Chapter 5 - Episode 5: Once cloaked in mystery

Just before reaching school, Taejun heard it— a scream. Sharp and ragged, unmistakably human. A woman's voice, breaking apart in panic. People were shouting and running. Chaos had begun to stir near the edge of a condominium complex. A crowd had already gathered, bodies pressed together in a restless circle, shielding something from sight.

Taejun, small and slight, had to squeeze through legs, bags, and frightened voices just to catch a glimpse. Curiosity pulled him forward, even as his heart pounded harder with every step. When he finally reached the center, he wished he hadn't.

The woman's body lay twisted on the concrete like a discarded doll, limbs flung at unnatural angles, her spine arched grotesquely, the back of her neck bent in a direction no living person could ever move. One arm was caught beneath her, crushed flat, skin split wide from wrist to elbow, exposing sinew and bone beneath ribbons of torn flesh. Her fingers were still curled mid-spasm, twitching slightly, as if they were trying to crawl away without her.

Her head— what remained of it— was unrecognizable. It hadn't just been hit. It had been annihilated. The skull was completely shattered, the cranium caved in like a cracked melon, and the scalp had torn away in places, exposing the meat underneath. Bone fragments jutted outward like broken glass, some embedded in the nearby pavement, others lodged in what used to be her shoulder. Her brain had burst from the fracture point in thick, pulpy clumps, bits of it splattered meters away in twitching coils. Some grey matter had stuck to the wall of a vending machine, dripping slowly down its metal side like spoiled custard.

One eye had popped entirely, the jelly of it crushed into a pale smear that trailed from the orbital cavity to the gutter. The other eye was still there— barely— bulging and glossy, staring in a direction no head should have been able to turn, like it had been left behind by the soul that once used it. Her mouth hung open, jaw unhinged and split, the teeth fractured into tiny stumps, most of them scattered in her own blood. A chunk of her tongue had landed near a child's dropped backpack, the tip still visibly twitching in the pooling warmth.

Her face had collapsed. There was no nose, only a blood-slicked crater. Her cheeks were torn in mirrored gashes, revealing strands of muscle twitching beneath the skin. Her ears were gone, shredded off completely, leaving only ragged patches of scalp. Nothing remained that hinted at identity— just raw, red destruction.

The blood was everywhere— thick puddles coagulating in sun-warmed clots, dark streaks smeared by panicked shoes, arterial sprays stretched in arcs across nearby windows and brick. A fine mist of crimson had dried on the cheeks of those standing too close. The copper stench was overwhelming, heavy in the lungs, mixing with urine and bile as people tried and failed not to vomit. Someone had already collapsed from the sight, retching violently in the grass. Another had fainted, falling backwards into the arms of a trembling bystander.

And in the middle of it all, the woman's body twitched again. A single, shuddering kick of the leg, like the meat still remembered how to struggle. It wasn't alive. Not really. Just some dying nerve misfiring in the mess that used to be a body. But the movement made a girl scream, sharp and shrill, and others began backing away in panic, afraid the corpse might rise and come crawling.

Taejun felt cold sweat drip down his neck. His mouth was dry. His eyes wouldn't blink. He stood frozen, watching the wet gleam of blood in the woman's hair as it clung in matted strands to the asphalt. He could hear flies buzzing louder now, landing in clusters on the exposed brain, crawling in and out of the gaping cavity of her head like they'd found a nest.

"What happened?" someone asked, voice trembling. "Did someone do this? Did she fall?" But no one answered. No one knew. Or worse— someone did, and they'd already vanished.

Taejun's breathing grew shallow. He couldn't stop staring. The world around him had dulled to a hum, like sound had dropped into molasses. His knees buckled slightly, legs shaking beneath the weight of what he'd just seen. The woman's corpse lay there, twitching, melting in the sun. A dying echo in the middle of morning traffic.

What is happening? The thought came thin and trembling, like it didn't want to be heard.

"Poor woman… why would she do this?"

"Maybe she was dumped? It could be a heartbreak, who knows?"

"She must've jumped. No other way she ends up like that."

"I think, depression, perhaps… or might be a murder case? Hard to say until the police check. What a poor woman."

The voices spilled from the mouths around him with a casual cruelty, as if they were commenting on the weather instead of dissecting the shattered corpse of a human being. Every word crawled into Taejun's ears and nested there— cold, writhing, and parasitic. They spoke in hushed tones, but the thrill in their voices was unmistakable, slicing through the air louder than screams. No one said her name. No one asked who she was. She had already stopped being a person— reduced to rumor, to spectacle, to another headline in waiting. Just a story now, a grotesque anecdote to be told between sips of coffee and bites of dinner.

The words weren't just spoken— they pierced him. Each sentence a shard of broken glass, digging deeper, sharper than the blood-matted bone still burned into his vision. The murmured guesses, the lazy theories, the smirking speculations— they weren't laced with sympathy. They were soaked in hunger. Morbid curiosity leaking from their lips like venom, eager to consume every last drop of her misery.

They weren't mourning her. They were feeding on her.

Taejun's ears rang. His limbs refused to obey. He stood still, suffocating in silence, even though the world around him buzzed like static. The woman's ruined face flashed in his mind again— the imploded skull, the wet ropes of brain, the limbs twisted like snapped twigs. And around her, the crowd kept circling, not with grief, but with teeth bared behind their words.

He clenched his backpack tighter, fingers digging into the seams until the fabric bunched under his nails. Anything to keep from unraveling. But it was too late. The moment had already burrowed beneath his skin, a splinter too deep to pull out.

Then— out of nowhere— an arm gripped his forearm. Firm and steady. A man. His voice was low, calm, trying to slice through the haze. "Hey, kid. Don't look there. You shouldn't be around something like this. It's not good for someone your age. Are you alright?"

Taejun blinked, dazed. But his mind didn't return to the body. It staggered elsewhere— to another face, another moment. Yesterday. The blood. The knife. That man. The memory crawled back like bile, thick and slow, searing its way up from the pit of his stomach. His throat tightened. He couldn't breathe.

The man's grip remained, not harsh, just insistent— like holding a balloon string before the wind could take it. "You hear me, kid? You need to go somewhere else. Oh, and by the way, are you alone? Where are your parents?"

Taejun opened his mouth, but no sound came. Only a shallow nod, his lips pressed together until they hurt. He pulled away, clutching his backpack like it was the last real thing in a world suddenly drenched in smoke and mirrors. Without speaking, he turned and kept walking, the man's voice fading behind him, swallowed by the noise of the crowd and the distant shriek of sirens.

School wasn't far. But each step dragged, the concrete beneath his shoes feeling soft, as if the ground wanted to open and swallow him whole. He couldn't escape the image. Not just the gore. Not just the way her head had folded in on itself or how her body twitched like meat struck with electricity. It was something else. Something colder. A feeling he couldn't explain. It felt familiar.

The horror wasn't in the blood. It was in the echo. Something inside him recognized this death— not her face, not her clothes— but the air around it. The silence that came after. The dread. The weight. Like the world had held its breath again, just for her.

Why does it feel the same? Why do I feel like I've seen this before… lived it?

His step faltered. He looked down at his hand. It was shaking violently now, as if something beneath the skin had started screaming. Like his body knew something his mind refused to recall. A warning in his blood. A whisper behind his eyes. A scream with no mouth.

He swallowed, forced his legs to move. Tightened his grip on the strap. But the morning light felt wrong— too bright, too clean, as if it had been painted on. The sky looked like a lie. And something deep within him had already curled in retreat, whispering a truth he couldn't escape. This wasn't the last time.

Suddenly, something caught his eye— a glint, a flash on the pavement that shouldn't have been there. A shiny object, small and strange, half-swallowed by shadow. It didn't belong anywhere or to anyone. But no one else noticed. People streamed past it, murmuring in low, feverish tones, their eyes fixed on the chaos across the street. Oblivious. Not one glance downward. Not one flicker of attention toward the shimmer beneath their feet. It was as if the thing didn't exist.

Taejun turned in a slow, uneasy circle. His skin prickled. The air had turned colder, and heavier. His own breath felt too loud, like the only real sound left in the world. Why is no one seeing it…? The thought crawled up his spine, cold and slithering, like something alive. Something wrong.

The object sat there, unnervingly still, like it had always belonged to this place. A key— blackened, tarnished with age, jagged teeth gnawing through time itself. Half-sunken in shadow, the key looked sharp and cruel— too much so for something so small. And yet, it gleamed, a faint flicker of malevolence that seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat. The air around it felt wrong— thick, and suffocating. A rancid, choking aura curled up from it, like smoke from a dying fire, seeping into the concrete, making it darken in fear. The pavement recoiled under its touch, like it was trying to escape it.

Taejun's pulse quickened. His hands trembled, his breath shallow. The ground beneath him felt unsteady. Don't touch it. The whisper came from somewhere deep inside, cold and foreign. He wanted to turn away. He should.

