"Sequence raveled out of reach..."

Foreword

I FELT a cleavage in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.

Love may be blind, but that does not dictate the word’s concrete connotation. There are many other things that hinder one’s vision—anger, hatred, pessimism, even optimism. Ah, how wonderfully the human body works! It is able to selectively block out features that one does not take a liking to, whether unconsciously or not.

In the state of emotional crisis, even if one’s words or thoughts clearly express it, the idea of wanting to look on the brighter side of things always manages to weave its way through, though only noticeable from a certain angle of perspective. In this state, the mind works as so: those things that help one cope with their misfortunes become accentuated, as if the peripheral vision suddenly highlights the good (or bad, depending on preference) on which one focuses. Perhaps it is easier to think of it tints and shadows. The items focused upon become highlighted while everything else becomes a simple blur within the shades of insignificance.

The mind isolates these objects; it places attention fully and solely on them, leaving everything else forgotten—its sacred flaw.

Vision is powerful…vision is perilous.

The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,
But sequence raveled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.

-Emily Dickinson

Story

Her hands swiftly moved in jagged, yet controlled motions as she guided the sketching utensil across the vanilla coloured page. It seemed as though she merely weaved a simple pattern into the page (quite like sewing, though with the single sharp end of a pencil as opposed to two needles); her zigzagged patterns now took shape. The rough edges formed from the back-and-forth motion defined the contours of what she had imagined in her head.

The jaw line…the hair…the ears…all the unmistakable physical features that defined his anatomy so clearly had been perfectly plotted along the uncharted plane. His broad shoulders curved in the manner which she had always seen him. The lines darted off the page rather harshly as she dragged the sharpened end of the pencil right off the border, the paper almost tearing from that action alone. She went back to work. His hair, tousled in such an elegantly suave form as it had always been, his jaw line now being revealed with more depth as if perfection was actually attainable. All his features had been flawlessly captured and documented by simple lines and gradients upon this single layer of thin fiber. Her contours were complete, and her shading commenced.

This woman’s features appeared to be contradictory. There was a smile plastered upon her lips, though her eyes told a different story.

The eyes are the windows into one’s soul…

Her eyes—her pupils, the dark brown hue of them—made the smile almost a façade. Her eyes gleamed with sadness, horror even—as if an ominous presence had taken her place as her hands were hastily darting over certain spots on the page to add even more shades. Or perhaps, even that sadness or horror seen in her eyes was merely a front, as well. Her actions appeared unconscious. Was she even able to see what she was doing? Her eyes were open, yes…but even then, her actions seemed blind.

The pencil softly scraped its graphite-pointed end against to reveal more blackened marks on the page. Oh, how she captured his form so perfectly!

It appeared as though the pencil itself had uncovered the wild geometry of the soul hidden underneath the contrasting tint…

A sinister laugh, a combo of contradictory emotions expressed. Tension rose; the hot air seemingly condensed into an entity that acted as an extension of her own, invisible to the eye, but present to the mind. Ominous forces took over. She jabbed the tip into the thin layer, almost expecting as if it would scream to her satisfaction. The corners of his mouth now curved upward, darkened corners…blood? No, accents. Simple accents to accentuate his sophisticated nature, a smile looking more like a smirk to express his beautifully arrogant yet chivalrous attitude.

Though of course, flaw always took over after perfection’s momentary time span had reached its conclusion…

Looking over her work now, she dropped the pencil atop the surface of her desk, presenting another deviously elegant smile that could be perceived as the mask of insanity to the wonderful absence of any other rational being. Her eyes began to water, though the smile did not leave her face; she set aside her incomplete masterpiece and pulled out a small journal that lay almost forgotten to her right. Taking the same pencil from before, she opened to a blank page, beginning to document another one of her days that would be passed on.

---

“Sunhee-ah.”

The man, after calling his companion’s name, had entered the small apartment they shared. Needless to say, exhaustion had overcome this man, as if the slow dragging of his two feet did not imply that. He sloppily threw his jacket up onto one of the hooks beside the door and basically threw himself onto one of the couches, closing his eyes and resting his hands in a lazy fashion behind his head as he did so.

