The humidity was high, much like it was during a Washington summer. Not that it made Duke feel like he was back home, because it was still horrible. The doctor paced nervously back and forth in the lobby of the hotel, occasionally pulling out his phone to fiddle with it. He had recently received a Ph.D. in Asian languages and literature. His company, which he had interned at for several years before becoming a fulltime employee, had sent him to review texts at a monastery in South Korea.
Digital Alexandria was an organization dedicated to creating digital copies of important texts throughout history. He was set to deliver some of their machinery to a local professor today. They were going to begin scanning everything as soon as possible. What was more exciting ws that they had provided him with an extra plane ticket so he could bring a guest.
“Relax. It’s just some scrolls, right?” Said a woman in a blue floral dress. Duke’s features melted into a love-struck fool. She smiled back reassuringly. “You deal with old stuff all the time.” The fact that his soulmate had agreed to come with him made every moment feel like he was floating on air.
“I still wish to appreciate the blessings in my life that exist in the present.” He brought her close and kissed her on the cheek. She looked so beautiful today and her hair smelled sweetly of lilacs.
“I hope you weren’t implying that I’m just a thing to be studied like all of your other treasures.” She playfully pushed him away and headed towards the shuttle bus parked in front of the hotel. Her braid swished about as she turned to flash him a grin. “I’m not just something to be archived and put away!”
Duke adjusted his satchel bag on his shoulder and chased after her. “Of course not, Suni! Suni, wait! You know I didn’t mean it like that!”
“There’s a spa that’s calling my name, and I want as much time as possible to experience the jade sauna!” She began to skip up the bus’ steps as he caught up with her.
He followed her aboard and took a seat next to her. “You’re lucky that I already triple checked that the equipment is stowed away correctly. There will be no more distractions between us.” Duke frowned to himself. “Do you think I need to check it again?” He pouted in an exaggerated manner as she punched him in the shoulder.
“I’m lucky that you understand how impatient I am and got everything ready beforehand.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “That’s the only thing I was lucky about when I decided I wanted to marry you.”
Duke retrieved a long blue scarf that had been in his bag. “Is the air conditioning too high for you?” She nodded and draped the scarf around both their shoulders before leaning into him again. “I know you’re excited that you get to play around in saunas all day, but I desire to have a serious conversation first.”
“No oppa, I just want to sit here and dream about saunas and skin scrubs and hard-boiled eggs.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled his shoulder all the more firmly.
“This is important.” She shook her head. “Please look.” She shook her head again. “Please stop being cute. I am in dire need of your opinion on this matter.” Suni opened her eyes and saw that Duke was holding out a folder for her to take.
She examined its contents. There were pictures of the exterior and interior of a house. Color swatches for paint, pictures of furniture, and a selection of plants for a garden. It was set up like something a professional decorator would use. “What’s this for?”
“Since you’re moving to Seattle, I thought it would be nice to have a home to stay in.” His ears began to turn red. “They were having a police auction, so I just thought... Why not?”
“You bought me a drug lord’s home?” She laughed. “No, really? A crime den or some whore house?”
“Actually, I believe it might have been a murder case where the state repossessed the house due to there being no heirs. Though I’ve been reassured that there are no more bodies in the backyard and that they’ve recarpeted.” Suni stared at him. “We’ll get a new carpet… And there might still be a few literal skeletons in the closets.”
“I can’t believe you’re able to afford this with all your student debts.” She dug a knuckle into his ribs. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”
“I set up the savings account the morning after our first date. That’s how strongly I felt about you being the one. I put money in every time you made me smile, or anytime you lit up my life, and especially whenever I thought about you when you were shipped out overseas. Every time I saw your face in my mind, I put a little money away for your future... Our future.”
“Duck-young…”
He smiled and grasped her hand. “And I hope that you have no objections to how I spent a small portion of that money.” He slipped a kunzite ring onto her left hand. “This is a promise of our future together.” Suni’s smile grew larger as she stared at the ring. “It may not be a diamond, but I still have decades of student loans to repay.”
Suni shook her head while laughing quietly. “I’ll have to get a dog. That way you’ll have some company in the doghouse I plan on keeping you in.” She fiddled with the ring, twisting it back and forth while she evilly plotted their future.
“You and your jokes.” He snatched up her hand so he could kiss the back of her fingers.
