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The Darkness exploration records wiki once had an update. It made most of the fans go crazy, as it was a full change from the original that made the stories a lot less realistic.
The update was: soul wings. It transformed the universe into a more fantastical version where every human had wings. But it didn’t stop there: it relied on the idea that people strongly linked to your life shared primary feathers with you, like a physical manifestation of the bind between your souls. Those feathers could be influenced by contamination, and fall if the other person died.
As all stories linked to fate, it got really popular for a time. But after a few weeks, a wave of complaints that it just denatured the wiki surged and the update was removed.
Except apparently, it left traces.
I dubitatively raised one of my wings to observe it in the safety of Daydream’s dorm. I didn’t have the time before during the tramway due to how hectic things were. The feathers felt… odd. They were soft, a dark brown that almost appeared black with reddish spots along their fibers.
The primaries were a different matter altogether. They were filled with colors, each one proudly assuming the plumage of someone I had yet to meet. Counting them, there were twelve. Three times more than you generally observed in people.
I had seen the dirty gold one and the fiery coat on two people in the tramway. The grey-tinged-green must have belonged to my roomate… It was near the rear, so I really hoped he hadn’t seen it yet. Perhaps I could use it with the angle of ‘I might save your life in the future so you better treat me well’? I vaguely remembered soul feathers had a bit more meaning than just that.
It didn’t bode well for the future…
Worryingly, some of them looked very odd. Two were not fluffy at all and looked more like… giant scales? The third one wasn’t a feather at all and just looked like some kind of electric cable twisted into shape. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
I guessed I’d find out who they belonged to soon enough.
The next day, I met two more of my soulmates.
“We share feathers!” Supervisor Park delightfully exclaimed a few minutes after meeting me. He brought a wing forward to show off the darkish primary standing out in the middle of his black and white stripes. “This is a great sign! Teams who share soul feathers have a much higher survival rate.”
I stared at him, not sure how to react. Those teams… they still mostly died.
“Don’t worry Kim Soleum-ssi,” Eun Haje smirked, spreading her own bluish white-spotted coat. “We’ll make sure to keep you alive.”
I nodded, not entirely sure what she meant. Because in this world people were born with wings and grew their soul feathers in teenagehood, I couldn’t easily ask questions about it.
I couldn’t appear ignorant.
Then the soulmates who so confidently claimed they’d keep me alive mercilessly threw me into a terrifying ghost story.
The host of Tuesday Quiz Show had strange electric cable-like feathers. A shiver ran down my spine when I spotted them, and I immediately looked away, not wanting to be caught staring.
I didn’t want to know what his primaries looked like.
As I smiled and played my role, I kept my own wings tightly folded, keeping the colourful primaries as hidden as I could. Despite this, the show host's gaze regularly shifted towards them, as if he had recognised the soul feathers that belonged to him.
I hoped I was mistaken. I really hoped I was.
In the end, it was easier to slip stickers under his head than to unfold my wings and acknowledge our bond.
Was it even possible to be bonded with a ghost?
It was better not to think about it.
D Squad’s leader was a lizard.
Not only was he a lizard, but he had leather wings. They fell smoothly along his side, as white as the scales covering his face. Each ’finger’ was ended by a sharp claw.
Yet no one seemed to notice it. Supervisor Park Minseong even told me to ask the squad leader for preening advice when he saw me struggle with my molting fluff, as if a lizard without a single feather could know anything about it.
The thing that bothered me the most was… if there were no feathers, how could there be soul feathers? Did he have any soulmates?
I took a few opportunities to stealthily look closer at the leather wings. Even though I never cared about the DER aborted update, it was quite a big part of my life now. The two scale-like feathers on my wings also intrigued me.
One was white.
And I really needed it to not be another ghost.
Looking closer, some fluff covered the scales around the claws of the squad leader wing. It looked soft and brightly colored. One spot looked suspiciously like Assistant Manager Eun Haje’s feathers, while another imitated Supervisor Park’s pattern.
And one looking like mine.
Complicated feelings filled my chest. I glanced at the white scale-like soul feather displayed at the end of my right wing.
