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Taking a risky moment to run to the back of the gas station, Kim Soleum pushed open the bathroom door and burst into the empty, tiled room.
He needed to gather his thoughts and recuperate before he set out to forcibly change the time, because the memory of that wretched thing flashing behind his eyelids was sending him into a spiral.
Short, fast puffs of air passed through his lips as he breathed.
He held a hand over his heart, feeling the racing pulse slowly ease into a normal level of adrenaline. He sucked in a large, cold breath, leaning on the sink and hanging his head. He didn't dare run the water, though he desperately wished he could splash some hot water onto his face—to wake him up and warm him up.
He steadied his breathing, looking up into the mirror to examine his appearance—flinching when he saw the black hair, the smooth skin, and the dark, ember-tinted eyes. This was not his appearance, not his body, not his world. Behind his breast, he could feel his heart pump harder once more, remembering how wrong it was that he was here, surrounded by ghostly—
He tore his eyes away from the mirror, looking at the next one down.
The next mirror had a crack in its surface and an odd, brass frame. Shaking his head, he released the sink and turned his heel on the oddly fuzzy floor, facing the door.
Only, the massive white door, chipped at the sides with rusted hinges, was now replaced by another mirror. One different from the last, with a wood frame with elegant patterns carved into it. Kim Soleum’s heart dropped. He spun around, trying to see the other side where the urinals used to be, where he was certain he was now only going to see mirrors. However, before he could make out what was on the other side, the whole bathroom was swept into darkness.
His heart leapt up his throat this time, threatening to beat out of his chest. He stumbled, hitting something on the ground and sending himself tumbling to the floor. He rolled right over his head, twingeing a muscle in his neck and sending a throbbing, jolting pain down his body. The pain arrested him for a full minute as his teeth clenched and his eyes were squeezed shut from the pain.
Wrangling his body into a sitting position wedged between two cold objects, he rubbed his neck and his eyes. The blurriness didn’t clear, and he realized there was only darkness beyond it.
He swallowed. Where am I? Did I somehow exit the gas station darkness? Did I trigger a different darkness? Kim Soleum felt a headache coming, and it didn’t just stem from his abrupt somersault. There were plenty of darknesses that occurred in pitch black, but he’d have to be careful how he approached it until he found more clues as to which one it could be.
Flailing his hands around clumsily, he crawled his fingers up the things on either side of him until he found a grip on top of the short object to his left and the tall object to his right. He curled his finger over the edge and heaved upward, shoving himself out of the tight space.
He felt the surface of the right object give as he did so and a loud sound reverberated through the dark expanse. On queue the lights flickered on, this time with a dark, blood red tinge. For the third time, he felt his heart jolt, and he clutched it desperately as he fell onto the object to his left. It cushioned him gently, offering a plush, luxurious surface for his smarting body. He sat there stunned before he realized how plush the object underneath him was. frowned, running his hands along the pleasant surface. Is this real leather? It had a dark, black, smooth surface like real leather, and spotting the fancy mosaic floors beneath, he suspected it may very well be.
He pushed himself off of it, looking up to see the taller object that had caused this—a piano. He gently tapped one of the keys, but unlike the sound that had turned on the lights, only a pitiful, off-key note played. The keys didn’t have the same pristine quality as the rest of the room; their ivory white was stained by the brown color of dried blood. He flinched away when he felt the crusty texture of the stain.
The rest of the room was just as eerily antique, filled with odd, miscellaneous items that symbolized wealth. A grand piano, a chandelier, a wardrobe filled with decadent outfits, and a queen-sized bed dressed in royal purple curtains. Died in the red light, the gentle movement of the bed’s curtains almost appeared as veins in the bloodstream, pulsing with life. Kim Soleum shivered and moved further into the room, leaving the freakish things behind. The wallpaper of the room was just as overstated as the other objects within it, adorning a pattern of gold leafs plated over a pinkish-red. The room held plenty of shelves as well, each one sporting at least three candles and one mini mirror. Catching the reflection of the pulsating curtains in one, Kim Soleum chose to avert his gaze to the final corner of the room.
