27
I woke up in a white room. The white curtain shuffled in the wind.
The last thing I could remember was how Max tried miserably to stop me that night, trying to holding me back.
That knife stabbed right through his heart, but Max refused to stop. He followed me crawling in torment. His face paled from blood loss.
“Dream… Why… w- w- why don’t you accept me?” He screamed with a hoarse voice.
He extended his hand in front. His eyes reflected me in the distance.
The arm that tried to grab something out of reach began to lower. His breath caught and then faded away. His eyes fluttered closed as if a child in his mother’s embrace.
Max was gone… to the eternal sleep.
That image made me feel sorry for him. No matter how disgusting his actions were, those terrible moments couldn’t erase the image of a young man who cheered me up when I was down.
I looked out the window. A tear slowly ran down my face. I couldn’t explain the deep feeling I had. I didn’t know whether to hate or to forgive him…
It was so… bitter and painful…
Suddenly, I heard someone coughing from the bed next to mine. Dad pushed himself up, struggling to lean his back on the bedhead. Dad’s head was wrapped in a bloody bandage.
“Dad!” I shouted while wiping away my tear.
“Don’t worry about me.” He smiled. “It’s not that bad. How about you? Are you still hurt?”
I tried moving a bit. Suddenly, my face twisted with the pain that ran through my body.
“It seems you’re still hurt.”
“But I’m okay now.” I smiled to avoid making him worried. “But who took me here? I can’t remember anything.”
Dad watched me a while before sighed.
“After I regain my conscious, I called the police. They sent me here before went to search for you. They told me they found you crawling on the road far away from town. They told me that at that time you looked… awful.”
I recalled myself crawling through the road asking for help. The bone stabbed through my flesh. My body was full of wounds from the attempt of escaping. My strength fading along with the dying life force.
The long road was like a never-ending path. I was in the middle of a vast space void of people. I crawled forward without knowing what waiting for me. I had no idea where my life would end. I just kept crawling further. My mind expected only the continuous breathing.
However, that strong mind couldn’t stand the extreme hardship. My face started to pale from blood loss. The world became dark with the fading strength. I kept crawling still, but my body was finally at its limit.
The whole world disappeared in a blink.
But I survived.
We sat silently for a long time. Dad probably wanted me to rest after facing such terrible event, but my heart couldn’t calm down. Some truth still hadn’t been revealed, and I had to know.
“Dad.” I called him softly as if I was whispering. “Actually, you know everything, right? About Max. About those photos.”
Dad looked at me in surprise before letting out a sigh. He shook his head while spoke.
“I shouldn’t keep it away from you.” He said. “I thought it would be better if you knew nothing. Thinking that just reporting to the police should be enough, but I was wrong. My selfishness brought you into trouble.”
“Don’t blame yourself like that.”
“No, it was my fault.” He said firmly. “I refused to tell you about it because I want you to be free of any worry. It was a terrible event, but if you insist on listening, I’ll tell you. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
I nodded.
“If you want to know, I’ll tell you then.” He sighed. “First thing, you once asked me whether our house had been broken in before. Yes, it did, and just like that you already know…”
Max was the beginning of my nightmare.
He let out a sigh again.
“That night, when the electrician came to our village, Max broke into our house.”
He leaned back. His eyes looked far away.
“I knew of this only after everything ended.” He said. “He might come to steal something when we weren’t aware. I’m not sure about that, but after the light had gone out, we came downstairs to check the switchboard before left to our rooms. When Max broke in, I didn’t hear him.”
Dad’s room was soundproofed. This might be the reason he didn’t hear when Max broke in.
“I probably went out to buy some candles when the light was still dead. If I didn’t remember it wrong… I guessed that was the time Max started it.”
I understood now why I didn’t suspect anything when I heard someone walked around the house. Max probably broke in when Dad went out.
“You came back and found me stabbed, right?” I asked.
Dad looked at me blankly.
“No, it wasn’t like that.” He paused a while. “Max didn’t stab you.”
“What…?”
“Actually, the one holding the knife was you.”
Suddenly, the puzzle was completely solved. The truth rushed toward me. Every imaged linked together as if white pieces formed up an image on their own.
The soaking blood didn’t belong to me, but it was the one’s I killed.
The cry and the scream were the sound of torment. The pure hands were robbed away and replaced with evil.
The man rushed in with the candle holder was my Dad. He came to rescue me.
The clock I saw was the time I killed Max. Both arms pointed at the twelve. The time Max had once died.
Images from my memory moved at the moment the blade cut Max’s heart into pieces was the last key.
Because I already killed him once.
“After I arrived home, I saw you sat on the floor crying. When I walked closer, I saw someone lied down in a blood pool. When I turned to look at you, I saw your hands covered in blood.” He lowered his head a little. His face was full of stress. “When I tried to talk to you, I found that you couldn’t remember anything.”
An innocent couldn’t bear killing someone no matter how much hatred or anger one had. The blade that stuck into Max’s chest was the last straw that had separated between life and death. When it was cut, I dropped into the deadly abyss without turning back.
I was the murderer… who killed my best friend.
I killed Max.
“At that time, I thought he was dead, so I hurriedly moved away from that place. Actually, I didn’t move here because of my job, but I don’t want you to remember that place. That house… had only bad memories. If you stayed there, I’m afraid what you’d done might become your sin. I don’t want it to be like that. I want you to be happy. I want you to forget everything and start over.”
His eyes began to get red. His jaw shook and was tense. He tried to withhold the tear that was about to drop.
“At that time, I thought Max was dead. I thought you’re safe, but he followed you here. I tried to be careful, but at last, I was the one who failed…”
I connected the story Dad told me and the event from the images. Max didn’t disappear because he had some problem with his family. He left the village to let his guilt faded away. He planned to act like a disappeared child to avoid any conflict. Max always tensed up when he met my Dad because he was worried that the truth would be revealed.
Both he and I were in the stage that we couldn’t let the world know the truth. He was the person who tried to kill me but got killed instead, and I was the prey who killed her hunter.
“It means… he’d always be so nice to me because… they’re all the act?”
“I can’t tell you that.” He shook his head. “We can’t know how someone else thinks.”
“I… understand…”
I lowered my head. My eyes were wet from the sadness that pressed upon me. I didn’t want it to end like this. I lost everything this time.
I lost everyone I loved. I had nobody left.
While I was deep in the dark thoughts, Dad called me. His eyes were damp. We stared at each other, exchanging our pain.
Dad tried to get up. He walked over to hug me. The warmth spread inside my heart.
“Don’t be scared, Dream. We’re safe now…” His tear dropped on my shoulder. “I promise… I won’t let you face something like this again.”
Surprised, I stared at him before hugged him back. My tear ran down with a smile of the new beginning.
I hadn’t lost everything… I still had someone who loved me by my side.
It was okay… No matter how terrible the things I’d faced, but now…
I was safe.