Chapter 66: Peridot and the Garden of Memories (2) [COMPLETE]
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1h
5
I looked at the tree, which had grown to the height of the baobabs I had only seen in children's stories. Blue, red, gray, and multicolored branches spread across its limbs.
It was an exotic tree, unlike anything I had ever seen, which was contradictory, considering that this place shouldn't be able to reproduce things I hadn't already experienced.
"Maybe that's why the grass died."
This tree was fusing concepts in my mind, creating something new from ideas instead of faithfully reproducing images I had already experienced. This revealed an unexplored potential in this place.
I fell into a trance, admiring the branches.
"It's beautiful."
The tree gave me a strangely cozy feeling. I found my steps wandering forward in a rare impulsive reaction, and by the time I realized it, my hands were already touching the wood.
I felt a slight energy running through my fingertips, like small electrical charges. Streams of data began to pass before my eyes, slowly taking the form of images.
In my vision, I saw a young man playing video games with a blank expression and a long scar on his face. He occasionally laughed at his friend's nonsense. It was a gray, banal memory, something forgettable.
Then, suddenly, the image of a dead fish in an aquarium appeared, floating lifelessly while a child stared at it without saying a word. As I looked at the child, I felt a cold numbness spread through my body, as if the child's invisible sadness were being transmitted to me.
That was the death of my first pet, a small betta fish named Oliver, given to me by my grandmother. He died because I didn't have time to feed him due to work. It was the first and last time I took care of a pet.
The image shifted again. A hungry cat stood in the street. The child looked at the food in his hands, then walked in the opposite direction, avoiding the animal. Strong feelings of guilt and regret followed the boy's retreating figure.
"So that's why I avoided the idea of taking care of animals…"
A truth I had never fully understood was now being clearly illustrated in my mind. And that wasn't all. Many small events appeared alongside it.
Like the time I dropped a glass container of water on the floor and my grandmother accidentally slipped. She was taken to the hospital, and afterward, the boy devoted himself to caring for his only remaining family member.
To pay off the debts he had incurred, the boy worked day and night, doing all kinds of jobs, from mowing lawns to selling newspapers, even drugs in alleyways. When his grandmother returned home, he was covered in bandages and looked utterly exhausted, yet he proudly held a bag full of coins and bills.
His grandmother hugged him in tears, but the boy didn't understand why. In the end, he accepted the strangeness of her reaction and awkwardly hugged her back. After that, whenever she walked on barren or slippery ground, the boy would grip her sleeves tightly, a habit that persisted whenever he felt uncomfortable or afraid.
What this tree was showing was nothing less than the chain reaction a single act had in my life, and how small traumas shaped the supposedly rational behavior I believed I was exhibiting.
I watched the boy, feeling both the happiness of seeing his grandmother in good health and the fear of losing her as he clung to her sleeves. At the same time, my own hand tightened around the tree.
I looked at my involuntary reaction in silence, then back at the boy in the vision. Even now, those habits still lingered.
"…This is a little scary."
The precision with which the tree formed these associations was terrifying. It felt as though I were being exposed, laid bare before the world, with no way to hide.
At last, I followed the images to their end. The boy's silly, proud expression as he hugged his grandmother faded away, and with it, the memory became more bearable.
A small branch of the tree began to shift, dark at first, then gradually turning gray like the more trivial memories. Though faint black traces remained, it was no longer as uncomfortable as before.
Small memories continued to surface here and there.
When the boy went to bury the money he had earned after a long day of work, he found his hiding place already taken by a man who looked eerily similar to him. Anger rose within him. But the moment he tried to approach and confront the man, a bottle shattered over his head.
Blood trickled down his face, mixing with the stench of alcohol and the sight of his father's unkempt, bearded expression.
The helpless weakness in the boy's legs, the furious shouting about hiding money, the fear of facing the father who had raised him, and the dread of never waking up again all fused into a single, overwhelming emotion.
Even in the hospital, the boy groaned in pain. Needles pierced his skin, trying to reconstruct what had been broken, while bandages covered his wounds. But half-conscious, he could only remember his father's furious face, paired with his ragged breathing.
As I looked at the boy with his face disfigured, lying in the hospital bed, attended by a nurse, I felt my legs weaken, and a warm sensation rise in my stomach.
My hand left the tree and clutched my stomach as it churned violently. I tried to calm it with gentle strokes, but something forced its way out of my mouth.
"U-uh... blegh!"
Gastric juices and mucus splattered onto the lifeless grass. Each time I tried to stop, more memories flooded my mind, and excruciating pain shot through my limbs. Once again, liquid spilled from my lips.
"B-blegh…"
My lips trembled, and my teeth chattered as my heart pounded so hard I couldn't ignore it. Tears fell with each ragged breath.
"W-What... was that?"
My vision was blurry and erratic, and I felt dizzy all over my body. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes, the tingling in my face, and the fear I felt all seemed to come together at once.
Although this is a bitter memory, I never reacted so intensely to it. My father had died a long time ago, and I only saw it as an unfortunate event in my life.
After that event, the way people looked at me was never the same. People were afraid of me and my menacing appearance. My already empty school life became practically nonexistent.
My grandmother was the only one who was able to treat me normally. Ironically, although I called her grandmother, we did not share the same blood.
