Chapter 80: Do not hesitate to come find me

Chapter 80: Do not hesitate to come find me I stared at my reflection, moving my head and blinking my eyes to see if the reflection in the mirror would do the same and it did. It had the same shocked and speechless expression I had. What was the meaning of this? Why was the reflection of Jo-Pil from the novel showing as my soul? "Are you messing with me right now?" I asked. "Is this some sort of scamming product? You’re trying to make me believe that ’this’ is my soul?" "I don’t know what happened or how you got trapped in this body but this is definitely not a scam." She said, taking the mirror from me. The reflection of her soul I saw in the mirror was just like her appearance. So, why did mine show like that? I needed to think calmly. There was no way she would set something like this up. In the first place, the fact that I had a dream about being Jo-Pil in the novel was only known to me. So, there was no way she would come up with a scamming product like this. She wasn’t even trying to sell me anything so why would she lie? Still... I couldn’t accept it. I was trapped in that dream and this was my real body. "I’m not trapped," I said. "This... This is my body. And as for why my soul looks like that, maybe your spiritual tool is just confused." Yes, because in the first place, that wasn’t a simple dream. I lived naturally and even felt pain, embarrassed, and flustered. I felt all sorts of emotions, so I can say I did ’live’ as Jo-Pil, and it was not a simple dream. Maybe that was why the spiritual tool was confused. It was still looking at my soul like that but this is me. This is my real body and this is my real world. "Thank you for your help," I said, bowing to her. "But I don’t need any sort of help. This... Is where my soul belongs. I’m not trapped." "Your soul is foreign to this world," she said. "Whatever the reason is, it’s my business," I said, picking up my bag and heading for the door. "Please stay out of it." "In that case," I turned my head around and listened as she said an address. "That’s where you can find me. If your soul, which is foreign to this world, keeps living here, you’ll start to understand what the word ’foreign’ means and why your soul needs to go back. By that time, meet me ’there’." She walked past me slowly and struck her stick on the ground. The continuous rattling of the bells got me furrowing my eyebrows and creasing my forehead. To think I was hearing a bell that only spirits could hear. How was that possible? "Do not hesitate to come find me." The shaman said to me as she kept walking away. She wanted me to come meet her to do what? This soul... I gripped the handle of my bag tightly... It was mine, and this was my body, so I wasn’t going to give it up no matter what. This is my life. After the discharge procedures were done, Tae-Ming finally left. He said he’d have to go back to work since I was out of the hospital and I could continue to recover till I was ready to get back to work. But I don’t know how long my job was going to wait for me. A temp would be put in my place, but who’s to say that temp wouldn’t take over my job completely before I returned? Should I just find another job? I would ponder on that while I recovered and kept living my life. I got back to my house and opened the door. I was greeted by the familiar scent of books stacked continuously at one side of the house, albeit a little dusty. This was the familiar one-room apartment I was used to and not the unnecessarily large room that I was given in the mansion. I threw my bag aside and sat on the bed. The thing the shaman said weighed on my mind but I decided not to think about it for long. I had gained my life back so I would keep living the way I used to. I cooked myself a meal with some of the ingredients I found still fresh in the fridge, ate while reading the book I had left halfway through the night before the accident, and then, after that, stayed up till three, reading. I was able to finish that book and got into another one. For some reason, I could not sleep. I don’t know if it was the fear of waking up in the other world that scared the sleep away but my eyes were wide open. I was sleeping just fine after waking up from my coma so I don’t know what’s wrong with me. In any case, I stayed up reading. I read till the sun came out and I still wasn’t tired. I didn’t have work so maybe this was fine. I got up from the bed and decided to make breakfast but I noticed something odd. It was as if my body was a second slower than the command my brain was sending out. Was this one of the things the shaman meant when she said I’d understand what ’foreign’ meant? I shoved the concept out of my head and decided to keep doing what I was doing. I ate and went back to reading. Luckily, I started to feel drowsy. But in that time, I wondered if I would suddenly wake up in the mansion. These thoughts repeatedly made me stay awake. Was I scared? Yes, I was scared. But why was I scared? Was living in the world of the novel so horrible that the thought of going back scared me? No, it was not. In fact, my time in that world was a new experience and it was nice. Though I had to be cautious most times and do things that wouldn’t get my masters angry, they treated me well. They smiled at me, gave me a lot to eat, took care of me, and got me whatever I asked... Even if I never asked for much. They... Were good to me. So, why was I scared to go back? Maybe it wasn’t the people in the novel I was scared of but the nature of the novel itself. It... Was dark, after all. And there are a lot of us that are scared of the dark.