That Night in Seoul 2.0 / Hwang Hyunjin

Part 30 - Calloused

~ Korean dialogue will be labeled *K* ~

Title Track: Calloused by Gideon

****

"Someone died where we went last night." Roxy stared off at the wall looking horrified.

"That dingy old blue curtain was the last thing they saw." I added.

"She kinda looked like you don't you think?" Roxy asked.

I agreed and laughed but deep down I was petrified.

We returned to our room and tried to go on with the day as normally as we could. The rest of the night was silent for us.

Until I woke up with a shriek from a terrible nightmare. The worst and most vivid one I had ever experienced.

I was in that bathroom at the bar, hunched over the sink fixing my makeup in the mirror just as I had done with Roxy by my side. But this time I was alone.

I heard a rush of footsteps behind me, but before I could turn around it felt like someone had punched me in the back, and I suddenly felt an intense pressure in my stomach.

A feeling I couldn't begin to explain. It felt so real in this dream.

I. Felt. It. All.

A dark stain began to form on the white dress I was wearing in this nightmare.

It was blood.

I looked down at it and ran my hand over it, and with that my fingers were met with the tip of a blade.

I tried to stand myself up straight but found myself shrieking in pain and clutching the sides of the sink.

Then a surge of agony struck every nerve in my body as the point of pressure was yanked from my back.

My body desperately wanted to collapse onto the tile floor, but I tried with all my might to stay standing.

I lifted my head to the mirror and saw her behind me with her glowing blue contacts and dark makeup. Dressed just as she was Friday night.

It was Soomin.

A grin crept across her lips as she lifted the now blood covered knife into my view.

The one she had just shoved into my back.

The one that punctured all the way through to the other side of my body.

Her pupils dilated and her smile grew even larger as she swung the knife again, this time into the back of my leg.

I started to scream, but with the booming music no one would be able to hear me until it stopped.

I turned myself around and now I was facing her and could defend myself.

She reached to stab me again, but I grabbed her arm and was trying with all my being to push the knife away from my skin.

But I was growing weaker, and the knife was getting closer and closer to my throat, even cutting the surface.

Using my arms hurt worse than anything, the strain it caused on my punctured abdomen was indescribable.

But her arm was stopped by someone's fist; knocking the knife from her grasp and then they shoved her back into the wall.

It was Hyunjin.

He rushed to me with a look of horror, and he hugged me.

But he quickly would have the same fate as me, getting a knife to his back while his arms were still around me.

As he began to fall his weight pulled me down with him and I was stuck underneath him as we both writhed and groaned in pain.

I could see her shoes now and they were the exact ones from the photo.

She was dressed exactly like the killer.

But was this my imagination?

We were both left there to fend for ourselves as she ran out the back door.

Having no one else, we held each other and bled out on the floor together.

It felt like an eternity, and I started to hear music playing.

Was this a post premonition?

Is this how Hana died, but without Hyunjin?

Was she the killer?

And did she think it was me she was killing?

This made me more confused about everything.

Roxy was startled when I woke with my scream, and she had been the one playing music.

"Jesus, dude. Are you okay?"

I was sweating and panting.

"Yeah." I said with a sigh and rolled over onto a colder side of the bed.

"Sorry." I apologized.

"It's okay. I had one, too."

"A nightmare?"

She nodded.

She was scrolling on her phone.

"Now I can't sleep." She said.

********