This man was Kim Jonghyun, and perhaps his profession was not exactly one of the more admirable ones out there.

He was a philanderer, perhaps another one of the infamous Giacomo Casanova’s voluntary apprentices that had chosen to practice the art of seduction, choosing to test his knowledge by applying it to real-world scenarios. However, this was not exactly the way he had made his living. It seemed almost outstanding how he had managed to live with a person of the opposing sex for such a long period of time, though that was not to say their relationship was very smooth at all.

The woman, Lee Sunhee, was the only woman to ever break through the barricade that Jonghyun had built around himself, the only one able to reveal his true colours, and for that, he was probably more than thankful. Though, there was this aspect of a bruised ego that ran through his blood, and that was probably why he had made her swear to never reveal the fact that they had lived together.

Jonghyun, with a girl? No visible indications of lustful attractions towards her? Such a thing was strange for anyone’s taste, having that name associated with that type of…platonic…behaviour.

Nonetheless, he had this soft side to him that he would only reveal in the confines of their apartment. Even with his countless late night rendezvous, he would always take care of business elsewhere. Whether this was purely out of consideration of the other inhabitant of the opposite gender within this apartment or not remained a mystery.

However, at the moment, Jonghyun was tired for another reason, and yes, it was a reason that did not have to do with anything sexually involved. Ever since he had been promoted at the architectural firm where he worked, the longer hours combined with his body’s inability to cope with the stress had taken a toll on him. He had barely gone to the nearby club anymore and placed a majority of his focus upon this new project they were working on. In truth, this had been his first arrival back at the apartment in about two weeks; half those nights had been spent out with more women. What better way to relieve stress than through pleasure, right? Of course, these faults led to his exhaustion, for the many late night rendezvous had already lagged him behind significantly through late arrivals at work, as well as the fatigue that followed shortly afterwards; but he was slowly getting back into his usual efficient routine, though he was still as tired as ever.

“Sunhee-ah?” he called out once more, rather baffled by the lack of response.

The television screen that sat across the couch, Jonghyun noticed, had been turned on and remained at a rather low volume, almost as if perfectly set for him to be able to rest while updating his brain with the latest news feeds being aired. He spared no effort turning it off as he miraculously picked himself up and off the couch, still questioning the silence he had received. The digital clock placed atop the television read 11:30 p.m. She could not have gone out…or perhaps she was sleeping. Nonetheless, he decided to look inside her bedroom.

A step inside…

“Sunhee-ah?” he said a little more…quietly this time. The atmosphere felt alien—as though he had crossed boundaries into some uncharted territory that seemed more ominous in nature than he liked.

Darkness had fallen over her room, only two light sources illuminating a mere fraction of its interior—the moonlight that dimly lit a part of her bed on the far side of the room, and her desk lamp that lit up the entire top of her desk. That desk—or rather, what was on top of it—had caught his eye. A single vanilla page lay on the surface, the size of a regular piece of printing paper; a ruler had been placed top of it, perpendicular to its length and parallel to its width. The placement seemed too perfect to be mere coincidence.

Jonghyun approached the desk slowly, defensively—preparing for a nonexistent beast that was about to lunge at him. The darkened walls of the room did not help with uplifting this eerie nature. Taking one last shaky step, he peered down upon the paper.

What the-…wow…

He did not have to look at the full image to notice the perfection planted upon rough, sketching paper. Every contour, every gradient of shade had been sketched and detailed with perfect precision. It was him—well, his torso at least. In the picture, his hands were folded over his chest in an arrogant fashion, which was proven by the playful smirk drawn and accentuated by dark, heavy lines and shades at the corners of his mouth. If looked upon from a certain angle, it almost looked devious, as if blood had suddenly taken form and was about to trail from the corners of his mouth, but nonetheless, the image remained still and unmoving.

Jonghyun was almost tempted to imitate the action displayed on that image, though right as he was about to do so, his fingers traced the borderline of the ruler, moving it slightly upwards, his eyes immediately widening as the pupils now seemed isolated and lost in a sea of white upon the moistened surface.

