NEFARIOUS

13 / 열셋

 It was certainly out of plan.

  Hye stared blankly at the closed pathway, thinking of what might happen to Jung-Hee. What was he doing? He should have been standing near her all this time. How could he be so far away, when she had seen him last?

  Eun Jae swore an oath, rubbing his neck in frustation. She took a moment to see the knob behind her twin brother, it was rectangular shaped, like coarsed squared rubble. It pulled forward automatically as the pathway closed, blending into the wall. Apparently, the key to close the stone within inside was much easier than to open it from outside.

  She heaved a sigh. There was nothing they could do anymore. They must move on and go, Jung-Hee would say it if he were with them.

  She descended the stairs in silent. When her twin brother did not follow her, she gazed over her shoulder, and said, "He wants us to get out alive. Come on."

  Her twin brother considered at the closed pathway for a moment, and trailed behind her. Under the gloomy illumination of her torchlight, she could clearly see a drop of sweat running over Eun Jae's pale forehead. She broke her gaze, walked down toward the stairs.

  They were silent, then. Eun Jae did not try to reach her mind anymore, merely kept his eyes beneath them for any danger to come. It had been minutes since last they had seen Jung-Hee, and still, the stairs were leading them to nowhere but deeper underground.

  She tried to sharpen her hearing, but no voice called her. Only the cracking steps of Eun Jae, and a drop of underground water behind her.

  They had been descending continously. Hye felt her twin brother slowing his pace, though still managed to follow her. His presence actually reminded her of home- rather about the tranquility and peace, than nightmare and war, like the way her parents visited her at night. Moonbird had become her home since the fall of Eun family and the Great Purge. Even when Chan Mi trapped her within herspiderweb to be one of her foster, working child.

  "It has no end," said Eun Jae. "Are you certain we didn't pass through something important?"

  Hye lowered her torchlight, to see the stairs beneath her feet clearly. She did not stop descending the stairs. "I am not sure either, I think it's down there."

  Eun Jae let out an annoyed sigh. "Hye, what I need is not only your calculation and sentiment-"

  She raised a finger to her twin brother, wanting to remind him of their code names, but the stairway was dark and lonely, and no steps were heard. However, she caught some familiar noise, a clashing of steel to steel, far away underneath, devoured by the solitude of darkness. Eun Jae watched her with a scowl. Slowly, realization awoke on his face.

  Her index finger touched her lips, glancing at the stairs beneath. She continued stepping down, more careful this time. The grip on her torchlight tightened, it trembled under her touch. Too dense for her own good, she realized.

  Gradually, the more she took steps, the closer she caught those steel to steel noise, and a faint growl followed by it.

  A glowing light appeared at the end of the stairway, surrounded by darkness. Hye frowned as she realized the stairway truly ended. The lightning came from her right, while before her, only a distinct wall greeted her. There was only one way to come and go from the shrine, she noted in her mind. Meaning, much harder to escape if the twins got caught. Perhaps it is meant to be a prison after all, she thought bitterly.

  She remained unseen, leaning onto the wall before the entrance that led into an unknown place on her side. Peeking silently, she found three guards, directly facing the gateway. A shudder went past through her spine when she thought one of those guards saw her, she quickly slumped her shoulders slightly, because his gaze merely passed by her figure.