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There is an insect buzzing with a sickly whine right next to Goo’s ear, and as he’s been doing for the past six days of traipsing in the jungle, he yelps in alarm and swings his machete. The buzz cuts off.
“Another fouls beast slayed,” he announces, and inspects the yellow-green fluid on the edge of his blade. “These things are dull,” he mutters.
Gun is already a good way away, barely visible in the dim light that manages to seep through the thick canopy above them.
“Oi,” Goo yells, stomping over. “I said I killed another one.”
Gun pauses, then sniffs and turns around. “Your turn,” he says, gesturing to the vines ahead. “Path’s blocked.”
“Wha – no! It’s still your turn!”
“Guess you’re not that good at wielding any blade that isn’t a sword, right?”
The corner of Gun’s mouth lifts slightly, in clear anticipation.
Goo snorts, torn between shared amusement and childish indignance. As usual, the latter wins out, and he stalks forward. “Yeah, yeah,” he groans. “Keep talking your talk, old man, I know you’re just getting tired.”
Unlike Goo, Gun doesn’t rise to the bait. He steps back, letting Goo take his place.
Over the days, they’ve gone from bickering every few minutes, to falling into comfortable silence. Charles Choi has given them a brutal deadline to find his buried contracts by; and though Gun had been teasing, they’re both going to be tired after this trip.
“I miss my anime,” Goo pouts. He’s given up two weeks of watching annime for traipsing through this shithole.
“…I know,” Gun replies with a heavy sigh that reeks of the countless hours Goo has spent explaining the dearly missed plotlines to him.
“You missing anything?” Goo asks, letting a note of seriousness touch his voice.
“It’s only been a week.”
“Eugh,” Goo groans, hacking at an obstinate section of vines. “I’m trying to have a nice conversation,” he says, punctuating each syllable with a swing. “You’re ruining the mood.”
He glances back.
The look Gun is sending him is as unreadable as ever, dark and unpleasant.
“C’mon,” Goo wheedles. “There’s gotta be something.”
“…Peace and quiet?” Gun suggests.
Goo pouts at him, but goes back to clearing their path. Clearly Gun’s in no mood for a conversation.
He startles when another bug flies past him, and with deadly accuracy, slices it in half and inspects the sickly yellow fluid on his machete.
“Another foul demon slayed,” he announces.
Gun groans. Goo doesn’t even have to turn around to know he’s clutching his temples, shaking his head with knit brows.
“Why did Choi even hire you,” Gun sighs.
“Rude.”
“Of all the people, you’re the most likely to sell him out.”
Goo cackles. They both know that’s a lie. Contrary to his image, Goo does have a brain. “Sure, sure. I’m a double agent for Hong, is that right?”
Another quirk of Gun’s lips, quickly smothered when Goo looks back.
“That’s right,” Gun says. “Dirty double crossing bastard.”
“Maybe secretly my family also has a weird blood pact with Choi going on, huh? You think you know me?” Goo retorts playfully.
Gun laughs. “You don’t have a family,” he says.
Goo laughs back. He’d set himself up for that one, but really, he hadn’t been expecting a bittersweet pang in the back of his chest. “What’s a family for?” he says, light and airy. “Getting manipulated into bad deals and shitty contracts? Not for me.”
“Yeah, you did that to yourself.”
“Exactly,” Goo says, acting like he relishes it. “I don’t need anyone to do it for me.”
Gun chuckles. Then, “I never really had a family. Just in blood.”
Goo whistles. “That’s a conversation to have around a fire.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Gun agrees.
When they’re both tired, finally able to relax, that’s the best time to talk. They don’t talk freely, but it’s freeing all the same. It’s the one time they can really acknowledge each other.
“We should set up camp soon.”
“Where, pray tell?” Goo snarks. “It’s one hell-vine after another that I’m fighting on your behalf, my lazy liege.”
“Oh, my deepest apologies. Keep going.” How Gun manages to remain expressionless even when he’s teasing Goo is completely beyond him, so Goo lets out an irritated huff that will serve for both of them.
Goo does keep going, though, until his arms ache. But he’s not going to be the first to complain, even though it’s gotten dark enough for them to bring out their giant torches – calling the insects over in droves.
“I’ve had enough,” Goo screeches when he feels one land on the back of his neck. “There’s so many of these tiny fuckers, I think I’m going to throw up!”
He turns around. Gun is at least twenty paces behind him, not moving, so Goo jogs over.
“We’re making very good progress,” Gun smiles.
“Your magic map tell you that?”
“Yeah. We’re ahead of schedule, but we’ve reached the no-man’s-land.”