But there was another voice— soft, seductive, insistent— that slithered through his thoughts: Take the key...It's for you.

And the pull. The pull wasn't just mental— it was visceral, primal, like an invisible thread wrapped around his very bones, tugging him closer with each thundering beat of his heart. It wasn't simply gravity, nor just a call— it felt like something alive, a relentless force pulling at him from within, gnawing at the marrow of his being. The key, cold and jagged, radiated something worse than darkness— it radiated hunger.

His chest tightened, the air in his lungs thickening with each desperate breath. His heartbeat roared in his ears, the frantic pounding threatening to burst his ribcage. The world around him constricted, narrowing, as if the space itself had become aware of him— waiting, pressing, watching. It was a gaze not from a person, but from something other, something old and indifferent, and the weight of that gaze crushed him.

The air pressed down on him, heavy and unyielding, like a weight he couldn't escape, a pressure that sank into his skin, into his bones. He felt the ground beneath his feet— no, not ground— a pit. He was sinking. His stomach churned, nausea crawling up from his gut like a serpent. It wasn't just a key. He could feel it. The way it wanted him. It was a promise— a twisted, irrevocable promise. It's wrong. He knew it. He could feel it in his soul.

Taejun's mind spiraled with images of what this key might unlock. A door. A door to somewhere forbidden. A room sealed away in darkness, where something ancient, something buried for a reason, stirred. His breath caught in his throat. A treasure? Or maybe a crypt? A tomb for something long forgotten, left to rot in a place that had been forgotten, too? No— worse. The thought gnawed at him, savage, hollowing out his insides. What if it weren't a grave for a body? What if it was a tomb for something far worse— something that had been buried for its own damn safety?

The idea bloomed in his mind like a sickness, its roots crawling through his veins, curling around his heart. It wasn't just wrong— it was dangerous, deadly— and yet, the pull didn't lessen. The weight of the key's presence grew heavier, its hunger more insistent, gnashing, urging him closer, until he felt like he could no longer remember why he had wanted to stay away.

What if the key wasn't just an object? What if it was a curse? A mark, a calling. The thing on the other side didn't want him to open it; it wanted him to belong to it.

He swallowed, but the bile rose in his throat, bitter and thick. Every inch closer he moved, the nausea deepened, but still the pull did not relent. He could feel his will disintegrating, piece by piece, each step closer weakening his resolve.

This wasn't a key. It was a door. A door that didn't lead to a room, but to something worse, something unspeakable. And Taejun realized— he wasn't meant to open it. He was meant to become it.

I should take it to the police, he thought. That's what I should do. It's the right thing to do. But the voice was distant, muffled, lost beneath the suffocating grip of the key. The guilt, the instinct, the need for righteousness— it was all smothered, consumed by the weight of what lay in front of him.

With each step, the world seemed to stretch. His legs moved forward, his body aching with a need that had become instinctive. The shaking of his hands felt more like a ritual than a fear. His knees bent— not in balance, but in reverence. Or was it fear? It felt like both. His fingers hovered, not wanting to touch, but compelled to. The key lay there, sharp, jagged, gleaming like a wound in the fabric of the world. And then— Crash.

A violent impact. Something slammed into him from behind, sending his body to the ground. Air was knocked from his lungs. His ribs scraped painfully against the rough pavement, grinding. He gasped, choking on the dust, on the sting of his skin against stone. His head spun. His body screamed in pain, but even that was nothing compared to the cold grip of dread that twisted his insides.

A man— wild-eyed, frenzied—smashed into him like a freight train. The man didn't stop. Didn't speak. Didn't even glance back. He ran, fast and desperate, coat flapping behind him like dark wings, an apparition made flesh. Taejun stared, dazed, the sting of his scraped palms the only thing grounding him. What a strange man, the thought rang through his mind, disjointed and absurd, like the kind of protest a child might make after being pushed— He ran me over and didn't even say sorry! It was a ridiculous thought, fragile and distant, yet it somehow echoed in his mind, hollow and small, as everything else around him seemed so much bigger, so much darker.

Groaning, Taejun struggled to his knees. His palms bled, the grit of the pavement embedding itself into his flesh. The crowd still churned around him, indifferent. Oblivious. No one had seen him fall. No one had noticed him at all. The key was still there.

Gleaming. Untouched. Waiting.

Taejun didn't think. His body moved without command, his fingers reaching out, cold, trembling, and desperate. He didn't even breathe. He just took it.

The instant his fingers closed around the jagged metal, the world fractured. The sky splintered— cracking like glass. The street beneath his feet ripped away. Light winked out like a dying star, fading until there was nothing but pure, smothering darkness.

Silence. The kind that crushed the soul. The kind that made the air feel thicker. Alive. Smothering.

There was no ground beneath him. No gravity. No sensation of up or down. His body wasn't falling. He was being pulled. Ripped through space. Through meaning. The very fabric of the world stretched and tore as if it were made of wet paper, and he was the ink staining it. The darkness closed in around him— not empty, but full— but alive. It pressed against his skin like a wet cloth, thick and cloying. It flooded into his lungs, his ears, his mouth, his eyes, a wave of sensation, suffocating and overwhelming.

He wasn't alone in this place. The void pulsed, massive, intimate, like a throat had swallowed him whole. A throat that was waiting, and Taejun was the sacrifice.

The key throbbed in his hand. Hot. Alive. Its pulse was not his own, but something… other. It beat in time with his heart, and every throb pushed him deeper into the black. He opened his mouth to scream, to let the terror out, but no sound came. His throat was closed. The scream was eaten. His voice was swallowed. His thoughts shredded like paper caught in a storm.

No escape. No hope. And then— bubbles.

Strange, slow, unnatural, rising from his mouth like twisted fish climbing toward the surface of a nonexistent sea. Taejun froze, his skin tingling with the crawling, gnawing sensation of wrongness. He was underwater. No. Not water. It looked like it. Felt like it. But it wasn't. The liquid wrapped around him with unnatural weight, thick, suffocating, and cold. Yet— he could breathe. His lungs weren't gasping. There was no need. No need for air. He wasn't drowning. But in this mess, he should have been.

How could he breathe? How could this be happening?

This isn't water... The thought came like a knife through fog, sharp and sudden.

And with it, the terrible, slow realization: There was no bottom. No surface. No sides. Just the endless black, pressing in from every direction. And still, the key pulsed in his hand— warm.

Why is it so warm?

The sensation slithered up his spine, a cold, creeping presence that seeped into his bones, lacing through his marrow. It wasn't warmth. It wasn't heat. It was something far darker. Awareness. Intent.

It felt like it knew exactly where he was, what he was— every pulse, every breath, every frantic thought. It was watching. No, not just watching— waiting. I was watching him, waiting for him to make a move, as if it had always been there, and always would be. Its gaze pressed into him, suffocating, a weight that sank into his skin, into his very soul.

How am I breathing?!What is this place?!

He thrashed in the liquid, desperate, trying to tear his body free of the suffocating blackness, but there was no surface nor escape. Just the endless dark wrapping tighter. The key— still in his hand— radiated heat that shouldn't have been possible here, its pulse dragging him deeper into the madness.

And all the while, the same thought kept circling in his mind: I should never have touched it. I should never have taken it…

The silence was shattered with a sickening crunch as he slammed into the ground, the stone floor biting into his side, its jagged edges tearing through flesh with brutal precision. A ragged gasp exploded from his lungs, useless and desperate, as if his body could no longer function properly. The air— or whatever foul substance choked this place— was thick, suffocating, metallic, coating his throat like rust, every breath a scrape, every inhalation a sharp scrape against the walls of his lungs.

He coughed violently, bile rising in a sour tide, his chest heaving with the effort as he scrambled to his hands and knees. The surface beneath him was slick and damp, the cold seeping into his bones, scattered with shards of gravel that sliced at his skin with cruel efficiency. His palms left sticky, smeared prints as he moved, though whether it was sweat or blood, he couldn't tell— perhaps it was both, perhaps something darker.

And then, like the snap of some unseen force, the light returned. Dozens of torches flickered into life, their flames sputtering with sudden hisses, not just ahead of him but behind, above, along both sides of the corridor, as if the walls themselves had been waiting for him. The red-orange fire danced violently, casting grotesque, elongated shadows that jerked and twitched like broken limbs along the stone walls.

The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions, a perfect symmetry that felt wrong— too deliberate, too designed to trap something ancient, something unspeakable. The flames did not warm; they only revealed a grotesque clarity, making the walls pulse like muscle, slick and wet, alive with a slow, horrifying rhythm.