At this end of the room was a pair of grand doors with elegant, swirling patterns accented by gold. They gleamed with the promise of exit, and Kim Soleum felt his powers of observation slip away in favor of pursuing this golden opportunity.
He crossed the room tentatively, eyeing the bed as if the mattress and frame would separate into a massive jaw to eat him if he looked away for a moment. The thing still churned with its own life, the one truly unnerving piece in the room. Alas, he couldn't keep his eyes on it forever. He turned away for a split second, swinging the door handles open and slipping through the opening, then letting them slam shut once more behind him.
The sound echoed down either corridor to the sides of him, extending into the endless expanses of red carpet spread over decorative tile. Wearily, he peered down each hallway. The left one, nothing but mirrors and candles. However, far to his right, Kim Soleum couldn’t make it out, but he was he could just see something was there. The hallway down that way was filled with red-fire candles sitting atop short shelves and gold-lined mirrors much like those he’d seen in the bathroom. Despite the clear hallway, he could only see about a hundred feet forward until everything went blurry.
Kim Soleum turned and began to creep to the right, looking over his shoulder with every couple of steps. Once his foot had touched the red carpet, he looked behind his shoulder to see that the grand doors to the bedroom had disappeared, leaving another mirror in their wake. He shivered, walking down the path a beat faster than before.
Mirrors lined every step of the way, their shapes and sizes varying more and more as he strode, culminating until there was one massive, grandiose expanse of reflective silver. It wasn’t the last mirror, nor was it placed at the end of the hallway, but the way it stood out from the rest—its enormous gold frame untouched by the same rusty, bloody color the rest were tainted by—caught his attention. His gaze was drawn to its reflection. It only displayed what he’d already seen, but something about the mirror was different from the others, and he found himself being lured off of the red path.
His legs guided him to the mirror before he realized he’d moved.
Now, closer to its spotless surface, he swore he saw something else in the reflection that he hadn’t seen before…
A couple of smudges that branched off into five points.
Foolishly, he came closer to peer at them.
As if encouraging or agreeing with him, murmurs rose around him and swamped the silent hallway in white noise that gradually grew into cacophony. The whispers exploded into shouts and Kim Soleum backpedaled immediately at the first sign of danger, desperately trying to scramble back onto the red carpet. The hands beat him, rapidly unfurling from their tiny, minuscule smudges into long limbs that grabbed him and wrangled him around until his back was pinned against the shiny surface.
He struggled and gasped, tearing at the hands firmly wrapped around his mouth. One was awfully familiar, a similar black sleeve clothing, while the other was wrapped in thick black gloves.
The grips around his neck were too strong, especially as another joined at his arm. Sucking in tiny, sharp breaths he could squeeze through the grip around his neck, he began to menially pry away at each finger...however, he was jolted out of his efforts when something soft and ticklish brushed against the back of his neck. He froze in place, giving up his struggles.
The arms seemed to react positively to this, allowing some breathing room in their hold. This allowed him to look down and glimpse the hand clutching his arm.
A child with black hair and an indistinguishable face beamed up at him. Its features were indeterminable due to the massive scar of tumors raking down the left half of its face, but the slope of its nose and the arch of his eyebrows was almost familiar, though it was indistinguishable with how young the kid was.
However, when that one spared eye peeked open between the squint of its face-wide smile, he can see the dark, red-tinted eyes reflecting his own. Suddenly the nose and the eyebrows seemed too familiar. He flinched backward, instinctively repulsed by this diseased, younger version of himself. The child cocked his head, and Kim Soleum immediately felt bad—why? This was a darkness, he reminded himself, he didn’t need to feel pity—he shouldn’t.
“Be careful, you’ll scare him,” Somebody taunted over his shoulder, and he strained his neck to see the man peeking over his shoulder. The man grinned widely at him. “Hello.”
Kim Soleum yelped, his body jolting in the other direction.
The man, an identical reflection of himself, smiled with amusement and shifted his gaze to another person on Kim Soleum’s other side. Cautiously, he crained his neck back around and faced the dark thing above the diseased child.