“The… No man’s land?”
“You didn’t read the brief, did you?”
Goo blinks. “You sounded hopeful for a second. Please tell me you didn’t think I did my homework.”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“In my defence,” Goo protests, “I thought you’d tell me anything important.” He realises how stupid that line is the second it’s out of his mouth. Gun is not known for sharing information.
They both stare at each other. Maybe they’re tired, maybe it’s hazy in this jungle, but the laugh they both let out a second later is genuine, and Goo rarely sees Gun so cheerful. It’s nice; it feels familiar, even though it’s so unusual.
“I should have known,” Gun says, still smiling. “Idiot.”
He doesn’t sound as irritated as usual.
“Well? Where are we?”
“We should be nearing a clearing. There’s marks carved into the trees indicating the boundary lines of the tribes. This central part is the bit none of them claimed.”
“Huh. It’s not sacred ground, is it?” Goo inspects his soles as if he can wipe away holy dirt from them.
“I wouldn’t have come here if it was. I’d have sent you.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t tread on… Holy ground.”
“You would.”
“I would, yeah. So what’s the deal with it?”
Gun shrugs. “Dunno. Guess they wanted to have a peace ground?”
Goo considers that. “Fair enough,” he agrees. “So? Are we stopping here?”
Gun clucks his tongue. “Umm,” he says, shining his torch at his map. “I know there’s a clearing somewhere. It’s where we’re headed.”
“Oh, are we finally there?”
“Almost.”
“I can’t wait to be home,” Goo grins. “How many episodes to catch up on? Eight, nine? Wow. I’ll be binging all night.”
“Absolutely not. You’ll keep me awake all night.”
“You’re used to it.”
He can feel the dirty glance prickle at the back of his neck and chuckles to ease the tension. He squints at the path ahead, but it’s just solid blackness.
“Shine the light for me,” he demands. “I can’t see shit.”
If he’d thought the path was unpleasant before, this is infinitely worse. Every single tree is blocking their path, dark vine tangles block them, moisture is audibly dripping somewhere, and the low whine of insects sensing the feast nearby permeates the heavy air.
It’s dark now, too, so dark it feels like every single sound is being muffled by the blackness. In the grim mood, Gun and Goo both go back to irritable squabbling, barely enough room to place down their backpacks, let alone start a small fire and cook a meal.
Gun hangs back, consulting the map and taking a long and non-deserved break that he knows Goo is too prideful to call him out on. Besides, this endless, mindless, hypnotic hacking ahead of himself has started to feel natural now.
So Goo presses on, gritting his teeth, well and truly annoyed at their snail’s pace – and then there’s a chink of light, in the densest section of vines, where Goo has pulled out his machete.
Fascinated, he leans forwards to push his face to the tear in the foliage, making the hole larger. The vines have finally decided to cooperate, and are parting like water.
Theres a clearing there, bright like daylight. In the centre is nothing but a grassy ring and a twisted tree, completely unlike the others in the jungle. Outside that grass circle is a shimmering field of metal spikes, iron teeth pointed up and screaming at the sky.
Dizzy, Goo takes an involuntary step forwards.
Suddenly, as if some huge invisible beast has thrown itself from the middle of the circle, an entire patch of spikes ripples – not just spikes, but hundreds of gleaming beartraps. His ears ring with the cacophony of snaps prickling through the air.
Goo blinks in shock, opening his eyes again.
There’s a clearing there, shrouded in pitch black, but a shiver of moonlight makes its way through and illuminates an old jungle tree stump in the centre. It’s a peaceful sight, and the more he looks at it, the more he feels like he’s seen this clearing before.
“This reminds me of some anime,” he says, trying to think of the memory he’s sure he just had, but he can’t think of anything. Gun, still consulting his map, is too far behind to hear.
So Goo carefully slices away the rest of the vines, making short work of them, and steps forwards into the clearing.
There’s a sudden snap.
Goo breathes in sharply, and his entire vision clears, like he can suddenly see in the dark, everything in sharp and painful detail, adrenaline making him forget about every single ache in his body as he looks down and sees the glimmer of a trap in the torchlight, rusty jaws clamped around his leg.
He’s stock still for a bit, and hears Gun’s footsteps speeding up behind him.
He looks around and smiles, squinting against the beam of light from his torch.
“What was that?” Gun asks urgently, and the beam of light moves down to Goo’s leg. Gun curses.
Goo drops down, feels the trap, a weird numbness in his hands. “How do I get it off?” he asks, surprised at how steady his voice is.
