Work Text:
Kim Dokja awakens to the rhythmic vibrations of a moving vehicle. An ambulance, perhaps? His thoughts can’t seem to find purchase in his mind, only floating through for a moment. He feels weak, but whole; warm. There’s a fullness in his stomach that he hasn’t felt in a long time. From above him, a hum makes its way down.
Not that of ambulance equipment, but that of a mother. It’s a low sound, but a soft one, resonating through his bones. He feels it all the way to his toes, setting his body alight.
Breath fans out across his face, brushing his hair gently from his eyes. Dokja had thought it would be bloody, sticking to his face like syrup. It wasn’t his intention to have such a messy ending, but when it all comes down to it, does one really have such a choice?
Contrary to his beliefs, he doesn’t feel like he’s fallen at all. His eyes flit around behind their lids quickly, unseeing but searching. Oh, but he’s so tired.
The space around him shifts to accommodate his exhaustion. He moves his body closer to the warmth and the quiet voice and the smell of lavender.
This time, Dokja opens his eyes. Light seeps in through a dusty window, where all he sees are clouds. He’s on a train of some sort, he realizes. It’s emptier than any other train he’s been on before.
The hand stroking his hair pulls back for a moment, and he makes a discontented noise. It returns, with a little chuckle from its owner.
Light brown hair falls into his face, quickly retracting when he turns his attention towards it. He lifts his head from its pillow on the train bench, only to find that his pillow was… a person. She watches him intently, cocking her head to the side but saying nothing. Dokja’s throat feels tight.
The other occupants of the train look at him, the wreck who has just awoken. Two children sit with a teenage girl on the floor in front of a tall, intimidating man that looks like a superhero. He wears only black and his boots appear to be the size of Dokja’s head. They, too, do not speak.
A sharp-looking woman sits with two others, a burly man and a woman with long black hair, who seems to be not much shorter than him. With them, a white-haired woman sits with her legs crossed, a book left abandoned next to her.
It disturbs him a little. None of these people are injured, and they have nothing in common with someone such as himself. For what reason does he now sit here with them? The lady with the light brown hair smiles gently at him, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Wordlessly, Dokja moves closer to the window, pressing his warm face against it. Outside, he sees the sky. The train floats, slowly, past the clouds, supported by no railing.
Dokja must really be in heaven. Someone taps his shoulder, and he turns his head to look at them, and then back at the window. Perhaps he’s seeing this wrong. He’s heard that strong painkillers really mess with reality. The lavender-smelling woman from before smiles encouragingly and then cups his face in her hands.
Her forehead presses against his, their hair becoming entangled. Dokja sits limply. Their noses touch, and she moves to wrap him in an embrace. A tear slides down Dokja’s cheek. Her hold keeps him close, the plush feeling of her sweater brushing against his bare arms.
No one in the carriage speaks. It’s quiet, warm, and everything Dokja has wanted. He wonders if these people died like him, if they became grouped together through their lives and their stories and their endings.
When Dokja had made his ending, when he had jumped out of that window, he hadn’t dared to hope for anything like this. For once, after life, he’s been blessed. The woman, still holding his face, shakes her head at him slowly. He tilts his head to the side, questioning.
He doesn’t think he can speak. She swipes a soft thumb across his cheek, showing him the tear she’s collected. She shakes her head again. Dokja bows his head to apologize. She lifts it back up.
A hand tugs at his own, guiding him to the group of people. Dokja thinks they look like a family. Dokja supposes he’s part of it now, even if he hasn’t been dead for very long.
The sharp, short-haired woman pulls impatiently at the front of his white shirt. She looks him up and down, eyes narrowed, but he seems to pass her inspection. She gives him a (gentle) shove in the direction of the black-clothed man, who, despite his cold expression, pulls Dokja close with tender movements.
After a few seconds, Dokja pulls away and sits himself on the floor, near the brown-haired woman. He wonders what this stage of existence requires. Will he feel this content forever? Perhaps the time after life is spent in an imaginative state, where the mind lives on through its greatest desires.
The body doesn’t matter anymore.
Dokja hadn’t been sure of the circumstances after life. He’d heard spiritual gurus claiming that after death, one ceases to exist. They won’t remember; the soul moves on and resets, leaving the consciousness to dissipate. Dokja hopes his consciousness stays with him forever. He doesn’t think he’d be a complete soul without his thoughts and mind.
