Work Text:
[Dear Sunbaes,]
The pen hesitates over the words, hovering.
[Dear Sunbaes,
To my
Dear—
Admirable people,—-]
He drops his pen, sitting up from his hunch over the desk. Closing his eyes, he breathes out until his shoulders slump down from the tensed position.
This shouldn’t be as hard to do as he’s making it to be.
The dokkaebi flame laying on his head floats down, nuzzling under his chin. It tries to seam its incorporeal body closer, attempting to merge and offer comfort on a molecular level.
A hand raises and picks the flame away from his face, rubbing his thumbs faintly along the cold flame. The flame bobs and flickers, brushing then fleeing away from the touch, as if it were a being that could be ticklish and didn’t know if it wanted to escape.
Maybe it was just having fun and didn't truly want to escape.
The freedom of choice made it easier to accept things, after all.
…He’s really thinking too hard about it, isn’t he?
He grabs a new sheet of paper, and restarts the process of writing a letter to the two people who are possibly waiting for him to accept the home they have made.
To accept the vacant space in their home, that those two agents made specially for him.
He begins writing. This time, words are more easily chosen, the pen never hesitating out of indecision.
Scritch, scritch.
The little flame burns a soft reflection across the crystal walls, hopping from the top of his tangled hair to any other surface available, and back again.
Tap, tap, scritch.
The words agent Bronze offered to him floats to the back of his mind. He can’t accept them.
He scratches out the next words with the same fervor as the rest, even as he plans for the next few days.
There was already a home that was made for him.
Scritch, scritch—
A home that was awaiting for his return.
Scrit—
He cannot accept theirs.
A tearing sound echoes, the pen catching on the paper. The flame hops above the desk and questioningly bumps against his hand.
…
But just for a moment—
He believed he could.
The little flame rolls the pen, and itself, off of the desk.
He snaps out of it, barely able to cup both the flame and the pen as they fall. The little flame flickers in a rhythm similar to that of a child’s bright laughter, amusement clear as a summer’s day.
He huffs out a fond sigh, letting the flame escape his hands to puff up in a prideful vibrancy.
‘…I can’t let those thoughts interfere with my wish.’
Kim Soleum stands up from the chair, hearing the wooshing noise of the prison indicating someone appearing.
Only a few more days of this, and he will be able to go home.
‘Endure.’
Yet, something went wrong.
So, so wrong.
The day Kim Soleum was supposed to go home, became the day he fell into a newer darkness.
It also became the day that he dragged someone with him to this hell.
======•••
Darkness Exploration Record / Ghost Story
[Endless Mortuary]
: A ghost story appearing in < Darkness Exploration Record >, Daydream Inc.'s identification code is Qterw-C-ㅁㅁㅁ.
A ghost story where you are expected to hide in a maze-like hospital, while entities roam the hallways and rooms, attempting to guide you in their place where their bodies rest in the morgue.
Each upper-level of the hospital is categorized by the stages of life to death. The basement, which becomes humanely unbearably humid and cold, continues into the stages of the after—the stages of decomposition and decay.
You will encounter deceased illusions of people and animals that you have known. You will know the entities that imitate the halls and calls of ㅁㅁㅁ children.
For detailed records regarding the levels encountered by explorers and the contingent entities, refer here.
======•••
This was a darkness with very specific conditions to be experienced, but usually occurring to people who are close to death yet unable to accept it.
‘Whether that means someone around them is about to experience death, or the person-in-question themself will.’
So, Kim Soleum’s question is…
‘Why in lord’s name am I here!?!?’
A groan is heard from behind him, and Kim Soleum tenses at the familiar sound.
”What the hell?? Why the hell are you here!?”
’…Fuck. I should’ve just gone to a motel straight away. My luck…’
”Ah, I mean, Sir?”
Kim Soleum’s dokkaebi flame whizzes around erratically around his body. It turns into his glasses once more. It does nothing to deter the glare that Kim Soleum granted man behind him as he turns his head to glance around the garish white hallway already teeming with lurking entities.
…
‘No… Dammit, Baek Saheon. It’s probably your fault.’