Chapter Text
The keys crash into the door as Chris locks up the store for the night. He looks up to see his own faint reflection in the store windows; brown hair, scarred nose from acne in his teens and a decent, if somewhat skinny physique. “Yep, that’s me,” he thinks to himself. Inside the store he sees lights, the ones that are always on no matter the hour, as the overnight workers begin putting items onto shelves. Chris thinks to himself, “Glad I’m not those guys”. Yet there’s a part of him, just a small part, that thinks it’d be better working alone overnight than having to deal with whiny and rude customers all day. “That’s what I get for choosing customer service representative," he says to himself under his breath. “Come on, bro, we gotta go hit up Black Sheep,” says a booming voice from the parking lot behind him. The voice came from Kyle, a large man with a larger personality and Chris’ work friend. The two of them plan to meet up with Mark and Lily, Kyle’s other friends, for drinks after Chris and Kyle get off work. The time was already 10:15 and the bar closed at midnight. “Yea, yea, I’m coming,” Chris says in an exhausted tone.
Chris has had a rough day. In fact, he’s had many of those. Ever since he took a full time job at his local Lowe’s as a customer service representative, he’s had little to no free time and is constantly stressed out due to the break neck pace and piss poor attitudes of customers. He thought that getting this job straight out of college would just be a temporary thing; grind some money working here, then use your English Degree to start writing an epic fantasy series and make bank, or start writing songs and let the cash flow in, he thought. But the thought he needed never came. Now Chris has been working at a dead end job for a year, he’s 23 years old and he feels directionless in life. But, for now, all he cares about is hanging out with his only friends in life.
Chris leans against the side of the passenger chair as Kyle drives through downtown San Luis Obispo. “You really ought to get your license by now, bro,” says Kyle driving one handed while clicking through different radio stations in the car. “I told you,” says Chris, “I’m just saving up for a nice car and then I’ll get it.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that going?”
“I’m…making progress.” Chris has been paying back so much student debt he’s barely saved any money for a car.
“Right…,” responds Kyle. “Anyway, maybe while we’re out we can find you a girlfriend or something.”
“I don’t need you guys to find me a girlfriend, I got moves you know.”
“Oh really? Like that one time you tried talking to that blonde chick at work and you threw a bucket of paint at her?”
“I spilled only a little and it was an accident!”
“Yea I hear ya.” Kyle’s radio hand finally came to a stop on station 97.3, “The Rock” as it’s known locally. Playing on the radio is a somewhat melancholy tune with the lyrics “My, my, those eyes like fire” echoing through the speakers.
“Yo, that’s Sleep Token! Turn that shit up,” blurted Chris.
“You listen to this kind of music?” inquired Kyle.
“Yea man, this is my comfort jam!”
“But it’s so…dreary.”
“Just leave it man, please.”
“My car, my rules.” Kyle clicks to another station and then proceeds to turn the radio off altogether, but not before a brief set of pop lyrics, “We’re goin’ u—”, pierces through, though neither of them seem to take notice.
“Whatever, I know the song backwards and forwards,” says Chris smugly.
“Well you’re not exactly gonna get the time to sing it to me right now, we’re here.” Kyle pulls into the Black Sheep parking lot and the two make their way inside at just past 10:30. Inside waiting are Mark and Lily, who’ve already reserved a table for the four of them.
Mark is reserved, the introverted type who doesn’t talk much, while Lily is the opposite, always outgoing and willing to try anything at least once. Chris at one point had thought about asking Lily out but retracted the idea when he found out that not only does she play exclusively for the girls, but that she already has a girlfriend. “Christ Almighty, guys, you’re finally here!” enthusiastically shouts Lily as she stands to greet Chris and Kyle. “Sorry Lily,” explains Kyle as he gives Lily a one arm side hug, “work kicked our ass and we got off later than we wanted.”
“Well, you’re here now. Come on, sit down, we already ordered drinks for everyone.” She briefly glances over at Chris as if she forgot about him. “Oh, Hi Chris,” she says as she gives him a frenetic wave.
“Hey Lily, hey Mark,” says Chris, giving them each a quick flash of a wave. Mark waves back but says nothing. Chris sits next to Mark while Kyle next to Lily, the two couples sitting across from each other at a large square table.
“You get my usual?” asks Kyle looking at the drink already sitting in front of him.
“Black Manhattan, right?” says Lily.
“You know me well.”
“Oh, Chris, I wasn’t sure what you liked so I got you a Cali Squeeze, is that ok?”
“Lily, I’ve told you I don’t drink.” says Chris, too tired to argue the point further.
“Crap! I forgot, I’m so sorry.”
“You guys already order food?” asks Kyle.
“Carnitas tacos,” perks up Mark, “I really wanted to try them.”