“This is fucking weird,” Gun mutters, setting down the torch to shine a light, and ghosting his hands around the trap. “They’re not meant to be this sharp.”
“Well, it’s a bit late for that. Get it off me.”
“It’s not too bad,” Gun murmurs. “It didn’t close all the way. You’re lucky. Can you move your foot?”
Goo wriggles his foot a bit, and gasps as the pain begins to filter through.
“Hang on,” Gun says grimly, sensing that Goo’s adrenaline rush is fading almost as quickly as it had arrived. He places his hands on either side of the trap, and pushes hard – and suddenly, the crushing weight on either side of his leg eases and before he loses his nerve Goo yanks his leg right out with a tiny, weak whimper that he’s glad Gun doesn’t tease him about.
“I was told no one came here,” Gun says, and he sounds not just irritated, but seething. “The guides should have mentioned this. It’s important to know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Goo groans, pretending his leg isn’t shaking as he bends down to pick up a long branch and starts prodding at the ground ahead of them, into the clearing.
Gun stays to inspect the trap, and Goo takes one limping step after another until he reaches the middle of the clearing. The stump is damp, but the ground must have dried since the last rainfall. Well, dried as much as it could. It’s permanently humid here, the air sticking to them like glue.
There is dry wood scattered around that Goo picks up after dumping his backpack, and Gun has already started hollowing out the stump to make a fire in.
“It’s too wet,” Goo points out.
“Watch me,” Gun replies. Goo shrugs, drops an armload of thin dry branches next to Gun, and sits down by the backpacks with a groan. He reaches out and swivels one of the torches towards himself before rifling through Gun’s bag for the first aid kit.
He pulls up his trouser leg, inspecting the wound. It’s already blackened and bruising, and tender to the touch, but he’s pretty sure the bone isn’t broken. There’s several bleeding wounds where the teeth of the trap had dug in, but again, they’re not awful, just a few bloodied rivulets down his leg that he uses an antiseptic wipe to clean. It stings, but not too badly.
“They’re not meant to be that sharp,” Gun says, and Goo looks up to glare at him.
“Yeah. You said,” he snaps, even more annoyed at the fact that Gun has gotten a small fire to burn merrily away in the centre of the damp stump.
“No, it’s weird,” Gun insists. “Bear traps aren’t made to take the bear’s leg off. Besides – how many bears prowl the rainforest? None! There’s no reason for one of those traps to be here. Choi must have set them. But why?”
Goo snorts. “You think he led us into a death trap?”
“I’m just saying we can’t rule out that possibility,” Gun says, cold and frigid.
“C’mon, he sucks up to you too much. He’s got everything to lose if you die here. If I was here by myself, I’d agree with you. He probably just forgot. Or someone else set them.”
“Choi doesn’t forget. Look, those traps were made to really hurt. And you’re lucky the mechanism was rusty. It should have taken your whole leg off.”
“Well, it didn’t,” Goo argues. “Set up the tent, for god’s sake. I’m sick of you.”
Gun grumbles under his breath. Still sweeping around with a stick, he starts setting up their small shelter, while Goo roughly bandages his leg.
It’s shoddy work. The bandages are already slipping. Eventually, Gun takes pity on him.
“Come here,” he sighs, and reluctantly, Goo crawls over to sit down next to him, wincing as the wounds tug a little. “Of course you’d get stuck in a bear trap,” Gun clucks, already reaching for fresh bandages. Lit in firelight instead of the usual white torchlight, he looks human instead of ghostly, and the firelight casts strange expressions over his face – concern, care, and a softness that’s not really there.
That night, after staying sat by the fire until it’s burnt out completely, he dreams of a walk through a rainforest that never ends, an invisible giant slowly approaching from behind. One by one, the swarms of insects surrounding him turn to fine white sand, more and more of them, until the entire forest is covered.
~~~~~~
Goo is already up by the time Gun starts grumbling and rolling around in his sleeping bag. He takes pleasure in knowing he’s one of the few people who knows Gun secretly hates getting up early. Unusual for such a disciplined man – and in this too, they’re opposites. Goo hates sleeping in.
“Do you sleep?” Gun yells. It’s a sort of running gag between them – that Gun has never seen Goo sleep.
It’s because he sleeps deep, unlike Gun, who wakes up when a penny drops. He sleeps deep and dreamless, and he feels painfully exposed when he finally shoots awake, even when noones there to see him.
“No,” Goo shouts back from across the clearing. “I’m digging.” He did sleep, but not well. He can’t remember what he dreamed about but it must’ve been some nonsense.
