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Kim Dokja - no, the Oldest Dream is in the subway again. It’s almost exactly as he remembers; the quiet hum, plastic chairs and polished white floors. Only this time no blood stains them and all the memories of the first scenario have faded to a dull whisper.
Constellations illuminate the passing Star Stream outside the glass windows. It’s a magnificent sight, but Kim Dokja finds it gets old quickly. It makes him feel, somehow, more alone than he already is. The electronic screens filling the car give off an artificial blue light, showing scenarios from across the expansive galaxy.
A nameless incarnation struggles through a wave of monsters. A ruthless sword master betrays his allies. A powerful mage fights against demons.
And Kim Dokja remembers. How he too started off as a nameless incarnation at first. How he tricked the constellations and fought with his companions through the scenarios. He lived like there were only so many years he was granted, though now there are too many.
But his favourite story is one he could never tire of, no matter how many chapters there were. It was his life. Kim Dokja figures he should be granted this one thing, at least. to read the chapters of the story never written.
So he watches Yoo Joonghyuk’s 0th turn, posing as the Demon King of Salvation. He helps him go through the scenarios, planning out the perfect life that he could not give him in their own regression. The probability he has to sacrifice is just a small price to pay.
Yoo Joonghyuk grows old with Lee Seolhwa, and eventually white hair grows on his once youthful face, holding an expression that could only be described as content. A quiet peace that couldn’t be found during the scenarios.
He listens as Yoo Joonghyuk questions him at the end of his long life.
It’s laughable, really. The sudden realisation he has in the moment, of how Yoo Joonghyuk came to be known as the regressor. And he can’t stop it, because the wheels have already been set in motion, and the play will cycle over and over again into eternity.
[1864]
[The number of times you must regress before you find your desired ending]
[Even then, the probability is still low]
…
“Tell me, you fool. If i continue to regress, will i ever get to meet you again?”
So he starts the cycle of regression.
Yoo Joonghyuk forgets about Kim Dokja, the Demon King of Salvation. He grows to hate his sponsor. The one who threw him into the great wheel of time, like a toy stuck in the ever turning cogs of fate. Perhaps it’s how it was always meant to be.
Like a fate being realized, his destiny is cemented. Good things cannot happen in the Star Stream.
At least, not to Kim Dokja.
.
[ rem emb er, k im dok j a]
Right. He is never really be alone as long as the fourth wall was here.
Kim Dokja feels a confusing mix of emotions as thinks about this existence.
The Fourth Wall saved his life many times. He wouldn’t have been able to lead his companions to their happy ending if not for it. It told him stories to keep him alive as an exile in the area outside the scenarios, devoured the Eater of Dreams, and helped Kim Dokja keep his sanity when faced with the scenarios.
But it keeps him separated from the companions he meant to save. Because of the fourth wall, Kim Dokja can never truly be in their present. no, he would always be a ‘viewer’ in the audience, seperate from the actors on stage.
The Fourth Wall is what keeps him separated.
Alone.
.
.
.
The oldest dream is starting to forget.
He knows he is only 51% of the Kim Dokja that used to exist. That the other half, that 49% is out there with his companions.
That 2% he has, it is proof he can remember better than the other ‘Kim Dokja’ ever will. But is tha still true now?
Kim Dokja is tired. He feels like he is walking back on a long road, one with no end in sight.
All he can do is read.
Because that is the Oldest Dream’s responsibility. All Kim Dokja can do is keep dreaming; he must keep dreaming, for the sake of his companions. They did not struggle this much, fight so hard, only to be denied rest after the long journey.
Yes. For Yoo Joonghyuk, and Han Sooyoung and…
Who else?
He can’t remember their names.
No. I must not forget…
The memories of them are there, though they’re faint, hazy things. Lost in the darkness of the subway. Kim Dokja desperately grabs onto the pieces of his story. There was a woman… one firm and unwavering in her judgement. Someone who promised to be his sword without hesitation. A shield too, strong and sturdy, who vowed not to lose his empty cartridge again.
Two kids forced to experience too much death at their own hands. A beast tamer and an insect master.
An empathic woman, like the fairest heroine of a novel. A scarred girl who commanded the seas with ferocity. A landlord with a family, a healer ever gentle and caring.
Kim Dokja doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know what their faces look like, how their laugh sounds, how they lived. All that remains is empty space, a snowfield where there should be ink-black letters. Like a giant hand has erased all those words on the wall.
[s l ee py]
He stands in front of this towering wall. He wishes there was a mark on it. Something that meant other people had been here and seen this wall.
But no matter how long he looks, all the pages remain blank.
.
.
.
Kim Dokja is walking on a path by the beach. It’s a nice sight, if not lonely. The beach stretches on for eternity in a desolate state.
He walks for a long time, and notices each step he takes is washed away by the ocean waves.
It reminds him of something he’d seen before. A little contraption with sand and an ever spinning blade. He could make craters in the sand all day long, but they’d all be smoothed out over time by the continuous rotation. The sand would always be pushed back in, and the surface would remain flat. even if Kim Dokja made piles and piles of sand, time would still return it to a blank surface.
He didn’t have the skill of a ‘writer’. He was a reader, first and foremost. And in the end, all he could do was watch the events pass by, bound by the already written words.
Cool water laps at his feet. The waves come up to the shore, and then back into the sea as he walks. up, down, up, down.
When Kim Dokja finally looks back, it is as if no one had walked there at all.
.
.
.
There is a day, sometime after that. Time has no meaning in the subway, but the passing of it still feels inevitable and damning nonetheless. The hours slip like grains of sand through his fingers as he watches the stories. Watches and waits.
Waits, for so long.
What is he waiting for?
There is no one coming to save him. No salvation.
His story is not one that has a happy ending. His story, like the rest of his life, is one that ends alone. Because in the end, a dokja has to live a dokja’s life.
To read stories for the rest of time. To read and watch and repeat it over again, because there is no one else who could take the weight of the world on their shoulders. No one else who could love this story like he does.
This is the curse of a dokja.
[reader / alone]
What kind of life is this?
A reader’s life.
He is Kim Dokja, the Oldest Dream, the Demon King of Salvation, the Watcher of Light and Darkness.
And so, the most ancient dream finally ends.
[ You have reached your ◻◻ ]
[ Your ◻◻ is ‘Eternity’ ]