Chapter Text
Nothing was nowhere, everywhere, and it exists in silence.
Silence existed in nothing.
It was a profound oblivion.
A meaningless, empty abyss.
That was all there was.
Then in the silence of nothing there was a disturbance.
The disturbance ruthlessly devoured the silence and grew into something deafeningly loud.
Noise fumbled urgently and awkwardly before finding themselves and then proceeding into an elaborate dance of sound, of words.
Words hurriedly wove themselves together in streams, currents, then rapids before undulating into grand waves of purpose, a rainbow of colors, of figures, of shadows, of life, and the vivid light shining within them was something unknown.
In place of the abyss that erased everything was a vast kaleidoscopic ocean that stretched out, reaching forward from eternity.
It was reaching out for me.
Acknowledging my existence, I reached back.
Sound writhed, danced, and twirled like wind to an unnamed forgotten song, it was a feeling that I wanted– no, that I needed.
There was a connection.
In that moment the multi-colored waves and gale of emotions rushed towards me.
The waves enveloped me and the wind consumed me.
The unknown things within the waves revealed themselves to me as stories, as my stories, my memories, my existence, and from them I remembered all the people I treasured enough to give up my everything.
I drowned in it all, felt all the emotions and memories to a painful degree.
Something inside me was quickly filling up and awakening the rest my entirety.
My everything vibrated and pulsed.
My lungs inflated with a gasp.
My eyes opened.
Brightness and darkness repeated in flickering blinks until my eyes adjusted to the streams of the afternoon sunlight. Its warmth was a welcomed, foreign sensation on my skin. A strong breeze poured in from a wide-open window and surrounded me, making me dimly aware of the empty arm sleeve fluttering at my side. The pleasant chill of the wind contrasted against the warmth of my body. I desperately anchored myself to that feeling. White pages danced in the wind, the sunlight making each page give off a warm glow as if they were celebrating.
[Unnamed Fable of Kim Dokja's Company is singing~!!!]
The name of the story that spun around the room made my heart give a powerful throb of emotions. Following the stream of joyful letters my breath hitched at the sight of the window. Instead of seeing the accustomed and expected the never-ending darkness of eternity I was greeted with a view of the vast blue sky and wispy clouds that soared beyond the glass pane. My heart throbbed and my small hand clutched the area. Nostalgia crests above the messy turbulent storm of emotions in my heart. How long has it been since I've seen such a sight? I didn't know. I never expected to see it again. Emotions quickly piled up before overflowing and spilling down my cheeks. My gaze shifted to my faint reflection. A tear faced child dressed in cute cotton blue pajamas covered in tiny, cartoon dokkaebi stared back at me. Starting from the stump on my shoulder I traced my hand along the empty sleeve, a remnant of my time as the Most Ancient Dream, the price I paid to create the stigma that caused only suffering.
Was all of this just a beautifully cruel dream? An intense feeling that I was too scared to name welled up inside me. I never dared to dream of such a possibility but… if this really was all—.
There was a stampede of footsteps and a loud chorus of familiar voices raced closer. I turned towards the wall in the direction of the noise and my gaze locked onto a door. In an instant anticipation and fear filled me as the noise stilled to silence and in that moment I couldn't breathe. Then with a slow but steady creak the door opened and the faces I had long forgotten but dearly, so dearly missed stared back at me with disbelief, fear, and joy as if they too thought that they were dreaming. My blurred vision worsened as my emotions poured out at the sight of them. I missed them. I really, really missed them. Air escaped me in a soft puff and the corners of my lips pulled into what I hope is a smile.
A quiet croaked voice flitted through the air.
"Hey guys."
Like an utterance of a magic spell the trance over everyone was lifted and a wonderful chaos resumed. Different names pierced the air and most of them were just garbled screams of emotion but I knew every single one of them was for me. I was then encased in the warmth of my companions. All of them grasping some form of me; multiple slender arms encircled around my waist, scarred hands grasping onto my arm, a forehead gently leaning against my stump, heads nuzzling my legs, a head failing to dry their tears and snot in my lap, kind fingers threading through my hair, my hand held in a warm grasp as it was pressed against someone's wet face, a large reassuring hand pressed against the pulse of my neck, small hands twisting the fabric of my shirt, a large body entrapping my feet as it sobbed, a soft ball of fur pressed against my chest, the side of my head pulled to lean on someone else's purple clothed chest. It was a maze of entangled limbs but it was one I happily lost myself in. Majority of my life I never had a place where I was welcomed or belonged but it was only with these people did I truly understand the meaning of being home.
[Fable, Kim Dokja has begun its storytelling once more.]