He’s commandeered Gun’s map and their small shovel, and has worked out more or less where the papers should be – just on the edge of the clearing. There’s no further traps that he can see, which is lucky, because he’s forgotten to check most of the time he’s moved around.
“I didn’t know you could read maps,” Gun comments. “Want some breakfast?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Goo agrees, forgetting to turn it into an insult. He keeps on digging, trying to work out whether or not he’s got the map upside down.
Gun brings him over a hunk of stale bread and some dried meat, and stays to watch as Goo works.
“It looks like the right spot,” he offers after about ten minutes, bending over to peer at the crumpled map Goo’s holding.
“Yeah, I know.”
His shovel hits metal. “Aha,” he crows, and dives in with his hands, scraping dirt away from the thin metal box, and pulls it out victoriously. “Now you’re not allowed to tell Choi I did nothing!”
“I wasn’t going to,” Gun protests, snatching it from Goo’s hand. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Don’t steal my credit!” Goo calls, and yelps when a fat insect lands on his shoulder. “Get it off me,” he screeches, tensing up, and with an amused stare, Gun flicks at the huge bug and with a low whir, it flies away.
“They keep landing on you,” Gun says. “You’re like a little bug magnet.”
Goo shudders. “Aren’t they landing on you?” he asks suspiciously, reaching over to smell Gun. “Maybe you smell?”
“Yeah, no,” Gun says wryly. “I think it means you smell. Like shit.”
“I smell like a flower,” Goo retorts, and crosses his arms. “Pack up. I’ve done my part.”
Gun scoffs. “Sit down. I’m redoing your bandages. I didn’t do them properly in the dark.” Even though he did do them properly.
“I can do them myself!”
Gun levels a knowing stare at him.
Goo sits down, pushes his leg out, and looks away. “I guess you did do a shit job.”
He can’t bear the idea of looking back and seeing the same softness he’d imagined last night. He can’t bear the idea of looking back and knowing he’d made it all up.
Instead of looking, he complains and whines even when there’s no pain.
“And you’ll be fine walking all the way?”
“What am I supposed to do? Crawl?” Goo grumbles. “Yes, Gun. I’ll be fine. It barely hurts.”
“It’s a bit red.”
“Is it meant to be fucking rainbow? Of course it’s red, I got impaled.”
Gun tsks. Goo finally looks at him and sees nothing but comforting annoyance. “Let’s go,” Gun demands. “I’ll carry the tent. It’ll be easier when we’re just following our path.”
“What if we get loooost,” Goo drawls, wiggling his fingers in the air. “Oooo. Spooky. Spooky jungle.”
“Give me a few hours to wake up before you start,” Gun sighs.
“No,” Goo grins, folding his arms. He does nothing except laze around while Gun packs everything up, pretending to clutch at his completely fine leg in faux agony ever time Gun sends him a dirty look.
It’s not long before they’re ready to go. Gun goes ahead, Goo stays behind a second longer.
“Last chance to see the sky,” he calls at Gun.
“I don’t care,” Gun grumbles. “It’ll probably rain soon. It’s been a few days.”
Last time it had rained, they’d had to hunker down together in their tent, unable to continue. Hellish. Absolutely hellish. They’d squabbled the whole time, practically screaming insults at each other just to hear themselves over the rain, and if they’d ended up laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it then it was nobodies’ business but theirs.
“Get a move on, then!” Goo calls.
“Shut up.”
Despite his words, Goo doesn’t leave the clearing right away. Instead, motionless, he stares into the centre, wondering if he’s forgotten something, if his brain is screaming at him for losing something that’s life-savingly important.
“Did we leave the oven on?” he wonders aloud, trying to make sense of the irrational thoughts, but Gun’s already well on his way.
Unsure as to why the back of his neck prickles, Goo hurries out and doesn’t look behind himself.
He’s sure he hadn’t seen the carvings on his way in. The old, unintelligible carvings written in some strange script, scrawled across the bark of all the trees bordering the clearing and then quite a few more.
It makes him uncomfortable, and he’s not sure why. It’s not like he’s afraid of foreign scripts – it’s just that he feels like he can… almost understand these markings.
They don’t disappear, those marked trees, but it feels like they become a bit less common. He catches glimpses of them, holds those glimpses in his mind, and waits for the next one. And waits for the next one.
And waits for the…
He walks right into Gun’s back.
“I never noticed all those carvings on the trees,” he says, animated, all the life flooding back into him.
“Oh,” Gun says, gracefully stepping away from Goo and mercifully forgoing yelling at him. “The ones back by the clearing? They mark the boundaries of different areas.”
“Huh, really? What do they say?”
