บท 24: Prelude 4 - A Hanging Dream, Part 2
"The right thing…," Zachary uttered.
It had been an hour since anyone entered his room, so there was only him and his thoughts alone in the room.
He remembered the time when he thought he could change, the time that he defied his thoughts and decided to go back to Lauren. He could do nothing but chuckle at how naive he was.
There was no right or wrong, that much was true, but only in a world that was completely free. However, in the reality he was living in, right and wrong were determined by the people that think they can govern their beliefs onto the world to satisfy themselves.
His mother might have been right, but who was to say she wasn't? She might have been simply projecting her own fears onto him.
Zachary sat with his torso upright on the hospital bed in the room alone. There was no one in sight and the door was closed. However, it didn't bother him somehow, and he was bothered by the fact that he wasn't bothered.
He placed both his palms on his face and deeply sighed. He had grown tired of thinking altogether.
*tick* *tick*
A strange knock came from the window. He looked over to it in surprise to find that it was closed shut and with no one in sight. Perhaps it was a tree branch, the trees were pretty close to the window, almost blocking the warm light of the sunset.
With nothing to think about and nothing to do, he turned his head back to his front and simply just sat there. His eyes were completely devoid of emotion and full of melancholy as if he wasn't quite conscious of the reality around him.
*tick* *tick*
That knock came again.
Moving to the corner of his eyes, he noticed a tree branch hanging down from the tree and was near the glass window. It seemed like the wind pushed it back and forth, so it was indeed a tree.
「Just my luck…」
If the wind persisted and the branch continued to knock like that, he might not be able to sleep soundly come night.
Looking back to his front, he gazed deeply into the wall with dazed eyes.
He felt his head slowly tilt downwards as if something was pushing it to drop. Following that movement, his eyelids grew heavier.
He shut his eyes…
...but then he rolled it back up again.
And so began the spiral of him fighting against sleep and his own mind. It was strange. He desired no sleep, yet his body acted like it was tired. Maybe sleep was what was best at the moment. If it could ease his thoughts, perhaps even erase them, then it wasn't so bad.
Once again, the darkness of his eyelids covered his sight…
...and once again, he opened them…
The same empty scenery of the wall existed.
He closed his eyes. He opened his eyes. He closed his eyes—
"...!"
And then he sprung his eyes wide open with fright.
The scenery was different.
A figure was floating right in front of the wall.
It hid in the shadows, only remaining as a silhouette to the eyes. The wind blew from the side, pouring leaves into the room and that was when Zachary noticed that the window had opened. With another gush of the wind, more leaves flew and made way for the light to be directed at the shadows, revealing the figure in all its glory.
It took on the shape of a human, but it was neither human nor other. A force of nature would be a befitting name for it. It was terrifyingly tall, maybe two meters or more. It looked as if it was made out of natural wood, or as if a human shape was carved out of a tree and this was the result. From the elbows to the spine, to the knees, and to the ankles, there were vines crawling all over it. Strangely colored leaves covered most of its body as if it served as its clothes or armor, there were even leaves on top of its head acting as hair. As for the face, its eyes were open, there were five of them — almost lining up with those of an insect — but there was nothing within them but a red plate of wood, otherwise no one would have thought it had eyes. It was clear from the shape and certain facial features — if one could call it that — that the being was a male, or rather took on masculine form.
It seemed to be suspended in space but a large vine hung the creature from its leg.
"—"
Zachary stared at the being with his mouth agape and his eyes deep in shock.
He blinked once, twice, thrice, but to no avail, the being was still there. It wasn't a statue, it was moving, breathing like an actual living being. If he could laugh, he would, but this was not a laughing matter in the least.
「I've gone mental!」
"You've endured quite the endeavor." The being spoke.
It had a deep and masculine voice, equally complimenting its appearance. The voice and the manner of speaking were somewhat elegant and refined, not something one would expect from such a creature.
Zachary looked down and held his hands against his head, "I've finally done it… I've finally hit rock-bottom."
