Chapter Text
Your name is Kim Soleum.
You’re in a motel room that will never be a home.
You’ve resigned from the Disaster Management Bureau. You’ve met with Director Ho and given him the information he wanted.
You can finally go home.
Before you is the Wish Ticket you worked so hard for.
One gulp, one wish spoken aloud, and you’ll be home. Safe. Free from this cursed world of ghost stories.
Decisive as ever, hm? That’s good. The sooner you get out of here, the better.
Follow my instructions exactly, alright? Lift the bottle with both hands. Close your eyes. Say your wish out loud in one sentence, and then drink the potion in a single gulp.
Your wish will come true.
But wait. How are you going to phrase it?
It seems a little abstract to say this, no? What is home, really?
It might be where you came from, but what if it’s somewhere you ended up on the way?
Like the Hyunmoo Team 1 waiting room, hm? That certainly seemed like a home.
That wasn’t a home. I’ll never be welcome back there.
I'd never want to be back there.
I wouldn’t be so sure. I’m sure those agents liked you.
But just in case, if you don’t want to end up someplace random that the potion insists is your home—it's best to reconsider how you phrase your wish.
I wish to go back to the world with no ghost stories.
I wish to return to where I was before I joined the Daydream Corporation.
I don’t know how to phrase my wish.
… Was it that bad?
Alright. Let’s not think about that.
But if you don’t want to end up someplace random that the potion assumes is your home—it's best to reconsider how you phrase your wish.
I wish to go back to the world with no ghost stories.
I wish to return to where I was before I joined the Daydream Corporation.
I don’t know how to phrase my wish.
Haha. Of course you can. You don’t even need to make a wish for that to happen.
Just put the potion down, go back, and take your resignation letter back. I have a strong feeling that that Agent Choi hasn’t filed it yet.
A reasonable wish to make. But, Kim Soleum—are you sure that the world that you’re from is the only one with no ghost stories?
Wouldn’t it be funny if you ended up somewhere else entirely?
...you're right. This won’t work.
Right? Let’s work on rephrasing it.
You want to go back to a world with no ghost stories, but you need it to be the one you came from.
What if you said this: I wish to return to the world that I originally came from that was free of ghost stories. How’s that?
I don't think that would work either.
… Ah. Is that how it is?
Soleum-ah. Are you absolutely sure?
You don’t mind whatever world you make it to as long as it isn’t this one?
Yes. I just need to get out of here.
Haha. I thought so too.
Kim Soleum. Have you ever considered—maybe the world you came from did have ghost stories? And you just didn’t notice?
The average civilian in our world doesn’t know about ghost stories here, either.
Would you still want to return home, even then?
Alright then. Try that.
Try saying: I wish to go back to a world with no ghost stories.
Really? What makes you so sure?
I just know it will be okay once I get back home.
At least I’d be with my friends and family again.
Hm. Safety is your main concern, isn’t it?
Maybe we should add that to the wish. So that in case you end up somewhere with ghost stories, you can still make sure you’re safe.
Try this then. We have to leave out the idea that the world you were in was free of ghost stories, so what about: I wish to return to the world that I originally came from, where I was safe, and to avoid running into any ghost stories.
Where does that certainty come from, I wonder?
But it isn’t wrong. You’ll be okay once you’re home. I’m sure of it too.
Then how about this for a wish. We have to leave out the idea that the world you were in was free of ghost stories, so what about: I wish to return to the world that I originally came from, where I lived for the first 28 years of my life.
That’s nice.
I’m sure it was a lot nicer to be with them then it was here, hm?
Tell me about them. What was your family like?
Is that it? Come on. We aren’t going to see each other ever again after this, you can give me more than that.
They...?
... Aish. You don't remember them, do you?
Then, Kim Soleum.
If you want to go back to people you don’t even remember, are you sure that it’s really safe…?
Okay. Okay.
How about this for a wish then: I wish to return to the world that my family is in and to be reunited with them.