Two circles jutted over his shoulders—massive, blocky things silhouetting a gas mask. Between the circles he could see a faintly glowing triangle respirator through which smoke seeped and drifting around his shoulders, ghosting his skin and sending goosebumps down his spine. With a puff of smoke the gas mask descended, tilting down to reveal two large yellow eyes set deep into a hood. Kim Soleum squinted, foolishly trying to look deeper into the unknown, but the eyes only seemed to blaze brighter, forcing him to blink and tear his gaze away.
When he looked away, he saw the swirling smoke had formed words in front of him in the air.
“Inquiry: Move out of the mirror?”
Instantaneously, the grips on his shoulders changed, hooking under his body and heaving upward. He yelped, flailing his feet until they hit the ground brutally. He stumbled to his feet, his thoughts racing.
Should I make a break for it? Run? No, I don’t know how fast they are, and making them angry could have serious consequences. They seem like they might be able to be reasoned with…
A small hand wrapped around his, and his gaze was drawn back to the child with the scarred face. Its eyes were teary, one with clear fluid and the other with cloudy. “You can’t leave without us, okay?”
Kim Soleum stuttered, barely resisting the urge to take his hand away. “I wasn’t going to.”
That was a mistake. He knew better than to blatantly lie to a darkness.
The darkness didn’t reveal some terrible true nature at his lie, though—at least nothing more terrible than what was already there. He just pouted, crossing his arms. “You were considering it, you liar!”
Kim Soleum felt his heart twinge with a feeling of pity he couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little…frightened. Of this place, that is. I got put here very suddenly...”
The child blinked and nodded understandingly. “Don’t be scared! We all appeared here very suddenly, too, and I’ll hold your hand so you aren’t afraid.”
He looked down at the kid now clutching both hands around his left one, nearly jumping when he saw the long, bulbous tumor swaying and bouncing behind the child with every movement. He swallowed his bile as he saw the thing squirm, disgustingly alive.
“Thank you,” he managed, forcing his gaze back to the child's face. “Do you know why I–we’re here?”
The child who looked half-identical to him hummed before opening his mouth to answer. “I think we’re all here because we’re all—”
A hand clamped over the child’s mouth, one he nearly mistook for his own. A new, but simultaneously oh-so familiar face offered him a sympathetic smile.
“I’m sorry, but if the reveal occurred before we even got to the stage, that wouldn’t be very entertaining.” The man ushered the child away before he could share any more helpful information. Kim Soleum gaped, watching them go in confusion.
The new one was dressed even more formally than Kim Soleum and his doppelganger, though his outfit was less modest and more exemplary. It was a suit similar to his, but it had a subtle striped pattern, a dark gray alternating with black. Every little detail of the suit seemed wider and bigger than Kim Soleum’s: his tie had a larger knot, his notch lapel was wider and more striking, his shape was more tailored and exaggerated than the boxy shape his own suit lent him. He felt an instinctive sense of admiration for the man, but he recognised it as soon as it arose and squashed down the influence.
Where are all these guys coming from, anyway? Are there going to be more?
Peering around, he saw the others—including a cat, why was there a cat—seemed to regard the new one with exasperation and a hint of nostalgia, especially—and he couldn’t believe he was saying this considering its alien nature—the one with the gas mask.
"Stop staring." His doppelganger came up behind him, grabbing him by the arm and leading him down the carpet pathway again, this time in silence.
Short-lived silence, that was.
The fancy Kim Soleum twin spoke up soon after they’d begun walking, smiling amicably. “It feels like things between us are awkward. It feels...like we hold too much advantage. Hardly an interesting watch. Why don’t I tell a thinly veiled metaphor story while we walk, with the hopes that our underdog might put the pieces together?”
Kim Soleum perked up at the opportunity to garner more information out of one of them. Aside from a glare from the first doppelgänger and a side eye from a new member with a school uniform, the man was unabated.
He smiled and clapped once, beginning his story promptly. “Once upon a time, there was a cat.”
Kim Soleum frowned, looking back at the furry black cat trailing behind the group. Is he referring to that one?
“This cat was smaller than all the other cats, but he was even more determined than them to win the top prize in the competition.”
“What competition?” The child asked, completely disregarding the stated purpose of the story.