It was definitely Lee Jaheon’s.
Was the blue one another lizard? I’d have to ask the squad leader.
Because the other scale looked kind of… watery, I wasn’t sure it would be the same species. From time to time, it seemed to produce something like a droplet of dew. For now I collected it in a bottle hidden in the dorm.
I guessed I wouldn’t know what this scale was before I met the corresponding soulmate.
There was something that bothered me about the Blue Mascot, but I couldn’t figure out what. It seemed strangely… friendly. More than a ghost should be.
It worsened after it began to call me a good child. Following its rules shouldn’t have been enough to garner such a reaction, or the park would be filled with hundreds of lost children the Blue Mascot would have offered a ’permanent ticket’ to by now.
The over-friendliness put me on edge. It reminded me of the show host.
Yet the Mascot’s wings were smooth cotton, not a single variant of colour to be seen from the deep blue. Not an uncommon case for ghosts. The Red Mascot had been like that as well.
Still, I don’t know why, seeing how the mascot guarded a waterpark and represented a dragon, I kept expecting a brownish feather to dangle from the blue fabric.
My heart clenched guiltily as I escaped.
The wings of the Salmon Market’s buyer were covered when I sold him the food. So were mine. Yet from beneath the cape, I spotted a bronze coat with a suspiciously-looking red-spotted feather standing out.
Warmth filled my chest.
I found that I didn’t mind sharing a soul feather with this stranger.
He’d been polite. Perhaps he would stay a regular customer in the future?
Braun’s doll had one of my feathers sewn into his back.
It was a bit creepy.
“Aww, did you sew one of your feathers on your doll for luck? That’s cute, Roe Deer!” Supervisor Park cooed when he noticed it.
[Wearing my friend’s color is a pride], Braun agreed.
Except I hadn’t been the one to put it here.
Maybe it was because I hadn’t grown up in this world and was just realising the sheer meaning of soul feathers, but after a few days I forgot all about it. The brown spotted fluff on the doll stopped feeling creepy. Eventually, seeing my feather on Braun just felt natural.
As natural as having my good friend by my side.
It was inevitable that I wouldn’t be able to keep my wings covered for the whole duration of this Horizon Mountain Lodge disaster.
“You—” the Agent I had met on Salmon Market exclaimed upon seeing my primaries. One of his bronze feathers was proudly displayed here.
“It seems we’ll meet again in the future. Take care of me, Agent,” I bowed.
It would be nice not to have to keep my wings as tightly folded under the cape during future transactions, now that I didn’t need to hide my soul feathers anymore.
The Agent's expression was dark. His gaze kept coming back to my wings.
He probably thought only one person would escape this disaster.
It would be fine. I didn’t intend to die here. I didn’t intend to let him die, either.
When he glanced back at me, behind the despair, I could see a similar fire in his eyes.
Perhaps this was why we shared a feather.
I ran out of the school, wings flapping in an effort to gain speed. I regretted not learning to fly.
In the corner of my eyes, I saw a black and white feather detach itself and fall. It took me a moment to figure out the new hole in my primaries was Supervisor Park’s. Assistant Manager Eun Haje’s soul feather was also missing, torn away to give weight to her ’death’.
A chill ran down my spine when I saw the soul feather fall. I panicked.
Supervisor Park couldn’t be dead.
I put him in my tattoo. He was safe, right? He had to be.
It’s only several days later once Supervisor Park had been safely left with the Security Team that I learnt how contamination affected soul feathers. When a person got so contaminated they weren’t fully humans anymore, their wings and every associated soul feathers molted.
The new soul feather was white, with what looked like rules scribbled by children's color pen all over them. I carefully freed it from its shaft despite the uneasiness in my stomach. Its texture felt oddly cold under my fingers.
This wasn’t how this soul feather should be like. It was wrong. Twisted.
It looked healthy.
It meant Supervisor Park was still alive.
Braun’s show was amazing.
This was like the ideal place in the sun. I never felt so happy and safe since landing in this world. I had to thank my friend for giving me this wonderful job opportunity.