“And I’ll name him Duke.”
Duke pouted again. “That’s my name.”
“Your name is Duck-young, and it will always be Duck-young. Or oppa. Or My Dear Husband whom I’ll take care of forever because he spent all of his money on useless trinkets even though I already know how much he loves me. With or without a ring.” She pecked his cheek.
“I spent it on you.” The bus abruptly jerked to the side and the driver began to shout loudly. “... What did he say?” His Korean wasn’t terrible, but panicked cries were difficult for him to understand.
“He says there was a landslide.” The tires began to screech as something slammed into the side of the bus. Everything in the cabin began to tilt. Duke grasped onto Suni tightly as the bus slipped off the side of the road. There was nothing but a cliff there, and now the bus was wildly tumbling down it.
The other passengers were screaming. No one had bothered to buckle themselves in. As the cabin rotated, they found themselves thudding into the ceiling and other people. A trunk came loose from an overhead compartment and struck Duke in the back of the head. His body suddenly felt numb. He had no choice but to let go of his love as he lost control of his limbs.
Duke wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t breathe. As the bus came to a sudden halt, he found himself lying next to Suni. His chest felt heavy. Air refused to move. It didn’t take long for him to realize that he was paralyzed and slowly suffocating to death.
Suni scrambled to examine the extent of his injuries. Her arm appeared broken, and her clothes were stained with blotches of blood. Whether or not it was his, hers, or someone else’s, he couldn’t say. All he could do was open and close his mouth. Suni was attempting to say something, but he had also gone completely deaf.
Something kicked open the shuttle door. There was a shadow of someone stepping over the bodies to approach them. Suni quickly kissed Duke on the forehead and ducked under a seat. She yanked open a floor panel and disappeared below the floor.
The shadow didn’t seem to notice her among the writing bodies. They leaned down next to Duke and pressed their hand against the back of his neck. Duke opened his mouth in an attempt to reassure Suni. Now his vision was fading, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. The last image that raced through his mind was a rainbow, then complete darkness.
❅❅❅
Duke’s eyes flickered open. He was greeted by the sight of a giant woman staring down at him. She had a feathered veil covering her hair, wore a flax robe that had one sleeve over her left arm, and was covered head to toe with gold and beaded jewelry. Aside from her strange appearance, she appeared just as confused as Duke was.
“Strange.” She blinked as Duke sat up and began to pat himself down. He sighed with relief as he realized he wasn’t injured. “... Quite strange indeed.” Her accent wasn’t something that Duke recognized.
“I assume that I’m not in Korea anymore?” Better than being in Kansas, unless this woman was the Wicked Witch.
The woman spoke English but seemed to be Middle Eastern in appearance. Odd that she knew to speak English without confirming where he was from first. She continued to stare down at him as he stood up, as she easily rivaled the tallest basketball players when it came to height.
“No. You’re dead.”
Duke knew that was a possibility. If what he had experienced wasn’t a nightmare, then he was dead. This wasn’t what he was expecting the afterlife to look like. Much more… Actually, he wasn’t expecting this at all. Nothing he had read had ever suggested an afterlife like this.
The two of them were in a circular room covered with tapestries. Each had intricate designs and threads that connected them to each other. Some had threads that stretched far into the sky. Above them, thousands, if not millions of threads interlaced with each other.
“I do appear to be dead,” muttered Duke.
“Quite so,” replied the woman. She didn’t seem phased by how slowly he was taking to put two and two together.
Duke nodded a few times in awkward silence. “Now what?”
“I’m unsure.” The woman began to fret. She rubbed her hands together anxiously. They were gnarled and covered in calluses. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Duke didn’t say anything. He simply worriedly stared up at her. “We’ll have to look at your tapestry. That should sort everything out.”
She gestured for him to follow her. The woman brushed aside a tapestry and ducked underneath the doorway. They were in some sort of void. Threads were far more abundant here, twisting and weaving every which way. A waterfall could be heard trickling in the distance, and massive crystals were hanging from the roof.
Pushing aside another tapestry, the two entered another cylinder room. The woman began to fuss over one of the tapestries within. It was dark in color, with a feathered emerald masquerade mask in the center. On one side was a gilded tapestry covered in Mayan runes and crystals, and the other side had what seemed to be a tree, but it was only halfway complete.
