What | Dreamcatcher

Chapter 2

Taking her time walking home, JiU used the time to think. Her job as a bartender didn't allow for such free thinking, time spent serving drinks and slipping away from eager, skirt-chasing fools.

In the first few days after leaving the mansion, the girls' relationships with each other became shaky at best, all blaming themselves and each other for what happened.

She looked towards the gleaming moon, recounting again how everyone slipped away.

Until she was alone.

Everyone disappeared to make a life for themselves and forget their experiences.

By herself, JiU had found it hard to adapt to her new life. For one, unspecified time had passed while they were in the mansion. The world around them had aged, but they did not. And she now had to learn how to fend for herself - Having a job, paying rent, buying food.

On some nights, she could just sit and weep and loneliness and guilt caught up with her, imagining Yoohyeon all alone. Just as she was.

Coming to her front door, JiU took her tarnished key out and unlocked the stiff door before stepping inside the darkness and closing it with a firm slam.

"Home." Her soft voice announced as she eased through the room in semi-darkness and through her bedroom door.

Once collapsing on her bed, it didn't take long for her eyelids to flutter closed and her

breaths to deepen.

It had been painful to even look at the others, for even the merest glance sent memories flying of recent times she'd rather not remember. The panic that had struck up her heart was unreasonable but that didn't stop it happening.

***

The moment when they realised that the front doors of the mansion were open was a brief snippet of frozen time where everyone struggled with the desire to bolt and save themselves. JiU had got her feet, sprinting away from the fallen spinning top and the others followed. No one but JiU looked back to see if Yoohyeon was following.

Still dressed in the same aged clothes, they had found themselves in an empty parking lot in front of a small building bordered on one side by a line of houses.

As she turned around, the doors were gone and they were the only ones within the brightly lit lot.

Dami laughed sarcastically as she read the words emblazoned on the building in front of them. "Cachette." She read in a mock French accent and immediately translates. "Hideout."

No one replied and she lapsed back into silence.

Bearing through uncalled memories, JiU saw that their eyes no longer held the malicious intent of whatever had controlled them. They were the eyes of her friends, the ones she'd had fun with countless times. But she saw other things in their expressions - Confusion, panic, and most of all, guilt.

"Girls..." Gahyeon sniffed and wiped her eyes the back of her hand. "What have we done? And, where's Yoohyeon?"

Dami looked towards JiU. "That guilty look on your face tells me you know something. Wanna do some explaining?"

"Don't you all look guilty?" JiU snapped back, then frowned as she lowered her head. "Sorry, that was uncalled for. "I don't know, but she's not here with us."

"Oh God." Handong mumbled in horror and clutched her head.

"Things just go from bad to worse." Dami commented drily before sobering up. "What in the hell happened? What I remember is unclear. JiU?"

"I..." JiU's words stumbled as she remembers the spinning top and the evil spirit. "I really don't know."

"Well, let's not play the blame game then, shall we? "SuA finally spoke up and took the lead. "Let's just find someone to rest and figure out where we are."

Things went downhill from there.

SuA had found them cheap lodging that night and they spent the next few days in a single cold room with a small bathroom attached and oven.

JiU constantly felt watched by Dami, every action she did analysed by her sharp eyes.

Three days later, she left, unable to deal with the guilt of being around them anymore, for fear she would burst with the guilt building up inside of her.

After that night, everyone seemed unwilling to converse with each other, all stuck in their own guilt-infested thoughts. One by one, the girls all dropped away until only SuA and Dami were the last ones left.

"Will you leave?" SuA asked fearfully.

"Leave you? I don't think so."

"Why did the others leave then? We're friends, aren't we?"

"Everyone feels guilty, I think." Dami bit her lip and ignored her own demons whispering about the book. "We were all possessed. And made to do terrible things. We took lives, trapping people in photographs and most of all, we abandoned Yoohyeon to save our own skins.

SuA winced without comment as she sat closer to her for a side-hug.

"Dami chuckled wryly. "There's no sugarcoating the truth. We all know what we did, even if we weren't in control."

"But we didn't know at the time." SuA was quick to point out. "I would blackout constantly, so everyone must have been like that too."

"Whatever we did, our brains remembered.

"We're so unlucky." SuA sniffled.

"...Do you remember when you look at me?" Dami questioned. "I can't help but think that's why everyone left."

"I agree." She admitted reluctantly. "In all honesty, I can see myself leaving that book in the library for you to find. I can picture lots of things I did, without knowing what I was doing."