Gun glances back at him, narrows his eyes with a mean shrug. “I don’t know. They’re just symbols.”
“Just symbols,” Goo mimics. “What are we stopping for?”
“Food.”
“Food!” Goo exclaims. Now Gun says it, he realises, “I’m famished.”
“I was waiting for you to complain first,” Gun says. Accusatory. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Goo snorts. “I’m not wimping out after a few hours.”
“A few,” Gun remarks, with a glare.
“Jeez. Something’s ground your gears,” Goo mutters, and sets down his pack.
As he turns to sit on it, his leg gives way, and he lands heavier than anticipated. “Give me some water,” he demands. Gun hadn’t been watching him and he doesn’t start now, only tosses the water behind himself.
Goo catches it, takes a long draught. Maybe it will help his headache. When he closes his eyes, he can still see those symbols. They’re haunting him.
“Are you okay?”
Goo glances over. Gun is sat next to him, holding his gaze.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Goo tells him severely. “We don’t ask each other those kinds of things.”
“You haven’t said a word to me all day,” Gun scowls. Goo can practically see him close off. Lost in his own whirr of thought, he doesn’t pay attention.
“It’s not been all day,” Goo scoffs, and slaps at an insect, smearing it on his palms before he wipes them on his trousers. It feels like a grain of sand on his palm.
“Oh, sorry. Eleven hours of it, then. Eat your fucking food. I’m setting up camp for the evening.”
It’s… It’s been an entire day?
“Shit,” Goo remarks. “No wonder I’m hungry. And you just let me keep walking, huh? Huh? What about lunchtime?”
And why does Gun still look relieved that Goo is trying to annoy him?
It doesn’t matter, anyway.
They’ve stopped an hour or so earlier than usual, for lack of a lunch break and all the time spent clearing vines. That doesn’t stop Goo from getting a merry little fire going, ignoring the humidity that feels like it’s crawling down his back and wrapping around him like a snake.
Gun seems to think it will start raining soon. It’s humid enough that Goo feels he’s drowning already, the air settling thick in his lungs.
“We better take cover,” Gun says. It’s gotten dark, far too suddenly for it to be night rolling in. A night brought on by storm clouds, no doubt.
So Goo extinguishes his fire, checks around their tent, and crawls inside. Gun crawls in after him and zips it up.
He’s about to ask when the rain will start but before he can even start to open his mouth, his question is answered by the heaviest onset of rain yet – pounding mercilessly at their tent, shaking it, screaming at it.
Goo winces. If he listens hard enough, he can hear voices, voices that call out what he knows are the meanings of the symbols on the trees.
“Hope everyone in this shithole has got a handy tent,” he remarks. Gun can’t hear him over the sound of the rain, just tilts his head inquisitively, and Goo shakes his head in response.
The storm has brought a horrible bone-deep chill with it, and Goo bundles himself up in his light sleeping bag.
He doesn’t mean to, but he sleeps.
He doesn’t mean to, but he dreams.
A deep, unsettling dream: A dream so vivid that between one moment and the next, he can feel grains of slightly off-white sand under his bare feet, the loose white clothing he’s wearing reflecting the glare of the sun. The air crackles with warmth and a loud, indescribable booming surrounds him. Strange that he can still hear the shifting of the sands, and the press of his footsteps.
Hundreds of pillars surround him, scattered over the dunes with random abandon, and Goo is mute: he can think, sort of, and he can feel, but he has no desire for either of those things. The only desire he has is to walk: and walk he does. He walks among the pillars, each inscribed with strange text, and he doesn’t stop.
~~~~
It has been a long time, in this sandy desert. Long hours that have passed like lifetimes. Goo walks past one pillar, then another, automatic, robotic.
Then he stops.
Then he thinks.
Why has he stopped?
He’s stopped because something is different. Something is… No, it’s not wrong. But it’s different. Ah. The pillar in front of him: It is blank. Clean. And so is the one just beyond it.
The pattern breaks: no more straight lines and puppet-like walking. He rounds the pillar, takes a curved path to the next one, peers around it. Blank, blank. All blank.
Excited by the development, he even speeds up.
There in the distance, a long, long way away, he sees something even newer.
Black cliffs.
And in front of them, another black pillar among a million of them.
And in front of that, a figure, dressed in black. Goo sees motion, but no more than that: he is still too far away.
And he’s being shaken awake.
He opens his eyes to the dark green-brown of their tent, and something shaking him.
“It’s time to go,” Gun says loudly.
Goo lets his eyes close again, a tired sigh pushing past his lips. “I wish I was a bug,” he says, and wonders how anyone can have a headache this bad.