The man just smiled easily, not at all annoyed. “Not important, don't you worry. Anywho, this cat was very fragile and frail, but he still wanted to win against all the other cats, so he decided he was going to hire some mice to help him.”
“What did he pay them?” The child piped up again.
“The minor details won't be important for the purpose of this story,” the man explained smoothly.
“I thought you said the story was an important meta—“
“It’s okay,” Kim Soleum reassured the kid, who seemed enamored enough with him that he shut his mouth. He did, however, pout and clutch Kim Soleum’s hand, which he found—very dangerously—was a little endearing.
Fancy Kim Soleum cleared his throat and continued with an absent wave of his hand. “The mice were feared by the cats, but this little clever cat decided he wanted to try to work with them. However, he was still a cat, so despite how he acted, he held a deep resentment for the mice. The mice worked on a basis of deals and trades and saw the cat’s offer as reasonable, so they worked together. Shockingly, the mice found it easy to maintain relations with the cat, but little did they know the cat didn't feel the same and was only putting up a front. Still, all was well until the cat started picking up some of the mice’s mannerisms. The mice didn’t see their behavior as ‘bad,’ it was just how it was for them. The cat, however, was appalled.
"The mice realized this at last. The cat hated them—they’d never genuinely wanted to work with them. But the cat had already won the prize; what were they going to do? An opportunity came faster than expected, when the cat made a mistake with his prize. Banding together, the mice tried to steal it away. Alas, the power of the mice and the cat was well-matched, so they were locked in an endless stalemate forever, ostracized by both sides—especially the cats. Really a terrible, unsatisfying ending for everyone. Ruins the story, doesn’t it?”
At the end of his story, the showman looked over to Kim Soleum. Kim Soleum flinched away from his gaze, his gut churning with undeterminable emotions after watching the man’s expression’s change throughout the telling of the story. The man in the striped suit went from filled with a gentle, sophisticated pleasantness, to a far off wistfulness, before it eventually fell into a dark shadow. However, when he looked back up at Kim Soleum, his face had held the smile he’d started with.
He shivered, seeing the afterimage still printed on his eyelids.
Was the story really talking about the cat present? It did seem to strut like it owned the group, but he knew it couldn't truly be about it. That would be too direct for a metaphor. Was the mice the others? How was he the cat? Were they going to rub off on him in this darkness? Perhaps it was a telling of what was going to happen in the short future...
“We’re here,” the high school version of Kim Soleum said softly, his breath brushing the back of Kim Soleum’s neck.
He jolted, spinning back and staring wide-eyed at the teenager, who was awfully close to him. The teenager only stared back, shyly and awkwardly.
Stifling another full-body shake, he turned back to their “destination”.
A chair greeted him, transitioning smoothly from the red carpet with its velvet red legs, then jutting upward with a tall, rectangular shape. The red legs were separated from the chair by the gold ornate accents, lining the edges and providing a base for the deep red cushion, which rolled up the obelisk-like back of the chair like a red carpet unfurling. It ended in more gold, this time with two pires on either side of the crest—lethal spikes that made the chair’s deep red seem more like blood from whatever poor soul nicked themselves on those.
The young child dragged him forward by the hand. “Go on, sit, sit!”
Kim Soleum swallowed, hesitating.
He could feel the deer, the cat, and the identical Kim Soleum around him, hanging over his shoulder and sending cold exhales to chill his skin. They closed in, staring deep into his soul. The pressure to do as they said was immense, especially as the kid excitedly bounced and shoved him toward it at his side.
“Go on,” the identical Kim Soleum told him mockingly. “Sit.”
He immediately sat, fear bubbling in his stomach once more. With his gaze flipped, he took in an ominous sight, surrounded by warped versions of himself and alien creatures alike.
Directly in front of him, the child with the tumorous tail and the original doppelganger smiled, one innocently and the other slyly. The gas-masked creature was finally in full sight behind them, revealing not only their gas mask, but the dark, long antlers extending from their hood and the protruding ribcage, lit yellow by some unknown glow emitted from within. Beside him stood the teenage mirror of himself, the showman’s hands placed over his shoulders like a looming parent figure—except their faces were the same, creating a freakish image.
