minutes. He didn't live in reality, not really. He existed physically, but his truest self was always a million miles away in his own brain.

Imagination is a pure, beautiful thing.

But only when it's safely locked away.

Once these fictions and dreams leave your mind, they clash with the stubborn boundaries of reality. There simply isn't enough room for the impossible.

Yeongsik didn't just think of the impossible. He dreamed it, he breathed it, and sometimes it woke up in his room. Clawing and ripping and shrieking at the nearest body. The creatures of his mind weren't like something out of a story book, they were more. He couldn't tame the tempestuous oceans in his head; they were all he'd ever known, so he kept dreaming. And his parents lived in constant fear of their own child.

Once, he dreamed thousands of peanuts. Harmless enough, really. They flooded his room, rolling into his sister's bedroom. The next thing he knew, she was being rushed to hospital, her nut allergy causing her entire body to seize up. She survived, but there was a new padlock on his door the next morning.

Once, he dreamed something horrifying and indescribable that ran (or floated, or crashed, or slid) downstairs and killed the family dog. He remembered staring at its corpse, his overactive mind already inspired by the gruesome pink and red spattered on the carpet.

Once, once, once, but it was never only once. It was a regular occurrence, and his family would lie awake, sweating and hoping that whatever sprung from his mind wouldn't rip them apart. Eventually, the words exchanged between them dwindled to none, and he was alone.

As he grew older, Yeongsik delved into the science of the human mind, inspired by the many sci-fi books he'd read as a child. He hoped, somehow, that it would explain why he could dream things into existence and what he could use this 'gift' for. But every lead, every study led to a dead end. He was growing frustrated, perhaps even scared. His bedroom was littered with torn books, strange objects, and ever-increasing bloodstains.

And without the love of his parents, his dreams only grew darker.

At university, Yeongsik began a thesis about the extraordinary, stuff that couldn't be explained. Despite discouraging words from his professors and lecturers, he was determined to go through with his study. He stayed up for nights on end, furiously typing and typing and still getting nowhere.

After his eyes were weighed down by dark bags and his jittery, coffee-powered limbs could type no more, he fell asleep. In his dream, he stood where he always did: in Cabeswater. His Cabeswater.

It was a huge, antique house overlooking a city he'd never been to. Twisting staircases and long corridors led to many different rooms, each clustered with strange objects. No two rooms were the same. Yeongsik's tiredness instantly left him, as if someone had pulled him upright like a marionette.

When he was younger, the rooms had seemed fun and colourful. He remembered dancing teacups and talking rabbits and chandeliers made of marshmallow. Now, however, each room was dimly lit, cluttered with replicas of his obsession: torn-up thesis notes, sci-fi books with words blacked out, and disturbing drawings of night horrors. Cabeswater was a less a dreamland than a macabre wilderness in the shape of a huge dollhouse.

He wandered into a room, soaking in the bright, dreamy colours surrounding him and almost tripping over one of the long pink curtains. The dreamland was similar to how is always appeared, smooth wooden floor, windows that stretched to the ceiling, and a crystal-white double bed in the centre. Tonight, however, his attention was caught by an unusual anomaly.