The World Through Your Eyes || SeungJin

Sleep-Traveler

1 year ago, the next morning from the events that occurred in the previous chapter

Hyunjin opened his eyes. It was warm, much warmer than he thought it could get in the winter. After a few moments of clearly adjusting his eyes to his surroundings, he realized he was most definitely not in his room.

How fun.

Dim light streamed through the cracks in the wall in front of Hyunjin, which led Hyunjin to believe that whatever structure he was in could topple over any second.

The cold, concrete floor felt painful against Hyunjin's back and he winced as he pulled himself up into an upright position. Had he slept here the entire time? And speaking of time, what was it?

There were a few large barrels set around the edges of the room, housing whatever its owners wished for it to hold. The air didn't smell unpleasant, but it held an empty, lifeless feeling that made Hyunjin feel like he was slowly suffocating.

From what he could tell, there were no windows, and most certainly no doors. He shuffled gingerly around the room, wondering why he had no shoes on, and then praying that there was nothing sharp on the floor that could prick his feet.

Hyunjin sighed wryly. He must've been dreaming, right? Why else would he be stuck in one of the most lifeless and shady places that his mind could conjure? A small weight in his pant pocket told him otherwise, the small object hitting against his thigh every time he took a step.

He took it out of his pocket, wondering if it had anything to do with his current predicament.

In his hands was the peculiar watch he had found years ago, its hour hand seeming to have moved from its original position of 12 in a clockwise rotation to 1.

What was going on?

Hyunjij vaguely remembered staring at the watch before going to sleep, but he did that often, nearly every night. And wasn't this watch broken? If so, how did it move after years of nonfunction?

Maybe it wasn't as dysfunctional as he thought. Hyunjin brought the watch closer to his eyes, carefully inspecting the hands on the clock. A few moments later, he came to the stunning realization that they were not moving.

Wonderful. Somehow, Hyunjin was stuck in an extremely hyper-realistic dream with no apparent exit in sight, and he also was unable to stop and think for a long enough period of time to formulate some type of game plan.

Hyunjin took a deep breath, presumably to collect his wits, but instead inhaled something that caused him to have an uncontrollable coughing and sneezing fit.

Who knew dreams could have such realistic, uncomfortable, and painful portrayals of coughing?

A few moments later, after Hyunjin had coughed more times than expected without falling on his face, he stood angrily, examining his surroundings once more, and was struck with an urge to a) break the clock, b) run out of the building, and c), the most overwhelming one: to fall asleep.

Hyujin reasoned with incredible intelligence that in order to dream, an individual must be asleep. To get out of it, they need to wake up. In order to wake up, they must be asleep. So, with a smile on his face, finally happy that he had one thing under control, Hyunjin brought some unknown object that looked soft enough to be a makeshift pillow from the corner nearest to him, placed it on the floor, and rested his head on it.

When he woke up, he was in his room, in the same position he was sleeping in, the damned watch still in his palms.