"Why, what is a phoenix but ashes reborn?" The being spoke again.
"Are you the grim reaper?" He scoffed, "Here to correct my death?"
"Perhaps I am, perhaps I am not. Who is to say the only truth is the only truth?"
This must have been an illusion, there was no other way about it. It was an illusion in his mind, just like the door that moved. Somehow, it bore the look of a demonic creature yet spoke with a refined tone and sophisticated words. If that was not something straight out of Zachary's deranged mind, then he did not know what was.
Still, a question lingered in his mind, "The hell… the hell are you?"
Although it was hanging from that vine upside down, it lowered, or in this case, raised its torso and moved its arm across its stomach as if it was kneeling in respect. "I am but a figment born from imagination, from the same myths and rumors I bestow upon this world as truth. That is forever the irony of our being as Strange Men."
「A figment of imagination…」
Those words felt like the confirmation he needed but didn't desire.
"So you're just a hallucination from my mind. I really am going crazy."
"Perhaps you see it as crazy, but I…," the being spoke before it floated across the room and got slightly closer to Zachary, "I believe the right term is… enlightened! Only the enlightened, those with a vivid imagination, can see a being such as I. For I am as real as fairy tales can get it. And you, Zachary Ashworth, have vastly piqued my interest."
"That's really not helping my case at all." He tried to move away and avoid the being, but with the sorry state of his legs, he could only go so far. He closed his eyes and kept mumbling to himself. "(None of this is real. None of this is real. None of this is real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real.)"
The being reached out its hands and lowered one of its vines to touch Zachary's face. "Is this not real enough for you?"
Not much of a surprise, Zachary felt the vine's thorny strand slither across his face. It was eerie and too close for comfort, causing him to shiver. He tried his best to deny the being's existence, even going as far as believing the touch was just being simulated from his mind.
"How…? What?" He couldn't find the words.
"Have you not questioned yourself recently?" The being started, "Do you not feel anything odd going on within your life? Or something new? Things changing? People changing? And yet you, somehow, remain an unmoving cog in the machine of life. Do you not find it bizarre?"
The first thing that came to Zachary's mind when he heard the word "bizarre" was the sudden surge of high spirits across town. But it didn't stop there, he thought some more of what occurred during the past weeks. The mother that killed her own children, the rumored suicides, the sudden absence of students and teachers from the school, their return, and how some parts in the gloomy town turned to festivity. All of these occurrences happened out of nowhere and yet no one batted an eye to them, because why would they? They were just under the same influence of those enchanted rumors.
This could even mean that the appearance of Hye-mi Myung, his favorite author and idol, and the whole event to do with the writing competition was mere forgery among these events. After all, why would someone like Myung come to this secluded town of all places? But there was still another question on his mind, another doubt that he wouldn't dare get out.
「Could she be also… no, don't think about it.」
Could all of this have been the workings of that being?
Zachary grit his teeth, he did not want to face this truth, this reality that was swarming with fantasy worse than what a reality should be.
"If you're not…," he didn't want to say it, but he had to, "If you're not in my mind, then what are you?"
The being narrowed its eyes in disappointment. "My my, am I still puzzling even after all this time? I'm devastated, my dear writer. Mere scandalmongers recognize me from the figure alone, yet you still fail to open your eyes to me. But alas, I shall keep my identity a mystery no longer." It moved away from Zachary and near the window where its vines outreached, it stood with the warm twilight illuminating behind it, giving it a mystical aura, "A wish for faint light. A wish for greater blight. By the by, do you crave desire?"
「Where did I hear these words…?!」
Zachary widened his eyes when he came to the realization.
"Should you dream of an elusive age, my dear writer, then I, the Hanged Man, will be at your utmost service."
The Hanged Man, the creature that granted wishes in Zachary's old story. That was the identity of the being before him. The words that spoke of him were torn straight out of the paper and turned into reality.
「This is a joke, right?」
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