Chapter 325 - Sealing Memories-III

It had been a while Seoyeon saw the fortune teller and to see her under a brighter light was her first time. She watched the ribbon that covered the fortuneteller's eyes. Unlike what she perused in the beginning, the ribbon that covered the woman's eyes were thicker, preventing her to look at anything even what was in front of her, yet she peaked omniscient with her surrounding.

The fortuneteller's lips were set in a thin line as she allowed them to enter. 

Seoyeon looked at Jung Hwa as he did and gave him a nod as she entered the place.

The sun was bright outside but the house was as dim as Seoyeon remembered.

"Take a seat, Seoyeon," said the fortuneteller and when she took a seat, Jung Hwa was aware of how the fortuneteller stared hard at him before shifting back her eyes to Seoyeon.

It was only a glance but Jung Hwa could feel something was of on that gaze. His eyes narrowed. It was difficult to trust people in their given situation. People around him now are aware of Seoyeon power and the group had been divided into two; The first group are those who feared Seoyeon's power and the second are people who wish to covet or manipulate Seoyeon's enormous power. 

He took a look around the house, making sure they were not trapped here. The fortuneteller lifted her chin to look subtly through her covered eyes where Jung Hwa was walking to. 

"Let me hold your hand," said the fortuneteller and Seoyeon did as she instructed.

The woman touched her wrist, and Seoyeon watched the way the woman's fingertips pressed on the middle side of her wrist. Unable to understand what the woman was trying to do, she looked at her face, finding a frown on the fortuneteller's brows.

"You did used her power as they said," the woman whispered, her tone was filled with alarm and if there was another emotions Seoyeon had to note was a terrible haste.

"They?" Seoyeon questioned.

"My whisperer, the people who told me about the future," and when she spoke, she suddenly twisted her neck briefly to her left side as if she was lending an ear to a conversation when there was no one sitting there.

A subtle, incoherent gurgles then could be heard to Seoyeon's ears that caused her to feel goosebumps breaking on her arm; cold chill covered her back.

"It was a hospital accident? Your power went out of control after you watched your friend loose her life; you stopped her soul from leaving the world."

"Hanaeul helped me with it," Seoyeon answered when the woman's brows raised, she said, "Hanaeul is the name of the first catalyst."

"You met her." The fortuneteller said through her gritted teeth. 

Seoyeon saw how the woman's finger on her wrist tightened, "Am I not supposed to?" she asked. Though subtle she could feel a little tension arising in the room and Jung Hwa also noticed it as he came closer behind Seoyeon.

"No. You don't know who Hanaeul is. You are never suppose to meet her. Ever."

"I know who Hanaeul is. We have talked and I have seen her past," Seoyeon didn't know what make the fortuneteller scared but Hanaeul was not as what the woman said, "She is a very kind person—"

"Before the catalyst possessed her she was indeed a kind person. So kind that she lost everything," came the woman's quick word.

Seoyeon drew her brows and Jung Hwa who was behind her asked, "You know her? The catalyst?"

"But that's not possible. It had been hundred of years ago," said Seoyeon, "Whoever knew Haneul must have died by now due to age."

"You are right but also wrong," said the woman with a small smile and a scoff which she directed not to them but someone else, "Body can age but our soul cannot. That woman she was the one who caused this..." slowly, the fortuneteller unwrapped the ribbon covering her eyes by tugging the end of the ribbon from the back of her head.

Seoyeon's eyes widened when she saw the woman's eyes. At first she thought the reason why the fortuneteller had covered her eyes was due to her ritual to be able to read one's future but now it come clear that it wasn't.

Over the woman's eyelids, a straight wound covered her eyes, causing it to close for eternity.

"And this isn't all that she did. She caused me more scars than this," said the fortuneteller with raw hatred.

"I don't understand." Seoyeon still couldn't see the connection between the woman's loss of eyes and the catalyst. "What do you mean by soul cannot age?"

Jung Hwa's was quicker to fit the puzzles, "Reincarnation?" And Seoyeon's eyes darted toward him.

Reincarnation?

Again, another scoff went from the woman's lips, "Similar but not exactly. What that woman did is different. It is called as soul-binding. The catalyst was the one who had soul blinded me to the world. Usually when soul leave the living world and the the land of the dead, their memories are erased but not for me who had been casted this magic."