Right? It makes things a little confusing.
But then again, the world you were in was safe enough that you spent your entire life without running into any ghosts. Surely you can trust in those chances again.
Why don’t we add that to the wish, hm? That you want to make sure that you still don’t run into any ghosts.
Try this then: I wish to return to the world that I originally came from, where I lived for the first 28 years of my life, and to never encounter another ghost story again.
You’re right.
You shouldn’t stay here.
Let’s try again, shall we? If you don’t want to end up someplace random—you’ll have to phrase your wish carefully.
I wish to go back to the world with no ghost stories.
I wish to return to where I was before I joined the Daydream Corporation.
I don’t know how to phrase my wish.
Hm. You know what, I think this one will work.
You were in your own world right before you joined Daydream, weren’t you?
This seems like the one.
Give it a try.
Well. Let’s think about it, shall we? What is it that you want?
I want to stop feeling like this.
Hm. I get you.
But, Soleum. Now that you’re out of Daydream, and you’re out of the Bureau, don’t you think you’re reasonably safe?
No. There are ghosts everywhere.
No. Daydream will find me again. Or the bureau will.
That’s true. Ha. That’s true. What about this. What if you found a way to stay safe from these ghosts?
The wish ticket can do anything, right?
What if you wish to never fall into a darkness again?
I don't want to be stuck here. I want to go home.
Right?
Try saying this: I wish to stay safe from ghosts and to never fall into a darkness again.
… Is it so bad if the bureau finds you again?
I doubt they’ll force you to work against your will.
I don't want to face them again.
…Okay. Okay.
What about this, then? What if you stay in this world, but make sure that they can’t find you? Would that be okay?
It won’t work. I’ll still get caught up in ghost stories.
…no. I’d rather go home. I don’t want to be here anymore.
Ah. Our Soleum, you’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?
I get that.
But there’s a lot of ways to stop feeling like this, you know? Ways that aren’t necessarily going home.
Off the top of my head, getting drunk always helps.
But that’s not a permanent solution, is it?
For something permanent… I suppose you could erase your memories of this place.
No? I thought you’d be happy to forget about all of this.
You could live the life that you used to before you were swept up by ghost stories.
I don’t want to keep staying here. I want to go home.
Wouldn’t it?
You wouldn’t remember Daydream. Or the bureau. Or any of the ghosts that keep you awake.
You could start all over again as a new person.
Come on. Give it a try.
Try repeating this: I want to forget about darknesses and the life I lead related to them, and live a peaceful life free from ghosts.
No. I don’t want this. I just want to go home.
Right. Right.
This may be a stupid question, but. Kim Soleum, do you remember your home address?
Yes. Your street address. It might help get the specifics down in your wish, you know?
… You don’t remember it, do you?
That’s fine. Tell me something else then. Any landmarks? The subway station you took the train from? Name of your previous workplace?
Soleum? Kim Soleum?
.......................................
... Aish.
You don’t remember anything, do you?
Then, Kim Soleum, if you want to go back to a world you don’t even remember, are you sure that it’s really safe…?
Okay. Okay.
Then how about this for a wish.
Repeat what I say, okay?
I want to return to the place that I lived in the day before I worked at Daydream.
That sound okay?
You wake up in an empty world.
The ground is dead and barren. The air is stale. There isn't a single star in the sky.
No buildings, no people, no life.
An empty world, safe enough—because there isn't much of anything. Just you and the empty shirt pocket where your friend used to be.
You don't run into any ghosts. But you don't run into anyone.
An eternity passes. Or does it? There's no way to tell. The wind doesn't blow, there is no sun in the sky to rise or set.
It could have been five minutes. It could have been a year.
There is nothing here for you to do.
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up in an unfamiliar apartment.
You don't know where you are.
Your phone is missing, replaced with a shining new model that has no contacts that you recognize.
The weather on the screen tells you you're still in Seoul. But which version of it? Where are you?
