Could I never escape?
Was a being born in a cage destined to remain imprisoned even after death?
Though my anger had reached its peak, I didn’t want to give up like this. Even if I had to soil my hands with sticky blood, I would writhe my body to escape from the cage.
“Don’t you resent anyone?”
The question Federico asked before departing for Caysenderson City had lodged deeply in my mind. It was such a futile question.
What good would resenting do? In the end, everyone is equal under my dreams, just pitiful souls unable to escape their trauma.
Yes, everyone was a victim of dreams. According to the fate determined by dreams, they would be manipulated and crushed, eventually ending their lives in iron bars just like me.
Michael knew this fact so painfully well that he blamed no one. Even if all of it harmed him, he didn’t want to hold resentment. Nothing was more painful than being swayed by personal emotions.
However, there was an exception. One person whose mere thought disordered his mind.
Hyungoh Choi.
If only he had worried about me more, if only he had pitied me more, I could have escaped from the dreams long ago. Of course, Hyungoh probably didn’t even know he had a choice, but I felt a sense of betrayal toward him for choosing dreams as if it were natural.
No, perhaps I just needed someone to blame.
Although Hyungoh had recovered his memories, Hunter’s sacrifice could extend his life. But even that wasn’t a very long lifespan. He would throw himself back into the swamp of death again.
The inescapable cycle was despair. Even if I struggled to save him, he would try to kill himself, and the situation would repeat itself like that.
How much more effort do I have to make here?
I gradually lost motivation in this answerless reality. The process always escalated dramatically with a mix of hope and despair, but the results were consistently mundane. In other words, the process of struggling was crushed under unchanging results, unable to shine on its own.
“Your ability is truly worthy of being called a treasure.”
When I was losing my sense of reality, crushed by familiar defeat, an unfamiliar voice awakened me.
“But the vessel containing that ability being stupid is a huge flaw.”
Without ever having borne the weight that gnaws at the mind. The little reason I had left crumbled at the carelessly uttered words from someone who knew nothing, living only carefree days.
“What do you know?”
Enya Cenaline. She abruptly proposed to fulfill the promise that Hunter couldn’t keep.
At first, I thought she was just saying provocative things to use me.
“How could you possibly know a method to stop dreaming? Even Hunter, even I couldn’t figure it out.”
But her confident gaze forced me to withdraw my doubts. Her deep green eyes, similar yet different from Herick’s, somehow seemed familiar.
Have I seen her before? Though I’d heard her name many times, this should be my first time facing her. Or had I seen her in a dream?
Suddenly, a fragment of memory hidden deep within surfaced. Enya, Enya Cenaline.
“You must keep the secret, Enya.”
The only person Maria had confided her end to. I laughed emptily at this important fact that had only just occurred to me. To think I’d been living having forgotten that memory. I must have been blinded by the fact that Maria was going to die.
“How do you plan to fulfill that promise?”
I found myself asking with sparkling eyes. Enya looked down at me as if finding it cute, then soon muttered something.
“If you struggle endlessly, even an absolute being will falter,” is that what she said?
“Is that what Maria said?”
Her transparent yet intensely greedy deep green eyes disappeared behind thinly smiling eyes. Michael, pondering her words, still wore a puzzled expression.
“Struggle until the moment of death, Michael. Just like Maria did.”
From between her crimson lips flowed words impossible to refuse.
“That’s the only, desperate method for you to escape from dreams.”
* * *
“To think that’s the only method.”
How much more do I have to struggle here? How long do I have to endure? Only emptiness swirled painfully around this endless struggle without promise.
It was utterly desperate, just as she said.
I’m crushed by the weight of life. My own is overwhelming enough, yet thousands of souls cling to me, distorting it even more strongly.
Distorted beauty. So Maria enjoyed even that moment.
It is you indeed. Not only accepting the horrific reality but even enjoying it. Perhaps, as Enya said, the size of our vessels was different from the beginning.
Honestly, I don’t know anymore.
I grabbed Hyungoh, who was barely sitting on the crumbling bridge railing. This was clearly the last chance to persuade him. Both I and Hyungoh were in a precarious state to maintain our sanity.
I had to keep struggling. I had to try somehow to prevent things from flowing according to dreams, to escape from the cage of fate.
However, facing the resentful gaze I had only seen in dreams, I couldn’t help but be hurt again.
No matter how much I dream, I can’t see an answer.
I was weak. I was merely a weak being. The negative spark that had gradually emerged combined with Hyungoh’s gaze, consuming the world around us.
How could someone as weak as me escape from dreams?
Please help me, Choi.
I begged him. The desperate sound of my breath was unfamiliar even to myself, but I couldn’t stop.
Ironically, Hyungoh, frightened by my behavior, lost his balance and fell from the railing.
It was an incredibly cruel reality. In an instant, hot blood surged through my entire body. Feeling as if my heart would pour out if I opened my mouth even slightly, I barely placed my hand on the railing and was dripping tears when Enya’s words suddenly came to mind.
“Struggle until the moment of death.”
Until the moment of death…
Michael leaned his body over the railing. Though rough currents dominated the surroundings, he threw himself without hesitation.
Hoping that there would be a thread of salvation in that preposterous method.
