Curse of Loneliness

Familiarities

The old snowy days.

The old snowy days when he used to not know anything at all, he would set his feet in the snow, and look at the frozen trees as if they were inanimate with the wind. The old snowy days where there would be silence on the earth, and in his empty, vulnerable head.

The old snowy days when he would walk inside of his home to see a body lying on the ground with no blood left to give, as it was all in the pot of the kitchen.

The old snowy days when his empty, vulnerable mind would rapture over the empty body, and think, "We're eating soup today!" While running to the kitchen without even wishing sweet dreams to whomever that body must've belonged to.

There was no mercy, there is never mercy. It was either kill or die. Maybe his mother was trying to prevent death, maybe his mother was trying to prevent her little Eun from falling into the same misery while knowing that she might have fallen into it as well.

"I did it because I love you." she would always say.

"I did it because I care about you." she would always say.

But there must be a solution. There must be more choices. Or else, there is no point in living.

Elias would stay up as long as he could despite the fatigue, despite what he saw, despite knowing that there might not be hope anymore. But there was something in him that was driving him further and further. It could be hunger, the kind of hunger that took most of his fats and muscles and left him with only his skin and bones, the kind of hunger that screamed for blood. Something that he had been trying to avoid. To him, there is a lot more to worry about than his health.

He saw through books he had collected from his last time in a library, which must have been forever. All untouched, he had bought them in case he got bored while being lonely.

That time he walked inside of a library for the first time, he decided to pick up several books without even looking at them, and leaving as if he were in a rush. He had several books of all kinds: Mystery, fiction, nonfiction, historical fiction, history books, music books, and lastly, mythology. As he got home, he mostly read mythology books. Which drove him to get fewer more, and that was the last time he had entered a library.

He still reads them, and sometimes rereads them because of how fascinated he is by the many mysterious tales that only a few could believe in. He didn't know what to believe at the time, and yet he still doesn't know, so he is driven to find out more and more until he is led to believe that they might be true. Some of them have succeeded, and he believes in them. So, he continues and continues, until mythology becomes his source to the answers that he longs for. 

He begins to search again and again repeatedly through the same books, the same pages, rereading and trying to understand if he had missed something.

Until he picked up a book with a red cover, looking half torn. The pages were all yellow, nearly brown, and sensitive to the cover that was holding onto them for dear life. He opens it and there is nothing that says the name of the book. There are dark marks on the first page, seemingly like liquid was spilled over it, making it more sensitive than he expected. He was careful to turn a few empty pages. He almost put back down the book, until he found writings on the next pages, seeming to be in Korean characters. Something that he forgot he could read. Although, he couldn't read the handwriting itself very well. It was very cursive and contained vocabulary that he never knew existed.

He read out loud with his raspy voice, the words that he could understand.

"Bats"

"Forest"

He continued to try to make sense of the words until he could understand a full sentence.

"The bats told me that writing would help."

It was all that he could understand, and all that was on the page. The next pages were empty until another page was filled with more words than the last one, yet still a confusing vocabulary and handwriting.

"Bats"

"Forest"

"Euphoria"

"Bats"

"The bats love me."

"The bats help me."

"The bats keep me from being lonely."

All of this gave him a sense of nostalgia, a sense that he was holding something sacred. A single diary that he understood so little, yet he understood so much. He felt so connected. So connected that it concerned him, something so familiar yet not familiar at all.

He decided to speed through the pages, not even reading them. Trying to search for something. Something that gave more evidence to why he felt this way until he read a name. A name at the bottom of the page. It made him hooked on it for a moment, making the other words seem as if they were blurred out.

"Choi" He read.

"Choi" Was his last name.