Hae-il threw the wire fixing device Moon Woo-shin had handed him upward and shot water below it to lift it to the ground.
Alone would be one thing, but he still lacked the ability to control water delicately and strongly enough to safely lift two people several meters up.
As it settled on the ground, a wire line hung down long below the automatically fixed device. As always, Moon Woo-shin climbed up the wire first, and Hae-il followed behind.
“Esper Jang Yun-seo, confirm the meeting point.”
As soon as he stepped on normal ground again, Moon Woo-shin was already radioing the other team members.
Standing beside him, Hae-il brushed off the dirt and looked around thoroughly.
This place, quite far from where they’d jumped underground, was snowing.
What entered his eyes through the white falling snow were strangely shaped trees. The bizarrely shaped trees he’d recognized right after entering the Gate.
The ones he’d seen from a distance had gotten close right in front. Close enough to clearly see the grotesque patterns densely carved on the tree surfaces.
It was when he was unconsciously following those patterns with his eyes.
“…Ugh.”
Suddenly his heart plummeted as if being slammed to the floor. Hae-il bent his waist and clutched at his chest with his hand.
Thump, thump. The ominously beating pulse felt abnormally loud. He felt the illusion that his entire body was being shaken.
At the same time, his ears filled stuffily and a tearing tinnitus was heard.
‘What is this, why….’
His thoughts didn’t continue deeply.
It was because a hallucination overlapped on his vision. A hallucination of the tree that had been curled like a whirlpool unfurling as if swinging a whip, and attacking by endlessly extending branches.
“Heu, ugh….”
He tried hard to dodge, but his body wouldn’t listen.
Hae-il, who had completely collapsed to the ground at some point, tried hard to swallow the breath that had risen to his chin. He consciously breathed heavily, but only the sensation of heavy air pressing down layer by layer inside remained.
At that moment, someone sharply grabbed Hae-il.
“…il. Seo Hae-il!”
At the same time his body was pulled, his stuffily filled ears barely took in a clear voice.
His vision clearing continued very slowly. What filled before his eyes instead of the disappeared hallucination was Moon Woo-shin. His head was dazed with confusion.
“Get a grip, you bastard!”
Along with a sharp voice, Moon Woo-shin embraced Hae-il with his arm.
Thwack! Along with the sound, something was clearly seen lodging into his arm. It was an attack from a monster that appeared who knows when or where from.
Even while seeing that scene before his eyes, Hae-il couldn’t do anything. His dazed mind couldn’t recognize the situation in time, and his body with no strength entering it was only as heavy as if sinking into the ground.
While Hae-il struggled to come to his senses, Moon Woo-shin, who quickly instructed something through the earpiece, roughly seized his wrist and checked Hae-il’s watch.
Soon after, guiding flowed directly in through the caught wrist.
“Hup!”
Hae-il, who hastily inhaled, clutched the heart area tightly again.
It was a concentration incomparably denser than the radiant guiding he’d been receiving until now. The wavelength that surged in all at once wrapped around his entire body.
It’s strange. The guiding doesn’t feel like guiding.
The sensation that should rightfully be peaceful sharpened its edge all at once, and his heart, which had seemed to stabilize a bit, ran anxiously again.
Along with anxiety, a strange sense of crisis came. It was an obsession that he had to escape from here immediately.
Hae-il, who couldn’t endure it, shook off Moon Woo-shin with all his strength. And tried to run toward somewhere he didn’t know where.
However, at that moment, his body stiffened rigidly.
“Just, stay still.”
Along with a rigid voice, Moon Woo-shin tightly gripped his wrist again. The sensation of squeezing with much stronger force than before was vivid.
His head is commanding to remove that hand right now and get far away, but his body won’t listen. He couldn’t move his body no matter how hard he tried, as if trapped while tightly wrapped in transparent wrap without gaps.
It felt like he’d handed over control of his body to another person.
With the guiding that surged in again, his heartbeat ran wild and his breath rose to his chin.
