Shinyyyy

Don’t stop. Keep moving—harder, faster.

One tear sealed, now another.

Celine couldn’t remember the last time so many demons had broken through Honmoon. Countless hordes pressed in, a tide of bodies and claws. She knew she wouldn’t be able to save everyone. She closed one tear only for two more to appear in its place. The barrier always weakened in autumn, but never this much.

A lie.

She remembered a much larger horde all too well. Something precious had been taken from her then.

No. Don’t think about that. Not now.

Slash. Stab. Dodge.

A breath.

Another tear.

Repeat.

Exhaustion soaked into muscle and bone. Her body faltered, but she couldn’t stop. No matter how much she bled, how badly she limped, Celine cut down demon after demon.

Slash. Stab. Dodge.

Day gave way to night, but that meant nothing to the demons. The glowing installations around Cheonggyecheon meant nothing either.

Three hours ago Celine had gotten a call from Jeju—the demons had attacked the island. Mentors and a few mudang had gone to defend it.

She was alone. Just her, Seoul, and endless demon hordes.

The sun chased away the moon, thick clouds gathering overhead.

The boy—Celine refused to think about how, in another world, Rumi would be his age—dissolved before her eyes. Another soul she couldn’t save. Another she had failed.

The world wept and Celine wasn’t sure whether the drops on her face were rain or her own tears.

Slash. Stab. Dodge.

Night again. When had the sun set?

Celine leaned against a wall. Her body begged for a break, but she knew that if she sat down now, she’d never find the strength to rise again.

There. Another demon.

She clenched her teeth and, even as her body screamed for her to stop, she pushed forward.

The world swayed and blurred. Honmoon still wailed, but much quieter now. An hour had passed since the last tear.

Walls and bulletin boards were plastered with a terrifying number of posters. So many families would never see their loved ones again. All because of Celine. If only she had tried harder.

The world tilted.

No. No no no. Not now. Not now!

A pair of arms wrapped around her waist.

She closed her eyes just for a moment. And again those hands—soft and deceptively strong. They helped her into the elevator, then into the apartment, then into the bathroom.

Celine didn’t react to the sting of her wounds or the needle running through her skin. She deserved this and far more.

A soft blanket settled around her shoulders. No, she should be sitting here alone, in the cold bathroom, bleeding and paying for every failure.

When had she ended up in the bedroom?

Mi‑yeong and Hana looked at her from an old photograph. What would they think of her? She was supposed to be a fearless leader. Unbreakable. But she had failed. Failed so terribly.

She slid to the floor. The blanket slipped from her shoulders, her face buried in her hands.

So Julianna claimed a basket that was on top of some pillows as her bed. No problem, I'm pretty happy to let her sleep wherever she wants.

Instead, Freire proposes that teachers and students act as co-creators of knowledge, where students become active participants in their own learning through questions and dialogue. Teachers are also open to changing their understanding of topics in the process of critical dialogue - the goal is not "student learns Fact A and memorizes it as presented," but instead the goal is the knowledge itself, discovered collaboratively by teacher and student, who are acting with empathy and respect towards each other. This also starts the process of the oppressed being able and empowered to question structures of power, take agency, and actively participate in the transformation of society.

"Remember when they told us every computer was going to crash on 1/1/01 and there would be chaos and then nothing happened?"

We don't talk about acid rain because there isn't any more acid rain because when acid rain started happening and we learned that the cause was mainly sulphur oxide and carbon monooxide from car exhausts, countries all over the world made it a law that car companies had to produce cars that produced less exhaust with better effectivenes (burning the fuel all the way to CO2 instead of the halfassed CO) and oil rafineries to remove the sulphur from the gasoline in the first place.

We don't talk about computers crashing because of the turn of the century, because thousands of programmers worked very hard to write updates and patches for Every Single Program humanity as a whole used back in 1999 and then somehow managed to failtest, distribute, and update every single device and system, be it an online or offline one before the midnight of the 1st january of 2000.

On a much smaller scale, no one ever commenta or notices cleaners and housekeepers doing their job - be it at home or at whole buildings - because they always make sure that there's nothing to notice. But don't be fooled - at any point of your life you are one week of them not doing away from swimming in trash and filth with nothing to eat and nothing clean to wear. Only then you would notice.