Gun reaches out to him, but Goo throws himself backwards to avoid his touch before heaving upright.
“I had a crazy dream,” he says, blinking the fog from his eyes, but everything looks distorted still.
“You were talking in your sleep,” Gun says. “Come on. I need to pack the tent.”
“What did I say?”
Gun shrugs, all tense, and turns away. “Gibberish.”
“Where’s my breakfast?”
“Outside.”
“He’s a master of single word answers. A master.”
Gun tsks. Goo rolls his eyes.
Everything feels alright.
At least until he pulls his leg out of the sleeping bag and has to suck in a breath before he groans out loud at the pain embedded deep in it.
Something is wrong with his leg.
But it’s a little better when he finally gets outside, immediately grabbing for his wide brimmed hat as he registers the fat, slow raindrops oozing from the canopy. The morning light paints them red, and his head is still hurting.
“You go in front,” Gun says, shouldering his pack.
“I don’t know the way,” Goo replies, obstinate. Gun shrugs, and sets off.
It feels like Gun is walking slow, but if that were true then Goo would easily be keeping up. Instead, he’s out of breath almost right away, blinking away something that could be condensation but is probably sweat, and he’s struggling to keep up.
His leg will be alright.
“Gun,” he says after a while. His voice feels weak. He hates to ask for this. But he wants it. “Can you change the bandages?”
Gun is there right away. He holds Goo’s upper arm, murmurs a comforting, “Sit down,” and guides him all the way.
Does he ever reach the floor?
Or has he been walking all this time in the endless dunes, for so long that he now sees that figure clothed in black again, closer this time.
He doesn’t know who he is – all sharp angles and slicked back hair and a jagged scar over his face, so Goo does what comes naturally.
“Hi,” he says. “I’m Goo.”
The someone smiles. “I know,” he says, and goes back to his work, scrubbing at the pillar.
“What’re you doing?” Goo asks.
“Sanding,” he replies grimly.
“Sanding?” Goo asks. “Why?”
The someone shrugs. “Someone has to do this. There’s other people here, you know. Sanding pillars out of the cliffs.”
Goo looks over, but the someone is quick to grab his chin.
“Don’t look,” he says softly. “You’re not one of them yet.”
“What do they do?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” the someone asks, with a soft smile. “They’re sanding.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Oh, I suppose I am. But I’m sanding to destroy, not to create. What made you come here?”
“Hmm,” Goo muses. “The pillars. They were… different.”
“Mh,” the someone nods. “That’s why I’m sanding. Those over there make the... And I’m… Well. Trying to get rid of the…”
“The marks?”
The someone smiles a curious ghost of a smile. “Yes. The marks. There’s an awful lot of words that aren’t.”
“Aren’t what?”
“Aren’t… For your ears,” the someone says. “I’d ask you to help me, but maybe that’s not so good an idea.”
Goo looks up to where the someone is working. He reaches up, and traces the figures that have only been half-sanded away.
He looks to the horizon, and robotically, rhythmically, starts walking towards the cliffs.
“This isn’t good, Goo,” Gun says.
Goo lolls his head to the side, attempts to focus. He sees his leg, red and swollen. The wounds looks like they want to burst right out of him.
“I know,” he says weakly.
Gun’s head snaps up and his brows furrow as he takes in Goo’s condition.
“We have three days’ walk left,” Gun says. “Longer at this rate. I’ll clean these. You’ve got to tell me next time it starts to hurt.”
“It always hurts,” Goo whimpers. “My head, Gun. My head hurts.”
Gun expels a little breath. He looks helpless, in his oversized hat and dark clothes. It looks like the gloom of the rainforest is trying to drown him. “Drink some water,” he encourages. “Okay?”
“I really don’t feel good,” Goo adds on a breath.
“I know, I know,” Gun soothes, and as if he’s never done this before, he reaches out and runs his cool hand through Goo’s hair. “I need you to walk, Goo. You – you can…” For a moment, Gun looks down at himself with a scowl, then he looks up. “You can lean on me,” he says, only the smallest of quavers in his voice.
“I’d like that,” Goo says, and accepts the hand Gun gives him to pull him up.
He’s aware of himself for a little longer.
Just a little.
“Where are you going?” the someone demands.
Goo can’t answer. The someone pushes him, and easily, Goo falls backwards. Falls, and lands looking up at the sky.
It’s strange. The stars are all wrong. For one, they are strung out like tentacles across the sky. And… And they have pupils.
And then they start moving.