“Huk, ugh….”
Hae-il, who was painfully exhaling, was crushed by the guiding that massively rushed in.
In the moment his consciousness faded, he thought he heard Moon Woo-shin’s voice shouting something, but his vision turning pitch black came before interpreting its meaning.
Hae-il lost consciousness just like that.
***
Opening his eyes slowly, the first thing he faced was a white ceiling. A wall surface carved with patterns that looked somewhat rigid and trite, with grooves carved evenly horizontally and vertically.
Why am I here? In the moment he was slowly tracing back his last memory, his mind came to all at once.
‘The Gate!’
Only after hurriedly raising his body did the needle stuck in his arm, the bed he was lying on, and the curtain surrounding him enter his eyes in sequence.
At least it was certain that this place was outside the Gate.
“Ha…..”
I’m screwed.
Hae-il, who exhaled a deep sigh, first carefully got up from his spot and pulled the curtain slightly.
He made direct eye contact with a woman who happened to be entering the room.
“You woke up?”
“Yes. Where is this….”
“The hospital, of course.”
The woman, who said she was an Esper-dedicated doctor affiliated with the Special Abilities Agency, immediately took Hae-il and examined him while going through various machines. She also asked various things while waiting for the results to come out.
“Do you remember the situation right before you collapsed?”
“Yes.”
While explaining the sporadically remembered things and the symptoms and sensations at that time in as much detail as possible, the cause Hae-il guessed was the Gate.
Much more remained as mysteries about the monsters and terrain inside it than what had been revealed yet. It was because of that that variables never heard or seen often occurred.
Probably I was attacked without noticing, or was affected by something inside the Gate.
However, the conclusion that came out after a long examination process was unexpectedly a very realistic reason.
“No, this is Seo Hae-il’s problem.”
“……Me?”
“Simply put, it should be seen as Gate phobia, that is, PTSD symptoms.”
He was at a loss for words. Suddenly Gate phobia, and PTSD.
The doctor sitting in front clicked the mouse a few times and then dryly recited Hae-il’s past from almost 10 years ago.
“You first manifested as an Esper inside a Special Gate at age 13, right? It seems there was no appropriate counseling or treatment afterward.”
“But I barely remember anything from that time, and I’ve never had symptoms like this until now…?”
“Sometimes people completely erase shocking incidents from memory. This is the first time you actually entered a Gate since then, right?”
“…Yes.”
“It seems the symptoms appeared from being suddenly exposed to an environment similar to the incident you experienced as a child. According to the testimony of the Guide who was beside you at the time, the wavelength levels ran wild and you showed a severe rejection reaction to guiding, and the indicators recorded on the watch also….”
Kind explanations continued afterward too, but he couldn’t concentrate properly.
“Then… does that mean I might faint like this every time I enter a Gate from now on?”
“At least for the time being, the possibility is high. Depending on your efforts, you might be able to overcome it, so don’t be too discouraged.”
Can an Esper who fears Gates exist as an Esper?
Since manifestation, he’d never even once thought about a path other than being an Esper. Entering the Special Abilities Agency and becoming a Gate strategy specialist Esper was the best path among the futures Hae-il could dream of.
He had no intention of giving up at all, but the treatment or overcoming methods the doctor explained sounded only vague.
Frustration pressed down heavily.
***
Since there was nothing immediately wrong with his body, Hae-il, who was discharged right away, returned to school. It was late afternoon around when the sun was setting.
Because his mind was complicated, walking wherever his feet took him, the place he arrived at before he knew it was in front of the training ground. A place he’d been going in and out of almost every day recently.
“Haaa…..”
Hae-il, who stood in front of the firmly closed door, exhaled a long sigh.
Getting caught up in a Special Gate by chance at age 13, the ability manifested thanks to that was the most prideful talent among what he possessed.
Though poverty started because of that Gate, at the same time he thought he’d obtained a guaranteed future because of that Gate. Hae-il had never once held even a point of doubt about his ability as an Esper.