You'd wished to return to the world you'd grown up in...
You look at the date. It's in a format that you can't even understand.
Is this the future? The past? A different dimension?
You search for a familiar address—any familiar address. The streets are filled with shady faces and cruel grins. There are no ghosts here but there are still monsters. Human ones.
This isn't your home.
You need to go back.
You need to go back—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up in pitch darkness.
The air is stale. There isn't enough of it to breathe in.
Where the fuck are you?
There isn't enough space to move around. Your shoulders hit something solid, you can't stretch your arms out in front of you. There are walls on every side, closing in, and—
Are you in a box?
It's getting harder to breathe.
You try to slam your elbows against the walls of the box, but it's too thick. There's no way out. What is happening? Why are you here? You'd asked to be reunited with your family—
Your blood runs cold.
Is your family dead?
Are you... buried?
It can't be. It can't be. This isn't right, this can't happen—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up, and instantly know that something is wrong.
There is nothing around you.
Just the void. Empty space. A giant crack the colour of the lightning streaks across the darkness, as if something about this reality has been torn apart.
What's wrong? Where is this?
You'd asked to return to the world that you came from, that was free of ghost stories... did such a place not exist? Had there been ghost stories in your world all along?
Was the world torn apart in an attempt to recreate what you had asked for?
That doesn't make any sense. The wish ticket doesn't do things like this. If reality doesn't exist, it simply creates it, it doesn't force you into a void—
Right?
... Right?
Your blood runs cold. You have no way of truly knowing.
You'd used the ticket on a vague hope, and now you're facing the truth of what the potion is capable of.
Is this it? Are you going to be trapped here forever?
It can't be. You can't—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in the darkness. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up fallen on the side of the road.
Your clothes are dirty. People step around you in disgust, probably assuming that you're drunk.
You push yourself up, scanning the place around you. It's the same street you used to live in.
Did it work? Did it really work?
Are you home?
You look both ways to cross the road to your apartment, when—
You trip, sudden, and fall into the road.
There is no moment to pause. To wonder what went wrong. To realize that there was no real way for you to have tripped at random, that there must have been other forces at play.
The car hits you, and everything goes dark.
You returned to your world. And now, half dead on the ground, bleeding out to the sounds of screams and cries and blaring horns—you will never encounter a single ghost story.
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in your fading consciousness. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up alone in an apartment.
You don't know where you are.
The face in the mirror isn't yours. The wallet you search frantically has cards with a different name on them. The photographs in the room, torn apart, are of people you don't recognize.
You are no longer yourself.
You're a stranger.
It—it can't be too bad, right?
Maybe it's to be expected.
You'd asked to go to any world without ghost stories—there was never any promise that you would be yourself. As long as you're safe here, as long as you don't have to worry about anything... you should be fine.
The phone starts to ring. The caller ID says DO NOT PICK UP.
It rings till the end, and falls silent.
Angry text messages light up the screen.
you fucker
i can hear the phone ring
You frown.
The phone rings again.
More text messages.
you thought you could run?
you thought this money was a joke?
i'm outside
This... doesn't look good.
Someone bangs on the door. Someone shouts profanities. Cold sweat builds up on your neck.
The banging gets louder. The door seems about to break.
Could you jump out the window...?
You need to get away somehow, there's no doubt that this insane guy screaming through the door is ready to kill you—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in the midst of the chaos. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up on a dusty, filthy floor, shattered glass cutting itself into your skin. It takes a moment for your eyes to focus in the dark.
There's an old, broken machine in front of you. A familiar one.
It's a Dream Incubator.
... Where is this?
Something is wrong.
You flip through the experiment logs frantically. Terrible attempts, terrible preparations. Horrible materials of unknown nature and extreme methods, half erased.
Failure. Failure.
Things that were created, summoned, and discarded.
Ireum-nim...?
The more you read, the more you realize that something is terribly wrong.
Something is wrong with you.
