It Meets You Where You Wait • Yeonbin

TWENTY THREE

For a long time, it's all a mixture of floating light. Rumbles of voices are distant in the back of wherever he is.

He doesn't actually know if he is at all.

There's dull gray mist, a garbled screen, surrounding the infinite space. There's ringing, and quiet murmurs, and buzzing.

What is this? 

He doesn't know. He can feel his consciousness asking, over and over, Where am I? Where am I?

The more he thinks it, the clearer the words become. Eventually, the words become so clear he hears himself speaking them. He feels his hands wildly waving in the mist, searching for purchase.  His brain feels like mush when he finally grounds himself. The humming of voices grows louder, becoming more than just a rumble, like a dial turned up and clearing through static. The mist seems liquid now, less of a fog. Almost like he's surrounded by gray, shiny water. It mutes all of the noise when he tries to yell, scream. But he can still hear the voices beyond him.

Strong boy, he hears somewhere far away. Somehow, curling through the static of it all. Brave boy, it says, slightly louder.

He knows that voice. He hasn't heard it in years, and has almost forgotten its timber. Like the sound of windchimes. It's her— it's her— he cries as he reaches out, desperately, trying to move his immobile hands to touch her, to feel her one more time, to remember the weight of her gaze.  He calls out, but his voice is garbled, and he knows she can't hear him; not when he's floating, unable to tell up from down, like he's buried in an avalanche of gray matter, writhing against it to no avail.

Please, he wants to scream, though he can't. I need you.

The gray matter constructs him, pressing in at all sides, choking his skin. He's in agony, his body cracking the more he fights.

And then he hears her, one last time.

You do not need me any more.

You've found your way home.

It stills.

Like a bucket of water has been poured over his body once set ablaze, like a marionette whose strings were cut in one clean slice, the tension settles. The gray that surrounds him grows more blurry, like it's shifting, the matter focusing to something unclear in the distance.

Above him, it finally settles into the image of clear, blue latent waves; the underside of the sea, hazy but so clean. He looks up, and sees the water, eyes glistening. It feels quiet. No buzzing, no roaring hum.

Soobin feels calm, in the blue light. So calm that he closes his eyes, and lets his body relax. Feels warmth from his shoulders to his fingertips.  He could stay here forever. He's so tempted to; just sitting there, covered in light, with his eyes closed, at peace.

And then there's another voice, cutting through the blue waves so clearly it might have come from his own head.

Come back to me.

He opens his eyes. Then he turns his head, sees his own hands combing through the empty space before him.

You can't stay there.

A voice so clear, a voice he knows like the back of his hand. There is no peace here. Not when he can't find the source of that voice.

Come back to me, love.

It sounds beautiful. He loves it so much, he climbs up toward it, away from the safety of the light.

It calls again.