Taejun pushed himself up slowly, his legs trembling with weakness, threatening to collapse under him once more. The air pressed down on him, thick as tar, every breath shallow, sharp, like the very atmosphere was closing in on him, suffocating him from all sides. The key in his hand pulsed with an awful heat, burning against his skin, a strange heartbeat that wasn't his own. Shadows crawled up the walls like parasites, twitching and jerking in a grotesque dance, moving too quickly, too erratically, as though they were something living, something aware. The flames cast their jagged light on them, but they only seemed to grow more restless, more hungry.

And then came the sound. A low, wet dragging. Distant at first, but growing steadily, each scrape of something heavy and slick against the stone sending a shudder through his body. It was not metal. Not footsteps. It was something else— something softer, wetter, heavier. Something alive, something that didn't belong here.

Taejun's stomach twisted violently, and his spine stiffened, locking into a rigid terror as cold sweat poured down his back in rivers, the chill creeping into his very marrow. His body refused to move, frozen in dread, as though his limbs had forgotten how to obey. The sound came from nowhere— front, behind, maybe both— his senses failed to locate it, but the hallway offered no comfort. It answered only with a silence that was too perfect, too unnatural. The stillness stretched out, suffocating, unnatural, like the calm before a storm, except this storm was something far worse.

His mind screamed at him to run. But his body remained a prisoner, caught in the grip of a terror too deep to fight. Every instinct— every particle of his being— screamed at him, whispering over and over like a terrible mantra etched into his bones: You don't belong here. You were never meant to find this. The key. Yet still, the dragging sound crept closer, relentless, an insidious crawl that slithered over his skin, his nerves, his thoughts.

He gripped the key tightly, the heat from it almost unbearable. It was all he had. It was the only thing tethering him to some semblance of reality, and it burned in his hand, searing him to the core.

And then— without warning— it came.

A scream. No. Not a scream. A cacophony. A twisted, blasphemous symphony of agony. It wasn't singular. It wasn't even remotely human. It began as a low, aching moan— deep and primordial— that rippled through the air like the first tremor of an earthquake, a warning of something old awakening beneath the world's skin. Then it climbed— relentless, unnatural— rising into a tidal shriek that shattered every boundary of sound, a wave of raw torment that tore at the fabric of the space around him like teeth through flesh.

Thousands of voices shrieked in unison— man, woman, child, beast— but none were whole, none were clean. They didn't harmonize. They collided, scraped, and bled into each other, woven into a monstrous chorus stitched together with sinew and rot. Each voice screamed differently— one with shattered teeth, one through lungs half full of water, another in a language that sounded like sobbing turned inside out. They overlapped in a noise that shouldn't exist, shouldn't be allowed to exist— an abomination of sound so wrong that it didn't enter his ears, it bored into his skull, vibrated in his spine, curdled his organs.

It wasn't just heard. It was felt. It touched every nerve like cold fingers under his skin, clawing deeper with each note. The sound filled the air with decay, drenched it in a sour stench like burned meat and rot left to melt under heatless light. It didn't stop— it multiplied— building, collapsing, reforming, reshaping itself like a thousand throats trying to out-scream each other in a pit of boiling pitch. It sounded like the last breath of dying things refusing to be forgotten, like entire civilizations mourning their own erasure.

Taejun's legs buckled. His vision spasmed. He wasn't sure if he screamed or if the scream simply pulled the noise from his soul and added it to the rest.

Each voice tore at the others, clashing in raw, jarring dissonance— no rhythm, no logic, only the mindless screeching of agony layered atop agony. It sounded like the death wail of a reality being unstitched, inch by inch, as if someone were peeling the world apart with their bare hands. The noise didn't just echo through the space— it penetrated. It forced its way into his skull, hammered against the backs of his eyes, wormed through the cavities in his chest, and settled deep, vibrating in his spine like a parasite eager to hatch.

He reeled under the pressure of it, the sound slamming into him like a flood of putrid sewage. It coated him— inside him— with the stench of rot and rust, of old blood curdled in the sun. It tasted like something long dead crawling down his throat. He couldn't breathe without gagging on it. His stomach lurched, bile scorched its way up his throat, and he dry-heaved, each retch a full-body shudder as if his organs were trying to escape. His vision buckled, bending in waves, as if the hallway itself was sick and retching with him.

Every part of him screamed. His legs trembled. His hands convulsed. He couldn't unclench his jaw, couldn't stop grinding his teeth until pain cracked through them. And still, that noise pushed deeper, threading itself into his nerves, unraveling him piece by trembling piece.

The torches along the walls didn't just flicker— they recoiled. The flames shriveled, twisted, cowering in their sconces like animals backing away from a predator. Fire, light— useless. The glow turned sickly, pulled into itself, like it didn't dare reveal what was coming. The air grew impossibly cold, each breath slicing into his lungs like shards of glass. It wasn't just temperature— it was hunger. A sentient void pressing in, whispering through the sound with icy fingers, promising that even his screams would be devoured.

Then he felt it— hot, rancid breath brushing just behind his ear, wet and meandering, like the slow drag of a tongue over rotting meat. It wasn't exhaled so much as exuded, thick and oily, clinging to his skin with the weight of something alive. "Kid…" The word oozed out, low and trembling with something that wasn't quite amusement— more like hunger barely restrained by form. He jerked to the left, panic shrieking through his spine— but before his head turned more than a few inches, fingers found him.

They didn't seize. They claimed. Long, gnarled digits folded over his skull with grotesque tenderness, as if savoring the shape of him. They weren't flesh— not truly. They felt like dried sinew stretched thin over splintered bone, joints bending wrong, touch too deliberate. His skin warped beneath them, drawn tight across muscle and bone like rawhide being pulled across a rack.

One hand slammed down on his shoulder— immovable, rusted iron sunk into the joint— while the other slithered over his face, curving across his cheek, his brow, his eye. And then it pulled. Not with force, but with purpose. With a ceremony. His right eyelid wrenched open until it trembled violently, stretched thin as parchment, until it felt like the membrane might tear straight from his face. This wasn't restraint. This was unveiling. He was being offered.

His exposed eye flared with agony, pain erupting across the cornea like acid. It dried, seared, burned, and blinking was made impossible. Vision blurred with tears that never fell. Every instinct in his body screamed to close it, to look away— but he had no voice. No breath. His lungs were empty, frozen mid-inhale, like they'd forgotten their function. He couldn't twitch a finger. Couldn't shift an inch. His body wasn't his. It was a hollow shell propped upright, a husk held together by the sheer violence of his awareness.

His heart pounded in isolation, detached from all else, thundering so loudly it felt like it would burst through his ribs. He turned his gaze sideways, the only movement he still owned, seeking the thing behind him— and saw it.

Not a figure. A wound. A vertical gash carved into the fabric of existence, weeping shadow so dense it didn't just consume the light— it erased it. The darkness didn't surround it. It bled from it. No face. No true form. Just a presence so profoundly wrong that the very air collapsed inward, folding like brittle parchment around a pressure it couldn't withstand. It didn't cast darkness— it authored it, the original black from which all voids are born, seething and eternal.

And in the heart of that formless mass, two eyes. Not eyes, but errors— pale, lidless spheres, raw and dry like bone left to bleach in sunless time. They didn't blink. They didn't move. They weren't watching him. They weren't watching anything. They existed, fixed in place, as if the act of seeing had long ago ossified into something cursed, sight stripped of meaning, left only as a relic of torment.

It breathed— not with lungs, but through the stone itself. The walls trembled on each inhale, stones grinding with the sound of teeth gnashing in distant catacombs. The ground flexed under him, heaving once, twice, like muscle tightening beneath the skin of a sleeping giant. The shadow wrapped around the thing pulsed in rhythm, rippling like diseased flesh stretched too thin, slick with rot. It wasn't draped over the entity— it was the entity, sinew and shadow entwined in obscene harmony, a cloak of sentient decay curling in on itself like meat rotting in reverse. And it was waiting.

"…Why did you have to take the key?" the voice asked again— but not aloud. It didn't travel through sound. It slithered into him, bypassing his ears, sidestepping thought, and burrowing straight into the marrow of his bones. Calm yet patient. But beneath that quiet surface was something starved, and obscene— malice aged into elegance, the voice of a hunger that had waited for centuries without ever blinking. "Didn't your parents… ever teach you not to take strange things from the ground?"

The words dripped with a syrupy, sing-song lilt, lullaby-sweet and soaked in rot— like a nursery rhyme hummed at the edge of a grave. There was no rage. No fury. Just delight. That quiet, trembling joy of something about to unwrap flesh like a ribboned box, peeling back hope in layers.

The fingers on his face flexed— not crushing, but invasive. They crept along bone, sank just beneath skin, almost tender in their precision, curling with the intimacy of surgical tools or insect legs testing for soft spots. His nerves flared. His muscles twitched. He couldn't scream— his throat refused to work, as if language had been locked away from him. It didn't want him unconscious. It didn't want him broken. It wanted him aware— awake enough to catalog every second of what came next.

