CH 127

“How did you steal a person’s body? I want to know.” They chattered around me. “Teach me!”

“Did you sing lovely songs with that voice?”

“Hurry up and teach me!”

“Hurry up and sing. I want to learn too!”

Scratching me with their nails, they coveted human bodies. However, they were weak, so they couldn’t harm me; instead, they circled me and started shrieking. That was right—that was the only thing they wanted by harassing me since I was young.

“A human body, a human body! A human body!”

“How did you get one?! You’re dead just like us!”

“But how did you get one?!”

“Human body! Human body! Human body!”

They envied me. I covered my face and wailed. Blood and tears spilled across the kitchen floor. I felt like their screams were berating me. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just… I just.’  I was scared that Haeseo’s mom and grandmother were among those who were admonishing me.

‘I’m sorry.’

Ding-dong. Just then, I heard the doorbell. I flinched and stood upright.

It was still drizzling outside. My dark friends that were wriggling around me had all vanished. I rolled my dry lips nervously. There weren’t many people who would come to visit me. Hyehyun was already dead. That meant…

Knock knock—two knocks, then I heard the voice from outside.

“I came to get you. I left you waiting for too long, didn’t I?” A mellifluous voice floated through the air. I grimaced. I had never heard this voice before, but I knew who it was. I remembered the one who had talked to me so kindly.

Filled with mirth and happiness, the voice continued. “The apartment I have is a fantastic place with a view of the river. You’ll like it too. If you don’t, let’s talk through it calmly about where you would like to go. I’ll listen to anything you desire.”

A painful and dismal feeling of ecstasy crashed into me.

“You’ll definitely be satisfied with this body,” he said, crumpling my heart and drying out my lungs.

Bang, bang, bang. He knocked on the door again. “Open the door for me. I finally found your name.”

“…”

“Please, so I can confess to you while calling your name.”

His pleading voice eventually induced my tears. I saw the knife that had wounded me on the floor. But unlike when I was in the mansion, I couldn’t pick it up. The incompetence of the weapon I held threw me into an ocean of depression and insanity. What should I do now?

I heard the tinkling laughter of the man standing in front of my door. “I told you that you would never be able to forget me.”

Oh.

Oh.

…He told me that I was always the one holding the power to choose, but he was wrong.

It was the opposite—the choice was his. From the beginning, I had no option but to go along with what he wanted. I was in a well-maintained cage. The people who I liked, who influenced me, and who marked the significant turning points of my life were all him. I knew nothing about him, yet he knew me too well.

There was nothing I could choose.

“Open the door,” he said.

There was no escape in this box. I would still be dancing in his palms.

I already knew how this situation would end.

Because…

The door to my room had never once closed in that mansion.

I had never closed the door and simply accepted everyone who stepped in. As evident by my minimal defense, I was lonely. Having forgotten how to be human, I was already a vengeful spirit left only with my fixation.