The consciousness of Kim Soleum from another world, projected into a monster created in the Dream Incubator. Is that it? Is that you?
That can't be. You need to go home, to return to your family, your friends...
But wait. Who are those people?
You can't remember.
Your body is starting to fall apart. Your consciousness is starting to crack. This isn't you. You aren't human. You aren't real—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in your fading consciousness. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up in an apartment room that has been completely torn apart.
It's wrong to call it an apartment room. There is no room to speak of. Your broken bed lies in a pile of rubble, the walls torn down around you.
Whichever direction you look in, there is devastation.
People scream, and cry, and dig through the trash for bodies of survivors. You want to think that this isn't your home, but it is.
You recognize those broken walls. The shattered appliances in the dump.
This is your home.
And it's gone.
It's all gone.
It's all—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in your panic. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This place doesn't look good, does it?
Come on.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up in the motel you'd stayed at while working at the bureau.
The place is as sad and dingy as you remember.
Is this it, then? Will your wish just leave you here, where you were before—and make sure you never fall into a darkness?
What about work? The bureau, Daydream—will no one be able to find you? Are you safe now?
You try to get up.
It doesn't work.
The panic hits you all at once.
You can't move. Your limbs are numb. Your joints don't bend.
You're frozen in this position, trapped—
What can you do?
What's there to do?
Can you never leave?
This isn't what you wanted. You need to get out, but you can't, you can't do anything—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in your panic. You don't know where it comes from.
It's the same voice that brought you here.
This won't work, will it?
Listen to me. Close your eyes, okay?
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.
You wake up at home.
It's a regular day. You get out of bed, make a halfhearted breakfast, and go to work.
A strange man hurries past you on the street. A little girl nearly falls into the road, but you catch her in time.
Work passes uneventfully. You read on your phone when you get the chance. You smile and laugh with your coworkers when they come over to you to talk.
You go home. You make a halfhearted dinner. You chat with a few friends online, go back to reading on your phone, and finally turn the lights off and go to bed.
You wake up.
It's a regular day. You get out of bed, make a halfhearted breakfast, and go to work.
A strange man hurries past you on the street. A little girl nearly falls into the road, but you catch her in time.
Work passes uneventfully. You read on your phone when you get the chance. You smile and laugh with your coworkers when they come over to you to talk.
You go home. You make a halfhearted dinner. You chat with a few friends online, go back to reading on your phone, and finally turn the lights off and go to bed.
You wake up.
It's a regular day. You feel a strange sense of deja vu, but it's to be expected. Your life is rather uneventful.
You get out of bed, make a halfhearted breakfast, and go to work.
A strange man hurries past you on the street. He looks familiar.
A little girl nearly falls into the road, but you catch her in time.
Work passes uneventfully. You read on your phone when you get the chance. You smile and laugh with your coworkers when they come over to you to talk.
You go home. You make a halfhearted dinner. You chat with a few friends online but their jokes feel rehearsed and unfunny.
You turn the lights off and go to bed.
You wake up.
It's a regular day.
Something is terribly wrong.
A strange man hurries past you on the street. You're sure you've seen him before.
A little girl nearly falls into the road like she has every time before this.
What?
Were there times before this?
The work day passes. Everyone says things you've heard before. You don't look at your phone because you've already read all this. Your coworkers are annoying.
You go home.
Something is wrong.
You can't sleep.
You wake up.
You're in a fucking time loop.
You wake up.
You wake up.
You wake up, and slam your head against the wall.
You slam it harder when it doesn't bleed.
You have to get out of here. You don't know what's wrong. How did this happen? Where even is this?
Something is wrong. Something is wrong—
Soleum-ah.
A voice speaks up in your panic. You don't know where it comes from.
But you remember this voice.
A memory long forgotten—someone had spoken to you to bring you here. From... where?
What happened to you before this?
This place doesn't look good, does it?
Listen to me.
Take a deep breath.
I'll get you out of there. Let's try again.