“Rather unusual,” she muttered to herself. “Have you had any major changes to your life? Ah, well, aside from dying, of course. Be specific about the dates, if you could. Not specific to the extreme, just the month or so will do.”
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Duke considered what had happened to him over the course of the year. “I became engaged this week.” Suni had proposed to him yesterday. She knew he was planning to do so himself by the end of their trip and surprised him by asking first. “I bought a house three weeks ago and received my Ph.D. two months ago.”
“Goodness. So mundane… Yet someone has gone through a lot of trouble to hide you from me. Rather disturbing.” The woman put a finger to her chin as she thought. “I am Ur. I am a demon but I have nothing to do with the afterlife. My role is to protect the tapestries. I, along with my oracles, interpret them.
We are all part of a society that seeks to prevent world-ending disasters. I predict how the threads will tangle, and my oracles will pass my warnings to others. Now, I doubt that you have anything to do with that, even if you were hidden, but your soul has somehow ended up here anyways. We will need to figure out why that is.”
“Am I trapped here?” Not that it mattered to Duke much, since it wasn’t like he could do anything about his situation. He was dead. As much as he wished that wasn’t the case, it wasn’t as though he had a choice where he ended up afterward.
Ur circled around him. She picked up a thread that was hanging from his back. Suddenly she was hunched over as she began to examine him more closely. “Someone has somehow gone and tied a part of your tapestry to you back. It’s been weaving itself here for at least… Seven or eight months or so? Hold still, please.” She began to mutter to herself as she fiddled with the threads.
Seven or eight months? November or December of last year. He had traveled around quite a bit to meet some of Suni’s extended family. Their parents were the ones who had introduced them to each other. Both of them had been dipping their toes into the idea of marriage, and wanted her family to be on board.
Then there was his own family during the holidays. Not to mention everyone he had talked to before he got his Ph.D and his internship with Digital Alexandria... Anyone could have done it. But why him? What was the point in hiding his tapestry?
Ur fiddled with a loose string. “I assume that your body was acting as an anchor. When you died, your tapestry sought to correct what had been done and brought you here. The problem with having your tapestry out in the open is that anyone can mess with it. These strands affect who you will meet or won’t meet and how greatly they impact your life.
Either they needed to hide you from me so they themselves wouldn’t be exposed by meeting you, or they wanted you to meet me. Not even my oracles are capable of such...” Duke attempted to turn around in order to have a look, but she grasped the back of his head and forced him to hold still. “If you had a choice, would you seek to return?”
His thoughts were instantly of Suni. She might still be on that bus, hiding from the person who boarded the bus. Whatever had happened, Suni anticipated that they were an enemy.
“In a heartbeat,” replied Duke. He had to do whatever he could to save her.
Ur lifted up her hand, and a selection of colorful threads began to twist themselves between her fingers. These were slowly tied and knitted to his back. “Death is the easier choice. It is an ending. A finale.” Duke felt a brief, sharp pain as she tightened a string. “Life is much more difficult. Ever changing, with millions of possibilities that are as fragile as a butterfly’s wings.”
“One should never back down in the face of uncertainty. I have a goal that will keep me going.”
“I doubt that your goals will matter as soon as you realize how incomplete you will become,” she muttered. Duke felt a jerk back as she finished tying the last knot. “I’ve done what I could to help, but I won’t be able to see your tapestry once you are on the other side. There is no way for me to help you.”
“I’m fine with that.” He wasn’t certain how comfortable he was with her keeping track of him in the first place. Then again, he wasn’t sure why she would choose to help him at all. She may just be doing this because she didn’t want him hanging around here.
Ur beamed at him. “Excellent. Protect the friends I’ve given you. You will need each other. Be especially wary of anyone who seeks to touch your back. Anyone with a bit of skill can change your destiny now that your tapestry is out in the open.” She said this as she delicately ran her fingers against his spine. “Now deep breath, and-”
Darkness and a heavy sensation surrounded Duke when he regained his senses. He felt constrained, like when his neck had snapped. Damp soil shifted between his fingers as he wiggled them about. Panic set in quickly and he struggled to wretch his arms free of their constraints. The dirt about him was still soft, enabling him to move through it easily enough.
