169 – Simulation (2)
“S-stop…”
“What are you telling me to stop?”
“Stop it…”
“Are you planning on running away from your ugly past?
“Stop!!”
Kang Maru, who was trembling as her body was engulfed in darkness, heard the voice in his ears and covered her ears and started screaming at her.
“Please stop!!!”
“What are you telling me to stop?”
Of course, it wasn’t something Ise-ah had to say to her, but Kang Maru was no longer in a state of mind to question her.
“Even when I told you to stop, you kept doing it… You were the one, right?”
“…….!”
A terrible scene unfolds before her eyes.
“Nu, nu… Better…”
“…Die.”
“I’m alive… Kek…”
Kang Haneul, who looked like a child who looked at least 10 years younger than she was now, was struggling wildly, strangled by her student self.
“Monsters like you… Must die.”
“Training… They say it’s training…”
“…Die!!!”
Of course, that didn’t actually happen. At least during training, Kang Maru never tried to kill Kang Ha Neul.
So, perhaps the scene unfolding before her eyes is an illusion created by a combination of her sense of guilt, guilt, and Se-Ah Lee’s trick.
“Ah, ah…”
Or, something that happened briefly in a now-forgotten episode is unconsciously flashing back to Kang Maru’s mind and being recreated as a delusion.
“…Sky.”
As the memories of the seminar, which had become slightly faded due to the continued influence of Ariel’s return, begin to revive, Kang Maru’s eyes begin to gradually darken.
“…You finally realize it?”
“……..”
“The one who really has to die is you.”
As if she was aiming for that exact moment, the excited voice immediately started ringing in her ears again.
“That’s right… I was the one who had to die from the beginning…”
Kang Maru, who was responding to the voice with a dazed expression, soon muttered with a slightly hesitant look in her eyes.
“But, if I die like this… The order I gave will be lifted…”
“Are you going to evade responsibility like that again?”
“……..”
“As always, you are trying to get out of the situation by making an appropriate excuse and then rationalizing it by giving a good reason…?”
“…No.”
However, after hearing the sarcastic voice that follows, Kang Maru eventually bows her head and makes up her mind.
“Not this time… No…”
“Yes, I thought very well…!”
At her reaction, the voice is mixed with laughter and encourages Kang Maru’s choice.
“Okay, then… Close your eyes like this. Don’t reject it anymore, but accept the darkness that surrounds you…”
“…….”
“Okay, so it gradually becomes one… It’s really easy, isn’t it? It’s not that difficult once you actually do it, right?”
Just like that, Kang Maru begins to sink into the darkness at an increasingly faster rate.
‘Sky…’
Her eyes, losing their focus, begin to turn towards the river sky standing in front of her.
‘I…’
“…Now, wait a minute. What is it?”
Kang Maru, who was looking at him and muttering something to himself, was about to completely fall into darkness.
“I have never created an illusion like this…”
– Sigh…
Her river sky, which was looking down at her from the bottom of the river, silently stretched out her hand towards her.
– It’s a shame…!
Soon, the black space in all directions began to turn over.
.
.
.
.
.
“…Oh?”
How much time has passed?
“This is…”
The space that stretched out in front of Kang Maru, who slowly opened her eyes, was not the dark space she had been in just a moment ago, but a space that was quite familiar to her.
“It’s home…”
– Tiririring~♪
For some reason, she woke up to the sound of the desk clock in her bed in the house she lived in about 10 years ago.
‘…Well, is it obvious?’
To her surprise, she had forgotten not only what had just happened, but also all of her memories of the past ten years.
‘But why is it so awkward…’
Just like that, Kang Maru, who felt an inexplicable sense of discomfort and awkwardness, quietly scratches her head and leaves her bed.
“Mom~! Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Eventually, Kang Maru left her room and headed to the living room, looking for her mother who always woke her up 10 minutes early.
“No, that’s okay, this morning I…”
Her complexion soon begins to turn pale.
“Oh, I won’t eat it…”
When she found the dining table in the living room empty, it was only then that she remembered that her parents were no longer at home.
– Jureuk…
From Noble mtl dot com
Kang Maru had a blank expression for a moment, but soon tears began to flow from her eyes.
“…Mom, Dad.”
Coincidentally, the day she woke up was only a few days after her parents were involved in that terrible accident.
“I miss you…”
As she had not yet recovered from her shock, she felt like collapsing in her seat right now.
– Purrr…
But she couldn’t do that.
Because she hadn’t lost all of her family yet. It was clear to her that if she collapsed like this, she would lose the last person she had left.
– Turp, trudge…
Therefore, she lowered her head and shook her shoulders for a while, then quietly wiped her eyes with her sleeve and began to walk with a bright expression on her face.