“So I ordered them for all of us! Hopefully they should be out soon,” chips in Lily. As Lily, Kyle and now Mark start talking about their days and what they’re doing on the weekend, Chris can’t help but space out and look out the window of the pub. He can faintly hear the three of them talking about Kyle’s work out regimen, Mark’s Lego collection, and some movie Lily watched on Netflix about K-Pop, but Chris really wasn’t paying attention at this point. He thinks about how his friends’ company, while nice, can’t quite fill the vacancy in his life that he craves to fill. He thinks about how he doesn’t just want to exist moment to moment within the never ending rat race of service worker life, nor does he really want a life of complete comfort and complacency. When he was younger, Chris had heard stories in school of the early explorers of America, the new world as it was known then in those times, and he couldn’t help but be…jealous; jealous that they were able to discover new lands, new horizons, make changes in the world that Chris could only imagine accomplishing himself. Chris didn’t just want change; he needed change. In that moment his thoughts then floated to the Sleep Token song he’d heard earlier in Kyle’s car and began humming to it in his head. Chris had discovered the band 2 years ago while in college and found their sound infectious yet soothing, with the lead singer’s, Vessel’s, voice sounding like a call from angels. As he hums along, staring out the window, he can’t help but notice something peculiar outside; a brief flash of bright blue light shining across the pavement. The shape of the light seemed almost like a string, and its movements were as though the light was dancing. Chris looks around to see if anyone else saw what he did but everyone in the pub seems totally oblivious, as if they hadn’t even seen the light at all. This, understandably, confuses the hell out of Chris. “What was that?” he mutters to himself.
“You cool, Chris?” says Kyle.
“Yea, man, you’ve hardly touched your tacos.” says Lily. The tacos had indeed come by this point and had been sitting in front of Chris for seemingly some time now.
“Did you guys not see that?” asks Chris in a confused tone of voice.
“See what?” says Kyle and Lily in unison.
“There was a bright ass light outside. It wasn’t like a car though, it was on the ground.”
“Probably just some drunk dope dropping his flashlight,” says Kyle with a mouthful of carnitas, “you can’t be going seeing things on us now, you’re too young for that.” He chuckles as he swallows his bite of food.
“No, no, this was different than that. It was like one of those neon lights, but thinner and wavier.”
“Maybe a reflection of another light source?” chimes in Mark.
“Maybe, but…I don’t know, it just looked weird.”
“Hey, less hallucinating and more celebrating.” says Kyle as he gives Chris a friendly push on his shoulder. The four of them then return to their usual routine of eating good food while shooting the shit late at night. Eventually, though, it was time for them to go home.
Mark and Lily wave goodbye as they get into their own respective cars, while Chris hops back into the passenger seat with Kyle driving him home. The ride home is mostly silent, save for a couple chirps from Kyle asking about what their shifts are tomorrow and if they thought their jerk ass manager was going to be at work that day. Finally, Kyle gets to Chris’s apartment complex and drops him off. “See ya at work tomorrow, champ.” shouts Kyle from the car as Chris is already walking to his numbered unit. Chris turns and gives him a silent wave as he’s still walking. Kyle then peels off and out of the complex. Chris unlocks and opens his apartment door, then flips the light switch on to see the mess he’s left his place in for some time now. Soda pop cans litter the kitchen while empty cups of ramen lay scattered across the floor. Chris, exhausted from a long day, collapses onto his bed that sits on the floor and has one side lower than the other from sleeping on said side too often. As he drifts off to sleep, he can’t help but think back to the strange light he saw at Black Sheep; what was that? How did it exist? How did no one else see the light when he had? And why did it seem as though the light appeared as he had started humming a song in his head? All these questions, he thought, would be better served answered in the morning, and with that last thought he swiftly fell asleep.
Chris finds himself standing alone in an endless black void. The space around him hums with faint, indecipherable voices as he slowly walks towards a bright blue light, just like the one he had seen before. The luminescent strings wave gently in front of him, compelling him to reach out his hand to touch them. As his hand slowly reaches towards the light, music unmistakably begins to play, growing louder as his hand gets closer to the light. Stringed instruments rip and tear into the void, while a steady percussion beats urgently, prompting the light glow ever brighter. Chris’s hand finally touches the beaming light, and with this monumental moment the light consumes the void in its blue brilliance, its music roaring through the quiet, and words that Chris doesn’t comprehend but feels coarse through his body belts aloud; “어둠을 밝히랴 우리 노래 부르리라 굳건한 이 소리로 이 세상을 고치리라” (Hollo eodum-eul balghila Uli nolaeleul buleulila Gudgeonhan i solilo I sesang-eul gochilila).
The apartment stands still as Chris awakes frantically. His dream from last night was so vivid it almost felt real. His eyes pan around his apartment and everything seems normal. At least, at first. Taking a second glance over to his kitchen he sees that the refrigerator isn’t in the same spot. “What the hell?” he mumbles as he clumsily gets up to walk over to the kitchen. As he enters the kitchen he sees writing on the fridge that he’s never seen before, yet somehow he’s perfectly capable of reading the foreign language; 김치냉장고 (Kimchi Refrigerator). “When the hell did I get this fridge?” says Chris to himself. “Why do I have—wait, this is…Korean? Wait, why do I know this is Korean? When the fuck did I learn Korean?”. In a frenzied panic, Chris unlocks and then kicks open his front door, only to find an unfathomably unrecognizable sight; instead of the homely suburban neighborhoods of California, Chris now saw in front of him skyscrapers covered in Korean phrases, a train metro system gliding above the streets, and digital billboards advertising everything from Hanbok clothing to Hanji paper crafts. Chris’s day had just started, and he was already having a really rough day.