It was dark... pitch dark... enveloping his vision as far as he could see limited.
He was running. With him was a woman he recognised as his mother, carrying a little girl in her arms, and there was a man with them too. They were hiding somewhere. The women was saying something to him... then he was alone. He watched her walk farther and farther away from him.
In front of him was a cat... lean and painfully skinny. He could hear his own stomach growling, and somehow he felt that the cat was hungry too.
The scene changed.
Now he was on a boat. He was holding a large fish while the same women placed the fish into a bin. The same cat was still sitting in front of him. He offered it the large fish.
"The one who eats big grows big," he heard himself saying that.
Suddenly, the sound of gunfire echoed, and the scene changed again.
He was running...He was weak..Hunger had drained every bit of strength from his body. He hadn't eaten anything for the past two days. He felt just like that starving cat he had seen a few days ago—thin, weak, and left to fend for itself. He pitied himself.
Voices came from outside, he was on a boat, hidden inside a barrel by the same man he called uncle. He peeked through the narrow crack between the wooden planks. His uncle was drenched in his own blood. Someone was asking him something... perhaps about them. The man standing before him kept shouting a woman's name. The blood-soaked man only shook his head in refusal.
Then a bullet was fired into his head.
A woman came running out, screaming as she tried to stop him. That's the same women his mother.
Then he saw the lid of his barrel being lifted and he was dragged out by force.
The man looked him up and down as if trying to confirm something.
Then he heard him asking, "Beomgyu or Seori?"
He saw two of the man's subordinates walking toward him. He was about to answer, "Beomgyu," but before he could, the women pulled him into a tight embrace.
"How are you going to examine a girl? Are you insane? How could you even think of doing that?" He heard his mother screaming at them.
For the past few days, he had been taking his sister's place. After that first night, when his mother left him alone, he never saw his sister again.
The man whispered, "Seori," and gave an order to his men, and walked away.
They were shoved into a room. His mother still held him tightly as ropes were tied around them. He was still hungry.
Through the window, he could see part of the deck. His eyes followed the view until they stopped on the lifeless body of his uncle.
Then he saw the same cat. Skinny, frightened, and covered in filth.
It was tearing into his uncle's fresh flesh with its claws and teeth, feeding on him.
"The bigger the food, the fuller the stomach." His own voice echoed inside his head.
But today... this was the big meal.
The cat kept tearing at him and feeding on him.
He felt as though every claw, every bite, every rip was carving into his own existence...as if it was devouring him alive.
Gyu woke up screaming.He was trembling.
This nightmare had returned after a whole decade. Back then, he had been barely four years old.
He looked around...No one...He was alone.
He let out a deep sigh of relief.
He switched on the lights, walked into the bathroom, and splashed cold water onto his face.His eyes drifted toward his reflection in the mirror and stopped at the dark circles beneath them. They had appeared during the fever he'd suffered over the past few days and had only just begun to fade. But after this nightmare, they seemed to resurface, darker than before.
He splashed more water onto his face before walking out.
This wasn't why he had come here.
He used to have these types of nightmares less often, but now they had become frequent.
Back then, they came less often because he was never afraid of whether someone was with him or not.
Now he was afraid because he had no one.
At times like these, he needed Garam.
His thumb hovered over Garam's number. He pressed the call button. Deep down, he knew it probably wouldn't be answered, but he still clung to that small hope.
The phone kept ringing.
No answer.
He lowered the phone with a quiet sigh.
Because Garam was the only one who had ever made him feel safe.