Goo gasps in fear, feels his limbs shake. “Hey, hey,” he says, hoarse. “There’s a monster in the sky. There’s a monster up there.”
“All the way up there,” the someone says, his face blocking Goo’s view. “Come on; get up. Just look at me, don’t look around.”
“It’s hard to stand,” Goo says.
“I know, I know,” the someone replies. “But you’ve got this.” Pause, and then, “Maybe it didn’t see you.” It sends a shock of fear into Goo's gut.
Under Goo’s feet, the sand feels soft. Before his eyes, new grains bubble up to the surface: black, glassy grains. If he looks close enough, he knows he will find strange symbols carved on them, each grain holding a thousand million scratches, all the knowledge he could ever want and all the knowledge he’d never wish to know. It makes him dizzy.
All there, all on one grain, and then on all of the millions, the billions, the infinite of grains in this cursed place: and the monster is watching.
“Help me,” he begs. “Help me, please.”
“Just ask,” the someone says.
“I am asking!”
“You’re not.”
“You need to move for me, Goo,” Gun says.
Goo opens his eyes, twists himself to the side, and throws up.
“Well,” Gun sighs.
Goo yelps. “What the fuck?” he asks. Last he remembers, he was walking.
“You passed out on me,” Gun says grimly.
Despite himself, Go recoils. “I hope you didn’t look,” he mumbles.
Gun huffs. “Of course I looked, you dipshit. Move your ass, I’m going to set up the tent there.”
“Is it night?” he asks blearily.
“…It’s late afternoon.”
“Shit. We’ll be late back.”
“Yeah.”
“Our pay will be docked.” So that’s why Gun must look so annoyed.
But another “Yeah,” is the quiet reply, and it doesn’t sound angry.
“That’s why you’re angry.”
Gun opens his mouth, starts saying something, then closes his mouth, then opens it again. “…Yeah.” It reeks of a lie. Goo isn’t about to dwell on it.
“Let’s get going, then.”
“Goo,” Gun says, and there’s an odd look on his face. But half a second later it’s gone, and Gun is reaching out a hand to him. “I’m taking your pack, by the way,” he says, and Goo notes that Gun does indeed have two packs, awkwardly arranged over his shoulders.
Goo is stumbling and swearing all the way, but two hours later, they reach one of the smaller clearings they’d camped in before. The path is easier from here, and Goo gratefully sinks down while Gun builds a fire.
“We might get phone signal soon.”
“You seem better,” Gun says, ignoring him as usual. “The ibuprofen must be taking.”
“I guess so,” Goo agrees, though he doesn’t remember taking any. “I feel like shit.”
Gun smiles. “You look it.”
Goo is tired, but he doesn’t want to sleep.
“You really don’t miss anything?” he asks, picking up a twig to poke lamely at the fire with. “From… Before?” The lifetime before this.
“Nothing from before this trip.” Gun bites his lip, stares into the flames just as deeply as Goo is. “I miss my family.”
Goo snorts a little but he doesn’t mean it as a jest. He’s surprised to hear Gun so… Vulnerable. “The ones that sold you into this life?”
“I like this life.”
“Did you have another choice?”
“I…” Gun sighs. “I would’ve chosen it anyway. Do you miss your family?”
“Family,” Goo mumbles. “I had a mother and a father. I never had a family. Looked out for a cousin I knew existed and he was plenty grateful, but… Not a family.”
“They’re blood. They’re family,” Gun says, frowning a little sadder than he usually does.
Goo considers.
“Nah. Family look out for each other. Family help each other. And people are comfortable around their family. They can go to them for help, even if they think the other person won’t like the reason.”
“Family is just a way to punish people,” Gun says. And than again, a look of uncertainty. “But… What you described… Sounds nice. I wish it were like that. I really do.”
“Why can’t it be like that? Just agree to be like that with someone. Don’t have to come from the same blood to have it.”
“Yeah?” Gun asks. A moment, a moment that’s like an intake of breath before it spills out. “Then come to me for help, Goo Kim.”
Goo looks over, wide eyed and startled, and sees only honesty in Gun’s face.
“Would you help me?” Goo asks despite himself, even though he should never say yes to this. Even though he has only ever been hurt when asking for help.
“I would. I’d help you. You’re a fucking annoying bastard and I’d still help you if you were twice the piece of work you are.”
Goo is tired. He’s just tired.
“Please look after me,” he asks softly, and holds his breath in the next silent moment.
“I will,” Gun says, weighted with meaning.
Both of them guilty, like they’ve committed a crime. Goo looks up and sees the flat clouds, and wonders what they’re hiding behind themselves.