His hand broke out of the shallow grave first. Digging the rest of himself out was an easy task, but the brightness of the sun was too much for him. He had to shield his eyes with his arm to prevent himself from going blind. Duke couldn’t remember how he had gotten here, or what he was supposed to do.
He attempted to get a sense of where he was. There were nearly a dozen shallow graves present. Some of them had been dug open and their contents dragged out. The scent of blood ran deep into the ground.
Duke heard a horrid crunching, and he realized that there were others here. They were bent over discarded bodies and tearing them apart so they could be more easily devoured. He felt the urge to vomit. As much as he dry heaved, nothing would come up. Despite the noise he made, not one of them noticed him as he turned away from the scene.
“Brother! How good it is to see that you have come to your senses!” A man in a decorative red robe approached him. “You are reborn!” The man spoke Korean in a strange accent. It was difficult for Duke to understand him. This one was different from the one he had seen on the bus, the one that Suni had fled from.
“Suni…” Duke ignored the man completely.
He began to study both the monsters and what was left of the dead. Some of the dead were from the bus, but he didn’t recognize others. How many vehicles were hit during the landslide? Were these all victims?
“... This is lunacy,” whispered Duke.
“Let go of the morals you clung onto in life. You are our brother now.” The man pressed a hand onto Duke’s shoulder. “We are jiangshi. Ignore those who have failed to awaken and come with me. We have much to discuss.”
“Kindly remove your hand, sir.” A flickering blue appeared in the corner of his eye. Duke stiffened at the sight of his scarf draped around a grave marker. The one he had loaned to Suni. It wavered slightly with the passing breeze. “Where is the woman who was wearing that scarf? She was twenty five and was wearing a flowered dress.”
The man only tightened his grip on his shoulder. “Do not attempt to remember her. Our order only converts men. All else are tied up and left waiting as our newborn’s first meal.” There was a sneer that appeared on his face. His skin crinkled and cracked as though it were as thin as paper. “They were quite ravenous today. We will find you a cleaner meal elsewhere.”
Duke’s gaze wandered to the creatures who were bickering over their meal. Ur crossed his thoughts at that moment. “... She was wrong.” He clenched his jaw hard enough to crack several of his back teeth. “Death is not the easier choice.”
“Death is a feast. It is a glorious existence.”
“Clinging to sanity is not a weakness, and death, like any other mission, is a struggle… It is my burden to deliver.”
His ability to remain rational was completely broken. Snatching the man’s wrist, he yanked his arm downward and slammed his knee against it. Duke had attempted to break it at the elbow, but he accidently tore the entire arm off. A trickle of dust pouring out from the gaps of desiccated flesh as the man stumbled back in horror.
But he would not be undone by this newborn vampire. A blunt wooden sword was produced from within his robes. He thrusted at Duke, clearly unskilled in swordsmanship. Duke sidestepped the attack, took a low step in, and lunged his hand towards the vampire’s throat. He shifted his weight in order to force him to the ground. Straddling his back, Duke delivered blow after furious blow to the creature’s skull.
Rage. That’s all Duke felt. The skin was scraped away from his flesh by the vampire’s broken skull, and he began to bury his fists into the creature’s shrunken brain. There was no satisfaction in his destruction, only rage. It blinded him, it controlled him. There was nothing that mattered more at that moment than his opportunity to get vengeance.
“I will tear away everything, just as you have me!”
He couldn’t feel pain. The blood that leaked out the sores in his hands was gelled. As much as he wanted to weep, the tears failed to appear. Weariness also failed him. There was no beating in his chest, nor the urge to gasp for air. As he slowly became aware of how different he was now, an odd sense of calm began to overtake him.
“... Everything.” It all needed to burn. Including that new “family” that that vampire had expected him to join.
One surprise attack had gained Duke victory, but he doubted that he would succeed against a group of them. What was that sword? How was that supposed to use it? He reached to grab it, but was forced to recoil immediately. A simple touch to the wood was enough to burn his fingertips down to the bone.
Thinking quickly, he fetched his scarf and wrapped it about his hand. It would appear that his nerves were shot. He couldn’t feel the softness of the angora wool, but it didn’t matter. The cloth was enough to allow him to pick up the sword safely. His assumption was that this would work just as well against those creatures as it did himself.
