to wake up from this dream

0 - a long time without moving

I wake up in a white room underneath a pristine white blanket, and I stare at the LED lights that stain my eyes with strange colors.

I lay there for a long time without moving.

Finally, I brush my fingers over my forehead and my right arm, marveling at the lack of pain, and I get up. A platter at the bedside displays three familiar items - a packet filled with pills, a potion, and a cube of compressed protein powder. I dissolve the cube in the potion, swallow it down with the pills, wince slightly at the bitter aftertaste. It tastes like bitter water, but it does not soothe my thirst. However, it suffices.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and open the door.

I can never get used to this, despite the fact that I've seen this scene every day, as far as I can remember.

I open my eyes. Through the dusty glass pane beyond the door frame, I see a ruined Seoul. Buildings are nearly all crumbled, metal framing rusted and breaking. Weeds and vines wrap around the few remaining structures, nature thriving as human civilization crumbles away. People weave magic through their fingertips and wield swords and daggers against the onslaught of creatures. Crude structures are built by the survivors, barely able to shelter them from the night.

It looks so real. To them, it must be real.

After all, only I know how to wake up from this dream.

I rap my fingers against the doorframe, playing a tune only I can discern. I'm tempted to stay here for a little while longer, but instead, I step outside, and the door shuts behind me. A perfectly clean, unmarred white door, somehow still standing in the near-broken building.

I walk down the steps, hopping over the steps that have fallen, gracefully jumping from one end of the stairs to the fallen end on the other side of the building that hangs down and hovers a few meters above the ground.

It's kind of fun, like a high-stakes parkour game. I grab my backpack that hangs down from the ruined staircase, pull out a black hoodie, and ditch the strange blue gown that I find myself wearing everytime I wake up from the white room. Black hoodie, shorts, boots. A couple food rations. A pair of lightweight daggers that hum in my hands with energy. They all disappear, invisible, along with me.

I leave the building, slinging the backpack over my shoulder just in case. I'm running out of food. Now is the best chance to get some more, before nightfall.

Survivors scramble around like ants, looting any and all boxes they can find. Every morning, new chests are spawned and old ones disappear. They bring the promise of food, water, and weapons. From a particularly rare one, I had gotten my daggers.

I almost scoff at them. They look filthy, desperate, disgusting.

They've devolved so far that there doesn't seem to be a trace of humanity left in their hollow hearts. I stand still, looking at the scene before me.

Unlike them, I have remained human.

I walk down the sidewalk, carefully masking my presence from the sensory-types, and reach a subway stop, its entrance blocked with stray pieces of concrete. The sign is crooked, barely readable. Do, cheon. Dorimcheon.

I squeeze through the small hole among the rubble where I can just barely fit through. Over the course of the apocalypse, I had gotten quite thin, like many others.

On the other side, the train is paused. Worn down, like everything else in the world. I pry open the doors with some effort.

Every morning, the world resets. The only thing that doesn't reset alongside are the things that are classified as living, and the objects that survivors can call their own.

Inside, a couple loot boxes are strewn about. Much more than I could ever expect out there, where survivors fight with their lives for bowls of old and hardened rice. I open a few. Nothing new. Some dried persimmons and chestnuts - my favorite foods - cheer me up slightly.

I jump gingerly onto the rusty rails, silently thanking my boots for protecting my feet from the abrasive surface, and look down the railway. It fades into black.

I'm tempted to walk down there, but something deep in my gut tells me not to.

I don't. I jump out of the railway onto the yellow do not cross sign, sitting on one of the benches to eat. The sweet taste of persimmon spreads across my tongue, and I wash it down with the last of the water in my canteen. I shake it, frowning slightly.

Looks like I'll need to get more later.

Finishing my breakfast, I stretch, before I notice something.

I scowl. Insects. Must have smelled loot.

I flick the hilt of the daggers on my hips, and they fly into my hands. As the survivors enter, false hope in their ugly eyes, I slash them into two with a single, fluid movement.

Huh? What's this?

One of them has dodged.

It stares at me as if I've committed a horrible sin. Something about it is familiar. Alarmingly so. I don't like it. I dash forward, but it blocks me with a sword. For an insect, it's got a nice sword.

I easily dodge, weaving behind it and -

Wait, wait. His face. I know it. Something washes over me - a flash of a memory, a boy's face. That crooked nose and freckles, blond hair -

Ah.

The face blurs, disappearing. It has lost all traits that make it human. It is simply a skin-colored blur.

This, I am used to. Internally, I breathe out a sigh of relief. I stab its heart. It falls, rather anticlimactically.

I crouch down, nose scrunching up at the stench. Disgusting. The smell of guts and blood and iron. I kick them down onto the railway, frowning at the blood stain on the ground. It'll be hard to clean that.

I brush a fleck of blood off of my cheek, grumbling at the red that now stains my hands. I rub it off against my hoodie ceremoniously. 

I finish my meal. It's not fulfilling. My stomach craves for more, but I can not service it. In a significantly grouchier mood, I return to the entrance of the subway station, noting the lack of light peering through the cracks of the rocks. It must be night.

A light smile dances across my features. I push through the rubble and return to see the sun fading over the horizon of a ruined world.

The shadows lengthen, deepen as the sun disappears.

The moment the moon grazes the edge of the sky, the shadows open up, blacker then black. The shadows pour over me, framing my form. 

I grab my daggers, watch as the shadows morph and shape into creatures. Monsters. They will ravage the world in two, like they do every night, before it resets all over again.

From behind me, a voice I am quite familiar with peeks out.

"Hey, little sis. Eomma and Appa are out on an apocalypse date again. Want to wreck this joint?"

I laugh, turning to face my brother, giving him a curt nod.

He smirks. "Bet."

We dart forward, slicing the monsters into minuscule pieces, looting the corpses. I scarcely notice what I kill. A couple ants, some cockroaches, some grasshoppers.

Their faces are all blurs, so who cares? They all sleep through the night without dreaming, so who cares?

They aren't humans.

So I don't care.