Eyes-…where-…what-…

There were his eyes…absent from where they should be. Instead, it had been drawn as though his eyeballs never existed, the entire area shaded the darkest shade of black from charcoal.

Just like the absence of the eyes, the absence of the soul from the body was also apparent.

He stumbled backwards, trying to get away from the perfectly horrifying image, but then—

A pause…a cough…blood spreading through the white cotton of his polo…

Jonghyun fell forward, onto the desk, and finally to the ground.

---

“Oh, Jonghyun-oppa,” the girl, now identified as Sunhee, called in a sing-song voice with the body of her beloved Jonghyun sitting behind her; this body, though not in the same posture, now seemed like a reflection of sketch from earlier—eyes gouged from their sockets, blood trailing from the now open portals or gateways into the soul, though it was empty. Of course, it was now only a body, the soul had drifted off to some better place to escape this miserable fate.

Sunhee smiled as she looked at the items in her hands. Two, perfectly round spheres—white, with a small, red smudge in the back (from which veins had been severed) as well as small trails of red that branched out from them subtly across the white plain that were seen all around this white, spherical object. She turned them over to face the two black circles on the other side, clean of any cuts, proving her precision in initiating such an act.

“There must be something wrong with your eyes, Jonghyun-oppa…” Her voice trailed off, almost as if expressing some sort of melancholy in the decreased volume, perhaps even scorn.

Eyes…gouged from their sockets, now sitting in the hands of this woman…

…where they truly belong…

“…you never saw me more than a friend…” Her voice came out deep, dark, and full of resentment. “You always went out with those sluts and never even looked at me. What did they have that I didn’t? I’m a girl too!” Her voice suddenly boomed with frustration, and then switched back to her original sing-song tone. “But that’s okay, because now I’m here to fix them!”

She brought the two moist orbs to her desk that had small specks of drying blood still present upon it and laid them down on top of the image of the man they had originally belonged to.

“I saw in those TV shows that before surgery, they usually had to put something called…anes…anesthesia? I think? It was a number type thing, Jonghyun-oppa, and then they would push the needle all the way into your vein. I didn’t have any needles, so I used something else sharp!”

At this point, Jonghyun’s body that was leaning against her bed’s side lurched forward, revealing the 28-centimeter blade that had been roughly jabbed into the left half of Jonghyun’s back…close enough to where the heart is. The blade poked through the other side, now merely concealing a permanent hole that was yet to be revealed.

“I had to cut some other parts to get these, but it’s okay. I can just glue them back together later!”

From a random drawer on the side of the desk, her hand dug into its contents and withdrew a much smaller knife, gleaming with a devious glare in the dim lighting of the simple desk lamp that proved its worth as the single manufactured light source. It had started to drizzle outside, though small rumbles of thunder could be heard, as well as the punctures of lightning that flashed upon the window in an arrhythmic fashion.

Delicately holding this sphere in place on top of the test, she took the miniature blade, placing its sharpened edge upon the delicate, moist surface of white, and then, adding pressure, pushed the knife downward, cutting through the soft fiber of the orb-like figure, letting some of pressure inside be released, ultimately severing the eye completely, leaving it as two different entities, two different hemispheres. She took one of the halves and looked through its now cleanly cut end—through the reverse end of the retina, using it nearly as some sort of lens to look at the corpse that was still by her bed side.

“Waah~” She admired the perfection of this object through the reverse end. “Your eyes are so awesome, Jonghyun-oppa! But then, what’s wrong with them. Why can’t they see anything else besides your stupid sluts?”

Of course, she received no reply in return, only the silence that surrounded her, keeping her company.

…oh, the fallacy of perfection…the closer one comes to attaining it…the further away it seems…

“But at least now, my drawing will be more than perfect!” she exclaimed.

Was it insanity? …Was it the insanity that clouded her very own vision to think that perfection was ever possible?

