They buried Ms. An in their makeshift graveyard, every resident coming to bring a flower upon her grave.
As the sun set down and the previous events started to catch up to everyone, Hae-Rin found herself in the quietest corner of the first floor, away from everyone. Beside her, the well-loved pages of her Peter Pan book lay open, its once old edges now marred by droplets of blood, like crimson tears staining the innocence of its pages. In a desperate attempt to erase the remnants of past horrors, she had attempted to clean the stains, but only succeeded in smearing the dried liquid further, leaving behind a haunting reminder of the darkness that had occurred not so long ago.
It was such an old book, and Hae-Rin's effort in cleaning her precious belonging only seemed to ruin it more.
Everything that happened was catching up to her ever since the burial for Ms. An had ended. Everything that she had done was crawling under her skin like invisible bugs and she felt the need to scratch her skin off, to peel herself off.
She had spent an hour cleaning her skin and taking a shower, trying to wash away the murder that lay visible on her hands. She changed clothes after that, and was now wearing some black sweatpants and a black oversized short-sleeved shirt that Grandpa Han landed it to her. Her hair had been sticking to her skin, irritating her, so she had done two braids, desperate to not feel anything on her skin. Lastly, once she had finished with all that, she threw her previous worn clothes near the main gate and burned them, wanting them completely gone from her sight.
When she was done with that, she found Eun-Hyuk who had stitched the wounds on her arm and wrapped said arm with some clean cloth that they had found.
Every movement, though, Hae-Rin could feel the pain as if her muscles were corrupted.
Sitting now on one of the small stairs, Hae-Rin found herself anxiously taking out a cigarette and lighting it up. She inhaled the smoke as soon as she pressed the cigarette to her lips, a sigh leaving her throat.
