SRW | Chapter 02

The dream continued, but it didn’t show everything. It skipped the middle entirely and started again from the point where my family met their end at the hands of Cha Yuhyeok with his monstrous strength. Of course, Cha Yuhyeok couldn’t protect his comrades from countless enemies either. After losing someone precious, Cha Yuhyeok desperately searched for Kim Jaeyoung, but Kim Jaeyoung only manipulated people from behind, never stepping forward himself.

When Cha Yuhyeok finally found Kim Jaeyoung, he was walking into a gate where monsters emerged. Cha Yuhyeok charged at him. As he cut through the swarming monsters, Kim Jaeyoung stopped him by controlling the monsters with a single gesture.

‘You bastard! Stop hiding and face me!’

Despite Cha Yuhyeok’s blood-curdling scream, Kim Jaeyoung didn’t stop. His back disappeared into the pitch-black unknown gate and showed no emotion.

From the observer’s perspective, I noticed something glinting on Kim Jaeyoung’s neck as he disappeared. A blue sapphire necklace. It was a keepsake from my late mother that I had worn until my death. It was the only thing left of me when my body had completely vanished.

Gasp!

I woke up and immediately felt my neck. It was gone. The necklace was gone. Where did I lose it? I turned the house upside down from dawn and interrogated the housekeepers, but I couldn’t find it. Did I lose it at school yesterday? For the first time in my life, I rushed out of the house at this hour. 

When I arrived at school, I saw Kim Jaeyoung sitting alone in the dimly lit classroom. Why him again? Seeing the person I had just seen in my dream made it hard to distinguish between dream and reality for a moment. Kim Jaeyoung had been solving problems in his workbook with earphones on. He turned around at the sound of the door slamming open. In a daze, I strode toward him and thrust out my trembling hand.

‘Give it back.’

‘Huh?’

‘Give me back my necklace.’

Kim Jaeyoung had been alternating between looking at my trembling hand and my sweaty face. He then pulled something out of his bag. It was the necklace in a ziplock bag. He handed it to me with a smile.

‘How did you know? I picked this up at the field yesterday. I was going to find the owner. Turns out it was yours.’

‘…….’

‘Are you sick? You don’t look well.’

Kim Jaeyoung stood up and reached out to feel my forehead as if to check my temperature. I flinched and tried to step back but tripped over a chair. Kim Jaeyoung grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward.

The momentum made me fall on top of him. He held me up while sitting back in his chair. It was an awkward position. It was almost like we were hugging.

‘Ah, damn…’

I came to my senses. I cursed and quickly got up, snatching the necklace off the floor. But Kim Jaeyoung just sat there with his uniform collar flipped. He stared at me blankly. Why is he like this? I felt puzzled. But since he had returned my necklace, I felt I should say something. I was embarrassed to say thank you, so I reached out to fix his collar. The moment my hand touched his neck, Kim Jaeyoung flinched violently and slapped my hand away.

‘…Your collar’s flipped.’

‘…Yeah, I’ll fix it.’

Kim Jaeyoung quickly regained his composure and smiled softly as he adjusted his clothes. At that moment, I noticed his reddened ears. Ah, could it be…?

Does this guy like me?

[System]

As a reward for ‘First Awakening,’ you have obtained the skill ‘Premonition Dream.’

……What is this?

*

The transparent window in front of me was invisible to others. Premonition Dream… What’s that? I looked it up on my phone. It turns out that it refers to dreams that foresee the future. Dreams that foresee the future? Does that mean the damn dreams that have been tormenting me for a month will come true? That’s absurd… I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was seeing things.

Kim Jaeyoung liking me… Yeah, it must be a misunderstanding. Maybe he’s just shy! In the dream, why did Kim Jaeyoung torment Cha Yuhyeok so much… Why was he wearing my necklace… If it was because he liked me, it would make sense… But there’s no way something so unrealistic could happen, right? Monsters? Superpowers? Haha.

…Except that’s exactly what happened.

‘Hey, maknae. What are you doing?’

‘Huh?’

‘Why are you spinning your chopsticks like that… Are you in a circus or something?’

‘What?’