"Don't worry," the thing murmured, and that murmur crawled across his flesh like cold silk dragged through blood. Not comfort. Proximity. It was close enough that he could feel it smiling without a mouth. "You're just a visitor. A trespasser, yes. But all guests must be shown… hospitality."

The voice sank again, dragging language down with it, slipping into a register so old it felt prehistoric— older than thought, older than breath. The stones whimpered. The torches recoiled, fire shriveling like salted slugs, as if even light itself was afraid of what would follow. His pulse stuttered. The rhythm of life itself seemed to lose count, each heartbeat confused, dazed.

"So now…" the voice whispered, lower than breath, threading into the folds of his mind like a parasite nesting, "I permit you. To see… my right eye."

And something opened. Not an eye. Not anything meant to see. A wound that pretended to be one. A hole in the skin of reality, crusted around the edges like a scab torn loose, revealing something far, far beneath. Something that shouldn't be. His eye— peeled, exposed, useless in its panic— saw it. And what it saw… began to unmake him. Not all at once. Piece by piece.

Agony didn't strike— it invaded. A cold, surgical violence behind Taejun's right eye, sudden and total, like something mysterious had been coiled there all along, asleep in the dark folds of his flesh, waiting with infinite patience. And now it unspooled with exquisite cruelty, not bursting forth but seeping, creeping, whispering as it unravelled inside him. It wasn't fire— it was cold.

A raw, foreign cold that bypassed skin and blood and bone to pierce straight into his soul. Like needles carved from black ice, sliding into the meat behind his socket one by one, deliberate and slow, each one tasting him. They didn't stab— they burrowed, grinding as they went, twisting like worms made of razors, threading themselves along his optic nerve until it screamed. He felt every inch of it— every unnatural intrusion— as if his skull had become a cathedral of pain, and something foreign had entered not just his flesh but his will. It didn't touch his eye. It owned it.

His body seized. Muscles locked with the violent stillness of a corpse mid-spasm. His fingers clawed inward until the nails split. His jaw dropped open in a wide, unhinged rictus, a silent scream stretched too far, as if trying to vomit out the thing now moving inside him. His throat fluttered helplessly— no air, no voice, just a growing pressure behind his face, like his skull was inflating with static. The pain was alive. It learned and evolved, adjusting itself to crawl deeper. It found new places to hurt. It swam through his nerves like venom, guided by an intelligence older than language. His vision jittered, danced, pulsed— and then ruptured like a film strip catching fire.

The world didn't blur— it dissolved. Shapes bled into light, into color, into raw sensation. Color itself became emotion. Red became ashamed. Yellow, terror. Blue— blue screamed. He could feel screams crawl across his skin, see sobbing shapes split open and scatter like ash on the air. His eye writhed in its socket, twitching, boiling, trying to escape the skull it was chained to. Pressure built, not like a migraine but like a balloon full of wet glass being inflated within his head. He felt it stretch and swell, felt veins squirm and snap, felt the membrane tremble at the edge of bursting. It should've popped. It begged to. But it didn't. That was the cruelty. It stayed. It endured. That was the punishment.

Thought disintegrated. Memory peeled like bark. His name— gone. His family— irrelevant. His body was no longer his own; it had become a theater of suffering, an altar upon which something was being offered. His sanity split into pieces, drifting apart like flayed leaves in the wind. He saw visions that weren't visions.

Iron gates the size of mountains, each hinge dripping blood as thick as oil, yawning open not onto earth or sky, but onto sound. Not noise— howling. Endless, bottomless howling, the sound of a throatless scream echoing in negative space. A sea of eyes, lidless and rotting, rolling with the tide, every pupil locked on him, every stare a needle. Above that, rising like a tower, was a living spine— each vertebra a mouth sewn lip to lip, bleeding song with no melody, no key, only despair, raw and steaming. The sky was wrong— flat and moist—and nestled within it like a tumor was the eye.

Vast and alive. Starless and smooth, orbiting him alone.

It wasn't just something he saw. It was inside him. It had always been. Looking was no longer a choice. He was the gaze. He couldn't blink, couldn't turn away. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't even want to.

The pupil dilated with slow, monstrous gravity— an eclipse of all reason. And when it saw him, really saw him, something in him ruptured. Something vital. Something that could never grow back. His identity shriveled like burnt tissue. His childhood. His dreams. His hope. Everything fell away until he was only this: a thing seen. Stripped. Dissected. Not even judged— just understood by a mind too vast, too odd to hold concepts like mercy. It looked through him like he was made of glass and regret.

Make it stop—

It wasn't a thought. It was a scream scraped across the inside of his skull, clawing at the bone. A cry of primal terror that echoed across every inch of him like shattering glass. He tried to move. He begged. Inside his own mind, he pleaded. But his limbs were locked. He was a slab of meat hung in a butcher's dream. And the thing inside him kept digging.

Make it stop! Please! Please, please— God, anything, just make it stop!—

But no one answered. There was no God here. No mother, no father, no brother. Only the Eye. Only the pain. Only it.

Then, without warning, it stopped. The pain vanished with a suddenness that was obscene. One moment he was a maelstrom of agony, drowning in it, thrashing against the shores of his own shredded consciousness— and the next, it was gone. Not dulled but erased. No sting nor throb. No aftershock. As if it had never happened. As if the memory itself had been amputated and discarded.

Except— something remained.

No blood. No mark. But inside his head, behind the hollow throb of silence, something watched. Still. Waiting. Not gone— only hidden. And it was smiling.

His eye— glowing yellow. Not the warm gold of sunlight, but a fetid, fungal hue, the color of infection, of pus around a wound. Sickly wrong. It throbbed with a life of its own, pulsing like something caught between birthing and rotting, a trapped heartbeat that didn't match his own. It wasn't just not his— it was never meant to belong to anything human. It pulsed in silence, a rhythmic twitch beneath his skull, like the twitch of an insect leg embedded in meat. When he blinked, he knew— viscerally, horribly— that it wasn't his eyelid moving. It was the eye that allowed it. The muscle obeyed its will. The flesh obeyed its need.

And then it refused. It stayed open. The lid froze, paralyzed, and the glowing eye stared— unblinking, unmerciful. Not outward. Inward. Into him. It not watched with curiosity, but with possession. As if it were inspecting a specimen. A parasite nestling deeper into its host, searching for softer places to nest. It wasn't just inhabiting him— it was colonizing him. Every beat of its light was a whisper inside his skull. Every flicker rewrote some small part of him. The eye wasn't looking at the world through him. It was looking into him. Deep. Past thought. Past memory. Past even the scream he hadn't dared let out yet.

It unspooled its presence like rot blooming beneath wallpaper. Silent, Inevitable. He could feel it inside his mind, threading through the folds of thought, scraping against his memories like a fingernail dragged across raw wood. It didn't ask. It took. His past— shredded. His fears peeled and tasted. His shame— cherished. It sifted through his identity with surgical indifference, pulling apart what made him Taejun like meat from bone. And worst of all— he felt it enjoying him.

It coiled. Settled. Made itself at home.

His thoughts were no longer his own. They drifted in slow, poisoned circles, growing heavy with outsiders' weight. The eye had become a part of him, like a second heart in the wrong place. He could feel it buried in his brainstem, threading down his spine like a centipede of thought, wriggling into the roots of his self. It was alive and it was waiting. Waiting not to see the world, but to see what would happen when he broke. When he stopped pretending he was a person.

Air. He needed air. He gasped, and the breath that filled his lungs felt rancid— tainted. Not oxygen, not life. Something ancient. Something wrong. It tasted like embalming fluid and wet soil and burned feathers. It clawed into his throat like a living thing, scraping the inside of his chest with hooks. He coughed, gagged, eyes wide and wet with the sting. Sweat poured from his scalp, down his spine, thick and cold like slime. But his body remained locked. He couldn't run. Couldn't scream. Couldn't even shake. His limbs were distant things, meat pulled loose from the idea of control.

There were hands on him. Still. They didn't grip. They held. Cold, precise, mechanical— yet impossibly strong. Fingers that didn't tremble. Skin that didn't breathe. No warmth. Just a presence, vast and perfect in its hatred. The figure behind him was more than tall— it was wrong, its size defined not by dimensions but by pressure, a gravity that wrapped around his body like invisible wire. It pushed against his spine with slow, inescapable weight. The breath at his ear was so foul it felt physical, like a tongue made of rot. Wet, warm, decaying. Like something breathing through layers of dying lungs.

"You see now," the voice whispered. It didn't sound. It was an injection. It slid through his ear and spread into his blood like venom, crawling toward his brain. "Please be prepared. It has begun. Your visit time."

The words weren't spoken— they were planted. Each syllable rooted itself into his mind and unfurled into thorns, wrapping around his sanity, squeezing, cutting, twisting. He couldn't shake them. Couldn't think around them. The sentence bloomed like mold behind his eyes. It was inside him now. A commandment. A prophecy. A doom. The world around him thickened, soured, every shadow stretching toward him like limbs aching to touch his skin. The air was damp with malice. He could feel it licking him.

