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Rumi should have seen it coming. She should have been paying better attention. She shouldn’t have let herself get distracted. But she did. Zoey had made a sound of distress, and Rumi had taken a few seconds too long to scan for her face among the horde of demons. They had been surrounded on all sides on the bridge – Rumi should have known better than to let her guard down.
The moment Rumi felt something connect with her spine as she involuntarily curled backward around a demon’s club, she knew she had made a mistake. As the sky and bridge blurred together while tumbling through the air, she knew she had made a mistake. When she slammed into the metal railing on the opposite side of the road that she had been standing on, she knew she had made a mistake.
“Rumi!” Mira and Zoey shouted.
Rumi tried to correct herself; she really did. She tried to, at least, grab onto the railing to keep herself from falling off the edge. But her grip slipped almost immediately, and she plunged down into the icy water far below. The impact forced all air out of her lungs as she sank. Immediately, she could feel how her body was on fire in contrast to the freezing cocoon that was the river.
The skin on her back felt shredded, and her left eye was already swollen shut. Her left ankle ached terribly, but what hurt even worse was her right shoulder. It was agony near her collarbone, but the pain reached all the way down to her fingertips. Worst of all were her lungs, though, straining to keep her alive without any air.
Air. Rumi needed air. Desperately. She squinted through the water to find a source of light while trying to stave off any sense of panic. Just barely, she was able to decipher which way was up. The first attempt at swimming had her curling in on herself while wincing, her body protesting any movement at all. Still, she had to survive. She had no choice. Up, up she went, reaching toward the light.
When Rumi broke through the surface of the water, she gasped for as much air as she could between coughing spells as she expelled the water she choked on. Everything was blurry as her head spun, but she was eventually able to deduce where land was. Slowly, she made her way through the stream before crawling up onto land. Only able to use her left hand and right foot to move, her pace was agonizingly slow.
Just as Rumi could hear approaching footsteps, she collapsed into the dirt face-first, groaning while trying to clutch her injuries.
“Oh my god, Rumi!” Zoey exclaimed.
“Are you okay?”
Rumi couldn’t respond, only seethe while still trying to catch her breath.
“What do we do? What do we do?”
“We can’t call an ambulance. They’ll launch an investigation,” Mira muttered, mostly to herself, as she tried to see where she could even grab onto Rumi without hurting her further.
Rumi was trying to focus on them, but everything was becoming increasingly dizzying as more and more of her body succumbed to numbing static. Exhaustion was working with an artificial darkness to consume her and drag her under as a ringing filled her ears. A sense of calm washed over her, and she was ready to fall unconscious to keep the pain at bay.
The calm and darkness snapped away when the other women rolled Rumi onto her back, dragging a scream out of her as her eyes popped up and she shot up into a standing position. She shifted all her weight onto one foot while clutching her shoulders, staggering while trying to focus on Zoey and Mira with her one good eye. They were staring at her with wide eyes, terrified.
“Rumi?” Mira tentatively called out.
Rumi’s head tilted just a bit as a brief cloud of confusion washed over. That confusion was quickly erased by a gut-wrenching sense of panic. No. No. No. No! Rumi strained to look behind her, seeing how the fabric along her back was shredded to reveal not only flesh wounds but-
Rumi looked back, finally taking in how Zoey was still gripping two shin-kals while Mira still had her gok-do raised a bit. Rumi staggered back a step. Then another as Zoey and Mira took steps forward.
Rumi could easily remember the days she met Mira and Zoey. Different people, different times, different places, different circumstances. Yet, the initial thought Rumi had was the same both times. Was she looking into the eyes of her future executioner? It wasn’t a question of friend or foe, no. Rumi knew immediately that she would never, ever do a thing to hurt these girls. But would they hurt her, if they knew? Would they kill her if they knew that she lacked the humanity they had, if they saw her as the enemy? As she lowered her head to bow in greeting, Rumi imagined herself leaning over a basket, with a guillotine looming above. It felt almost as fateful as meeting them. And it terrified her.
Rumi turned as a sense of adrenaline finally started kicking in. It was torture putting weight on her other foot, but she needed to run and run now. Tears streamed down her face from the exertion and agony, but she dared not stop.
Mira and Zoey probably didn’t remember this night the way Rumi did, but the unique memory clung to Rumi like a foul odor. The other two had been focused on remembering lyrics and choreography, remembering to smile and be energized while Huntr/x was on stage for the first time for their debut concert.
Rumi was looking at the Honmoon through a crack in the curtain, how it flickered in its shimmering silver colors over the crowd already chanting their names despite barely knowing who they were. She tried to imagine the shimmering light changing hues to golden. What would it mean to never see it for real? Would she be a failure? Would her existence be meaningless?
But those questions weren’t why Rumi remembered that night so clearly, so differently to such an extreme that she would never dare speak of it – only reconvey the night as Mira and Zoey described it. The question that made Rumi hate that night so thoroughly was followed by a glimpse of a reality in which she had no patterns and there was no Honmoon. After that brief vision filled Rumi with a startling sense of joy, hope, and relief, she had wondered…if that other Rumi didn’t feel guilty about being happy, feel guilty about wanting to be around to experience joys, hopes, and reliefs far more often than she did now.
