Despicable! • JUNHAO

PART THIRTY.

「ｓｅｕｎｇｃｈｅｏｌ」

All the lights are off as I stand in the driveway of Minghao's home.

Looking left and right, no neighbors are home- in fact the whole street seems to be deserted.

"Jihoon, flash the headlights if you see anyone coming. Hopefully the light will refract through the front windows."

He shakes his head with jitters, cracking the window and slouching down the drivers seat with a thumbs-up in my direction.

The sun is starting to set.

Leeteuk is counting on me.

This town is counting on me.

The sun is starting to set.

Who knows if I will see it rise again.

The air once I open the front door is stale and looming with artificial freshening fragrances.

There are no photos on the walls. There are no dishes or arrangements or plants but the tea set lying on a coffee table still remains with a carton of cream left out too long.

Ahead of me is an endless hallway, an illusion substantiated by the lack of light but also a truth— it stretched like that of an office, doors lining until the pattern cannot be renewed in the distance.

This hallway.

Minghao and Junhui are indefinitely on their way— time is of the essence.

But I feel it looking down into this hallway now.

Somewhere down there

Behind one of those walls

You are there,

aren't you?

I start moving.

The first doors are past without a glance. Certainly, the are empty and will hold nothing of importance to me.

But now with each step,

this hallway is growing cold.

Now the end of the hall is coming.

There is only one door at the end— a left door.

Did he feel cold as he was taken down this hallway?

The door is a sliding one. It's coolness makes it moist to the touch.

It slides open.

With my body directly in front, the first thing i see is bare floors of a bare room, a view being an ever stretching yard.

The sun set. The moon is just peaking over the trees through the glass.

My body is prepared well before my mind for what I behold once I turn my head to the right, into the rest of the room.

There are many of them.

There are bones.

And there is flesh.

There are flies,

and there is a rancid spirit in the air.