by Daju Lee
The fishing line was tightly pulled for a moment. Jinho stopped thinking and picked up quite a heavy fish.
"It's a sea bream. Good enough to steam." Dora said from behind, holding a bucket. He skilfully got rid of the hook from the mouth of the tuna and roughly gathered up his glittering hair. "By the way, Daham told me I should give this to you." Making a smile, Dora took out something from his pocket.
"I found this in my pocket yesterday. I was gonna just throw it away but I asked Daham first, feeling weird about it. He said it's yours." Dora went back to the kitchen,
Seeing what Dora gave him, Jinho's heart skipped. It was a piece of his father's paper puzzle, the same type as the one Daham had given to him.
How on Earth are dad and the Mari related? How come his puzzle appears every time we find a lost sailor?
"What is that?" Sensing that Jinho's reaction is not usual, Juna tentatively asked.
Jinho took out the box from the upper pocket of his jacket in the cabin. Not minding that Juna followed him, he opened the cover.
"It's a puzzle!"
As Jinho spread out a few pieces of puzzle on the bed, she let out a sigh of slight disappointment.
"I found it from dad's library… And these two pieces, Daham and Dora had them. I can't understand why they had them but anyway, I think it is some sort of clue."
Jinho carefully put the puzzle together, fitting the piece from Dora last. It was part of a hat, with a blue sky as the background. The picture was ambiguous even after he put all together. It was because the puzzle was missing the most important piece, the part of upper body including the face. It was, therefore, a riddle, still unsolved.
"You mean, this puzzle will be a clue?" Juna asked in a sceptical voice.
"If so, it's important that we find out who this child is. Is it not a picture or you when you were younger?"
"I don't think so. Aside from the faded photograph, the clothing style is quite old, too."
"Perhaps it is Mr. Kim then?" Juna continued asking.
"Well, I don't really know."
Jinho was reminded of his father's old photos at home. There were, however, only group pictures taken from far away, that he could not clearly recall his father's appearance in childhood.
"Mother said, father was from the orphanage called 'orphanage of Somang'('hope'). He was particularly smart among many other orphans and as a result he was considered as the most successful one among them. Despite of how smart he was, he never had a picture of him alone."
Thinking about this story, Jinho came to understood why his father did not say much about his childhood and why he cared about Juna so much.
"We could identify it if only we had the face," said Juna making a regretful look.
"I guess, it will appear, when we find Yura in the next island." Jinho said in a serious voice.
"Yura?"
"Yes, the last lost sailor Hyun told me about. If I find him, I think I can get the last piece as I did in Daham and Dora's cases."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes. This place seems to have special rules. According to them, Yura must be Berr's best friend. Berr, who never comes out of his room, might just change when Yura comes back."
Juna nodded her head in agreement to his words.
However, the last island did not appear to them quickly. There were many days of unbearable heat, that stopped them from coming out to the deck and some days, a sudden rainstorm caused panic and a state of emergency onboard. These tough days made progress slow.
"The waves are calmer than yesterday."
Unfurling the sails, Daham said to Jinho sitting on the prow. Jinho silently nodded his head. Jinho never stayed only on the deck today as he had a strange feeling since the morning. He could see that today was unusual because of the very cool air he had an eccentric pounding in his heart.
"I think the last island is approaching. I can feel it." Feeling the wind that became quite chilly, Jinho said in a slightly nervous voice.
"Do you?" Looking out to the distant sea, Daham said in a low voice.
"Can you see anything, Hyun?" Jinho shouted at Hyun who was in the lookout post.
"There's too much fog in the distance, I can't see anything!"
The Mari became buried in the sea fog, as it advanced through the cool winds.
"It looks dangerous." As the ship sank into the fog, Daham said in a worried voice, "Call the emergency guard!"
As Daham gave the instruction, Hyun blew the horn, signalizing the emergency. Everyone except for Berr came up to the deck to the sound.
"What's going on?" Juna approached and asked.
"The sea fog is very heavy so take care of yourself. Be prepared and cautious."
Daham warned everyone of the danger as the Mari suddenly jerked about, hitting objects with crashing sounds.
Jinho happened to be holding a pillar and he instantly held Juna who was unsteady and about to fall down. The other sailors, who were trying to steer the Mari were not so stable and fell around as the boat was pushed and pulled. Hyun was able to tie himself to the lookout post and was able to help others.
"Are you alright?" Hyun said as he came down from the top.
As the rocky impact ceased, the destruction could be seen. The prow was severely damaged and debris was spread out across the deck. Daham was hit by something that was thrown towards him by the event and his forehead was bleeding.
"Yes, I'll be alright. Where have we arrived?" Daham, who narrowly managed to wake up, asked.
"My guess is, the island where Yura is." Jinho could not see the front because of the sea fog but smelt land.
"The other sailors?"
Hyun answered to Daham after look around on the deck.