Then, the figure was gone.

It didn't leave. It dissolved. Like meat soaked in acid, it collapsed in on itself, folding inward, devoured by the darkness that had birthed it. No noise. No rustle. No exit. It was simply unmade. One moment it pressed into every corner of his mind, and the next it was less than a memory— like it had never needed to exist outside him to begin with.

The hands were released. No warning. No breath. Just absence— sudden and absolute. And that was worse. Worse than the grip itself. The vanishing left behind a void, raw and echoing, like the air had been gutted. The lack of touch became a deeper kind of violation, like skin peeled from meaning. It was the kind of silence that follows hours of screaming— dense, unnatural, vibrating with aftershock. And then he collapsed. His knees slammed into the stone with a dull, jarring crunch, nerves screaming too late. His palms hit next, bones cracking against the floor's merciless cold. The impact rang through him, but he couldn't even cry out. He was too hollow to make a sound.

But the cold wasn't just in the floor— it was in him. Under the skin. A residue. The memory of violation clung to his flesh like oil. His fingers twitched uselessly. Every joint buzzed with leftover pressure. He could still feel the hands that weren't there anymore. Could feel where they had touched him, pressed into him, read him.

His arms trembled. His jaw hung loose. His breath came in stuttering sobs, half-choked. Not from crying. From loss. Not grief, but the loss of self. He didn't know what parts were still his. He didn't know if any part was. The eye had never stopped watching. Its glow pulsed in his peripheral vision, always open, always awake, and now— it was the only part of him that felt real.

Inside, something deeper shifted. Not pain. Not fear. Permission.

And the eye pulsed once more. Satisfied.

The world didn't shift. It held— cruelly still, as if mocking him. The torches flickered as before, casting their jittering halos across the sweating stone walls, their light too weak, too feverish, like they were burning flesh instead of oil. Yet something was wrong in a way the world couldn't show. Taejun felt it in his bones, in the sick tremble beneath his skin. It wasn't the ground that had moved. It was something far more intimate— something within him had slipped loose and could no longer be set right.

It was like stepping off a cliff you didn't know was there— his sense of balance gone, his center hollowed out. His thoughts scattered like glass knocked from a table, and the echo of that shattering never ended. Something had entered him, not through his skin, but deeper, through the thin, soft parts of his soul. It sat beneath his heart now, heavy and alien, a foreign thing twitching with slow purpose. He couldn't remove it. He couldn't even reach it. All he could do was feel it breathe.

The silence thickened, pressing against him like damp soil packed over a fresh grave— wet, smothering, impossible to claw through. It coiled into his ears and nose and mouth, a soundless fog that sealed him off from everything but the decay inside himself. The only thing that broke it was his breath: erratic, shallow, each gasp a choking whisper. It wasn't life. It was noise. A reminder that he hadn't died yet.

But something else had. Something inside him.

Behind that breath, stitched into the very bones of the walls, the screaming returned. No longer distant. No longer a warning. They were close now. Uncomfortably close. So close they could smell him. Their cries didn't echo with panic— they twisted with purpose, not pleading but summoning. They weren't afraid anymore. They wanted him. They knew him.

Ahead, somewhere past the flickering rot-colored light, one scream rose above the others— quieter, clearer, as if pushed through the needle eye of the void. It didn't beg. It opened. Slowly. Surgically. Like it had waited for him, sculpted itself to fit inside his skull, and now that it had his attention, it began to speak in pain.

He didn't scream. He didn't want to. The very concept had been hollowed out, scooped from his throat with rusted fingers and discarded. The machinery of his fear had been dismantled, left in a pile inside his ribcage, twitching like slaughtered things. He stood only because something hadn't yet told him to fall. He shook, but it was a borrowed tremble— like his nerves belonged to a dead thing still twitching from memory.

His hands didn't belong to him. They dangled from his wrists like meat from hooks, loose and dumb. No feeling or control. His muscles spasmed not from effort, but from something older and deeper, something that had slipped its teeth into his spine and now flexed its grip from within. A parasite. A puppeteer. Something he hadn't invited but could never remove.

He didn't move. He didn't breathe normally. He existed only in pieces now— cracked, splintered, waiting for the final blow that would scatter him entirely.

And the scream ahead… It wasn't calling him anymore. It was welcoming him home.

Tears welled, but they didn't fall. They clung to the torn rims of his eyes like parasites, feeding on the burn, refusing release. There weren't tears anymore. They were symptoms— leftovers of something human struggling to die quietly. Inside his skull, his thoughts didn't shatter in a scream— they unraveled in silence, strand by strand, like old rope fraying beneath something heavy. He could hear it now, clear and thin, a sound like hairline cracks spidering through ceramic, echoing through the hollow caverns of his mind. It wasn't panic. Panic belonged to the living. This was colder, Slower, like being dismantled while still awake.

Something moved through him. Not across skin— through it. Through the tissue. The bone. Within self. It dug its fingers into his memories like claws raking through wet clay, smearing the moments of his life into each other until nothing was distinct. His name. His past. His brother. His mother's voice. They all collapsed inward, turned over in his head like corpses in a grave too shallow. Every time he tried to hold on to something, the thing inside him pulled harder, twisting it, corrupting it, mocking the warmth that used to be there.

But the world ahead didn't change. The corridor remained still. Torches burned on, steady in their flicker, shadows leaning out a little longer than they should, curling inward like fingers. The silence pressed against his skull like wet fabric, suffocating, soaked with breath that wasn't his. Something watched. It didn't blink. It didn't move. It only listened, as though tasting the shape of his fear from afar. There was no scream anymore. Just waiting. A gaping mouth, open without voice, stretched to its limit in quiet hunger.

And then it burrowed deeper.

The pressure came slowly— too slow, wet, spiraling motion that started at the base of his skull and curled inward like a parasite threading its way up his spine. A twist, not mechanical, not surgical, but personal. Like I knew him. Like it enjoyed the way his muscles seized and failed, the way his back arched uselessly, frozen in a half-spasm that never reached his limbs. His body was no longer his. It was an echo, a hollow puppet waiting for a command it couldn't understand. He tried to scream, but even that had been taken. The scream had been peeled out of him, layer by layer, until only the shape of it remained in his throat— dry, gaping, useless.

The light bent. The walls wept. Yellow and red blurred into each other like infected wounds. His vision twisted inward, curling like burnt paper, eaten by flame from the edges. He hit the stone— he knew he did— but there was no pain. The sensation of pain had been turned off, like a switch flipped in some room inside his head where he no longer had access. Only the silence remained, and the thick, warm feeling of something else breathing beneath the floor.

Because the ground wasn't stone anymore. It was flesh.

It pulsed beneath his hands, not just with rhythm, but with intention. Like it wanted him to know it was alive. It wanted to be touched. He could feel the heartbeat of something immense pressing up from below, steady and slow, the way you might feel the breath of a sleeping animal through the dirt above its den. And with each pulse, the thing inside him stirred again, stronger this time. Hungrier. Not a guest anymore.

A resident.

The seed had taken root. And now it moved with him, through him, as him. His breath wasn't his anymore. His heartbeat fluttered like a signal trying to match another rhythm, older and deeper. He didn't feel invaded. He felt replaced. Bit by bit, whatever Taejun had been was leaking out through his skin, drawn into the floor, into the dark, into the mouth that still waited open just beyond the reach of fire.

Something inside him smiled. Not with lips. With intent. With hunger.

He could feel his bones shifting, not bending, not breaking— rearranging. Flexing in directions no joint should go, as if his skeleton were being studied from the inside by something that didn't quite understand the rules. Ligaments twitched like cut wires dancing under a current. His fingers spasmed and curled inward, not with pain, but with obedience— obedience to something that bypassed nerves, bypassed will, went straight to the marrow and whispered commands in a language older than blood.

There was no resistance. No fight. Only the dull, warm pulse of surrender was spreading through him like ink in water. His body didn't belong to him anymore. It had become a suggestion, a shape to be worn, hollowed out and repurposed. Thought staggered and dissolved, slipping through his skull like oil through broken glass. The thing inside didn't need his mind— it needed his form, and now it was making adjustments.

It was all in his eyes.

From the blackened hallway, the silence deepened— not empty, not still, but heavy, like breath held too long. Then, something stepped forward. Not a footstep. Not a sound. Just presence, dragging itself closer like gravity had grown sentient and malignant. The air bent around it. The shadows leaned toward it. The world gave way before it.

Taejun didn't move. But he was being moved. Each muscle twitched with careful precision, as if testing a marionette for the first time, learning how much pressure it took to bend a knee, to tilt a head, to smile. Not his smile. Not even human. A stretched, tremoring curl of the lips that felt like skin splitting at the edges. Something inside him thrilled— not him, never him— but a shard of something vast and ancient that had curled up inside his soul and now stirred awake, yawning through his nerves.