Mira and Zoey stared after Rumi’s retreating form, dazed. Were they both concussed? Had they misidentified what they were seeing? But then…why did Rumi run? Why was she running from them? After unintentionally giving Rumi a head-start, Mira and Zoey finally snapped out of it to chase after her.
Rumi ran as fast as she could carry herself, picked herself up whenever she briefly collapsed, and pushed through despite every atom of her body screaming at her to stop. She weaved through the maze of backstreets, avoiding the eyes of everyone that could possibly see her, see her patterns.
She wanted to slow down just a bit as she finally left the city, but she dared not allow herself to falter. Not soon enough, she reached the treeline leading up to Celine’s property. Rumi’s pace eased up just a bit, weaving through the trees and bushes in an attempt to lose her pursuers that were gaining on her.
Rumi loved the sun. She loved when it shined and when she got to shine under it. Outdoor stadiums, her garden, the woods surrounding Celine’s property…she shined. The warmth. The glow. The freedom. Rumi felt the most alive under the sun, the most herself.
It had rained the night before, making the blades of grass slick against her bare feet as she ran. Mira and Zoey were tracking her – she was their prey. It was an exercise set up by Celine to test their abilities to both chase and evade. Initially, Rumi had protested the exercise, stating that it was set up that not all of them would succeed. Celine had replied that the exercise was set up to prepare them for possible realities during their hunting careers.
When Rumi had been given a brief head start, she had run with intent to win, to evade. However, her mind was able to wander while her eyes scanned for where to go while her ears scanned for where she had been – where Mira and Zoey were now. What did Celine mean about possible realities? Did Celine see a reality in which Zoey and Mira would be hunting down Rumi for real? What did she think Rumi capable of to be turned from the hunter to the hunted? And was Rumi actually capable of doing something so irreversibly heinous? Was she already so just in her existence?
Rumi’s pace slowed, and Mira and Zoey neared. Their breathing was heavy – they were growing tired. Rumi was tired, too, but not physically. These questions were exhausting. Feigning a slip, Rumi slid along the grass, stumbling, until she fell backward into the grass with a thud. She looked back. Zoey was grinning wildly and leapt forward, bellyflopping onto the ground and using her momentum to slide until she crashed into Rumi with a hug. Mira summoned her gok-do and plunged it into the earth near them, using it as an anchor as she jerked to a stop. She dropped down to her knees next to the pile of her bandmates, giggling alongside Zoey. Rumi watched them for a moment before joining in their laughter.
Celine found them an hour later, laying together in a patch of sunlight, asleep but still clinging onto one another.
Memories of navigating adolescence and young adulthood with her bandmates and partners flooded Rumi’s mind, inciting a new ache in her chest. With each step, she recalled early-morning choreography practices, energized afternoon recording sessions, and lazy late nights sprawled on the couch together. With each step, her heart broke just a bit more as the emotional distance between her and them increased more than any physical distance she could manage to put between Mira and Zoey. All of it, all of those memories…were now meaningless as she was being hunted down. All of the chances to make more memories with the women she loved were burning up in flames in front of her very eyes, and she choked out a sob.
Celine’s house finally became visible up ahead, and Rumi allowed herself the smallest sigh of relief.
“Celine! Celine, I need you!” she screamed as loud as she could manage, temporarily drowning out the approaching footsteps behind her.
Rumi made it to the garden just as Celine stepped outside before collapsing onto the stone path, her body finally giving out.
“Rumi!”
Celine ran up, dropping to her knees in front of her daughter, bloody, bruised, and…with exposed patterns. Celine’s eyes darted up to see Mira and Zoey rapidly approaching, to see the weapons in their hands that they, themselves, had forgotten about. Celine shot back up to her feet, stepping in front of Rumi while raising the sickle she had grabbed just before rushing outside.
“Stay away from her!”
Zoey was the first to skid to a stop, almost toppling over from the momentum. Mira caught her, holding her up and shielding her from Celine. The three froze, locked in a standstill while staring each other down. Mira and Zoey blinked rapidly, catching their breaths. Rumi, in the midst of an adrenaline crash, groaned and shuddered, curling in on herself.
“Rumi-”
Mira tried to call out, to step forward, but Celine’s glare shut the attempt down. Perplexed by their mentor’s hostility among the bizarreness of the whole situation, Mira and Zoey looked at each other. Then, they looked at their hands. Their weapons disappeared back into the Honmoon instantly. Celine relaxed just enough to turn her back and help Rumi to her feet. Together, the two shuffled into the house – Celine closed the door behind her and locked it.
Mira and Zoey stared at the closed door, silent for several seconds. Mira’s knees were the first to wobble before sending her crashing to the ground. Zoey was not far behind, crushed by the understanding that things were never, ever going to be the same again.