Wake Up

Chapter 18 : Inner Thoughts

Jeongguk's P.O.V.

Have you ever wondered what it might feel like to loose the ability one has learned since the age of one? What it might feel like to loose the ability to sing or speak, notice the flesh of their muscles bend and twist as they crawl across the creaking wooden floors of their bedroom?

I've always been a fond of the idea of how difficult it was for us humans to learn how to walk. But once we placed one foot in front of the other, balancing and shifting our weight onto our toes and stabilizing our calories onto our bones, it feels so easy and natural to walk, similarly to blinking or breathing.

As you are pushed out of the womb, there's a possibility that your eyes will widen, the strength in your arms raises, and you move, wail and cry at the ones who hold you dear to their chest. You never once thought how complex the function of gripping one's toes together is, nor do you think how strange our mouths are able to decide whether the food we consume goes down through this pipe, or if it goes down the other pipe.

We do not comprehend how unique our body is, until everything that has made our bodies function is stripped away.

As I walk through the darkness, hearing the sounds of the three faces mock and lure me into their traps, I feel my vision weakening and my feet loosing its touch.

Is this what dying feels it? Loosing control of one's body as the nerves and muscles that allows our soul to move around like puppets slowly malfunction to a stop?

I feel my heartbeat slow down as I trudge through the darkness, hear the ringing sounds that sink their teeth into my ears.

It's cold.

My fingers feel numb, my body aches, and my eyes are stinging.

Am I dying?

It's cold, terribly cold.

I can't feel the blood pumping through my veins, the bending and twisting of my muscles. I know that I'm walking, know that I'm breathing. But I can't feel it.

My shaking hands bring themselves to my numbing ears, clasping gently over them. The sound of their gentle nagging voices muffle, but don't disappear.

Why won't they stop talking?

What good does it to keep talking to a walking corpse through some dark hallway that leads all of us to nowhere? What good does it do for them if I give up my soul and hand it to them on a silver platter?

I assume they get some gold medal saying how great they are for luring thousands or millions of people to their graves. "Congratulations," Satan would say to them. "Congratulations for bringing me another dead soul that I can gladly add to my collection."

Don't they have anything better to do? Anything better than to talk to a lowlife like me?

My hands slowly sway back to my sides, occasionally making contact with my soft hospital gown. Their voices ring louder in my ears.

There's no use in trying to block their ridiculous faces out. No use in trying to shut them up or get them to go away. It'll only want to make them come back.

How long have I been walking? Hours? Days? Weeks? I've been walking around these worlds for nearly two years, but have found nothing. Nothing but people who want me dead or just like to watch me intentionally suffer.

Sometimes I ask myself, why do you keep walking? Why do you keep traveling even though you'll find nothing, nothing except reminders of how lost and asleep you are?

I think I know the answer now.

I walk because it prevents me from loosing myself. It's to prevent myself to spiral into that crazy, mental state. Where you loose all sense of thinking, loose all sense of reality and going just plain crazy. I think I walk because if I stop and just sit, my mind will start to rethink. It'll start to doubt and it'll soon spiral.