In The Arms Of Morpheus || CHOI SAN

V

 
 
 
After Sieon changed her clothes –few of her clothes which she had just in case left with Chaeyoung, she came back in the shop, dropped in her seat and started working on an order.

"San is actually a sweet guy. Isn't he, Sieon? I'm glad that we were able to leave a nice impression on him. He is also really frank. I'm sure he'll have lost of friends here."

"You're right. He does seem a 'sweet' guy but I'm not sure if I should actually believe him or not."

"And why is that?"

"Because last night..." Sieon hesitated while speaking, "Actually Chae, I didn't leave in the morning, I left late at night before dawn and–"

"Sieon, how many times do I have to tell you to not leave the house before dawn at the night if it's the Bell Night?" Chaeyoung asked irked at the young one's behaviour even when she had warned her a lot of times before.

"I'm sorry Chae. Just, listen... I was going back home and that's when I saw San and he wasn't alone but he wasn't with Yeosang either. I hid when I saw him but when I came out soon, he was gone. Gone with the person he was with. And before you say anything, there was pin-drop silence around us yet he managed to leave so quietly, I'm not sure how."

And that's when Chaeyoung started laughing which was indirectly a mock to the young one. "My God, Sieon! Stop it with your suspecting nature now. He's just a new comer who doesn't even know anything about here because he's from the mountains and you expect him to not feel curious even when his first night was like this."

"Laugh as much as you want, Chae. But like I said, he couldn't leave so quietly–"

"Sieon, really. Stop it." Chaeyoung said and looked at her friend with a serious gaze. "This propensity of yours will take you down one day and I really don't want that to happen to you. That's why, no matter how much you find it irritating, but I'll keep on trying to make you realize."

Sieon nodded her head with a small pout and continued what she was doing and so did Chaeyoung.
 

✂
 

 
It had been more than a week since San and Yeosang had became a part of the small village family and everyone had started to love them and they were, what everyone called them, ‘angels’.

But according to Sieon, they were nothing like angels because after their appearance in the village, the Bell Nights had been more frequent.

Something which used to happen weekly was now happening thrice a week and Sieon wasn't having it.

"Sieon, this is my last warning. Stop blaming them for the Bell, okay? Please." Chaeyoung said to her friend and carefully sewed the buttons on a shirt.

"Chae, how could you not believe me? You know me more than anyone else. You know how hard it is for me to sleep at night and...and I have nyctophobia as well. Already the Bell Nights were already so hard on me and now it had increased, yet you think that I shouldn't blame them–"

"Yes, I think that you're only using them as an excuse to blame it on someone whereas you know that they have nothing to do with it. Although, I'm glad you accept the fact that you have nyctophobia."

Sieon tried not to cry as she felt defeated. Ever since she's been left all alone in this world, she had never once had a peaceful day, and even if she did, the nights were always restless.

Sieon had been living in the village since birth and the Bell Nights which took place once in a blue moon was way too terrifying for people then(almost 10 years ago). But as time passed, the Bell Nights started to occur more frequently and even through the terror of it still stayed, the people gradually got used to it, casually predicting when the next night could take place.

It still bugged Sieon that, how the night when the new villagers; Yeosang and San, were welcomed in the village, two days before it the Bell Night had occured and it wasn't supposed to happen till the next week, but it still did when they arrived.

So when it had started to happen more often after their arrival, why was no one suspicious about them?
No answer.
But why was Sieon the only one suspecting them?
Because no one in the village was like her. No one went through what she did. She wasn't special, just, different.

The only information, Sieon or even the villagers ever got was, that the reason behind the Bell is something religious. Majority of the people say, the person who comes out with the bell, hides himself in a black and red cloth and he or she comes out from an abandoned temple not very far from the village, on a mountain. A lot of people had tried to go there to investigate but they never came back. Eventually people started assuming that there are ghost and spirits who come out at night to take food because a few times, the food which had been left out by the villagers was gone, and no one ever tried to investigate further, too scared to sacrifice their lives.

Sieon once jokingly asked her Uncle that what if she secretly went out to investigate 'The Bell' on her own and ever since then Sieon swore that she'll never touch that topic again as she got a really bad scolding from her Uncle who was just caring for her as his own daughter.

Oh how badly she wished this thing would stop, specially now that it had grown so much.

Being insomniac and having nyctophobia was some of the few things which a lot of villages had no knowledge of.

Sieon's restless nights –where she just turned left to right, right to left because she couldn't sleep, were too bothersome.

Her fear of darkness wasn't at its peak, but it wasn't something to look over either.

She was a human after all, a young girl to be precise, and often things could scare her too...