He doesn’t think he could ever move on.
Even if this is only an imaginative world, created wholly by his mind for him, he doesn’t think it bothers him. He still feels and sees and hears. No matter where he is, he is real. He supposes he has lots of time to think this over. How long have these people been here? Matters of the heart seem insignificant now. A heart which no longer beats for a body loses its purpose.
Perhaps its only purpose is to continue existing. Dokja knows he still has a heart; isn’t that enough? He wonders if the others feel the same. Their bodies seem just as tangible as his, he sees as he observes them.
Now that the waking state of Dokja has been established, the other occupants of the train carriage seem to return to their previous activities. Still, though, it feels like Dokja hasn’t been accepted into their family yet. The children on the floor play around with something Dokja can’t see.
The short-haired woman’s fingers move across an invisible surface, one which lets out soft clicks and is occasionally shown to the darkly-dressed man for viewing. Dokja isn’t sure how to merge with them, for it feels like he’s just on the other side of a door, so close to them, but unable to twist the handle.
He taps the brown-haired woman’s shoulder lightly, so as to keep from startling her. She looks over at him, her expression as soft as it has been for his time here. He gestures at the general location of the invisible objects, making movements to mimic the people’s.
She shakes her head at him, reaching out for his hand. He gives it to her. She brings him back to the man in the black coat, and the short-haired woman shoves the man aside.
He says nothing, but glares at her. Behind his previous location, there is another man, one which Dokja had not seen earlier. This one has a white coat, a stark contrast to the black one of the tall hero-man. He’s curled up, seemingly asleep. Dokja squints.
He can’t see the man properly, and he tries to relay this to the brown-haired woman. He doesn’t want her to be disappointed by the fact that he can’t really see another member of their family.
She gestures to the man’s face, and Dokja leans incredibly closer, trying to catch a full view of it even though it’s practically translucent.
The man is clearly the reason for Dokja’s incomplete merge into the train carriage. He’s painfully average, but reminds Dokja of himself. They even look a bit similar, Dokja thinks. He hasn’t looked in a mirror for quite some time, but he thinks that if he matured more – or ever got the chance to – they would look alike.
The man doesn’t stir when Dokja continues to lean close to his face, but the brown-haired woman seems satisfied anyway. She seems very fond of the man for reasons not understood by Dokja. He hopes that maybe he can become loved like that.
As if she reads his thoughts, the brown-haired woman nods her head at him, her eyes shining. She then hugs him very tightly, and although he doesn’t hug back, he leans into it a little more, pressing himself into her hold.
They’re bathed in the light of a sunset Dokja hadn’t realized was approaching, its warmth spreading through the carriage. The short-haired woman makes an annoyed sound, and Dokja turns his head to see her gesturing at the lowering sun.
The brown-haired woman sighs, but lets Dokja go and points to the short-haired woman and the black-coat man. The short-haired woman pulls him into a hug, much unlike the brown-haired woman’s.
It’s aggressive and firm, and she shakes him around a little. She bends over to press her face to his shoulder and she pats his back a few times.
When she opens her arms to let him out, her gaze is softer, but she looks sternly at him and then points to the man on the floor that still hasn’t woken up. She gestures between them, nods firmly, and then passes him onto the hero man.
The hero man doesn’t hug him again, but instead places his large hands on Dokja’s shoulders. He touches their foreheads together and exhales deeply.
This time, the man is the one to pull back, leaving Dokja to return shyly to the brown-haired woman’s side. She puts her arm around his back and leads him to the bench where he first woke up. She sits down and pats her lap. Dokja’s cheeks flush. She nods, smiling again. He awkwardly shuffles over and sits, where she then lays him down and returns to her humming.
Dokja, still floating around in his blissful state of mind, follows her lead and closes his eyes.
Dokja wakes up again. He’s disoriented, aching, and left with a hole somewhere inside of him that he can’t recall how to fill. A nurse stands over him, her expression sympathetic but reprimanding. He’s in a hospital; he can smell it. He sees flashes of brown hair and feels the warmth of being pulled into the arms of his loved ones.
His first instinct is to run away, to seek them out. His limbs hurt too much for that. Dokja thinks he would like to see the sunlight, to stand in its rays of light and feel.
The nurse leaves him shortly after commanding him to rest. Instead, he shakily pulls out his phone and searches:
ways to survive
Kim Dokja decides he needs to live, to find his family in this world instead of another.