She was simply a lady who sold apples. From time to time, she would give me free food, preventing me from starving to death. But after that event, my father was taken to court and committed "suicide."
In truth, his death had always been a mystery. Some said he was killed by loan sharks, while others believed he had been cursed. All my grandmother said was that he was found in a very bad state, with a grim face.
Later, at the funeral, when I examined his body, I realized the euphemism for "bad state" she had been referring to. There were clear signs of malnutrition, as if life had been drained from his body. There were also signs of unconsciousness from beatings and a smell of urine and feces.
I knew it was far from suicide, even though I was young. However, what happened to him was predictable. My father was excellent at offending others and getting into senseless fights. He was the typical narcissist who thought he would get away with whatever he did.
There was not just one or two people who wanted him dead.
And although it may seem strange, there was no resentment or hatred for this man in my mind. He was just a brief, uncomfortable memory.
I was indifferent to any topic related to him. Even after that event, I lived normally with my grandmother. Even without a school life, I never made many friends. Work was acceptable as long as you could carry the weight. I even managed to get a suitable job later on.
My life was on track, without a single trauma, and I always believed I was a very stable and solid person.
But as I relived that moment, I realized that perhaps it was never that simple.
"This is different from how I remember it happening."
In that memory, I seemed scared and frightened, but the emotions I could recall were only indifference. I did not remember such fear. The events themselves were the same, but the emotions were completely different.
But why was it so different? Why did my memories indicate that this was a trivial event while my mind was at peace, yet my body was so restless?
Contradiction. My attitude was completely contradictory.
Emotions such as hatred and fear could not coexist with indifference. But surprisingly, that seemed to be my case. Unless I had some kind of mental illness and had sabotaged myself into rewriting these facts, this should not be happening.
But although the chance is not zero, I felt that was not the case. I was able to analyze this situation rationally.
But then what would explain these circumstances? Do I really have some kind of mental illness?
Worry over what I considered truth and the facts conflicted in my mind.
"I have to see."
I looked at the tree again and reached out my hand. I had to know the facts as they really were and see to what extent my memories were distorted. Up to that point, they were just emotions, but what if even the events were different from what I remembered?
However, before I touched the tree, red flakes suddenly began to fall from the sky, and everything froze. My hand remained outstretched, unable to move a single finger, as if time had stopped.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me. There was "something" there.
I turned my eyes, trying to see what this anomaly looked like, but all I saw were completely red hands.
The moment those hands touched the tree, the whole world seemed to tremble, as if resisting their touch. The tree began to lose its life and wither, and with that, this space became more and more unstable, as if the core of this space had been removed.
I could not breathe, but my lungs still craved air. I felt like I was suffocating, yet unable to breathe.
The ground began to disintegrate in the distance, the sky cracked, and space itself seemed to distort like small black holes corrupting this mental world.
The hand stopped in front of the withered tree and then slowly began to approach my face.
My eyes trembled as I watched that hand approach. With a single touch, it was capable of destroying this space. Imagine what would happen if it touched me?
I needed to get out of here.
The moment I had that thought, I felt something pulling at my feet. Suddenly, space itself began to absorb me, and my vision darkened.
The last thing I saw was a red finger about to touch my nose, but it futilely glided through the air.
My vision was then entirely swallowed by darkness, and an empty silence reigned.
"Hah! Ugh, hah!"
I clutched my throat, trying to fill my lungs with the air they craved, while on my knees.
My heart was still racing from the tension of almost losing my life in a strange place and the fear of the unknown.
After a few minutes of deep breathing, I finally noticed where I was.
"Empty..."
Unlike the grassy area that tried to simulate normality, this space was just dark and claustrophobic. Wherever you looked, it was completely dark.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing.
I stood there watching for a few minutes, but a long time passed and nothing happened.
The red figure did not appear, trying to give jump scares, and I was not able to get out of here either.
In the end, all I could do was wander aimlessly, and that was exactly what I did.
I looked around disinterestedly, but all I saw was darkness and more darkness. After what seemed like hours of walking, I finally lost patience.
"Can't I even have peace in my dreams now?"
I was genuinely upset by this situation. After sleeping through a stressful day, I had to wake up in a strange place, regain my senses, and then experience an identity crisis along with suspicions about my own mental health.
And then, a red figure from absolutely nowhere appeared, destroying this place as if it were nothing, and even tried to take my life. But the moment I escaped this hell, I fell into an even worse abyss.
A dark space where nothing could be seen or felt.
"When am I going to wake up?"
I was seriously thinking about giving up on sleep from now on. What did I do to end up in this situation?
I started having such futile thoughts, but I knew they would not lead to anything. I just walked and walked wherever my mind took me.
And surprisingly, it led me somewhere.
Far away in the darkness, someone was sitting there, clutching her knees.
A girl with green hair, green skin, and a stature remarkably similar to mine.
In fact, to say almost similar was an understatement. She was a perfect carbon copy of my gem form, without a doubt.
Apparently, in that dark place in the middle of nowhere, another "me" was there.
*
Author's note
This is the most unique mini-arc I've ever written. The chapters are shorter, which allows me to divide things in an interesting way. The next chapter will conclude this arc and then continue with an intermission. I'm really excited for you to read what follows.
I'm loving every second I'm writing this. Have a good day and two cookies 🍪🍪
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