Twin moons bled from the sky, their tears dripping into the sea to paint the eyes that they looked down at in pity; a mocking goodbye for a drowning man. Red as blood, they stood as a symbol of the unnatural, a bad omen that painted the night sky with sorrow for their kin.
I don't want it's pity.
In a natural world, the unnatural often drowned, but unlike the usual victims of this cliff, Hajun did not thrash, nor did he crave the breath that left his lungs as bloodstained water replaced it.
He was waiting for something; proof, perhaps, of a story, an obscure myth he'd found in a collection of newspaper clippings.
[Resurrection cliff, where those who jump with conviction, and allow the Nakdong river to speak to them, are given the chance to speak to the dead. Locals claim that family lost to the revolt, as well as traitors arrested under imperial decree have been spotted here, alive and well. Some claim to have conversed with these ghosts from the past, while others say that they are Mul Gwishin, vengeful water demons here to finish what the traitors failed to do! Whether vengeance or reconcile, we at Unnatural Reporting can see that the discourse is, like the state of this country, stuck at two extremes!
#549 Oct.23, 1931]
He had memorized it, the paper that wrinkled, then melted away in his pocket.
Was it morbid curiosity that had brought him to this state? Not exactly.
Maybe he had nothing better to do on this day, which shared a date and month with issue number 549 of Unnatural Reporting. Maybe he wanted to know if, thirty years later, he could prove that that story was load of cat shit, made up to explain suicide rates and police curroption.
Does that count as conviction? There wasn't exactly a guide to this…
"Suffer…like me..!"
He winced as a garbled voice, or perhaps, many voices, screamed into his ear all at once.
That alone would have been proof enough for anyone else, but not for him. He heard voices quite often; a side effect of melatonin, at least, he assumed it was.
You know, you're very considerate for inviting me to this pity party, but I think I'm suffering plenty enough already. So no thank you.
Oh course, the so-called water demons didn't somehow read his thoughts and respond. It seemed only demons born from sleeping pills could do that.
"Hate them– Hate..!"
"They betrayed–!"
"They shot–"
"Killed–"
An amalgamation of voices threw their accusations to the wind, melting into each other until only one remained.
"Why..?? Why me?!"
"Pay..!! I'll make them pay–!!"
The shrill noise was like a stab through his skull, leaving his thoughts to leak out and muddle as the hands that gripped his throat, arms, and legs, tightened, clawing him under the thrashing waves.
Ah shit.
It's cold.
So cold.
He felt the air leave his lungs in bursts, an intense cold settling in as bubbles breached the surface of the water, then vanished as if he was never there. The fingers that dug into his skin pulled him further and further from the moons, their crimson light distorting and shrinking as victims of this very water seared their despair and hatred into his bones.
This cliff really was haunted.
Haha.
Hajoon tried to laugh, as one does when their stance on a subject was crushed through illogical means; but all he heard was the rush of water that filled his lungs.
It was painful.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. All he could do was listen as the ghosts of the river and sea divulged their suffering. It was painful to listen, but he couldn't muster up the energy to fight back, to disagree with their attempts to connect and share their pain.
You know what? This isn't so bad.
Isn't it actually good?
In a twisted way, this was something he had wanted. Like his father used to say, isn't it better to view a curse as a blessing? All it took was some effort, and a bit of delusion.
They talk to me. I listen.
I talk to them.
They will listen.
When the delusion eventually overwrote his logic, he closed his eyes, the weeping moons vanishing above the waves as he vanished beneath.
…Dad? Are you there?
***
As dawn approached, the moons faded like a mirage; taking with it the last traces of another victim lost to the Red Tides.
That sight had a single observer, an impassive face that simply watched from the cliff's edge, unblinking as the wind and sea reveled in its violence. The encircled bay, where the Nakdong river spilled into the Akai Sea, looked nearly isolated, cut off from the freedom beyond the towering masses of metal behemoths; of freighters and battleships that blocked out both the city beyond them, and the stars above.
The man watched, but his eyes never opened.
His coat and scarf billowed, as did his hair, when the winds surged into a howling amalgamation of sounds, of voices. But even if his sensitive ears could hear the words, the cries, his expression remained still. To the likes of him, violence meant nothing. It was a natural occurrence, one that he didn't meddle in.
His finger tapped on the silver embellished handle of his cane, counting down to a moment that was felt by all those who knew this wind, this place.
In the same moment that he stepped off the cliff's edge, winged creatures who nested the nearby rooftops leapt from their ledges.
