“You have betrayed our ancestors and knowingly defied orders, damaging the timeline that the rest of us work tirelessly to protect,” Hong Gildong said. I couldn’t help taking a step closer to Hyebin at the sound of his disapproval, like some instinctive part of me knew to fear him. I could taste Oh Jia’s terror in the air, for she had gone very pale, her hands trembling and eyes wide.
She shook her head, slowly at first, then frantically, her struggling renewed. It was useless, for the other two descendants still had her pinned to the carpet. “I didn’t!” she said, looking between me and Hyebin, as if either of us could save her. I looked away like a coward, but I could still hear her desperate words choked with tears, her panicked breaths, her cries as she struggled to get up.
I couldn’t have helped Oh Jia even if I’d wanted to. My feet felt rooted in place, my blood so cold that my teeth were chattering. Maybe it was the effect of standing so close to an angry, powerful descendant like Hong Gildong. Or maybe it was because I knew exactly what it meant to erase someone.
“On October 11, 2033,” Hong Gildong went on, “you took an unauthorized trip back to 1951 and deliberately interfered with the war.”
Oh Jia let out a choked sound of disbelief. “That hasn’t happenedyet!” she said, thrashing against the hands. “I won’t do it, I swear! I wouldn’t betray you.”
Hong Gildong sighed and stepped back. “You already have,” he said, nodding at Hyebin.
Hyebin strode forward, and I suddenly felt exposed without her between me and Hong Gildong. Hyebin straddled the woman, digging through Oh Jia’s pockets until she pulled out a glowing blue yeouiju. Its light pulsed weakly, illuminating every bone in Hyebin’s hand and casting a ghostly glow over the room. Hyebin passed the yeouiju to Hong Gildong with both hands, then helped hold the woman down.
“Oh Jia,” Hong Gildong said, “I hereby sentence you to complete erasure from all timelines.”
I froze, the words repeating in my head as if echoing across an endless cavern.
All timelines.
Meaning, there was more than one.
But there wasn’t time to think about it, because Hyebin pried the woman’s jaw open with acrack. Hong Gildong knelt down and forced the yeouiju between Jia’s teeth with the heel of his palm. Oh Jia coughed, trying to force it back out, but the yeouiju slid down her throat, its light fading as it disappeared inside her.
Oh Jia gasped for breath, the only sound in the sudden darkness. The other descendants stood up and took a step back.
That’s it?I thought. Somehow, I’d always imagined that erasing someone meant killing them and tossing their corpse into some void for the timeline to devour. But Oh Jia was still breathing, even as she lay flat on the carpet, tears spilling unstopped from her eyes.
On Oh Jia’s next ragged breath, she opened her mouth as if struggling for air that wouldn’t come. Then her jaw yawned wider and wider, lips peeled back to reveal her teeth, and I didn’t realize until her jaw hit the carpeted floor that it wasn’topening, it wasdissolving.
Her face crumbled inward like wet sand, sparks of gray ashes flying from her fingertips as the invisible fires of time seared through her flesh. In half a breath, she’d changed from a person to a pile of ashes that the carpet breathed in, and then she was gone forever.
This is what they did to Hana, I thought, my ears ringing. I pictured them holding her down this way, ignoring her as she screamed and cried. Was she a child when it happened? Would they even care? In the reverent darkness, the unofficial moment of silence, I turned my gaze to Hong Gildong.
He gave the order.He remembered my sister, and yet he had dragged me on this mission to watch another descendant’s undoing. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine anything except Hana turning into dust, but the thought seared through me, hotter and brighter than Hong Gildong’s time magic, than the sun itself. I felt like I’d swallowed an entire star, that it had burst into a supernova in my stomach, ready to devour the world as soon as I opened my mouth. I was standing next to the person whoerased my sister.
“Let’s go,” Hyebin said, shoving my shoulder.
I opened my eyes, unclenching my fists one finger at a time. I couldn’t react now, because I wasn’t supposed to know about Hana. If I ever wanted her back, I had to wait.
When I looked to where the woman had been, even her muddy footprints had vanished, her handbag missing from the corner where Hyebin had tossed it.
I tried to conjure the memory of her face in her last moments but could no longer visualize her at all. I couldn’t recall what color her coat had been, or the sound of her voice, or the bright fear that I knew had been in her eyes. I had a hazy recollection of her existence, but it was like her memory had been ripped out from the root, leaving only a hole behind.
Feet stopped in front of me, but I tensed when I realized it wasn’t Hyebin as I’d expected.
“Yang Mina,” Hong Gildong said. Up close, the gold in his eyes gleamed even brighter, like staring into a gilded kaleidoscope.
“Yes, Sajangnim?” I said stiffly, withering under his gaze.
“This is your first neutralization?” he said, even though he surely knew the answer.
I nodded. “Yes, Sajangnim.”
“I realize it’s rather… disturbing,” he said. “Walk with me for a moment?”
“Sajangnim?” Hyebin said behind him, looking between us in confusion.
“Hyebin, you finish up,” Hong Gildong said, passing her the gun in his belt, probably to return to the police station. “I’ll bring Mina back when we’re finished.”