His gaze wandered to the bottom right, where he’d sworn he saw a dark figure, but before he could properly look, a black cloud obscured his vision, and the one he sought had come to him.
“Mreow,” the cat said decisively, sitting on the arm of the chair after a slow spin—one that stuck the cat’s butt directly towards his face. It lifted its paw and began grooming its face, at which point Kim Soleum realized it had blood red eyes. Creepy.
Foolishly, he nearly found himself relaxing into the chair as he watched the child come up and begin to pet the cat, but he was instantly jolted out of his trance when the identical Kim Soleum stepped forward.
Oddly, he smiled a very genuine smile. “Thank you, Kim Soleum-ssi.”
“Huh?” He asked dumbly, looking up from the cat and the kid.
“I had forgotten how gullible you were at this point, as early on into this hell as you were.” The man laughed softly to himself. “Perhaps that’s why you freed me from the elevator? Because you were naive, thinking something silly as ‘this poor old thing might kill me later if I don’t free it and I encounter it again!’ Some tactical strategy like that? Or was it just an off-handed gesture because we hardly matter to you?”
Kim Soleum swallowed, squirming in the throne, which swamped his form but refused to let go. He struggled, attempting to lift his arms from his sides and push off with his feet, but it was as if all the gravity of a planet was now bearing on him.
The showman tilted his head and tapped an amused finger against his chin. “Too bad. I thought you would get my playful narrative parallel, but it seems you aren’t that smart, yet.”
The teenager glanced up at the showman. “We did this so he wouldn’t be smart enough to break free. So he can’t leave Lee Gyeol behind like he did, so he can’t abandon that show of yours, so that he can’t disregard every one of us as soon as we fulfill whatever errand he has us do.” His gaze was filled with the frustration from his hormonal days, though he carried a different face from the one Kim Soleum had as a teenager. The showman was filled with a more developed, targeted anger. He could see the man's hands on the teenager grow white-knuckled. He looked away from them.
Affirmation: It’s the best way, Kim Soleum.
Somehow, the deer-like creature felt sympathetic.
The identical doppelganger met him with a different look, one he imagined was a perfect image of the ‘pity’ he’d said Kim Soleum had held for him. How the tables must have turned. He coughed out a weak laugh. Not that he would know, because while his mind was still whirling, struggling, he wasn’t stupid enough to tell this didn’t have to do with the future.
He spoke up, making a desperate attempt to plead reason with them. “You're from the future, aren’t you?”
They all froze, their gazes focusing on him with pinpoint precision. Even the cat stopped its grooming to peer at him.
“You are,” he said, as if reassuring himself. “You’re from the future. A world where everything went wrong,” his voice grew louder, his fists clenching. “And I’m sorry, I’m sorry for the world you live in. If you replace me, possess me, any of that, it won’t change the worlds that you come from—”
“You think we’re from different worlds?” The child Kim Soleum asked in betrayal, his face slack in shock. Tears welled up before Kim Soleum could protest or claim that he hadn’t meant what he said—but upon seeing the kid start sobbing, he knew the lie couldn't've escape his lips.
The identical Kim Soleum laughed sharply, slapping a hand over his forehead. “You think we’re from different timelines? We’re all from your timeline, your future. We are your future. The one you neglected and took advantage of. The darknesses you used and never took care of, until when we had our chance, we fought against you and created that—”
He turned his body and pointed, making way for the gas-masked creature to hang his head in somber acknowledgment.
Kim Soleum’s face froze. “T-that’s me?” His lip wavered, stuttering. He couldn’t say anything more, staring at the terrible figure that represented his future.
“It would be worse if you could see what’s underneath,” the fake Kim Soleum said ominously.
Kim Soleum’s mouth went dry. His lips smacked each other, clumsily trying to form words. “I–I’m sorry, I just didn’t know. I didn’t know. I–I’m sorry.” His words repeated like a broken record. The cat hissed in response, hopping off of the throne and looking back at him in disgust.
