Myths and Legends of Asia
I don't have to imagine, because my life already is one (no its not, that was a lie)
Wouldn't that be interesting though? If our lives were a K - Drama, and by that I mean living within the drama and intrigue provided by K - Dramas, not just living in South Korea, because, and trust me on this, the situations in these shows could hypothetically happen to anyone living anywhere in the world, right?
I could just be walking down the street on my way to class and I could get stopped by a strikingly handsome man who wants to play Ddakji with me to help me win a cash prize of 4.56 million dollars (don't stop kids, just keep walking).
I could move into an apartment that looks as dingy as the stack of old newspapers my grandmother insists that we save because “it could be useful in the future”, only to be chased around by monsters that I have no idea as to how they got there because last I checked Earth didn't have fictional monsters just meandering around.
The odds of these scenarios happening are infinitesimally small, and even smaller for me because I refuse to step out of my house unless it is absolutely necessary, but let’s imagine for a moment that they do.
This is a continuation of the article WHAT IF MY LIFE WAS A THRILLER K - DRAMA. This article may contain spoilers for some dramas, so proceed with caution. |
CULTS AND CURIOSITY
I often see people on the street taking surveys on how they could improve life around campus, and they all looked really trustworthy, but you let your imagination run wild and before you know it, you're caught up in a cult that just won't let go of you in your dreams.
You may not be a very gullible person, but maybe there comes someone whose every word you will want to believe, like in Hellbound, and now you are stuck between your love for your family and the new found family you were led to believe in, and you end up choosing your radiant leader and his followers into a dilapidated building where the residents are a wee bit strange. They seem to follow you everywhere you go, and despite you telling them openly to knock it off, they don't quit. Soon, your family is being involved in this massive issue, and you're left fearing for their safety and yours. Wondering what is behind all this behavior, you decide to dig into the leader's past and belongings, asking your friend in the police force to help you in this quest. You need to find this information as soon as possible, or risk the possibility of getting caught and going missing, as the person before you who tried to uncover the truth was injured and kidnapped right before you. |  |
 | Days go by without any progress, and the tenants start to get more suspicious of your activities. You finally have a breakthrough and discover that all the people living in the building are involved in a cult, and the members you thought had joined along with you were already part of the organization. The person who was kidnapped in front of you was also a member, but she wanted to leave, and was killed for trying to. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and according to your friend, there were instances of the same pattern in other towns before this. Locked in the building with no help, you have no means to contact anyone either, and you fear the inevitable. Passing out from fear, you awaken to find yourself on a hospital bed surrounded by your family. You have no idea how you escaped, but you're glad you did, and relieved that all the suspects have been arrested. |
There is one thing that is still of concern: what were the monsters you saw that led you to join the cult? Were they simply hallucinations, or a conspiracy going deeper than you could possibly imagine? |
THE MONSTER MASH
In a very unrealistic sense, I run away when I see a dog barking on the street because I have this irrational fear that it would suddenly sense my tension and chase me around and bite me. Once again, this does not relate to me, but a random person I just made up. I, on the other hand, have battled angry bulls with my bare hands. Yes I have.
Monsters do not exist in a physical state on this plane, and even if they did, they are probably in deep hibernation, oblivious to the human world. What would happen if we woke them up though? The world is quickly running out of natural resources, and it seems like nothing will stop the destruction of our planet. My team and I have been working tirelessly to discover a solution to all our problems, and just when all hope seems lost, we discover there is a plane right below the earth’s surface that may have a chance at producing a sustainable environment again. I need more time to study the nature of the sphere, but there is pressure from the authorities and public to conduct a physical examination as soon as possible. Despite my objections, we are sent on a mission to study the surface, but in digging so deep into the ground, we have inherently awoken the monsters. Now along with the resource crisis, we are dealing with these creatures who we have no information on, all while my team is stuck in the ground searching for a method to make the resources viable for human consumption. There are some casualties within the team, (because it would be impossible to follow the don't touch anything you don't know about rule without casualties… sigh), all while the planet continues to struggle against the monsters and the lack of food and water. My team finally makes a breakthrough, but unlucky for us and because this is a drama, our way out has been obstructed, and all contacts are cut off, but there will be no sacrifices here. We work together to figure out a way back, but despite all our efforts, we aren't seen as heroes, but the villains who wrecked the monsters onto the living plane. There is food and water and every available natural resource now, but there are these unidentifiable assailants too. Of course, we don't know what happens after this because that's the end of the 8 episodes, and now we have to wait a year for the sequel.  |
ZOMBIES! (NOT THE DISNEY MOVIE)
Let's freestyle here, because despite the several recommendations I’ve gotten, I still haven't watched All of us are Dead (sorry). I absolutely loved Kingdom, but let's get real, the odds of me surviving a zombie apocalypse is slim. Actually it's zero. I’d probably be one of the first to get bitten. So let's do this from that POV!
