Three years and Egania’s still at war with the United States. Well, the United States has been a very strong country, Emery thought. Very stubborn. As he was making his tea, a memory with a blurry face intruded the front of his mind. What did Hildur name her painting?
Over the past three years, the Eastern world received the pleasure of more Shizukana Siano work to distract them from the war in the west. This also meant three years of no one getting close to Siano’s identity. People continued to try, but it didn’t work. Siano’s work did have so much variety that it generated the theory that Shizukana Siano was made up of more than one person. Hildur didn’t believe it, but Emery liked to entertain the thought. There was a Siano song that Hildur would hum nearly everyday for the past five years, and Emery also forgot the name of that.
There was not much coverage on the war, but people were okay with that. They had Siano to keep them distracted and happy. People didn’t like thinking or talking about war, even if they felt it was necessary. The latest update was that Egania had occupied most Southern states, and it didn’t look like the United States would be reclaiming those states anytime soon. Something about this war wasn’t sitting right with Emery. There was no update on the Corruptuals and whether they’d been killed or not but that was something Hildur kept checking. It scared Emery a bit, and at times he thought he was losing his best and only friend to pure hatred and anger, until she’d begin to hum the Siano song. That brought her back from the nasty emotions and a version of Hildur that Emery couldn’t help but blame the Corruptuals for indirectly creating.
Hildur was in the living room humming a Siano song, a different one, than the usual.
Emery couldn’t remember how he and the Korean met, exactly, and it made him realize his memory was getting worse. Ironically, he couldn’t remember why his memory was getting worse, but he knew it wasn’t always this bad. The earliest he could remember of his friendship with Hildur was the screening of Siano’s first feature length film. After the film, she insisted that there was a grasshopper somewhere in the film. He couldn’t remember if there was or not, but he took her word for it. Wait, we met because of the war somehow. He tried to think back further, but it was a thick blurry wall of fuzz and oblivion. He could not remember more than that. Maybe Hildur had, but he didn’t want to ask.
Suddenly, Hildur stopped humming and that worried Emery, though he couldn’t exactly figure out why, but something in him felt odd. He ran out of the kitchen and Hildur had a worried look on her face, locked onto her computer screen.
“Hildur?”
She didn’t answer.
Emery approached her and she remained unmoving. There was a message on her screen. “Something’s wrong,” is all it said. Emery recognized the design of that chat log. It was from Rain. This brought back another memory but it was immediately shut out by Emery’s concern for Rain and Hildur. He touched her shoulder, which was something Hildur pretended not to like.
“Sorry,” she said. “Something’s wrong.”
“I know, I saw. You don’t think…?”
Hildur seemed to snap out of her trance. “No! Absolutely not, Em. There is nothing, no one on this planet that could find Rain. She might as well be in a different universe.”
Maybe she’s Siano, Emery thought. He wasn’t sure where that came from. Emery pieced together the reason why Hildur seemed so agitated. Rain was an intelligent hacker who didn’t need to ask questions, but she followed the affairs of most countries at all times. This mean she’d been following the war in the west. There was still a lot about Rain that Emery, and even Hildur didn’t understand, but one thing they knew for certain is that Rain’s suspicion or concern was not a good sign.
Hours passed, and no new update from Rain. Hildur had began mumbling to herself. She’d bounce between humming Siano and mumbling to herself. This was another version of Hildur Emery wasn’t familiar with, but he knew her well enough to adapt and find a solution to bring her back.
More hours passed and Hildur began pacing. The humming stopped, the mumbling intensified, and evolved. She rambled to herself and Emery watched, desperately trying to create a plan to bring her back to her true self. Her pacing and breathing sped up. Emery touched her shoulder and stood in front of her.
“This stuff is effective when its warm,” he said to her, in a calm voice he didn’t intend. “Let’s take a few breaths while we’re at it?”
She stared at him for a while, but looked at the cup. She took the tea from him and took a seat. “This is that flavor I hate right?”
“The very same you keep drinking for some reason.”
She chuckled and sipped. A good sign.
“How long have you been up, Hildur?”
She cursed at him in Korean.
Emery understood the, I don’t know, part of it. “Just drink that and go to sleep for once in your life.”
“I’m not a fucking insomniac,” she said, and said some more Korean curses at him.
They both laughed. Emery went to her computer and played a Siano piece.
She gulped the rest of the tea.
“You’re always humming but I never hear you actually listening to the music. Humming is good, but actually listening to music can be medicinal, in some cases.”
“Okay doctor narwhal,” she said, referring to an inside joke they had between themselves for several years.
“Go. To. Sleep. Hildur, sleep. Now. Sleep. Go. Sleep. Nap, at least.”
Hildur danced with the music and appeared to ignore Emery’s words. But this was Hildur back in her true self. Hildur danced to her bedroom but stopped before opening the door. “This one, this song, I love it. I hear it in my dreams, Em. This song somehow translate the strangest of all my dreams into coherent feelings in emotions, which flow through my mind like words that I can understand.”
“How are you a poet all of a sudden?”
Hildur went in her room. The music was still playing, and she was still humming. Emery took a seat at Hildur’s computer, taking her place, staring at the screen waiting for an update.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been at the computer, but his eyes began to grow heavy. Music was still playing, but he’d turned the volume down earlier once he checked Hildur was finally sleeping. He closed his eyes.
“Shit,” Dreamery said.
Hildur was running away in a white expanse. Jumping across a river that seemed to go on forever. She was singing a Siano piece very loudly, and running very fast. In Dreamery’s hands, was a cup of Sleep tea. He knew that he needed to get this tea to Hildur, or she wouldn’t sleep. He ran after her but she seemed to run faster. Every couple of seconds she’d jump over the river and jump back. Her voice began to echo across the expanse. It was annoying, but beautiful, but only because dreams made you sing much better than you really did. It seemed like he chased Hildur for months, and finally, she’d become tired of running.
“Are you going to drink this tea now? I only found out recently that no one can sleep until you drink this, and I am very tired somehow.”
Hildur took the cup from him and began humming the song Emery played for Hildur before she went into her room. Her voice echoed through both the expanse and Dreamery’s ears. He felt lifted off his feet. Tears began to fall from his eyes.
“Do you understand any of this now?”
Dreamery nodded and the expanse turned black.
“What the fuck?” He said to himself, after waking up. He glanced over at Hildur’s bedroom door. It was closed, which meant she was still in there, hopefully sleeping. He wiped his eyes and saw new messages on Hildur’s computer:
“Whoever you are, you’re the only hope of ending this. Egania has been hunting and torturing journalists and any and everyone connected to them. I have lost many friends and family. It was suicide getting in contact with you, and this may have gone to the wrong person, but I have to die with hope.”
The rest of the messages were pictures and video files. Emery took one good look at just one picture and ran inside Hildur’s room to wake her. He grabbed her hand and yanked her out of bed. She nearly tripped but managed her footing.
She read everything. Saw every picture, watched every video. The anger was coming back, but this time, she reserved enough of her true self to not be paralyzed by that anger. “I know who to send this to.”
ns3.148.233.130da2