The blind, blurred contours of one’s perception. Only seeing anything within the periphery of one’s vision, leaving everything else out of the picture. It was only in this state of mind…the clouded, doubtful mind…that perfection was perceivable. It only took one simple look at the details to clear these misconceptions…to see that flaws existed everywhere. Vision is that powerful…to be able to view many things…ideas…at different, countless levels…

Sunhee took her knife once more and replicated her actions earlier, though with the other orb that laid still on the desk before. Taking her ruler, she measured the length and width of the blackened portion of her masterpiece from earlier, which she merely filled in as to indicate that she was not exactly finished, but her chance had come. Tracing the contours onto the whitened surface with the black opening in the middle, she, once again, cut through the fibrous edges of his hemisphere, sculpting (in a sense) perfectly into form to fit within the shaded borders of the image’s eyes.

“Now you’ll look at me…and only…at…me.”

She smiled deviously at her work and turned to pick up the other precious half-orb to repeat her previous actions when something at the corner of her eye caught her attention, gleaming with an almost innocent aura.

--

“Oppa?”

“Happy birthday, Sunhee-ah~” her favourite oppa had greeted her by talking into her room with a sloppily (yet very personally) frosted birthday cake. There were still small stains from the frosting on his shirt, as well as small specks of that same frosting that dotted his face in a random fashion, and that probably touched this young woman the most.

“W-What’s this?” she stuttered. Apparently, she still could not grasp the fact that her best friend had bothered to acknowledge the fact that it was her birthday.

“Well what does it look like? I’m here to celebrate my dongsaeng’s birthday!”

Unable to control her emotions, her tears poured down her cheeks in very visible streams—her vision becoming blurred and skewed behind the moistened layer. Jonghyun hastily placed the cake gently atop the mattress while sitting down beside her, wiping her tears as he did so.

“Yah…” his soft voice expressed this sense of care. “Stop crying, alright? You still haven’t opened your…”

Sunhee looked up to face him, confused as to why he paused, and only to be greeted by his overly exaggerated grin.

“My…”

“Your…” and then he pulled his hand that was hidden from behind me, “present!”

There in his hands sat a small, square…jewelry box? Jonghyun-oppa got me jewelry? The woman thought to herself, but nonetheless, found herself opening that small box to reveal its contents.

A gasp.

“Do you…like it?” his voice sounded nervous, yet still full of confidence—the contradiction was clearly conveyed by his facial expressions.

The gift was a simple necklace with a heart shaped pendant sparkling under the dimmed lighting of her room (if only they would ever replace that light bulb). Her eyes shimmered in a similar fashion as she took the pendant from the box and into her hands, admiring the beauty right before her eyes.

“Oh…my god…” Her voice had managed to suffice in a very soft whisper.

What else was there to say? It was beautiful…nothing more, nothing less.

“So…do you like it?” he repeated his question.

“I love it.”

A simple whisper of confirmation.

--

I FELT a cleavage in my mind
As if my brain had split;

A spark, a flash of electricity darted through the soft fibrous membrane of the woman’s heart, and suddenly, the whites of her eyes became fully uncovered, the two black orbs in the center now surrounded by a pool of a pinkish tint.

“J-J-J-…J-J-Jong…-h-h-hyun….o-o-o-oppa?”

Her head pivoted in a stuttered motion as her pupils attempted to veer in every direction possible, not wanting to accept such a horrid image to be etched into the fiber of her mind.

A flash.

A knife; a body collapsing forward. The body rolled onto its side. Eyes? No…there weren’t any.

I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.

A gasp.

The knife in her hand. The piece of paper her hand had rested upon. Deadly and poisonous against her skin. Dead…no. Not dead…but certainly not alive.

It was as if though its lifeless nature stirred some ominous force within it and brought it to life. Contradictions blending…

Her foot inched sideways just a bit, also not fully permitting her to completely turn around, but she felt something against the edge of her foot.

What was on the floor? Moisture? What could have made her foot feel as if it were now drenched in such a fashion? …what would have such a dense nature within its presence? It was not simply water…there was no way it was just water…

Her eyes managed to shift their focus now upon the foot she had inched with such caution from just a couple of seconds ago. ...Was that…red? Dark red…crimson…Sanguinary…no, it was not her own blood.

Wait- blood?

But then-

“O-O-…p-p-ppa?”

