Monster: Sequel To "Relax..."

24: Everything Has Changed

I awake to the sound of soft groans.

At first I'm simply confused, but as I listen in more, I realize they're groans and whimpers of pain. After some serious thought, I slowly move into a better sitting position.

"Hello?" I call softly.  All sounds stop.

"W-who are you? LuLu and Kris are still gone," the male voice whimpers quietly, and the two names sound so familiar. LuLu? Lu...Luhan! "Luhan?" I ask, shifting closer to his voice. "How do you know Lu?" the same voice asks curiously, sounding less scared.

"Kai told me about him,.." I answer, cutting myself off slowly as I hear him cry. "What's wrong?" I ask gently. "Y-you said h-his name,..." he whispers. My eyebrows knit in confusion, before realization again dawns on me. Kai said he was sorry for hurting Luhan,...could he have possibly hurt this person too? Why is that even a fucking question, I think bitterly.

Of course he could.

"I'm sorry. My name's Moon, what's yours?" I ask, trying to sound friendly. There's a sudden shifting, and I hear the quiet echo of him grabbing onto the bars. "Moon?! Moon, are you alright?! It's been so long, are you okay?! Did they hurt you?! What are you even doing down here??!" he asks rapidly, and I get the feeling that I should know him, but I don't . Although he does sound familiar.

"Um, I'm alright. Do you know me or something? You seem to be very worried about my well-being," I chuckle. "I do, or I did. Your memories, they're gone," he says, sounding sad. "We used to be really good friends, I always teased you when we went to school together; I would call you noona even though I'm older than you," he says, and I can hear a smile in his voice.

"That sounds nice," I sigh sadly, turning so my back is against the bars. "You really don't remember anything? At all?" he asks, sounding more comfortable. I shake my head before realizing he can't see me. "Nothing." "That must be strange," he says. "It is," I confirm. We sit in silence for a bit, before he begins again.

"Does it annoy you when people keep talking about something you don't remember? Like how I talked about everything before," he asks curiously. "Yea, it does actually. It's like there's this whole chunk of something gone, yet everyone has it. But I can't see it. Like I'm the only one standing in the dark while everyone else is in the light. But even if I did remember, would I even be the same person?" I chuckle, throwing in a rhetorical question.

"No," he says after a while. It takes me a moment to realize he was answering my question, but he continues before I can tell him it wasn't meant to be answered.

"You wouldn't be the same person. Because everything has changed. Your opinions, thoughts, experiences. Everything is different now, much different. You've been put in a situation which bends your former opinion, or even breaks it. It changes everything and the output of everything, this situation. It's not possible for you to be the same person, because everything takes a little bit of us away and replaces it with something new. And eventually, there's nothing left but the new you. And even that, someday, is going to go away." 

I sit and think about what he said, seeing nothing but truth behind his words. He's right. Everyone is a ghost of their former self. There will always be a trace of who you once were, until it's gone too. And all that will remain is the sweet memory, a good dose of nostalgia.

"No wonder we were friends, you're so wise," I joke, trying to lighten our horrible situation. But nevertheless he laughs, and I feel a smile cracking onto my face at the sound. "Believe it or not, but I'm not really known as the wise one out of the three of us. I think that's more so Kris; he's always thinking of smart stuff. He doesn't always seem smart, but he always has something brewing underneath the surface," he says, sounding proud.