It was exciting. It liked the way he fit.

A breath later, his eyes snapped open.

He lay sprawled in a grassfield that bled endlessly into the void. No buildings. No roads. Just raw earth beneath his back and a sky that felt scraped clean of meaning, as if creation had been peeled back to reveal its rotting bones. For a moment, the sun blazed overhead, unnaturally bright, almost hostile in its intensity. It cast no warmth— only a stark, clinical glare that made the colors of the field feel wrong, like something sun-bleached and forgotten in a place where time didn't belong. The grass stood unnaturally stiff, each blade frozen mid-breath, and the air hung like a held exhale— silent, heavy, waiting.

Then came the shift. Without warning, a shadow bloomed across the sky. No gradual drift of clouds— just a sudden swallowing of light, as if the heavens themselves had blinked. Black clouds bled outward from the sun's center like rot from a wound, swallowing its brilliance inch by inch until it was just a sickly disc behind a veil of ash. The sky darkened to a shade not quite night, but something worse— pregnant with the weight of a storm that refused to break. The air grew colder, heavier, slick with that electric tension that rides just ahead of rain, but nothing fell. It just waited. The entire world held its breath, as if afraid of waking something older than the weather.

And beneath the soil— he could feel it— something was already awake. Watching him. Not with eyes, but with awareness. Hunger.

Ahead, a pond glistened with unnatural stillness, its surface a perfect mirror of black glass, too smooth, too flat, as though it had never known the ripple of wind. There were no insects. No reflections. Not even the sky marred its surface. Light didn't dance across it— it stopped. It wasn't water. It was a mouth pretending.

He crawled toward it, limbs moving like they had forgotten what they were for— slow, clumsy, each joint bending as if on strings pulled by something that didn't understand flesh. When he reached the edge, he stared into the surface and froze.

There, seated across the pond, sat a man in Highland dress— motionless, yet regal, like a statue carved by something that once understood beauty but had long since gone mad. His Balmoral bonnet slouched atop his skull like a funeral crown, a withered sprig and brittle feather clinging to the band as if remembering spring. His face— terrifying in its elegance— had once been handsome, perhaps even noble. The kind of face that would've drawn eyes in candlelit halls. But that allure had gone wrong.

Not aged— perverted. Skin still clung to high cheekbones but peeled slightly at the seams, curling at the edges like scorched paper. His lips, perfectly shaped, split faintly at the corners with a rawness that suggested too much smiling or none at all. His beard was meticulously shaped, but strands had begun to fall, hanging mid-descent as if caught between vanity and decay. And his eyes— there were none. Just twin hollows, not empty, but full. Not dark, but consuming. As if what was watched through them wasn't behind the eyes at all, but inside you.

Still, Taejun felt him watching. Not with scrutiny, but with possession.

The figure moved, glacially slow, lifting one hand with the poise of ritual. He removed the bonnet as though unsealing something sacred. Beneath it— nothing. Not bone. Not scalp. Just a hollow wound where a head should have been, a vortex of absolute black that chewed the light and bent the air like heat above tar. Taejun's gut knotted. His pulse skipped. The pond flickered, twitching like flesh beneath an unseen blade— and the figure was gone.

But the horror didn't leave. He looked down. The bonnet now sat in his lap. The kilt hugged his legs. His chest constricted beneath unfamiliar fabric that smelled of dirt and history. His fingers trembled as they touched the wool— coarse, damp, real. His skin prickled. It wasn't just real. It was his.

The reflection in the pond spasmed again. But this time, it was him. Sitting in place of the man. His own features slackening, unraveling— his lips parting into an obscene, drooping curve, his nose folding in like drenched parchment, his eye sockets yawning into pits where nothing human could live. The face didn't weep. It stared.

He threw himself backward, but the world did not relent. The grass beneath him clawed upward, coarse blades snapping like bone fragments. Above, the sun briefly pierced the clouds, harsh and colorless, before vanishing behind a wall of swollen black. The sky looked bloated, like it would vomit rain but refused to, savoring the tension. The pressure pressed against his skull until the air itself seemed to hum, and in the distance, a sound began— not thunder, but a growl. Wet, low, yet patient.

He clawed at the bonnet. It wouldn't come off. No seam. No grip. His scalp pulsed beneath it, twisting under his fingernails, and from beneath the skin, something chuckled. Not loud. Inside. A voice without sound. It had been here longer than he had.

The pond's surface stirred, and the reflection moved again— but not as a mirror. It reached. One hand emerged from the glass, deliberate, like pushing through blood. Its fingers matched his. Identical, except the nails— blackened, cracked, oozing. The reflection's mouth curled into a smile it didn't possess.

He fell backward, but never landed. The field tilted. Gravity rewrote itself. The sky dragged down like wet silk, closing over a corpse. The sun blinked out like an eye losing interest. And finally, the wind moved. It was not air. It was a breath. Hot. Rancid. Inhumanly close.

He wasn't escaping. He was being worn.

The man— no, the thing— hadn't vanished. It had slid inward. Through the gaze. Through the wool. Through the reflection's open, smiling wound. And now it throbbed beneath Taejun's ribs like a second heart, coiled tight around his lungs, pressing into his thoughts. It moved behind his eyes, stretched inside his fingers, whispered through his teeth. But it wasn't a possession.

It was him.

Somewhere in the back of his skull, Taejun screamed— but the mouth that opened wasn't his. It smiled wrong. It smiled with too many memories. His hands— longer now, veined and thick with calloused strength— flexed in silence. They didn't feel like hands that should hold toys or crayons or cling to his brother in a dark hallway. They felt like tools, like meat puppets wired for violence. Still, he could feel them from inside, like a driver trapped in the backseat. He wanted to cry, to move, to speak— but the body only tilted its head and watched the pond, expressionless.

He wasn't gone. He was buried.

He tried to move, but the nerves ignored him. Every twitch belonged to the thing that wore his face. The field didn't blink. The pond didn't ripple. Nothing acknowledged him. His voice clawed at his throat, but only a low breath escaped— measured, adult, steady. The clothes fit too well now. The kilt, the bonnet, the weight across his chest—they weren't foreign anymore. They remembered him. Knew how to sit on his shoulders, how to pull at his waist. The skin felt like it had always been his. And that was the worst part— how right it all felt. Like he'd simply grown into something wrong.

Above, the sky split open with a soundless scream, and the world didn't flinch. No rain came. Just soft ash, floating like shed skin. Taejun wanted to crawl out of himself, to shed the stolen limbs and run. But there was nowhere to run to— not when the monster wasn't wearing his body, but was his body. And inside, deep and helpless, a little boy trembled inside a man's bones, watching his own hands flex into fists that weren't meant for play. Watching his reflection twist into something cruel. Something final.

And beneath the surface of his skin, something ancient settled in for good, smiling, as if it had always been there, waiting for the boy to grow up.

Out of nowhere, something enormous loomed ahead of him, its form vague, distorted— a shape too large for clarity but impossible to ignore. Instinctively, his body rose, moving without him. The weight of his new frame pressed down on him, unfamiliar and unwelcome. His heart thudded in his chest, but this body hulking man's body— kept moving, an alien will of its own taking over.

His feet hit the earth, the ground beneath his boots soft but solid, like stepping into a waking nightmare. He didn't think to stop. He didn't pause to consider anything. Driven by a strange pull, he hopped over the pond with an ease that felt like someone else was making the decision. His legs, strong and steady, moved him forward, through the village that had suddenly appeared before him, as if the world itself had bent to his will.

The village stood there, quiet and picturesque, a place that seemed carved from some faded memory— beautiful but unnatural, like something built just for the eyes of strangers who never truly belonged. It wasn't grand, but it wasn't humble either. It had a presence to it, heavy with time, with history. The stone walls and brick buildings gleamed in the half-light of a sun that didn't quite exist anymore, the sky hanging low with an oppressive, sickly gray. Everything about it felt... staged, a facade to something darker.

He wandered through the village, moving past the guard at the gates, slipping between the flow of carts, their wheels creaking softly as they passed. He barely noticed them. His senses felt dulled, too detached from the pulse of the world. Above, the sky was a dull, weighty expanse, the air pressing down on him, thick and stifling, like a hand pushing on his chest, forcing him to breathe too slowly, too carefully.

His stomach growled— loud, unmistakable. It rumbled like the sound of something scraping its way out of him. The body he wore, no longer his, reacted immediately, sharp pangs of hunger that made him groan under his breath. The weight of it made him uncomfortable, aware of every inch of the skin that wasn't his own, every aching joint that was foreign to him.

"Tch. I'm... hungry..." he muttered, his voice strange, like he didn't even know how to speak anymore.