“Sky…”
She addressed her younger brother, who had not come out of his room for several days already, and who must have been several times more shocked than she was.
“Please talk to my sister…”
Just like that, she stood in front of the room in the river sky, suppressing her cries that were about to burst out.
“…Huh?”
She soon begins to look embarrassed.
“Sky?”
The door, which had been tightly shut for the past few days, was somehow slightly open.
– Sigh…
“Well, I’m finally thinking of coming out…”
Thanks to her, she looked slightly happy and pulled the doorknob to enter the room of her river sky.
“……..”
However, after only a few seconds, Kang Maru’s eyes widened as she stopped walking, and at the same time, her entire body began to stiffen.
– Gooooo…
Because an unbelievable sight unfolded before her eyes.
“That…”
When a terrible situation occurred that she could not bear to describe, a monster with a terrible appearance that she had clearly seen with her own eyes.
– Gooooo…
The monster was trembling in a fiery form, dwelling within her own younger brother.
“Is it a dream…?”
Kang Maru breaks out in a cold sweat at the horrifying situation, but tries to deny it by rubbing her eyes.
– Grinning…
“…Ah.”
But the next moment, she quietly turned her head and a dark-complexioned shadow smiled at her.
“aaah…”
It was the same for Kang Ha-neul, who slightly turned his head.
“aaa…!!!”
Kang Maru, who had been staring at her frozen for a while, soon let out a scream from her mouth and turned her steps.
– Bang…!
As she ran into her own room and quickly locked the door, an even colder silence began to flow through her already quiet house.
“Ha, ha…”
In that silence, only Kang Maru’s disorganized breathing could be heard.
.
.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, at that time.
“…………”
In a dark space, Kang Haneul was quietly staring into space with her back to her.
– Sigh…
“…….?”
When he was making a slightly confused expression, I started to feel something next to him.
“Yep.”
Thanks to you, the moment Kang Haneul turned her head, a finger pricked his cheek.
“hehehehe… Sky.”
“……..”
“Are you here to see me?”
As the faint figure of Lee Se-ah, the protagonist of that finger, smiles, disgust spreads across Kang Ha-neul’s face.
“Really? You came to see me, right? I’m sure you’re not wasting your power on that cheap b*tch, right?”
“…Shut up.”
“But what were you looking at right now? There’s nothing to see in this world anyway…”
Lee Se-ah wanders in front of him with her back to him, catches a glimpse of his gaze for a moment, and then quietly trails off.
“…You were doing something interesting?”
She opens her mouth with a slightly cold smile.
“But, Sky. There is no point in doing something like this. Kang Maru has already fallen into the abyss beyond the darkness? No matter what he does, he won’t be able to get out again.”
“……..”
“And I don’t know why we’re doing this simulation… But do you think the results will change just because I don’t have abilities?”
She soon clings to his side and whispers quietly.
“…Sky, I just made the planned future come true faster.”
“……..”
“I assure you, the progress will be slightly slower, but the simulation will definitely run as it should, right?”
But the river sky just ignored her and turned her gaze back into the sky.
“…Well, okay. Sky will understand when he sees it in person, right?”
Seeing that, she shrugged her shoulders and leaned next to him.
“I’ll be there to watch it with you, so just watch it until the end.”
“…………”
“Will the future really change or not?”
After she finished speaking, silence fell once again in the space where only darkness remained.
.
.
.
.
.
She returned to Kang Maru’s point of view, a few days after she witnessed Kang Haneul’s secret.
“…….”
Kang Maru was sitting at the table in the living room, gnawing on soggy cereal, with a blank expression and dark circles, probably because she hadn’t been sleeping properly.
– Clink…!
She suddenly put down the spoon she was holding in her hand on her desk and jumped up from her seat.
– Turp, trudge…
Eventually, she began to lead her staggering body towards the place she had run away to a few days ago.
– Purrr…
After a while, she arrived in front of her door, her hands shaking for a moment, but then she grabbed the doorknob tightly.
– Sigh…
Soon, the door to the river sky began to slowly open.
“”…………””
Once all the doors are opened, a cold silence begins to fall.
“Noona…”
Eventually, her brother began to make efforts to hide the wounds and slime on her walls as she quickly hid behind the tentacles that had sprouted from her body.
“…..Follow me.”
Kang Maru, who had been shaking for a long time, held her hands tightly and the words that finally came out of her mouth were as follows.
“…Let’s eat.”
It was too trivial to have any impact, but unlike Ise-ah’s rant, it was a moment when an anomaly occurred that was clearly different from the original flow.