Even my wings looked healthier. They gleamed with a kind of electric shine made to grab the audience's attention in a way that benefitted more the main host more than the behind-the-scenes employee that I was. It was embarrassing, really, but Braun didn’t mind and even regularly complimented them.
He also confirmed the electric cable feather was his. “It’s a sign that you are fated to appear on scene with me, friend!” he joyfully declared.
His love did not reach the other soul feathers that way.
“A good show host cannot come to the public with such a messy array of colour,” he told me before my first appearance as a co-host to his show. “I’ll teach you how to smooth them.”
When I appeared on stage, my soul feathers were nearly indistinguishable from the rest of my primaries, apart from one, lone electric feathers. Outside his good friend decoration, it was the first time I saw my feather on Braun’s wings.
It was probably the last time I would see it, I mourned while escaping the crumbling scene after Chief Lizard bombed it.
Why did one of my soul feathers have to be Agent Choi’s?
I remembered how much Agent Bronze had stared at my wings during the Horizon Mountain Lodge Disaster. At the time I thought it had been because there was no guarantee we’d both get out… but could it have been because he wasn’t the only Hyunmoo member with that soul feather?
I nervously trimmed the edge of my sleeve. Sharing a soul feather with Agent Bronze was fine, but Agent Choi… he reacted weird about it. There was a gleam in his eyes every time he caught sight of the electric blue soul feather in my wings.
The holes where his soul feathers should have been might be why. My and Agent Bronze’s soul feather… they might be amidst the few last ones there.
With that many missing, could he even fly?
No matter his reasons, the possessiveness was a bit suffocating. Don’t speak about letting me work for another Bureau team, he barely even let me go ‘home’ alone. That ‘home’ was some dusty motel near the Bureau was not an argument.
I was going to leave this world soon anyway, so why did it matter if we shared soul feathers? As strong as fate decided the connection to be, it was all temporary.
The thought made my stomach a bit heavier.
When I left… Would all my soul feathers fall, as if I was dead?
I messed up.
I messed up and now we were trapped at the top of a building under an artificial night, a ghost banging on the roof door and the disaster exit right in front of us— given a few dozen meters of empty air.
I flexed my wings. They felt light and thin, far too unprepared for the task ahead. I had seen people flying before, so I knew it would work, only... I never felt tempted to jump from several floors with unfamiliar limbs.
I had been too scared to try.
“I can’t fly,” I admitted after Agent Bronze took off and called for us near the disaster exit.
At Daydream, whenever we were cornered into a high place or needed to make a fast escape by flying away, Chief Lizard would just grab me and take me with him.
… he probably knew I couldn’t fly.
“Never a better time to learn than now!” Agent Choi cheerfully said before pushing me off the roof.
I think I screamed. It’s quite blurry.
Before I knew it, my wings had snapped open and Agent Choi appeared by my side, guiding me through the air flows towards the exit. The moonlight and stars provided enough light to see, and most buildings were lower than the one we had taken off from, so thankfully I didn’t end my first flight into a lethal crash.
Flying… actually felt nice.
It was a shame this was a world with ghost stories.
Leaving the Agents behind was bittersweet. Still, it had been necessary.
Because I couldn’t afford them tracking me down while tidying up after getting the wish potion, I asked Braun to hide my soul feathers like he did on the show.
[I don’t mind, friend!] he easily agreed. [But, are you sure? You said there were no soul feathers in your world.]
There were no wings at all.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
It meant that when I left, I wouldn’t even be able to give them a last glance. The connections I made or could have made in this world would fade as if they had never existed.
They’ll probably think I’m dead.
My wings without their colourful primaries was a bit of a sore sight. Even with the golden spots that had appeared next to the red ones since I became the Yellow Mascot, they looked dull.
Without knowing why, it made me feel… lonely.
Still, I couldn’t stay here. This world was on a timer. And even if there had been no apocalypse on the horizon, it wasn’t a world a coward like me could live in.
I clutched the wish potions Director Ho had given me.
There were just a few things left to do, and then… it would be time to go home.