Chirps of delight, and the flutter of wings that soared even as the witching hour came to an end; it was an unnatural thing that had repeated day after day, unrelenting until it became something familiar. There was no local left to remember that these creatures now affectionately named cats, were once nothing but monsters; gryphons, to be exact.
"So I take it you're done now, old friend?" He spoke to the sea breeze, which was cold and volatile as it kept him aloft in midair. His smile grew confused as the winds surged, the force of a miniature tornado forming near his face.
"Eh-" Before he could say anything more, a cold hand grabbed his face, then shoved him back to solid ground. But beyond the initial surprise, he didn't react any further. He had expected this after all.
There were times that death imitated life, warping and twisting memories into a figure of mist, fog, and ocean spray.
As he sat and observed the wind, it took many forms; young, old, and even familiar. And with that familiar form it stayed, as it irked the man in front of it the most. A creature of vengeance fed off of regret and despair. It was simply in its nature to do so.
"We…are not friends, Doctor."
"...What a voice to use to say something like that." The Doctor's eyebrows furrowed, his lip twitching for a moment too long.
But in the end that voice, although familiar, remained an imitation. "You are a cruel being, Nakdong."
"I am only what drowned in me…there's so much filth now." Nakdong looked towards the ships, then across the river, where a city loomed in its brilliance while its smog and muck pumped into the surrounding waters.
"That's…the cost of progress." The Doctor said as he leaned on his cane and stood beside the ghost from his past.
"Cost?"
"Nothing can be achieved without sacrifice. Equivalent or not, it's the first, most basic law of our field-."
The silence that followed, as the winds stilled, and the sea lulled, was deafening. For a moment, he had forgotten that the man that he spoke to was an imitation, a mere mirage. They were not friends, nor colleagues who once shared goals and aspirations.
To Nakdong, the spirit born of rage and regrets, he was the Doctor, and a villain, nothing more.
"You are worse than filth." Nakdong gripped his shoulder, leaning down and keeping that voice for a moment longer to revel in how it fractured the Doctor's calm façade. "So do not speak of my cruelty, Doctor."
"...Unlike you, my cruelty is precise." A mocking chuckle came from him as he gestured to the rocks below, and a hand that burst from the still water. It grasped at the rocks, hoisting a body up along with it.
"What?"
"Oh, wait a moment…wow! He's climbing up now! " The doctor mused, leaning over the cliff's edge to watch as a lone man scaled the impossible height. It wasn't a body that moved with intent, clambering onto the gnarled remains of a metal railing only to cut himself and stumble, fall, then climb again. To the Doctor, it was almost amusing.
"Do you think one of the souls from your flock latched onto him? Is that even possible?"
"No. It is not." Nakdong snarled, the wind howling as it tried and failed to rip those freshly clawed hands from the rocks.
Hajun didn't let go, or moreso, his body didn't allow him to. Waves clashed under him, higher and higher, more and more violent as hands shot out to catch him, to drag him back to share their watery grave.
He reached for the only help he saw, a figure by the cliff's edge who he knew was watching him, who knew that he was there.
"H..Help..!" He rasped out, his lungs screaming as water mixed with air to produce a garbled sound.
But no help came. No one took his hand.
Air tasted bitter when Hajun coughed onto the jagged rocks beneath him, his eyes bleary as he scrambled up and over the cliff's edge. His fingers were raw and bloodied, the crimson staining and black forming claws that flexed as he stared at it with unfocused eyes.
Haa…I'm alive? Why?
Why every time?
I…have to stay in this hell? Why?
His body shook, his legs seeming to snap like twigs under a foundation they couldn't support as he tried to stand.
Cold.
It's so cold.
It was so cold that he didn't feel it when his body made impact with the ground moments later.
"When did you get so sloppy, Nakki?" The Doctor laughed to himself, unbothered by the raged winds that set his hair into a frenzy.
"He died. I felt it. I am not sloppy."
"Oh? Interesting, if so. But I do still question your competence!" He glanced towards the man who was curled up by his feet, wallowing in a thick despair that hung over his shuddering figure.
The Doctor couldn't see that face, but he could hear the sobs that resounded as the poor man clawed himself onto all fours, retching sea water from his lungs. Beyond the sorrow that attracted death to a willing victim, there was something that clung desperately to life. A small flame that refused to be drowned.
"There is something wrong with this one. Your uninvited meddling isn't appreciated, Doctor."
"Hm, I can see that."
"No, you do not."