"Cuts and bruises, but nothing serious."
Jinho helped Daham walk to the safe place.
"We'll visit the island by ourselves." Jinho said with confidence, cleaning Daham's wound.
Juna and Hyun nodded their head, also thinking that it was for the best that Daham remained.
"But at least, take Berr with you. He will be helpful for finding Yura." Daham said, catching Jinho's arm who was standing up.
There were no objects in Berr's cabin, therefore, no serious damage to anything despite the crash. Berr was lying in bed, he had been sleeping while the destruction occurred, so naturally he was quite confused. Jinho shook him out of sleep.
With his eyes half opened, Berr closed his eyes again with no reply, even after hearing Jinho's explanation. Then he rolled over in the bed, turning his back around to express his stubborn refusal. Meanwhile, the sea fog permeated through a hole in the door. Berr sensed something strange and opened his eyes wide. At last, as the fog touched his skin, he woke up, terrified. Then he went up to the deck, almost beside himself. Berr limply moved towards the busted prow and then came downstairs, stepping on the broken logs on the land.
"Let's follow him." Jinho gave Hyun and Juna a signal with his eyes and followed after Berr.
The weather on this new island was so humid that the body became soaked only after a little exposure. As they continued to walk, water dropped from their clothes as if they were caught in a shower. The biggest problem however was that their footsteps continuously sinking down. Their feet were not easily reclaimed from the ground, almost as if they were walking on a mud flat.
As they went deeper inland, it had become darker like the early evening, even though it was a daytime. It was probably because of the low light that the plants were mostly sciophytes, with large blade-like leaves. They looked foreign and bizarre.
Berr hurriedly walked through the mossy ground without stopping and arrived in an area rich in bracken. He looked around and then proceeded through the brackens. Walking through the blankets of large, flat leaves for a while, he finally discovered something and started to move more urgently. What he discovered was a small log hut. The house stood in the middle of the depressing bracken. Berr ran to the door of the house, as if he knew he had been
searching for it.
The wood of the hut had turned a dark brown colour and the mould and moss growing took up half of the wall. The outside of the house only seemed to be a front door and was coated with long grass, grown up to the waist, which gave it a feeling of secrecy, like it had been from a lost civilisation.
Berr had found something indeed. Jinho was not sure what he has found yet but there would certainly be a clue to his father's whereabouts in the house. Jinho looked at Juna and Hyun.
As they nodded their head, Berr opened the door and entered. The old doorknob dropped, worn-out from years of decay. As the door had absorbed moisture, it was heavier now than when it was first made, and it would not easily open. The others could barely budge the door and had to settle for a small gap left by Berr.
Inside the hut was dark and cold like a cave. The floor creaked and moaned each time they stepped and they felt that the floor would give way at any minute.
Berr was not to be seen, having seemingly vanished. It was strange not being able to find him in such a small wooden hut, that seemed to have no more than a few rooms.
Although they had expected that the house would not be normal - due to the other islands they had visited so far - they never expected that a corridor could extend endlessly, especially from a small cabin in the woods. It did not end even though they had walked for more than twenty minutes. On the ceiling, the sparkly eyes of bats could be seen casting their gaze over them. They cried ominously and flew past, enraged that they had disturbed their lair.
Whilst walking and casting away the bats, they came to see a thick door made of white limestone. The infinitely long corridor seemed to end finally. The signpost hanging in front of the door was an arrow with the text:
The Place that you are searching for
Jinho said aloud, "The place I am searching for…?"
They opened the door in anticipation. As soon as they entered it, they froze on the spot, frightened to what they had just seen. A giant like in a movie was sat in the room. He filled up the whole room. The giant was sitting cross-legged and with his neck bent and head tilted because of his stature. As the door opened, he looked back with a depressed look.
"Berr?"
Jinho became astonished looking at the giant's face. It was surely Berr's face, with the same dark circles under the eyes and the pointed, stained beard.
Hyun took a look at the giant and said with confidence, "It's not Berr, exactly speaking."
"Is this: 'the place that you are searching for'?" Jinho cautiously asked loudly to the giant, who had the appearance of Berr.
"Here is probably not 'the place you are searching for', but I know how to find it." The giant responded, still sitting with his back turned. His voice was so loud that it rang the whole room and caused headache with the echo.
"Then please tell me. We are searching for a prison on this island," Jinho asked, closing his ears, protecting himself against the continuously ringing echo.
Showing his back closely to Jinho, the giant said, "If you wanna know, scratch my back for me. The itchiness is killing me."
The ground shook, each time he moved. Jinho replied, calming him down:
"Alright, so you will tell us the way to 'the place you are searching for', if I scratch your back?"
"Of course. I'll do anything if you make this itch go away."
Jinho began climbing his back. Hyun and Juna followed after him and started to scratch the giant's back.
"Harder!"