Seoyeon was surprised and also the curiosity she had in her heart arises, "Then that would mean you remembered what happened during Hanaeul's massacre?"

If the fortuneteller knew what happened, that would helped her from the need to find a method to dream the Lucid dream again.

Yet to her demise, the fortuneteller shook her head, "I only remembered what happened during my first life very faintly but I did remember what happened during my second life until now and how much of my dearest ones are lost to her. I also remember well how she had killed me. It was the freshest memory of my first life."

"Hanaeul killed you?" Seoyeon repeated, she didn't know what happened during the woman's second life as she didn't thoroughly dive to what happened in the past but Seoyeon could see the deep hatred of the woman's eyes that reached a bottomless sea of hatred. 

"She did. Cold heartedly. I didn't remember what make her kills me but I do remember how much of a friend I treated her like and yet she..." the fortuneteller had spoken too fast with passion of hatred that she had to stop and heave for her breaths. "She ripped my eyes, slaughtered my families in front of me, killed my husband and son, lastly killing me by tearing my heart."

The fortuneteller's story was hardly believable to Seoyeon. She had seen what kind of person Haneul was in the past, she was a bright and cherry girl. To hear the heinous act was performed by her didn't make sense to Seoyeon.

During that short amount of years, what happened? Was Hanaeul as evil as others told her to be?

"And how does it explain your eyes?" Came Jung Hwa's question and he placed his and on her shoulder blade as if to calm her thought process.

"This is the scar that had never disappeared for me. Even as my soul drifted from one newborn baby to another, I will always lose my eyes. It's as if the world is trying to remember the past I have hardly tried to forget. She is torturing me. She repeatedly bring back my soul only to be friend with a catalyst vessel just like you Seoyeon. Her vessel was unlike her are a very kind creatures but once they talked with 'her'. They changed and you are about to undergo that change."

"That would mean you lied all this time about not knowing the catalyst," Jung Hwa said with his eyes narrowed. He couldn't sensed the woman's lies which mean she knew how to mix lies and truth together so he won't pick up her lies. 

"I had my own circumstance please understand. I cannot afford another life of mine to tangle with a catalyst vessel at the cost of everything again," the woman said with a wary tone that somewhere hurt Seoyeon as the woman sounded like avoiding a blazing fire and she was that fire— the source of the destruction.

Seoyeon retracted her hand from across the table which was still held by the fortuneteller. When she tugged her elbow instead, the woman's grip on her hand tightened. 

It alarmed Seoyeon as she new the woman's hatred toward the catalyst and she heard the woman says, "We need to cut the connection between you and her as soon as possible."

"I am fine with it," said Seoyeon, rejecting the woman's offer. Although the fortuneteller had warned her of Hanaeul, Seoyeon still believed that there was a reason for her action and she cannot have the woman cut her connection with Haneul when the lucid dream was her clue to control her power. "There are still a lot of things I want to see from the past and talk with Haneul."

"She is dangerous."

"I will see it for myself and decide it," said Seoyeon, firm with her answer and she tugged her hand again only to wince slightly as she feel the fortune teller's grip on her hand tighten further. 

"You heard what she chose and said. Release her hand." Demanded Jung Hwa as he caught the fortuneteller's arm and give a good squeeze for the woman's eyebrows to knit in pain. 

"I don't have patience. Now. Don't make me repeat my word," warned Jung Hwa. 

"You don't know that if we do not cut the connection now, Seoyeon will cease to exist," said the woman and it did caused Jun Hwa to double think. 

"And what are you planning by cutting the connection? You said before you do not know how to suppress the power of the catalyst," and suddenly it dawned to Jung Hwa was the woman was planning to do, "You are going to seal her power with her memories again." 

"It is the only way," the fortuneteller said, "Excuse my rude action."

Over the woman's words, all of a sudden Jung Hwa was pushed to the wall with an invisible push, "Hwa!" Seoyeon called his name, seeing dust breaking to soft fog, covering the spot where Jung Hwa had been thrown over. 

"It won't hurt, I promise," the woman said, her calm words only caused Seoyeon to look at her with dread.