chapter two!!let me know your thoughts. quick side note: the above gif is jung hae in, who plays yoo nari's brother. you'll recognize him from something in the rain, while you were sleeping, and/or goblin.
thank you for 100 reads! and thank you in advance for reading. i hope you enjoy it!
sending all my love,
krissy
❦
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BUSAN 1997
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SHE WAKES TO screaming.
God-awful, choking, panicked screaming. It's reaches her ears from outside, muffled, but the raw terror in the broken voice is suffocating. Heart pounding, the girl jolts awake and peels the curtains aside, trembling.
From the neighboring house storms out a man with wolfish features and a shock of black hair. He grasps his belongings so fiercely his knuckles are white. Clinging to the edges of his coat is woman, sobbing. She screams and reaches for him with shaking hands, face ashen, hair matted with tears. She crumples like broken glass at his feet.
The girl shudders and moves to pull away. But just as she turns, her eyes catch the little boy that watches from the door, half-hidden in shadows. He's her age, small, dressed in a set of soft blue pajamas. His lip trembles, a thumb frozen in his mouth. And then he starts wailing.
The girl lets the curtain fall back rapidly and basks in the safety of her room. But it doesn't stop, the sounds. Outside, the lady keeps crying and begging. Outside, the boy's cries turn to screams. Tears spring to the girl's eyes. She presses her hand to her ears. Make it stop, she pleas silently. Make it stop make it stop makeitstop--
She repeats the mantra so desperately she doesn't even realize when it ends.
But the silence feels more like that of a tomb. Even when she closes her eyes, she can't sleep. Whenever she tries, she sees the raw terror on that woman's face and the brokenness in her eyes, like the cracked porcelain vase in eomma's living room.
So she rises one more time, heart quivering, and peels back the curtains. Gingerly.
The steps are empty.
But the door to the house across hers is open. Crouched there on cold concrete is that little boy. Shivering. Head concealed by his hands. His mouth moves, and it's this that will haunt her forever, seeing him cling to this one word, this one word that has carved out a hole in her own body.
