UNKNOWN [SEULDY]

SIX

The wind howled as Wendy pulled her coat closer to her skin. In a period of a few weeks the weather had gotten colder. Now at the beginning of fall, September to be exact, Wendy's classes started intensifying it's teaching programs in preparation for midterms and the short girl was exhausted and drained out of energy. Her schedule had never been this full. Surely she had had packed and stressful days but those were nothing in comparison to her life right now. There wasn't even a minute left of the twenty four hour long day to have a proper meal. She had been living of instant noodles and caffeine for the past ones while camping in the library studying and finishing assignments half of the time while she spent the other half in the lab. She sometimes felt her eyes close as she was starring at the computer screen at work. A cold was haunting the laboratory's employees and put the company into a very unfortunate situation. Too many employees were not able to come in and do their work. The remaining few ones worked overtime hours just to get enough done to cover at least little bits of work here and there. It was about two hours before the clock would strike twelve a.m. Wendy had of course missed her bus and had to waited for the next one to come. The streets were pitch black and mostly abandoned apart from an old lady that patrolled in a circle around the bus stop Wendy was heading to. She was dressed in a red elegant coat with fur gracing the wide cut sleeves. Her hair was as black as the sky at night and her body small and slim. As Wendy reached the stop she placed her heavy and quite old bag down onto the blue painted bench and she herself, completely exhausted, collapsed next to it. She closed her eyes while hugging her bag tightly to her. A few minutes of rest couldn't be of any harm. At least that was what she thought. Wendy felt someone eying her. It was an uncomfortablefeeling that sent shivers down her spine. Her instincts,  or whatever people said it was when a person had a kind of intuition, finally made her look up. Maybe it was the lingering feeling that someone's gaze was directed at her. As she lifted her head and let her eyes examine the still empty street, the intense stare of the old woman made her toenails curl. The lady was surrounded by a creepy aura. Plus it was almost midnight and the now anxious and alarmed girl didn't feel safer with another person around. That lady could kill her at any moment. Maybe she was part of an organization by the state and she was here to kidnap Wendy. Those kinds of crazy ideas popped into her head. She wasn't in her right mind and her brain probably started projecting hallucinations. Wendy was too tired, too exhausted and not attentive enough. The short girl quickly drew her eyes away from the woman which now began to slowly and steadily approach the university student. She tried leaning back expecting a glass wall behind her that would catch her back, but there was nothing. She almost fell but still was able to retrieve her balance. Wendy noticed her heart speeding and her mind becoming more alert. The lady stopped moving a few steps in front of Wendy. She turned her head as if an idea had popped into her head. Her nose was scrunched and she wore a deep frown on her forhead. Wendy had to admit her life was being lead by weird events. First the access card then that mysterious file, both appearing in front of her only to vanish again, the emails by Unknown and now a lady burning holes into Wendy's head with her stares. The elderly woman cleared her throat. "You perhaps don't know how to work a so called mobile phone, or do you?" Wendy, too surprised at the woman's sudden raspy and sick sounding voice, just did what she was able to. She nodded and then in a quick movement stood up from the uncomfortable bench leaving her bag behind and walking over to the woman that was searching through her own one. She fished out an old phone. Wendy felt as if it was almost an ancient almost completely forgotten part of the history of human kind. She raised her head to look at the black haired woman. "What do you want me to do with it?" Wendy asked not sure what to expect. The woman passed the phone onto Wendy. The device made of plastic felt cold in her palm. "I can not manage to dial my son's number. He was supposed to pick me up." Her raspy voice suddenly had an arrogant and posh sound to it. Only now Wendy noticed the accent in her Korean. She must have been from another country in Asia. The girl tapped the cursor key trying to reach the icon of the contacts. She glanced at the list trying to find a name that would give her any clue on whose number she was supposed to call. Wendy looked up from the phone.
"Have you even saved his number on this phone?" She asked with slight annoyance. The lady's eyes grew big. "You can save numbers in there?" Wendy blinked twice surprised at the sudden confession of the woman. How could she use a phone when being unsure of what purpose it actually solved? She shrugged. "Well yeah. That way you don't have to remember as many." The woman was taken aback by Wendy's reply. "How come I haven't known this?" The girl didn't pay any attention to the woman's words but tried to find any indication of past incoming caller IDs or something that could help her find the number of the woman's son. She froze as an idea made its way to her mind. Wendy hadn't even a asked for his name. The next second the short girl asked that exact question. The woman watched Wendy closely as she replied. "Wonwoo. Son Wonwoo." Suspicion burned in her eyes but Wendy ignored it, not bothered by an old woman's stare. She probably wouldn't even see her ever again. "And do you...do you remember his number." She started to tremble as the cold wind howled once again. It felt as if the temperature suddenly had dropped. The woman nodded excitedly and pulled out a wrinkled little piece of paper but a vibrating sound stopped her and she looked around. "What is that sound?" Wendy was startled but tried to point as calm as she was able to act, to the phone with still trembling hands. "Someone is calling you." She pressed the green button to pick up the call and quickly passed the phone to the old lady. "Here. Take it." The woman pressed the phone close to her right ear and plugged her left one close with the third finger of her free hand. Wendy took a few steps back to give the on the phone speaking person some privacy. Wendy felt a shiver creeping up her spine as she watched the lady. It didn't feel as if it was only the freezing wind to Wendy but she just shrugged it off. There was no one but her and the lady in the whole entire street. The woman happily stamped her feet as she saw a black car moving towards her. She was waving and ran with tiny little steps up to the now parked car. She didn't even thank Wendy. "Rude", she muttered under her breath. "That's what I get for being a nice person." She heard a bell ring and turned around as a blackfigure on a bicycle flashed past her at an incredibly fast speed that couldn't be anything else but dangerous, maybe even life threatening. Her bag was now laying on the dirty and trashed ground. It wasn't the trash around it that caught her attention but the fact that her bag was opened. She hadn't opened it since she had left her work place and the zipper wouldn't have opened by itself. Something felt wrong to Wendy. It couldn't have just opened while falling, or could it? She saw a rectangular shaped object that she was sure of didn't belong to her, sticking out of the opened bag. Why did such things happen to her? Couldn't Unknown haunt somebody else? She didn't have enough time for any childish games that served the purpose of keeping Unknown entertained. It was simply a distraction from the most important things in her life. University and work. She slowly sneaked towards her bag and picked it up by the handle made from fabric that was similar to jeans cloth and pulled out the object that turned out to be a folder. The exact folder that she had already seen once. It appeared on her desk and vanished after just a few minutes of laying around. Untouched. The red folder was now in Wendy's hand and her shaking intensified just like her anger and annoyance at Unknown. She knew that he or she had something to do with the scary and unusual events happening around Wendy. Just when she had been thinking of the devil himself her phone buzzed. She pulled it out with the urge to throw it against the nearest wall and rip the pages which were part of the folder, apart. Of course, Unknown had to leave a message behind. She rolled her eyes as she read it.