It was difficult for him to view his fellow jiangshi as anything other than monsters. Their skin had already turned grayish in color, their flesh was starting to sink from decay, and their nails had grown into long, black talons. Duke looked down at his free hand. It was already beginning to appear similar.
He calmly walked up to the first vampire and brought the sword down upon its neck. The blade held no resistance, rendering flesh and bone instantly to ash. A series of growls escaped the creature to his left before it leaped at him. Duke ducked down low, this time aiming for the vampire’s gut. His fighting instincts were a little rusty. He had done taekwondo from elementary until high school but hadn’t dueled against anyone in over a decade.
Regardless, these newborns moved rather sluggish compared to him. They were like feral animals that were sick with disease. It made them easier to cut down. Jiangshi weren’t human. He had to keep telling himself that. Duke tracked down each and every one as part of his retribution, ending only when he had collapsed upon the ground from exhaustion.
Jiangshi devoured the lives of others, he knew that from his mythological studies, and he also knew that he had failed to feed. He found himself staring at his right hand. The scarf had slipped from it, exposing bones and melted flesh. Ur had tried to help him, but he wasn’t able to save Suni.... Duke couldn’t even save himself.
All he wanted now was to rot away. Maybe he’ll talk to Ur again. She seemed to know something about where souls were supposed to go… That meant that he still had a chance to find Suni, even if it were on the other side.
It was the sound of shuffling that stirred him out of his zombie-like state. Possibly another vampire that he somehow missed. He forced himself to sit up and saw the silhouette of a man dressed in proper Victorian fashion. There was a basket in the crook of his elbow, and he appeared interested in the rusted nails that were sprouting out of the ground.
“Salutations, jiangshi.” He spoke Korean, but it had a noticeable British accent to it. “I’ve always found this variety of fungus to be quite fascinating,” he held up one of the nails and studied it. The sun was already setting, but the darkness didn’t seem to bother. Nor did the corpses faze him. “They only grow in nests of your kind.”
Duke finally finished pushing himself up to a stand. He flexed his left hand. The claws on it had already grown out. “Do you work for them? The people that arranged this gathering?” He asked in English, just to confirm his theory that this man was British.
“An American!” He replied with a smile. “Both of us appear quite a far way from home.”
“You need to leave this place.” Duke leaned against a grave marker. He barely had the strength to stand and he didn’t want to risk turning feral and attacking a feral man. “Other monsters might show up soon.”
“Contrary to your suspicions, I doubt anyone will be coming here for a few more days. It takes time for the transformation to begin and even longer for a jiangshi to regain their senses.” The man bowed gracefully. “Mauvori the Alchemist. I’m a mage that specializes in harvesting the magical energies of plant life for the use of crafting spells and artifacts.”
Oracles, jiangshi, and now a mage. Duke found himself too weary to care, though it would explain why this man’s scent sparked his hunger in such an enticing manner. “... Duke Kwak. I have a doctorate in Asian languages and literature.”
“Then you must be one of the victims from that landslide,” replied Mauvori. “The bus, I assume?” Duke nodded. “The roads have been blocked off for investigative purposes. We should see if your belongings are still there. We’ll get you some clothes and see about doing something about that nasty affliction of yours.”
“But why would you help me?” Not that Duke wasn’t grateful, but he didn’t see any reason why anyone would help him now.
“I may be an alchemist by trade, but I have spent a great deal of time working with curses. It was during that time that I met many interesting individuals. Some of them have taught me a trick or two.” Mauvori held up a hand and a glowing thread appeared around one of his fingers. Duke felt a brief tug upon his back as Mauvori curled his fingers inward. “I suppose that this is her way of telling me that you happen to be a particularly interesting specimen.”
The thread dissipated and Mauvori produced a doorknob from his pocket. He set it upon the ground, twisted it, and a stream of light poured out in the shape of a door. “We will set about raiding the other suitcases for clothes that will fit you. It will no doubt take a few weeks for me to repair the damage to your body, but I will return you to your home afterward. You will have to manage on your own after that. Remember, Jiangshi need to be near their native grounds in order to stay sane.”
“I understand.”
Duke didn’t, but he wasn’t going to refuse a trip home. He tightened the scarf about his hand and used it to pick up the peach wood sword. Life and death were a choice, but he would do neither if it meant that others had to suffer for his sake. In the event that Mauvori couldn’t help him, he was going to be the one to finish himself off.