Chapter Text
The dungeon was cold. It always was. Yerim, known better as the Ice Witch, floated above ground freezing the rain before it hit her. Icicles hit the hunters running below her. Yerim didn’t much care about that. If the hunters sent by the Association couldn’t handle a little ice, they had no business being in a dungeon with her. The air around her stayed constantly chilly and her breath came out in white puffs. The hunters knew that and stayed a few steps farther than strictly necessary. No one liked being constantly cold.
The tips of Yerim’s fingers had frost on them and had a bluish tint. Her cold resistance made her mostly forget about it, made her enjoy it. Things were easier in the cold. She liked how it kept people away. She didn’t need them; she had always worked better alone. The hollow ache that had followed her through childhood froze on the chilling temperatures leaving space for the dull coldness. Sometimes she just liked for the outside to feel as cold as the inside did.
Ice rained down in bursts as the temperatures got lower. Someone cursed quietly but Yerim didn’t give them any attention. They wouldn’t be able to curse her when they struggled to rush after her if they wanted to survive. Somehow people tended to forget who kept them alive here. This was one of the few dungeons that fit the Ice Witch like a glove. They would be in deep trouble without her, without her cold and frost.
The dungeon had no sky. Yerim had tried to once fly over the heavy clouds but they had seemed endless. She had wanted to stay there, engulfed in rain, but there was work to do. Now, she just flew high enough to reach for the clouds if she wanted to and surveyed the terrain. There were pools of water everywhere. Their true depth was unknown and Yerim’s curiosity didn’t go far enough to dive into small, dark tunnels filled with crab-like monsters. They were low class but the tunnels were completely infested with them. As the water in the pools started to ripple, Yerim froze them with a flick of a wrist. Someone swallowed, barely, a scream of fear as the ice grazed them.
“Keep up!” She yelled to the hunters below her and sped up. “Stay behind and die here!”
Yerim didn’t like the work. She didn’t care for the people and she didn’t care about killing monsters. It gave momentary satisfaction but that was all. She had seen so much death in the last couple of years that she was getting sick of it.
Children should leave all that to the adults. A voice in Yerim’s head said in a firm tone. She could feel a pat on her shoulder. That hand was filled with warmth. Yerim could almost see a face. Someone who was always nagging and making sure she wasn’t doing too much. Making sure that she was having a childhood in this grueling environment that pushed her to grow up fast. She had left that childhood behind a long time ago.
In her deepest heart, in the tiny box where impossible wishes go, Yerim kept that voice and the hand on her shoulder. She kept them there, safe and sound. In those moments when her uncle had gotten too much and when her cousins had given her grief, she had opened that box. Just a little, a tiny crack so she could peek inside, under the covers of her shabby bed. She had imagined how someone would come and save her. In those moments, it had felt so real. If she just woke up in her own room, in her own bed, she could walk to the bright kitchen and have a bowl of rice and fried eggs, sunny side up and a little runny. She had once tried to make fried eggs but had just ended up destroying the kitchen in a fit of rage when they didn’t come out just so. Not like how they were supposed to be. She never tried again.
Yerim gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to think about that now. There was a boss monster to kill.
Those thoughts had come more often lately. Yerim needed a vacation. Yerim decided to fly all the way to Siberia as soon as she got out of this damned dungeon. The next one could burst for all she cared. The thoughts had come and gone for years now, triggered by the most meaningless things. Now they were there rushing around in her head like a hailstorm, like they were waiting to be unleashed.
The boss fight was as it always was and Yerim was just going through the motions. She barely registered what prizes the dungeon dropped as they left. She knew that she should have gone to the Association to give a debriefing. She should have washed off the guts and blood from her clothes and hair but she didn’t care to. There was something wrong in the air tonight. Something was wrong with her nerves.
Bits of monster froze on Yerim as she rose above the Seoul skyline. Something was twisting in her heart, right there where the box sat. She flew higher and higher, all the way to the clouds and through them. There the lights of the city couldn’t reach her.
Yerim didn’t often think about how she had waited for something to happen, for anything to happen. She had been holding on. She had been waiting for so many years. Her bare feet touched the clouds as if walking on them. She didn’t like shoes, they were never what she was looking for, and avoided wearing them whenever possible. The clouds under her froze step by step.
There needs to be something more, something that made it all worth it. Yerim reached for the box, for the dreams of a different life where everything was alright. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to hold herself. She was always so cold. In her dreams, she was never cold, never hungry, rarely sad.
Inside of her, the box started to crumble. All of those dreams, little tiny wishes she had created to nourish her, to give her hope, floated in the air, leaving the safety of her battered, cold heart.
One by one they dimmed and blinked out of existence.
Yerim wondered if this was what growing up truly felt like if this was what giving up on something felt like. She didn’t want to give up on those. She didn’t want to grow up yet. She wanted to keep that warmth there. Her eyes got blurry as her breaths got faster and more panicked.
“There’s still time.” She tried to tell herself. “Something can still happen, right? It’s not too late. I promise it’s not too late.” The hope she had carried like a blessing started to diminish. Her uncle couldn’t hurt her anymore so there was no need for someone to save her from him. She had gone to school already and there was no need for someone to feed her in the mornings. She was an adult. There were no fairy tales for adults. She couldn’t hide behind the shoulders of her dreams.
Let the adults handle this, Yerim-ah. The voice in her head had whispered. Yerim didn’t know what to do when she had grown up to be the adult handling things.
“I’m still young,” Yerim whispered. “I can’t handle this. I can’t handle this alone, ahjussi.”
She didn’t even know who she was talking to anymore. There was no one listening. It felt like losing someone. Like walking past someone you were meant to meet. It tasted so bitter like the world had wronged her even more than it already had. She wasn’t ready, not yet, not ever. Not before she had experienced it, at least. Yerim wanted to go home. She wanted to go so desperately but now, in her deepest most secret heart she knew that under these clouds, in the cold city of Seoul, there was no home with a bright kitchen and sunny-side-up eggs.
“I love you, Yerim.” She rocked herself on top of the clouds as the sunset colored the sky in the reddest of red, soaking the clouds in the bloodiest of colors. “I love you, Yerim.” She didn’t want to tell it to herself. But there was no one. There had never been anyone. She had waited in vain. Yerim screamed as the tears started to fall. It was like the whole world exhaled and the voice was gone.
I love you