HAUNT YOU [JENLISA - CHAELISA - BLACKPINK] Truth Revealed - Yari Park

STAY [Part 1]

The sound of hooves begins to echo in my ears.

"The trip is over honey; I have to leave you here." Says a voice in front of me.

I must have fallen asleep, more or less halfway through the trip. I remember leaning on the other me's back, just after reading Lisa's letter and slipping into a deep darkness. I don't know if it was really sleeping; sleeping in a dream is definitely strange, but there's nothing left to surprise me about this adventure.

When I open my eyes, though, what I see is a completely unrelated landscape.

"Where... where we a-..."

"Come on Jennie, get down, I'll help you." Light holds out the hand, and with a little jump, I bring my bare feet back to the ground.

"Thanks for the ride." says the writer, and the Jennie on the horse turns around without a word, walking away into the horizon.

Not a greeting, a suggestion; she goes away, leaving us in a spectral scenery.

Tall faded buildings stand on the side of a wide road; all that rules here is just a great silence.

"Is this... a city?" No bars, no stores, no squares. There is not even the rumble of cars, the sound of voices in the distance.

Light walks in front of me and seems to pay no attention to my words since I got off the horse. Moving quickly,  past off and bent streetlights,  my only guide seems nervous and distant

"Hey, slow down a little...are you forgetting I'm barefoot?" I say.

"It's not possible th- ....don't have to believe in something like som-.... identity... just because ...... accept themselves... and wan-.....be something else..."

"What?" Light drags the cloak across the crumbling asphalt and murmurs something I can't understand. I quicken my step, trying to catch up with the writer, but suddenly the person in front of me stops in the middle of the road.

"I'm tired of this stuff all over me." Without thinking twice the cloak slides on the ground.

"Are...are you okay?" I ask, uncertainly.

"I've had enough of this."

What? What happens now? The last thing I want is to be abandoned here by my only guide.

"Why are you so angry, wha-...."

"I'm tired of hiding Jennie. I have to do this too much in my life."

Grabbing the crown from the head, the writer throws it at a broken streetlight. The deafening metallic noise echoes down the street, and the throw is so violent that the piece of metal bounces off the pole, and ends up a few feet away.

I am stunned.

A strange agitation stirs in my stomach, Is the writer going to leave me here? In a dream, I can't get out of?

"What are you doing? Are you going to leave!?" I yell.

It's unimaginable. What will happen to me? I don't want to be abandoned in a place like this, completely helpless, alone, without a guide, a point of reference, without...

"I just want to be myself."

The voice runs through the deserted streets, slips into the empty houses, and down the driveway in front of us, motionless like a curled-up snake. It's louder, more transparent, more decisive.

Turning towards me, that writer is no longer Light. It's no longer the mysterious character, who I couldn't name. The one who without a pronoun could have been woman or man; could have been me, or you.