And then he saw it— that stall— small, wooden, quaint. The air around it smelled like warmth, like bread fresh from the oven, a comfort that he didn't know he needed until the smell struck him. His feet moved of their own accord, carrying him forward as if they already knew what he needed. The stall's sign read Kimmy's Breid o' Wunder, but it wasn't the words that drew him closer. It was the bread, the smell, the warmth that seemed to draw out a longing from deep within his chest.

(TL: Kimmy's Breid o' Wunder = Kimmy's Bread of Wonders)

He stepped forward, not out of confidence, but with the fragile gait of someone barely stitched together, moving because stillness would hurt worse. The warmth from the food stall washed over him like a distant memory he didn't trust— thick with scents of sugar, fresh dough, and something faintly floral that reminded him of spring mornings long gone. And then he saw her.

She stood alone beneath the soft amber light of the lantern, its glow framing her as if the world itself was trying to preserve her from decay. Her hair curled gently over her shoulders, catching the light like strands of polished copper, and her eyes, gray-blue and uncertainly deep— held that kind of kindness that unsettled more than it soothed. It wasn't the warmth that undid him. It was the realization that someone like her still existed in this place. That something soft had survived.

She looked up and smiled, and the world tilted ever so slightly, as though time had waited for this moment and didn't know how to proceed. "Welcome and hello," she said, her voice clear and warm like sunlight through thin curtains. "What can I get you, sir?"

He opened his mouth, but for a moment, no words came. There was a dry, aching pressure in his throat, like something had curled up there and died. He forced it down. "That bread," he whispered, pointing with a hand that trembled despite the warmth. "The one with chocolate… please."

"Bread with chocolate frosting," she repeated gently, nodding. "Coming right up. Would you like anything to drink with that?"

He shook his head. "No… I'm just… hungry."

She didn't press. Just smiled and turned to prepare the order. He stepped back, lowering himself slowly onto a nearby bench. His knees buckled a little more than he expected, and he sat with his hands in his lap, staring at the dirt in the creases of his fingers, at the faint, peeling skin near his knuckles. His chest felt hollow, but not from hunger alone. It was something deeper. A grief with no name.

When she returned, she handed him the paper bag like it was something sacred. "Here you go," she said softly. "Two pieces, still warm."

He took the bag in both hands like a child handed a gift he didn't think he deserved. "Thank you," he murmured. "I… I didn't think…"

"That'll be five bronze coins," she added with a lightness that didn't match the weight in his eyes. When she saw his confusion, his stillness, she softened. "Hey, don't worry about it. This one's on me."

His breath hitched. His lips parted slightly, but no words came. Just that same raw silence. A pause where gratitude should have been.

"Thanks…" The word slipped from the man's lips, barely louder than a whisper, but Kimmy caught it, her eyes softening at the sincerity behind it.

She smiled at him, the expression gentle, almost as though she could feel the weight of his gratitude. "You're welcome," she replied, her voice warm and reassuring. "It was my job, nothing else." There was a pause, and then she added, her words carrying a deeper layer of empathy, "If you ever need anything else, don't hesitate to ask, alright?"

The man looked at her, feeling something shift inside him— a kind of warmth that seemed to rise from the pit of his stomach, spreading through his chest. Her kindness, her quiet strength, it made him feel less alone in a world that had often been far too cold. Her offer, so simple and sincere, felt like a lifeline.

"I… I will," he said quietly, his voice thick with something unspoken, a mix of gratitude and something deeper. He wasn't sure how to put it into words, but somehow, Kimmy seemed to understand. She always did.

"But… why?" he asked finally, his voice paper-thin. "Why give something like this to someone like me?"

She tilted her head, her eyes holding him there with such unbearable softness. "Because you looked like you needed something kind. And sometimes… that's reason enough."

He looked down again, and the first tear slipped from his eye before he could stop it. "I'll pay you back," he said, the words spilling fast, messy. "Not now, I don't have anything, but someday—"

"Don't," she said quickly, sitting beside him before he could finish. Her tone was gentle but firm. "Just eat. You looked like you needed something sweet more than anyone else tonight."

The girl reached forward instinctively, her hand landing gently on his shoulder. The warmth of her touch was immediate, and Taejun could feel it seep through his clothes, a soft reassurance in the cold air. Her smile, unshakably kind, remained on her face, the kind of smile that held no judgment— only understanding.

"Hey, hey…" she spoke softly, her voice soothing like a balm. "It's alright. You don't have to worry about repaying anything right now." Her words wrapped around him like a protective shield, the gentle lilt of her tone helping to calm the restless turmoil in his chest.

She paused, as if letting the silence linger for a moment before continuing, "Just focus on taking care of yourself, okay?" Her gaze was steady, unwavering, and there was no hint of impatience, no rush. Just a quiet, reassuring presence that made everything feel a little less heavy.

Taejun swallowed, nodding slowly, the tightness in his throat making it hard to speak. He couldn't quite find the words, but somehow, the sincerity in her eyes said everything that needed to be said.

He opened the bag, and as the warm scent hit him, something inside cracked. He took a bite— slow at first— then another, faster, more desperate, until he was devouring the bread like it was the first thing he'd tasted in years. His eyes were wide, glistening, his throat tight with something that had nothing to do with hunger.

"It's good," he said between bites, his voice shaking. "It's so good, miss… It's really…"

She laughed, covering her mouth with one hand in a gesture that made her seem impossibly young. "Hey, slow down! You'll choke!"

The girl let out a soft laugh, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she watched Taejun's reaction. Her smile widened, a genuine warmth radiating from her, clearly pleased with his appreciation. "Oh, thank you," she said, her voice light and cheerful. "I've always loved cooking and experimenting in the kitchen. It's fun…" There was a playful edge to her tone, as though she was sharing a little secret with him— one that made her happy.

She met his gaze with a proud grin, her posture shifting just slightly, as if to emphasize the satisfaction she felt in her work. "I know, and I'm sure it's good!" she continued, her voice brimming with confidence. "I'm glad you like it. I put my heart into it, if you must know."

The way she spoke, so genuinely proud of her creation, made Taejun realize just how much care and attention she had poured into the meal. It wasn't just food— it was something personal, something she wanted to share. He felt a warmth spreading in his chest, not just from the meal, but from her.

He didn't stop chewing. Just glanced up at her, his smile uneven and tear-streaked. "Your heart… it tastes like this. Like chocolate. Sweet."

She blinked, startled, then let the laugh fall into a quieter, bashful chuckle. "Well… I guess that's the best compliment I've had in a while."

Taejun shifted a little closer, the crumpled bag still clutched in his hands. His heart felt lighter as he spoke, the words coming more freely than he expected. "Would you mind staying here for a while? Just for a moment, you make me feel something I forgot existed. Not just happiness. Joy."

There was a brief silence, the weight of his words lingering between them. Kimmy didn't rush to respond. Instead, she studied him carefully, her gaze soft yet intense, as though looking beyond the surface to something deeper. Whatever she saw in his face seemed to settle her, and with a gentle nod, she brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her movements graceful.

"Not at all," she replied, her voice barely audible now, as though she was allowing her words to sink in. "I'd be happy to keep you company."

She gestured toward his plate with a warmth in her eyes, the curiosity evident in her gaze, but there was something more—an understanding, a quiet invitation to continue. It wasn't just about the food; it was about the moment, the connection between them that felt so effortless, so natural. "Go ahead," she encouraged softly, her eyes filled with warmth, "continue eating. I want to see you enjoy it."

He offered the bag to her, the last piece inside untouched. "Try one. Please."

She reached in, pulling out the strawberry-frosted bread. It shimmered faintly under the stall light. She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then gasped. "Wow," she said, eyes wide. "I might've outdone myself."

And then, something inside him— some frozen, rusted gear— turned. For the first time in what felt like years, he laughed. A real, broken, beautiful laugh. And beside him, the girl laughed too, her head tilting back, her shoulders shaking, both of them surrounded by a world that— for one stolen moment— had nothing sharp left to throw.

As the man munched quietly on the warm bread, he glanced up— only to notice something on her face. A tiny smear of pink strawberry frosting clung playfully to the tip of her nose.

"Wait," he said, halting mid-bite and looking at him with curiosity.

"Yes?" she replied.

"You've got some frost on your nose."

Her eyes widened in amusement as the man pointed it out, a lopsided grin forming on his face. She giggled softly, unaware of the smudge, her laughter carrying a light, innocent warmth. "Oh, really?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.

The man leaned in. She didn't flinch or shy away. Instead, she let him gently brush it off with his index finger, her eyes locked on his with calm trust. There was a flicker of surprise on her face, followed by a warm little smile. "Hey, watch it! You can't just steal someone's frosting like that," she teased, cheeks tinged a soft pink. Still, she didn't look upset— just amused, maybe a little flustered.

They laughed together then, the shared sound folding into the moment like sunlight through the trees. The tension between them softened.

