Masters of the Sea

022

A drop of blood dripped into the bowl. The minute it hit the surface of the water within, the redness vanished, replaced instead by a murky black pool, spreading across the water's surface. The next minute, the black pool slowly withdrew and the liquid turned colourless once more, as though it was merely an innocent bowl of water. Or perhaps it was alcohol? She thought she could smell the vague scent of alcohol in the air, mixed with a tinge of berries.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" a voice said.

"She said it would, and so it will," another voice replied. "One sip, that's all it takes."

No one said it, but she somehow knew their implicit meaning. One sip, that's all it would take for a person to die.

The question in her mind was: Who?

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Hye Ra slowly opened her eyes, choking slightly from the taste of seawater that was still lingering in her throat. The sun was blazing overhead and there was not a single cloud in the sky, a stark contrast from the raging storm that she last remembered. In the distance, she could faintly hear the sound of water steadily flowing. Her head hurt and the last thing she remembered before blacking out was desperately trying to reach for Sunghyun's hand, and watching as the distance between them grew further and further apart, until she could no longer see him amidst the swirling debris of the tornado. Then, the voices took over.

"One sip, that's all it takes."

Was it all a dream? she thought to herself, yet the boundaries between what was a dream and what was reality were all hazy to her.

"Awake are you?" a pair of grey eyes appeared in front of her face.

Alarmed at the sudden appearance of Seokga's face, Hye Ra sat up immediately, forehead crashing directly into his. Rolling backwards from the impact, Seokga scowled and retorted, "That's not much of a 'thank you' don't you think?"

"Sorry," Hye Ra mumbled apologetically. She looked around in alarm, trying to orientate herself in this new environment. To her surprise, the sound of water rushing came not from the waves of the sea crashing against the shore, but from a waterfall not far from where she was situated. Everywhere the cherry blossoms were in bloom, creating an surreal sea of baby pink all around her. "The storm... What happened? Did you rescue me? Where are we?" she asked, a thousand and one questions appearing in her mind. There was no one else in sight, and there was no sign of Sunghyun no matter how hard she looked. "Where's Sunghyun?"

"Sung-who?" Seokga raised an eyebrow. Straightening himself out, he walked over to the stream at the foot of the waterfall, scooping up a mouthful of water and emptying it into his mouth. "Too many questions, what a bother. As though you weren't already enough of a bother. So apparently you decided to go and get yourself stuck in the middle of one of the worst storms these seas have ever seen in the past ten years or so, which included one hell of a killer tornado! Naturally, your ship was smashed into smithereens and you ended up almost drowned in the depths of these waters, if I hadn't shown up in time. You could have ended up like one of those other bloated corpses that were floating about, and you could have gotten me killed too!" He shuddered slightly at the recollection of how he felt as though he was on the verge of suffocating when there was plenty of oxygen all around. It had been a close call. If he had reached a minute later, both of them would likely be paying a visit to the god of death's domain down below. He didn't want to imagine how gleeful the bugger would have been to see his cold, dead spirit.

"Thank you," Hye Ra whispered. She could feel the uncomfortable feeling of her wet clothes sticking to her skin, still damp from her little swim in the sea. "But where are we? Where is the sea?" It was bizarre that she had just been rescued from a storm in the middle of the ocean, yet here they were in the middle of a peach blossom forest with a waterfall in the background.