“We never actually get a reason as to why there’s a zombie breakout do we?”, I utter cluelessly, not having watched very many of such shows. For now, we’ll say toxic waste, fumes of the waste causes you to mutate. Bites, saliva, any bodily fluid causes transformation too. I turn because I am just that clumsy and now I’m a zombie, but, I still have my memories, my feelings, my human instincts. The only difference now is my appearance and the fact that I don't know how to express my feelings. I am fundamentally a baby who can turn others into my kind with a bite. I am also unaware of the fact that I’ve been turned, because the world still looks normal to me, but wherever I go, people cower in fear and try to attack me. |
 | I ultimately become a recluse due to the constant rejection, only finding hope when meeting others of my kind. None of us truly understand why we are being ostracized, because it's just another normal day for us. We slowly form a colony, and years pass by, with all of staying within the boundaries in fear of the outside world. One day though, a strange group of people appear to start capturing us, taking us to an unknown area from where our friends never return. Once again, we scatter out of the colony in fear, running in the hopes that we don't get caught. I get caught though because becoming a zombie doesn't mean I’m not clumsy anymore (what do I do, it's in my genes). I get taken somewhere, probably the same place my friends were, and I immediately pass out. When I wake up, I see that for the first time in years, people don’t seem to be scared of me, I see the look of relief after a very long time. Turns out, the research in the outside world allowed everyone to see that we in fact were still human, and that a particular form of treatment could rid us of the toxins in our body, in turn reverting all the zombies back to their human self, able to express feelings and all. This may seem like a happy ending, but this only reprieve for those who can be seen, those who we can feel. What about our spirits? |
THE SAFE AND THE SUPERNATURAL
I just realized I’m scared of everything I've written about until now, including ghosts. Like vengeful spirits, not Casper the Friendly Ghost. I would probably be scared of Casper too, but only in the beginning, and mostly about seeing a ghost that looks like a cartoon.
Being a criminal profiler is not an easy job, but I make it look easy because I am suave, you know, when I’m not being scared by ghosts. I never told anyone about this because telling people I study murderers get me enough crazy looks, and telling them I can see ghosts isn’t going to make it easier. Luckily, I have my brother to help me when things get too intense, and we always work together, him being a detective and all. We get a complaint about disturbances every night in a chaebol’s house, and they believe it’s burglars staking out their house. My brother investigates it with his partner, and comes home looking shocked and tired, but won't tell me why. I decide to check out the house myself, and discover that it’s not burglars, but a spirit, who feels oddly reminiscent to me. I communicate with him because he looks unthreatening, but I’m unable to help him because he is bound to the house with no memories of himself. We try and try, but to no avail, and I finally decide to talk to my brother about this, when I walk in on him holding a photograph of the spirit I’ve been communicating with. |  |
He reveals that the spirit is our father, and that he had passed away before I was born, and my mother had left this single photograph in my brother’s care before leaving us. He also reveals that we have the ability to help spirits move on, and the key to that is to discover the identity of the spirits. This would have to mean that our father should have moved on already, but my brother explains that knowing their relation to another person would not help, we have to discover who they really were.
Knowing this, we work harder than ever to help our dad move on, and finally discover something. He was killed in an accident involving the house of the Chaebols, and their grandfather covered everything up. With his identity now unveiled, our dad can finally go forward, and life is good. Then, I find a stranger on my doorstep. |
TIME TRAVELLING HUNKS
I open my door to find Rookie (we remember Rookie, from Part 1) on my doorstep. He appears to be bleeding and in severe danger, so my brother and I take him in, albeit with caution. We get him to a hospital, and when we try to find his registration, it says he’s been dead for 10 years already. We panic and have a funny brother - sister fight (because it’s a K - Drama, duh), and finally decide to mess with the system and register him as our cousin. He lies in a coma for weeks, and during this time, we decide to uncover as much information about him as possible, and also go through the items he was carrying. We unlock his phone to see that he has dozens of messages from his ‘sunbae’, and others from his teammates.
We finally figure out the mystery behind his arrival, he’s here from the past. He wakes up to a thousand questions from my brother and I, and after the interrogation, we decide that we’re going to help him go back to his time. We return his phone to him, but he’s surprised to see messages from one particular person: a detective on his team he says is dead, a detective who was killed in front of his eyes. Realizing that him travelling here reset time in the past, he is resolute to change the past to ensure his team members are safe and the serial killer they were chasing is caught. The only problem is that we can’t change the past with no contact to the past, which is solved by the fact that his phone can contact people from the past. Simple. Now would have been a good time to tell him that he is actually ‘dead’, but we decide not to because, he is in fact, alive. The case from the past has been labeled a cold case, and after a fight to have it reopened, we finally have authorization. After a lot of investigating and help from the past, we finally crack the identity of the killer and he is apprehended. |  |
Now lies the problem of Rookie returning to his time. Remember us not telling him about his death? Turns out it was a big deal. The only reason it was a cold case in the present was because Rookie solved it in the past, but going after the criminal alone got him killed. So him returning to his timeline would mean that the case gets solved 10 years ago, but also means that Rookie gets killed. His sunbae provides an alternative: that he stays with us. He’s currently missing the past, but his family, friends and coworkers are all hopeful of his return. None of us know what the consequences of him staying in our timeline would be, but we all risk it because none of us can lose him. He comes out of hiding and reveals himself to everyone he knows, and as far as we can tell, there aren't any major consequences. |  |
Happy Ending!
After all that’s been said and done, you finally have your happy ending. No more cases to work on, murderers to catch, monsters to battle, zombies to de - zombiefy, ghosts to help, and Rookies to fall in love with (what is a K - Drama without at least a bit of flirting huh), and now all that’s left is to relax. That is until you wake up and realize this was all a dream you had about your life being a Thriller K - Drama.
Fin. |
Credits: Final GIF - Source. Unless stated otherwise, all GIFs were created by me. The cover picture is a collage of posters you can find on MDL. | Edited by: SumiTheCat (1st editor) |
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