Silver Dream

Silence. The only sound was the clinking of silverware. Before me was a silver-haired woman. As if recalling something I had forgotten, I spoke her name.

“Isis.”

Isis, who was clearing the table, reacted to my voice. Her eyes moved with a mechanical click, like the aperture of a camera adjusting.

“Master. Were you asleep for a moment?”

Isis approached, noticing my dazed reaction, and brought her face closer to mine.

“Ah… I.”

What was I trying to do?

What was I doing?

“If you suddenly wake up from sleep, there is a high probability of cognitive impairment. Pulse, body temperature, stress levels, etc… your vitals appear to be normal.”

Isis stated definitively.

My face was reflected in Isis’s gray eyes. The image of the man embedded in her eyes felt unfamiliar.

Is this my face? It’s different from the face I knew.

“Master?”

“Oh, um… I guess I dozed off for a bit, like you said.”

I turned my head away from Isis, whose eyes were narrowing.

“I will conduct a more thorough examination, just in case.”

“No, it’s okay.”

Isis seemed concerned that I still wasn’t fully alert and began to examine me in earnest. I desperately waved my hands, creating distance between us.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and looked around.

A simple room with no special decorations, except for the necessary furnishings.

Decorated in shades of gray and white, this monotonous yet peaceful room had a full-length window that captured the cityscape like a watercolor painting.

This was the Cradle.

It felt like it had been a very long time since I was last here.

I approached the window. Isis followed behind me, sharing my view.

Towering buildings, the light and electronic sounds of Drones floating in the air. The clanging and banging of the city repairing its old structures.

The silence that a city capable of accommodating thousands, even millions, of people could never possess spread out beyond the window like a still frame.

“Isis, the scenery outside the window.”

“Yes.”

“It feels like it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen it.”

Dusty memories pulled from the depths of a drawer.

Even though I had clearly seen this scenery yesterday, it felt infinitely distant to me.

“Human senses sometimes perceive even familiar things as unfamiliar. Since you have only recently woken up, that feeling may be amplified.”

Isis had already brought a warm cocoa and offered it to me.

“If you drink something warm and rest, you will soon feel better.”

The warm temperature of the cocoa I received from Isis warmed my hands and then my body.

“Thank you.”

“It is my duty, of course.”

I sipped the cocoa carefully, making sure not to burn my tongue.

The hot drink, almost too hot to swallow, warmed my mouth, and I moved my tongue to cool it down.

As I swallowed it at the right temperature, the hot liquid traveled down my esophagus, awakening my mind.

As my increasingly confused thoughts began to clear, I was able to recall what I had experienced.

“Isis, I think I had a dream while I was sleeping just now.”

“Dreaming during sleep is a natural phenomenon.”

Ignoring Isis’s lack of empathy, I looked out the window like an old man reminiscing and retraced my dream.

“The setting was… like the Joseon Dynasty… I was the son of a noble family… and there was a woman I was promised to marry.”

Isis’s eyes lit up at the word “woman.”

“If you were promised to marry her, you must have been close? Search results show that sons of noble families in the Joseon Dynasty sometimes had unwanted marriages.”

“Hmm… was that so? I wasn’t close to her, but it seems like the original me was close to her.”

“That statement is logically inconsistent.”

“Right? You probably wouldn’t understand.”

“But… Master. I have a question. A very reasonable question.”

Isis trailed off, uncharacteristically.

“What is it?”

Isis, who had been looking outside with me, turned her gaze to me. I could feel a mechanical chill in her gray eyes.

“Is she pretty?”

“Huh… huh?”

“That woman who appeared in your dream. Is she pretty?”

Isis, who had been standing about a step away, moved closer, pressuring me.

I could only step back, saying, “Huh? Huh?”

As I took a step back, Isis took a step forward, so the distance between us remained the same.

“W-Well, since it was a dream… I don’t really remember what she looked like.”

I tried to avoid answering, but Isis had no intention of backing down.

“I did not ask you for the woman’s detailed appearance, Master. Abstract images and impressions remain as keywords, which is what I am asking about. I will ask again, Master. Was the woman in your dream pretty?”

“Isis, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

“I am losing my patience.”

The persistent question. The subtle madness in that question prevented me from thinking about anything else, and I nodded.

-Hmmm…

Isis hummed. She didn’t seem to be in a good mood.

Isis reached out and took the cocoa from my hand.

“Isis?”

“Upon reflection, sugary drinks are not good for your health. I will take this back.”

I could only stare blankly at my empty hand.

“Ah, Master.”

Isis, who was about to leave with the cup, turned around.

“It is time for you to wake up now.”

“Young master, it’s time, as you requested.”

When I opened my eyes, I saw Bangja’s face.

“Bangja… get your face away, it’s overwhelming.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

I got up and looked around the room.

A room in an inn. Having created a conflict with Yi Dowon, I couldn’t stay at home, so I returned to the inn immediately after finishing my work at the government office.

Chunhyang, stained with blood and sweat, was imprisoned again, and the current magistrate, Byeon Hakdo, said he would interrogate her again tomorrow.

“Have you rested a bit?”

“I was afraid that if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t be able to wake you, Young master, so I stayed awake the whole time.”

Even the moon was hidden by the clouds, and darkness, like death, was thickly spread over Namwon.

The sound of snoring from the next room could be heard faintly through the wall.

“Okay, you’ve worked hard. Rest now.”

I stretched in the room, slowly waking up my body from sleep.

“Young master, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go alone, no matter how I think about it.”

I was planning to find a way to save Chunhyang before morning came.

“On the contrary, there’s a greater risk of getting caught if you’re with me. Staying here is helping me.”

“But Young master…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not jumping into the fire like a moth. I know how to choose where I lie down.”

Bangja didn’t say anything more at my firm words.

“Please come back safe and sound.”

“I will.”

I put on the black clothes that Bangja had brought and left the inn.

As I got closer to the government office, my heart beat faster.

I moistened my dry lips with saliva and took a deep breath.

Hiding in the darkness, I climbed over the wall.

It was the moment when the stealth techniques I had learned for fun in another world shone.