"Well, that was uncalled for." He chuckled, his closed eyes meeting the volatile anger of an entity who lacked a true form, just as he lacked true sight.
"No, it was not."
"Hm, well then. Back to the topic at hand…our undying friend here is one reason to visit again, but that was not the reason for my visit tonight." He said, all the while he watched that flame cling to life. There was something there, something that shouldn't be. But one would not call a drowned rat dangerous.
"Nakdong, you should get ready, an opportunity to rule this cursed place is coming, soon."
"What? Why?" The winds responded in a blend of voices that didn't belong to it, an almost repulsive sound.
"Hm, I wonder." The Doctor murmured as he knelt down, pressing a hand down over the shuddering flame, and the heart that it belonged to. He pushed him over, ending the struggle to stand quite simply as he began administering CPR.
"Ghk– Who..? Stop…"
He ignored the weak protests, his eyebrows furrowed as he felt a heartbeat thrum through his fingers and up his arm, a strong, sporadic thing, which was followed by something weaker. He focused on that rhythm, adjusting the flow of energy from his veins to the patient at hand. At some moments, the healing procedure went smoothly, while in others, it was rejected outright.
Beat by beat, it became clear that two hearts fought for dominance, one who sent a sting of pain through the fingers that dared to mock it with help, and another that clung to the warmth but was too fickle to hold on. The result of that war was a weak life, a feeble flame that neither rejected nor accepted help.
Like any other flame, all it needed was a little bit of fuel. If it wasn't accepted, he would simply force it.
"Hurts–! Fuck– stop that–!" The patient jerked upwards, two skulls bashing together as the Doctor shut him up with an efficient headbutt.
"Uf– I'm trying to save you, damn you..! Stop making this difficult!" He hissed out, shaking off the slight disorientation that often came with that move.
"What are you–? Why are you saving it?" Nakdong spoke after a long pause, laced with venom that almost hurt.
"He could be useful."
"Useful for what? A lab rat?"
"Your opinion of me really is low!"
"It is not an opinion, it is a fact."
The wind was interrupted by the Doctor's laugh, which brought it to a stunned silence. No one laughed with him, but the coughing breath of the man beneath him was good enough of a reaction to him.
"There we go!" He leaned down, watching a face that he could not see. "See? You just had to let me help! Simple, right?"
The response he received was a string of sporadic coughs that splattered warm blood on his cheek. He wiped it off with the back of his hand, watching the tainted blood thicken with a grudge that a human of that age could not hold, nor handle.
"Hm..? Interesting, but very confusing."
"Ghk..? Ha..?" The drowned voice rasped out, just before a clawed hand grabbed the Doctor's shirt.
"Eh–" He yelped as he was pulled down.
"...Are you a ghost?" Hajun grit out the words, his face scrunching up as he squinted at the black haired man that hovered over him. Through bleary vision, he saw a wind tousled mess of hair, like seaweed had wrapped itself on the man's head.
It's a ghost. Water demon. Definitely.
"Oi, seaweed man. Did I pass the test?"
For a moment, the Doctor was simply speechless.
"Did I– Just..! Just let me talk to him now..!" His voice wavered as he pulled himself upright, his claws digging through the black fabric to scratch the cold skin beneath.
"Him…who?" The Doctor didn't so much as wince, temporarily immobilized by confusion.
"You're supposed to–! I didn't hear him down there—so let me talk to him..!!"
The Doctor's skin bristled as that voice took on a static, almost growling quality. He heard the sickening sound of bones snapping, stretching, and readjusting as a human face became something less so.
In the face of a gnashing maw, he felt fear, sudden and unexplained. Before he could regret the choice of saving this man, he headbutted him, the impact vibrating through his clenched teeth.
"Ow." The Doctor let out a breath, holding the limp man up by the collar until what remained, although pathetic, was human. Then he let go.
"Are you done?" The wind parroted back an echo of his own words as the doctor stood and walked away from Hajun's limp body.
"Haha…yes, well, it seems this one was here for your services. I'll leave him to you."
"You, abandoning a lab rat?" The mocking tone it took almost made him angry, but his mind was too preoccupied to comment on it.
"I didn't say that. But you don't want me here all day do you?"
"No. Get out."
"Well, good morning to you too, Nakdong. I won't wish you luck, but I do expect the favour repaid. Soon." He smiled, then paused. "Oh, right. Don't kill this one."
"Why?"
"I've been needing an errand boy lately." He said as he walked away from the incorporeal figure who stood by that cliff, always. He waved as he went, but the spirit of the River Nakdong did not wave back.