~~~~
“Help me. Please,” Goo asks, and he can’t hide that he’s afraid.
The someone leans over, steps into the same sinking sand as Goo, and whispers, “If you’ll let me, I will.”
He’s waiting for Goo to reach out.
His arms are leaden.
But he grits his teeth reaches out anyway.
The someone drags him. Goo has his eyes squeezed closed but he feels a breeze, hears what could be the flapping of gigantic wings. It lasts a long time. “Don’t look,” the someone says. “And if you do – don’t be afraid.”
“I won’t,” Goo mumbles, and doesn’t open his eyes until he feels solid ground under his feet, what feels like hours later.
This is not a dune. This is a black, glassy surface, and Goo can see their reflections in it, white and black together.
Ahead of them, crowding the bottom of the horizon, are infinite pillars set in white sand.
Behind them, infinite flat black stone.
He’s going to be here forever. And he hasn’t any water with him.
“If I get thirsty, what will I drink?”
“You won’t get thirsty. Not while I’m here.”
“You’re an angel?”
The angel smiles. “No,” it says, but Goo knows it’s lying.
“You are,” Goo says, and when he next looks up, the angel holds a flaming sword. The light of it illuminates the ground they’re on, and Goo makes the mistake of looking beneath his feet.
The cliff is not solid. It is see through, and it goes on forever, stretching down and down.
And somewhere down there writhes starlike tentacles of stars with bulbous pupils. It’s the same, the same monster clouding and curling over the skies.
Goo collapses to the ground.
“The monster’s here,” he announces faintly. “It’s everywhere. Not just up there.”
The black cliff, dark as a pupil, lies set in white sand. Goo cannot fathom the scale of it, the scale of the monster's eyeball that he's standing in.
“Yes,” the angel says. “But take comfort. If these cliffs are the pupil, then they must have an edge.”
“It’s so big,” Goo whispers.
“Incomprehensively so.” It hefts the sword as the giant eye starts rising to the surface, and the ground begins to soften.
But there’s an end. There’s an end.
“That’s what the pillars say,” Goo breathes, immeasurable relief filling him. The monster is big, but it is not infinite.
“What?” the angel seems surprised. It’s sword lowers. The eye beneath them blinks in anticipation. “What do they say?” it asks, urgently.
“They say… It has an end.”
“That’s what I just said, dumbass.”
Disoriented, Goo opens his eyes, and is met with the sight of Gun’s chin.
He’s being carried, in Gun’s arms, like a child. He can tell he’s too weak to stand. There’s no use complaining about it.
“I said we’re almost at the end,” Gun repeats. “I just got phone signal. Choi is coming to help us.”
“He’s not going to pay us,” Goo sighs. “We didn’t make it on time.”
“We did. He’ll pay.”
“You… walked?”
“Two days.”
“With me?”
“Mmh.”
“Oh.”
Goo stays silent for a while longer.
“Thank you,” he says, honestly.
“It’s no trouble,” Gun says. “Not if it’s you.”
Goo falls asleep again.
It’s dreamless.
Next time he wakes, Gun is smoking out of the balcony of a hospital room. The red light of his cigarette burns brighter than any of the city lights, even in the stark contrast of the night time.
“You’re not allowed to do that,” Goo slurs, and Gun stubs out his cigarette, flicks the butt through the mesh covering the balcony, and shrugs.
“You’re here under Choi. I can do whatever I want in your room.”
Goo nods. “Wise words,” he says sagely.
“What do you see out there?” Gun asks, out of the blue, and points to the night sky, misted in stars.
Goo laughs.
And then he stops laughing.
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “I don’t remember.”
Gun looks at him, a strange look.
“What do you see?”
“Infinity,” Gun says shortly.
“It has an end,” Goo murmurs. He doesn’t know why. The words just come to him.
“So you said,” Gun says, sour all of a sudden.
“Thank you, Gun.”
Gun’s face softens. “Of course,” he says. Like he cares. “Of course.”
He does care. He does, he really does.
“Thanks,” Goo smiles. “I’ll be your family, Gun.”
Gun tilts his head, and he smiles. “I think I’m doing a better job at being yours,” he murmurs, and tucks the sheets covering Goo further up to his chin. “Rest well.”
“I will.”
He doesn’t dream of infinity. He doesn’t dream of white dunes and pillars being sanded out of cliff faces. In fact, he doesn’t dream at all. He sleeps deep, and he sleeps dreamless, and when he wakes up, Gun is watching him and it feels so warm and comfortable that he lets himself close his eyes and sleep in longer, for the first time in his life.