Dream Me a Sonatine

6 - The Smile of a Wolf

A/N: another gore warning for this one!

Sweat rolled down Heejin's forehead in rivulets and she gasped and heaved, but her legs tore the pavement up as she ran to the only place she knew to go to. The weight of the girl in her arms was exhausting to carry, but she gritted her teeth, not allowing herself to slow.

It felt peculiar to be saving a life instead of taking it.

Drizzles of November rain splashed onto the pavement — she felt grateful that her shoes had a good grip. The girl's face — Heejin didn't want to look at that horrific face for too long — was pained, but she was unconscious. Her dark eyelashes fluttered, and Heejin could feel the weak pulse flitting in her wrist.

Who had done this? When Heejin had arrived, the girl had been clawing at nothing, convulsing on the ground. There had been no attacker in sight, yet mangled bodies had littered the library floor. Her thoughts wound back to the figure in black. They certainly fit the cliché of a serial killer, dressed in black from head to toe and staring eerily at passers-by. Plus, they'd been near to the library, near enough to go round the back before Heejin got there. But that didn't explain why there'd been no struggle when she arrived. It took more than minutes to massacre an entire library full of people. And why was the girl alive? Had the killer heard she was coming? But if it could kill dozens of people in seconds, why hadn't it merely killed her?

Heejin shook her head, forcing the questions out of her mind. What mattered now was getting this stranger to safety. On the girl's bloodied jacket Heejin had noticed a badge reading 'Salzburg Musikakademie', and thanks to yesterday, she knew exactly where that was. So now she ran, hoping that the polka-dot dress girl would be there and hopefully that she wouldn't scream at the sight of the blood-soaked Heejin.

She rounded a corner, and the ornate black fence came into view. She stopped and gently set the girl down by a bush, concealing her unconscious body behind the leaves. Wasting no time, Heejin rushed through the doors of the building and into some sort of reception.

'Guten Tag,' greeted the receptionist. Heejin stared blankly, trying to recall the fragments of German that she knew.

'Uhh, hilfe? Ich... ummm...' She cursed under her breath, eventually settling for French and hoping that the receptionist at least knew some of the language. 'I'm a friend of Hyunjin's. She's a student here, I believe. She's Korean. I need her.'

Luckily, the receptionist seemed to understand, nodding curtly. She typed something on the computer and Heejin wanted to yell at her to hurry up. She wasn't really paying attention, her mind on the girl outside, but soon enough Hyunjin came down the stairs looking slightly bemused.

'Oh... Heejin, right?'

'Can we talk outside?' Heejin tried to conceal the urgency in her voice from the evidently eavesdropping receptionist, but hoping that Hyunjin understood from her eyes. Hyunjin nodded, frowning confusedly, but followed her out. As soon as they were outside, Heejin rushed to the bush behind which the girl was concealed.

'Is everything okay? Wh—' Hyunjin broke off at the sight of the bloodied body of the girl, her eyes widening.

'I found her in the library like this. She wore a badge with the name of this school, so I figured...'

Hyunjin gasped, 'Hyejoo?'

'You know her?'

'She's my roommate,' murmured Hyunjin, her body trembling. 'But... how... what happened to her face?'

Heejin swallowed uncomfortably. Even the most ruthless assassins she knew hadn't done anything like this. There was a shallow cut along her throat, but the most disturbing thing was her mutilated face. The girl — Hyejoo — was... smiling. Sort of. An eerie grin was forcibly sliced across her face, thin and red, almost carefully done. It was as if a knife had been placed in each corner of her mouth and flicked up, carving a bloody smile onto her face permanently.