As the giant shook his head, Jinho had climbed all the way up to his upper back.
"Good. Keep going." He seemed satisfied at last. The party scratched his back, hearing the giant repeating the pleasant confirmation of their good work. They had scratched so much and worked so much that sweat trickled down from their foreheads and after a while, Juna flopped down, exhausted.
"Until when do we have to scratch?"
Ignoring Juna's question, he repeated the same words again. "Good. Keep going."
Only then did Jinho stop as well and said to the giant, "No. We did our best. Now you need to tell me the way."
"That's not right. I am not content at all now." The giant obstinately refused.
"Not at all? If you don't feel any change, even if we tried this much, that means it makes no difference that we do more."
"How come?" The giant questioned Jinho's word.
"We have to leave and can't endlessly scratch your back for you. If you feel content only when we are scratching you, there's no actual way for you to ever feel content with our efforts."
"But just scratch a little bit more, please." This time he begged. "You said, you want to find 'the place that you are searching for'. If you leave like this, I'll feel even more itchy. Why did you ever scratch me then? I can't live with this vicious torture anymore." The giant let out a sound of resentment towards Jinho who were climbing down from his back.
"I am really sorry but we really can't help you. Please give up and tell us the way." To Jinho's assertive words, the giant's face contorted in anger.
"Do you think I will help you now? You good-for-nothings."
He tried to move his heavy body but could not budge, trapped by the ceiling. Feeling dejected, he tried to catch them by swinging his hands. His voice became louder and the ground quaked more, which made it hard for them to run away. But the giant was by no means agile. His movement was so slow and simple.
Making their escape away from the giant's arms, shaking only from side to side, Jinho said to the giant in a loud voice:
"Where is 'the place that you are searching for'?"
"I don't know! I don't know!"
He started to cry like a child, not having his own way. Thick tears continuously gushed from his eyes. It was a large volume, close to that of water from a big hose of a fire engine. Without even giving them a chance to console him, he kept wailing. After a while, the tears made a shallow pool on the ground and it would soon reach the knees.
"At this rate, he will soon flood the room!"
Feeling the urgency, the party tried to get out of the room but the door they had entered could not be seen, disappearing under the water. They had noticed that as tears came out of the giant, he started to get smaller, as if his whole body was full of water. He continuously shrank, slowly turning into a person the size of a small baby in the end. As the giant who cried fell into the water, he became smaller and disappeared underneath it. The water rose over Jinho's head and right beneath the ceiling. The tears had suddenly mounted up like a flood. Jinho held onto Juna's shoulders and could just breathe by putting his face to the ceiling.
I need to hurry.
Jinho called the Strong powers. This time, however, he could not easily call upon them, feeling the pressure. It was difficult to hold Juna who was panicking because she could not swim well. By this time he was suffering from cramp in his legs, he remembered the words:
…eyes that wake eyes up.
A blue glow spread over the entire ceiling, then stuck to Jinho's head. The power transformed Jinho's hair blue and his eyes started to glow an eerie blue.
As Jinho's eyes turned blue, an arched door hidden on a wall under the water could be seen, glowing around its edges. On the door was attached a signpost, saying 'place that you are searching for'. Jinho signalled to Hyun and went under water with Juna. The water made of tears was salty and lukewarm.
Jinho turned the door handle, submerging beneath the water level. The door opened easily and Jinho was pulled through the door, falling down. Unbelievably, the water did not drip from the open door. Only the party, soaked with water were thrown through to the new room.
To their disappointment, they found themselves in the corridor again. The deep, creepy corridor still extended as far as they could see.
Squeezing the giant's tears out of his pocket, Hyun looked around. No matter how much they looked, there was neither a new signpost nor a door. They could not help but move forward, without any other choice. Even the giant's roo
m disappeared leaving them no way to go back.
A little while after passing by the giant's room, they were led to a corridor with a steep climb and at the end of the ascent stood a door. Fortunately, they reached the second door, and it appeared faster than they had anticipated. They would have, of course, arrived even earlier, if they didn't have to deal with the troublesome bats.
The hardwood door with a golden border looked ornate at a glance. As they opened the decorative door with the signpost, which read: 'the place you are searching for' on it, a sweet fragrance oozed from in the next room.
"Welcome."
A man in a clean waiter's uniform greeted the party. As they approached him closer, the man too had the appearance of Berr. Hyun reassured them again that he was not the real Berr, but the man looked just the same, in Jinho and Juna's eyes. Only his polite attitude definitely proved Hyun's statement.
The room had the layout of a restaurant. There was a silk cloth on the tables and the chairs looked cosy and comfortable.
"There!"
Juna saw something and dragged Jinho's arm. Where she led him was a wall, draped with curtains which slightly revealed something, looking like a door frame. As they drew aside the curtains, an arched door appeared. This door, too had a signpost, which also read: 'the place that you are searching for'.