Chapter 11: Returning to The First Realm

The end of her final semester has arrived, and Ki Jung is just turning in her last finals test before graduation. She thinking about heading home to spend time with her younger brother before heading to the dojo. With absurd timing, her paper is just leaving her fingers and floating to the stack with all the others when she feels it. The Realms are pulling her back.

This is witnessed by the TA and those who look up when they hear something at the front of the room. Those closest would swear that it was Ki Jung saying, “Shit!” Other than that, there is no sound. She is there, then she is not. She has, again, been taken.

There are protocols in place in the event that this happens on campus. The TA contacts the school’s administration, they look up her information and contacts her mother to inform her that her daughter has been Taken.

Lee Yun Hee is distraught but keeps her cool and thanks the school for contacting her. Now, it is her turn to tell Seo Joon and Master Jamison, who comes over to keep them company for a while. She manages to hold it together until after Seo Joon is fast asleep, and Tom has returned to his own home. All they can do now is hope and pray that Ki Jung is okay and that she will return home safe and whole.

The next day, Master Jamison hangs a picture of his prized student at the dojo where Ki Jung spent so much time. Meanwhile, at the university, she is added to the growing list of those taken as students or faculty. At the Lee home, a small shrine is placed in the corner of Ki Jung’s room. Every day, their mother spends time in front of it, praying. She isn’t aware of it, but Seo Joon follows her example and does the same.

Ki Jung was set to graduate with honors. Thus about a month after she was taken, her diploma is sent home to her mother. The university had it framed. The matting is signed by all her friends, professors, her counselor, and everyone in the administration who knew her personally. It is a testament to how many lives she has touched. Over one hundred signatures fill the matting. On the back of the diploma is a short message: “May the Gods watch over you and return you safe and whole, Ki Jung Lee.”

A teary-eyed their mother hangs the diploma above Ki Jung’s bed. The bed needs to be made again, as her son Seo Joon had slept in it the night before. It is a habit he seems to be getting into since the end of the first month passed without a sign of his big sister. He may be sixteen now, but they had grown closer over the last three years. Eventually, he will get over it.