Her voice managed another futile attempt. Her beloved oppa still lied unmoving on the opposite side of the room.

Her eyes scanned the dark shade of liquid trailing from her foot. Where had it originated from? No…why was it there in the first place? Was her mind playing some obscure game with her conscience? Her eyes…no…her conscience had stopped her eyes’ panning vision from continuing any further. The only thing her peripheral vision could distinguish as another body was the single leg that lied still. The torso of this corpse had yet to be revealed, if it were to ever be revealed in fullness that was.

“AH!” Her shrill, brief scream had accompanied her shocked reaction.

What was she holding?

The moisture upon her finger tips seemed to mold around them…as if eating away through the layer of skin…eating away her own being. She quickly let go.

“AAH!” Another shrill cry. The white that surrounded the black…what-

“AAAH!” Her screams were not only increasing in length of duration, but in volume as well. Her hand unceremoniously released its grip on the knife she had held onto somewhere in mid air; the loud ‘clang’ resonating in the uncarpeted area, barely missing her toes… Was that by pure luck? …or had some unseen being purposely done this deed?

The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,

What was going on?

…a cold essence seemingly touched her from behind…

“Sunhee-ah…”

Her head immediately turned in the opposite direction, a gasp, followed by a scream, resonating through the open space… Sunhee’s eyes widened even more as she stared at the corpse…did it just turn towards her?

“AAAAH!”

Why did it seem as though her voice now surrounded her; attempting to suffocate her already wavering being?

…her hands immediately grabbed onto the edge of the desk behind her, as if to keep her sanity…to keep her alive. Was she imagining things?

A contour, a pale doppelganger, a replica of her beloved oppa’s being formed right in front of her eyes, as if standing up from his previous position…eyes absent, the visible, vertical hole through his torso where the knife from the corpse still lay… The figure’s right hand reached out to her hauntingly and slowly as it approached her— the air surrounding her increasing in weight. Sunhee backed up even more, somehow that was possible, for her skin had already hugged the edge of her desk so tightly that it might leave an imprint later on.

The figure bent down just as it had come within 1 meter of her form…reaching for the discarded knife that lied at the tip of her bare toes.

“AAAAAH!” she proceeded to scream and thrash about relentless. Apparently, survival instincts now finally kicked in for she was able to pick up her body and run across the room, heading for the closed door.

Locked.

The terrified moans and screams multiplied— attacking her poor being from all sides. What else was left?

He was waiting for her. The body now turned around— the being’s translucent hand wrapped around the hilt of the knife.

One step towards her. Sunhee’s cries reduced to mere, breathless exhalations. Another step, but she remained in the same spot; physically exhausted but still mentally screaming. Another four steps, and the figured now loomed over her, the absence of his shadow very apparent. The knife rose above his head—its sharpened point gleaming with darkened purpose.

Sunhee’s mind, once more, attempted to figure out what was going on, but…

Sequence raveled out of reach…

The irrationality of her thoughts became only enhanced with the constant fear running through her blood. The doppelganger’s hand descended upon her chest—the young girl’s life ending before she even had the chance to protest one last time. The blood dripped down from the wound, creating small dots upon the ground…

…Like balls upon a floor…

---

“So what do we have here?” A man stepped into the musky aroma of the room, observing his surroundings whilst waiting for the younger detective to inform him of the situation.

“Well, sir, it seems as though it’s another one of those…”

“Those what?”

“Well, it seems as though this woman…had stabbed the other man over there, but then what’s unexplainable is how the knife…” The younger man referred to the hilt of the blade extending out of the woman’s upper torso. “…had lodged itself there. It’s clearly obvious that the man had been murdered, and there are no traces of any other DNA samples in the surrounding area. Only these two were present.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t mean to seem…sexist, sir, but a woman’s own strength is not sufficient enough to drive through her own sternum. Some outside force must have done that, but we don’t know how…”

The older man contemplated for a moment before furrowing his eyebrows and sighing. “Gather what else you can and keep me updated.”

“Yes sir.”

And with that, the man left the room, leaving the younger detective to continue with his work.