“That’s all you have to say?” The teenager spoke up, stepping forward till the showman’s hands slipped from his shoulders. “What about the student you left behind, the show you abandoned, darkness you tricked—what about us?”
The teenagers' teary, sad cries roused only silence, where they all stood, all against one.
Candles flickered in the background, an unknown wind howling as the wrath of the other side built. Kim Soleum shrunk in his chair, trying to make himself smaller as he noticed the crowd taking steps toward him.
Instinctively, as the hands and paws of the crowd began to raise and reach for him, he turned his gaze to the child, the one who’d shown him empathy.
The child turned away, and when he turned back, palms enclosed until his vision was only—
“Stop!”
A voice echoed across the hallway, freezing the hands before they could consume him. They were sucked back to their owner’s sides as they all snapped their gazes back down the hallway.
They all parted, revealing one small figure standing at the edge of what was visible.
It grew from a dot to a man, revealing yet another person.
Just, Kim Soleum.
“I’m from the future, too,” the man began softly as he came into full view, drawing all of their attention. “I’m from the most recent one.”
This new Kim Soleum's appearance wasn't very different from the original Kim Soleum at all, which confused him. Yet, there was a weight to his brow and his shoulders that hinted that it may very well be true.
They all looked to the deer-like abomination, who’d previously been the one seemingly from the farthest future.
“You? You look...normal.”
“Did we die—are you from the afterlife?”
The child dared to lift his head. “Did we finally…you know?”
The final Kim Soleum looked at the kid with a sad look. “I…we’re not there yet. And I didn’t die,” he said, laughing awkwardly. “But I'm here to plead that you don’t take his place. I’ve—I finally figured it out, understanding that you all were a part of me all along, that I couldn’t just keep you away. You are me, you live through me, it's just that some of you are the outer orbit of my personality, and some of you are closer.”
The group rippled, filled with subtle movement, confusion, and doubt. They shared glances, some more doubtful than others.
“If you’re all as definite of a future as you claim, then I’m just as definite," the new Kim Soleum said immediately, shutting down their suspicion. "And where I am in the future, we aren’t fighting anymore—you know if the contaminations were angry I wouldn’t look like this. Here, see?” The Kim Soleum ripped open his shirt, revealing a strange tattoo over his chest.
He felt his brain going foggy as all the information began to go over his head, and this new edition of a tattoo wasn't even processing to his eyes. However, the others seemed to stand at attention at the sight of the tattoo.
“You have to believe me. You possessing Kim Soleum will not end well. You think none of the employees will notice? Besides, he will have to end up in the fox counseling room, and the Director will quickly be able to tell how contaminated he is. And what else are you going to do in that case? Leave?” The final word echoed through the hallway, hanging untested.
Kim Soleum anxiously watched the group, feeling a sense of hope at their expressions. The holes in their plot were cracked, and it showed in each of their faces. But when all sensibility was ruined and scrapped, that left the heart of it all: anger. It simmered under each of their expressions, and Kim Soleum was certain he was about to see one of them lash out when the child spoke up.
“Kim Soleum-ssi isn’t all bad. He left Lee Gyeol at first...but in the end, he freed the school from the curse, and he chose to sacrifice himself for Ki–for us! The show hired us after we had a really bad time in Tamra, and," the kid swallowed, meeting the showman's eyes nervously. "I think we were t-too emotional to think about what we were doing. And-And what about YongYong?! Or the moonlight tattooist?! They don’t hate us, and we never treated them wrong. If we know Kim Soleum is going to do us right after he saves and helps all these other people, why should we possess him and risk ruining the future? After all, he is us.”
The flaring embers of the group’s anger doused, sobered by the child’s words. The tide went out slowly, the crowd of darknesses relaxing their stances slowly. The showman relaxed first, though Kim Soleum had a nagging feeling it was because the 'show' had a satisfactory resolution. The cat and the deer-creature calmed down easily, as they seemed the least committed to the idea, and the teenager deflated soon after, letting his tears fall freely and releasing his frustration. The identical Kim Soleum held onto the last of his anger for as long as he could, attempting to muster some energy and almost speaking, but as he saw the others give in, he couldn't help but do the same.
Eventually, they all turned to the new Kim Soleum, searching for purpose.