That evening, my family stared at me with their mouths agape. What’s with them? When I glanced down, I saw the chopsticks in my hand spinning dazzlingly. It was like a circus act.

W-What’s this? Startled, I threw the chopsticks. Then, one of them grazed my older brother’s face and embedded itself deep into the wall. Blood dripped down my brother’s cheek where they grazed him.

‘Should we… get him into sports?’

The chopstick was halfway into the wall. Even when the whole family and housekeepers pulled together, it wouldn’t budge. My dad brought an empty frame, saying we should keep it as a memento. And so, the chopstick remained sticking out of our dining room wall.

While everyone laughed it off as a funny incident, I couldn’t laugh. A strange sense of deja vu made the back of my neck tingle. No matter how hard an ordinary person throws a chopstick, what are the odds of it sticking into a cement wall? I remembered the ability I had awakened in the dream. It was the ability to turn anything I held into a weapon. I quickly put the remaining chopstick down on the table.

During the motorcycle accident, I could have been seriously injured or killed, but I only suffered minor bruises. And that night when I got into a fight, a middle-aged man twice my size passed out after just a couple of punches. No “normal” person should have that kind of strength.

After that, I experimented with various things. I went hunting with my dad on weekends and tried shooting a gun. I even sparred with the bodyguards under the pretense of learning martial arts. Any weapon I held moved as fluidly as water. With the gun, I hit every target without ever having practiced. My family made a fuss, saying I should get into sports or prepare for the Olympics. But even though I had gained special powers, I couldn’t just admire them. If awakening was real… then the world really was going to end.

The dream was cut off after Kim Jaeyoung entered the gate. It was frustrating. Maybe if I dreamed about it again or triggered that system window, I could figure out what was going on. Should I shout ‘status window’ like in a webtoon?

‘…St-status window? Ack!’

In my frustration, I absentmindedly muttered the words.  A semi-transparent window slid into view.

[System]

Sun Eunsoo

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Occupation: High School Student

Alignment: Evil

Title: [First Awakener*]

Skills: [Special Dexterity Lv. 1*] [Premonition Dream*]

‘W-What is this?’

The window disappeared exactly 15 seconds later unless I touched it. When I tapped the star next to ‘First Awakener,’ a detailed explanation appeared: ‘A title given to the first human to awaken. Luck +30.’ The skill [Special Dexterity] was…

[Special Dexterity Lv. 1]

• Can freely manipulate any object held in hand.
• Related skills unlock as the level increases.
• Lv. 2 Achievement Reward: [Fix-It-All Lv. 1]
• Progress: 3%…… (In Progress)

What? The ability I had wasn’t just about handling weapons well? I was dumbfounded by the status window’s explanation. It said that if I raised my dexterity skill to level 2, I would gain a repair skill. Dexterity, repair… These didn’t sound like skills suited for attacking or threatening someone, but in the dream, I had never used my abilities for anything other than attacking or intimidating others. If I hadn’t seen the status window, I wouldn’t have known this.

‘I’m screwed.’

It seems like the days of darkness are really coming.

After that, I tried to explain the dream to my family, but it felt like there was something restricting me. I couldn’t open my mouth. I couldn’t even rephrase the words. Refusing to go to school only lasted a day or two before my grandfather’s cane landed on my backside a few times. With no choice, I reluctantly showed my face at school.

What if Kim Jaeyoung talks to me? How should I react? Should I ask him why he likes me? I imagined all sorts of scenarios, but he just sat in the front row and studied hard. He never looked back. Well, it was my dream. Kim Jaeyoung was the same as always. I also hung out with the usual delinquent crowd, trying to have fun without a care in the world. Or at least I was pretending to.

‘Hey… if you guys were going to die soon, what would you do?’

It’s ironic that I had lived once without a thought my whole life, but now I was overthinking everything.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Hey, check this out. I got set up with this girl, and her body is insane.’

‘Eh, she’s kinda short, isn’t she?’

‘But other things are big, you idiot.’

‘I’d hit that.’

‘Me too.’

The conversations of high school boys are disgustingly crude. It was already annoying how they talked about girls. Aside from that, now my deep concerns were being brushed aside too. These idiots are going to die before I do… There’s no point keeping these horny bastards around after the days of darkness.