"I forgot to mention," she started, her voice sweet, "my name is—"

Static. A piercing buzz.

Taejun flinched as the sound of her name didn't quite reach his ears. It came distorted, like a tape warped with age. His ears rang violently. Pain shot through his skull.

Wait, why can't I hear it?

Taejun's thoughts screamed, but no one else seemed to notice. The man across from him remained unaffected, as if Taejun alone was tuned into some broken frequency— one where he could feel every fiber of the man's being. Every breath, every bite, every heartbeat, like the man was somehow bleeding into him.

Yet around them, laughter still danced in the air, light and comforting. Kimmy—yes, that's what the stall sign said— pointed to it with a grin. "It's Kimmy, actually. Like it says up there." She giggled. "Nice to meet you, um…" Her smile faltered just a bit, unsure of the name she couldn't fully hear.

The man smiled back weakly. He wanted to speak, to answer, but the noise in his head roared louder. It hurt. It really hurt. He clutched his ear, warm blood slicking his palm.

The man beside them, silent, watching, sighed. A deep, regretful sound. "I wish this moment could last forever. You and me. Right now. Just… frozen in time." His words were calm, distant, almost like a wish carried off by the wind.

Kimmy's smile softened. There was sorrow in her eyes now, delicate and aching. "I… I'd like that too…" She pulled her legs in, placing her hands between her knees, her gaze falling to the ground. "It's rare. Finding moments like this. One's you don't want to let go, especially with someone special to you."

The man looked at her, blushing as she continued.

"Someone… special," she said, looking up, voice hushed and sincere.

The weight of those words crashed over him like a wave.

"I-I think I need to go now," he stammered, his voice shaky. "Thanks for the food, Kimmy."

Her expression fell, just for a second. A flicker of disappointment passed through her features. "Oh… alright. If you really have to… take care."

But as he jogged off, waving slightly, her brows drew together. She called out, voice edged with urgency. "Wait! Where are you even going?! Hey!"

He didn't answer, but she caught the shape of his lips as he turned— See you next time, Kimmy.

She stood frozen, watching him shrink into the distance, that final silent message clinging to her heart like a ghost of what could have been. "Bye… Come back soon, 'kay?" she whispered.

But then, unexpectedly, he stopped. Slowly, he turned back. His steps were slower now. Kimmy met him halfway, concern etched in her face.

"I've been wondering something…" he said, not looking at her.

"What is it?"

"Why would you… Help someone like me?" His voice cracked with restrained emotion. "I'm just a stranger. A nobody. Why would someone like you care?"

Her gaze softened. Her voice dropped into something warm, something that could hold the weight he was carrying. "Because you're not a nobody. Everyone matters, including you. And I don't just help anyone, Taejun. I helped you because… I wanted to."

He swallowed hard. "I understand now. And… for whatever time I have left… I'm truly glad I met you, Kimmy."

His voice faltered, barely holding together.

"I really appreciate your kindness. And your smile. It meant the world to me."

Her eyes shimmered, her expression tender and bittersweet. "And I'm glad I met you. I love hearing your voice. Your stories. Seeing you smile."

She reached out, gently resting her hand on his arm. Her touch was warm, steady.

"Take care, okay?"

"Kimmy… your hand…" His voice quivered. "It feels like my mother's. So soft… so gentle…"

Tears slipped down his cheeks.

She squeezed his arm, not letting go. "Hey… It's alright. Don't apologize. I'm here."

Then, gently, she brushed away his tears. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Your mother must've been an incredible woman."

He nodded. "She was… She loved me more than anything. She saved me."

Kimmy smiled softly. "She sounds wonderful. It's obvious how much you love her."

"I keep hoping…" he said, voice cracking, "that she's watching me. That she still sees me. Just once. Just… so I know she's proud."

"I believe she is," Kimmy whispered. "I truly believe she watches over you. Loving you. Guiding you. You have to believe that, too."

He looked down, tears dripping quietly.

"You know, Kimmy? I think this is it. I feel it… the end is near. But today… I was happy. Genuinely happy. Thank you. For making me feel more than just a pebble."

Kimmy's heart thudded. She felt it. Something was wrong.

"Wait," she said, stepping closer. "What do you mean, 'it's near'?"

Her grip on his arm tightened.

"It's okay, Kimmy." He gently took her hand, the one still clinging to him, and placed it softly on the bench beside her. She looked at her own hand, trembling.

"What are you planning…?" she whispered, voice unsteady.

"Goodbye, Kimmy. I wish I had more time. But this dream… was never meant to last." His laugh was soft, hollow, filled with sorrow. "Thanks for the bread. It was… delicious."

Kimmy froze.

"Don't go…" Her voice cracked. "Please… not like this."

Tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks as the silence devoured him.

"Please…"

The sound of her broken plea echoed long after he disappeared.

Before the night had fully settled, the street still held a faint warmth, with the last traces of the sun lingering in the sky, casting a soft golden glow on the horizon. The man watched Kimmy as she tidied up her stall, her movements quick and efficient, yet graceful. She wiped down the wooden counter with a cloth, pushing aside the remnants of the day's work. The distant hum of evening activity echoed softly through the air, but in this small corner, time seemed to slow.

The light from the old lamp flickered gently, casting an amber glow across the scene. The man leaned against the bench, hands in his pockets, trying to ignore the sudden chill creeping in. He hadn't realized how much he'd grown used to the warmth that Kimmy's presence had given him. His eyes followed her as she worked, her face lit with the faint light, a tender smile still lingering on her lips despite the long day. The air felt heavy now, as if the night was coming alive, and he was caught somewhere in between.

"Wait!" Kimmy's voice broke through his thoughts, drawing his attention. She looked over at him with a soft smile, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Can you… Wait for me to clean up the stall? I'm scared of the dark."

The man blinked, surprised by the request, but he could see the unease in her eyes. After a moment of hesitation, he gave a small nod, his lips curving into a reassuring smile. "Sure, at least this is the least I can do for you," he replied, settling more comfortably onto the bench. The quietness of the moment hung between them, both of them lost in the steady rhythm of the evening as Kimmy returned to packing up the leftover food. Her movements were deliberate, but her nervousness was palpable.

The night slowly crept in, the air growing cooler as the stars began to peek through the dimming sky. The streets emptied out, and the last few stragglers disappeared into the distance. The wind began to pick up, carrying with it a whisper of snow that Taejun hadn't noticed before. He glanced at the sky, watching as the first snowflakes drifted down, each one delicate and fleeting.

Kimmy finished her work and turned to him, a light blush coloring her cheeks as she approached. Her dress was simple, a soft blue with a ribbon tied at the waist, and over her shoulder, she carried a folded blanket, something wrapped up with care. She stopped in front of him, her eyes catching his as she held out the bundle.

"Here, I give you this as a present," she said, her voice light but sincere.

The man took the bundle, unwrapping it slowly to reveal a scarf, soft and warm. His fingers brushed against the fabric, feeling the warmth it had absorbed from her. "T-thanks, Kimmy," he stammered, his voice quieter than he intended.

"It's cold tonight," she said with a soft giggle, pointing upward at the moon. "Look! It's a full moon. Isn't the moon beautiful tonight?"

The man nodded, his gaze shifting between the moon above and her smiling face. But his thoughts were clouded with the sudden weight of the moment, and he couldn't help but notice that she wasn't wearing anything to protect herself from the cold.

"Hey," he said, his voice hesitant, "Do you want the scarf? It's going to get even colder tonight."

Kimmy's eyes widened, her cheeks turning a shade darker, and she looked down, trying to hide the pink flush on her face. But she smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling with something he couldn't place. "Sure..." she whispered, her voice barely audible. She took the scarf from his hands, and as she draped it around her neck, their faces were close, so close that for a moment, he felt the warmth of her breath against his skin.

The man's heart skipped a beat. There was something in her gaze, something fragile and tender that made everything else fade into the background.

The girl looked down, still holding the scarf around her neck, her hands lingering at the ends, as if afraid to let go.

"Are you okay, Kimmy?" the man asked, his voice laced with concern. "You look... you look sad."

Kimmy's eyes flickered up to meet his, and she offered him a smile, one that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm okay," she said, though the smile seemed forced. "Don't worry about me."

She began humming again, a soft, gentle tune that echoed through the growing stillness of the street. the man listened to it, captivated by its soothing, almost otherworldly quality. And then, just as the quiet settled deeper between them, snow began to fall. It wasn't heavy, just a soft, slow flurry, like the world itself was exhaling a sigh of relief. The wind was cold, but with Kimmy beside him, it didn't feel so harsh.

He could feel the distance between them shrink, the shared warmth of the scarf wrapping them together in a way that felt both natural and tender. Kimmy's humming filled the air, and the man felt his cheeks warm, a gentle flush creeping up as he realized just how much he was starting to care for her.