Kim Soleum smiled. “The faster you return to the mirror, theoretically the faster you get to the future?”
The group shared solemn gazes, the dying embers of their emotions still sputtering under their gazes. But the substance, the purpose, and all of the conceivability of their plans was swept out from underneath them. Now all they had was the future. They had no choice but to march on.
The child led them, taking confident bounds forward to meet the new Kim Soleum, high-fiving the man before he skipped beyond what could be seen. The gas-masked creature followed, eager to meet the future, as he was the one who was closest. The teenager slinked away with teary eyes, the showman patting his back as they walked out of sight together.
With a final glance back to the Kim Soleum sitting trapped in the throne, the identical Kim Soleum walked away with them, the cat trailing his feet.
Seeing him go, he was filled with a sense of incompleteness. Deep down, he didn't want their plans to succeed, but he felt guilty they were left walking into the unknown hoping some vague future where they were done justice occurred.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I know the future can’t be changed so easily…but I’ll try to be better!” Kim Soleum shouted after the final two.
The identical Kim Soleum paused, but didn’t turn back around. “You’ll forget everything here. Just focus on surviving to reach that future, okay?”
Kim Soleum swallowed, sagging in the chair. “Okay. Okay, I will.”
Finally, all of them faded from view, until it was only Kim Soleum, and the one from his farthest future.
Kim Soleum slowly peeled himself from the throne, feeling the gravity leave him as soon as his future doppelgangers left him. The final Kim Soleum climbed the steps and reached out a hand.
He helped Kim Soleum up, guiding him down the steps and walking with him down the red carpet. They walked at a medium pace, yet it wasn't fifteen seconds before Kim Soleum looked back and could no longer see the throne.
He looked up at the man next to him, feeling less-than next to the version of him that felt older, more mature, and more experienced.
“Are we close?” He asked hopefully in the silence, clutching the man’s arm like a lifeline.
The man’s neck bobbed before he answered. “I think we are. Might be. Yeah, I think so,” he reiterated.
Kim Soleum smiled, sucking in a shaky breath. “That’s…good. Yeah, that’s great!”
He said that to himself more than the other, reassuring himself that even if his future held all of…that, he would eventually figure things out. He would eventually get close, he just had to survive.
He unconsciously squeezed the other’s hand hard, and only realized when a faint grunt came from the other man. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
The other man waved him off and turned to their destination, which had appeared to them oddly fast—illogically fast considering the original walk to the throne. The future Kim soleum offered him a final sympathetic look, but he shared smiles as if he only had a limited amount. He waved his hand to the doors in front of them. “If you walk through these doors you’ll be deposited right back where you came into this darkness.”
Kim Soleum nodded slowly, moving forward hesitantly. The man didn’t follow him. He looked back in confusion, about to open his mouth when the man answered.
“Ah. I’m not really a full manifestation of the future body, so I just go back through the mirrors. The others are the same. We only represent what each of our points in the future wants, but this darkness allows us to have some influence over you.”
Kim Soleum nodded in surprise. “I...guess this is goodbye?”
The future Kim Soleum nodded with that same pinched look, though it had a bit of sourness to it now. “Yeah, goodbye.”
Kim Soleum pulled open the pure white doors, and the minute he stepped through the threshold, the world transformed around him.
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The future Kim Soleum stared after his past version, feeling his heart clutch painfully. Truthfully, he felt the pull, too. He wanted to be the one in that body, making decisions that would fix everything. He could save Park Minseong, spare Eun Haje from ever losing her hand—there were countless past events he wished he could fix. The bone-deep temptation of it felt like a cancer, eating away at him every second he spent with his past self.
It would never work. That wasn’t how darknesses worked. He would inevitably fade in that body, as his projection here was nothing more than that—a projection. It couldn't truly replace someone in the past.
He turned away from the door to face the mirror he had to enter, thinking about his past self’s words:
“I’ll try to be better!”
He laughed softly. So much for hoping he was more mature than his past. Because, somewhere deep down, perhaps using some unconscious knowledge he might still retain from a darkness that wiped memories, he hoped that his past self would manage to do better.