Chapter Text
a porcelain plate falls on the floor.
clash
Jennie jerks in shock as she was feeding her Samoyed, named Artemis. She quickly turns her head around at the sound and sighs with confusion.
''How did it fall off? I put it far behind the table." mumbled Jennie patting Artemis's head.
She gets up to slowly pick up the pieces of the plate. Jennie frowns, she really liked that plate, It was decorated with beautiful flowers on the edges with a golden border. She was always careful with her things, she didn't understand why she wasn't careful this time.
Jennie goes to throw the pieces but abruptly stops, and she thinks of a better idea and goes to get her acrylic paint from her room.
Jennie is a very artistic person, she has a huge passion for painting and wants to look at everything in the eye of an artist. When she was back home with her parents, She couldn't do much and decided to move out at 20 in a small cottage to truly live the cottagecore aesthetic, she didn't mind living alone, she calls her family and friends almost every weekend. and sells her painting online and has a small farm which grows all the things she needs.
She is happy with her life, this is the life she dreamed about anyway, small house, away from people, straight in the middle of no where, and doing her passion which was art.
Jennie begins painting the broken pieces with whatever designs she can think of flowers, butterflies and water waves, she gets bored and decides to walk her dog.
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The grass is warm and the weather has a light breeze, and Jennie walks foward, more closer to the woods.
Jennie has went into the forest a few times, usually to calm her mind or get some inspiration for her art, She has never went to deep in though, scared something might jump out and harm her, Besides who would she call if she does get harmed? there's no one close to her house and the only person she knows is the neighbour who lives about a kilometer away and who doesn't really like socializing, so walking there would be the last thing she would do.
But today could be different.
Jennie walks further into the woods, thinking there isn't much, except for a few animals that wouldn't do much unless you disturb them. Jennie turns back, to see if there's enough time for her to run back if there is something out there.
Clutching Artemis's dog leash tightly, she walks slowly, looking around with curious eyes and spots something that looks pretty, purple and blue in colour that stands out against the big grey rocks with moss. she walks closer to it and wishes to take picture, the flower looks alluring, almost looks like it's glowing. there's only a few of them, and Jennie can't help but pluck one out and thinks of taking it home.
The flower isn't too easy to take off, unlike other flowers and she puts a little more effort in pulling it off, and as soon as the flower comes off, a flock of birds sitting in the trees start to fly away, and the wind starts to blow harder, shaking the trees and the small leaves and twings on the ground start to fly off, over this, the clouds get dark as well, signaling that it's about to rain.
Huh, that's strange.
Jennie holds the flower in one hand and the dog leash on the other, and she turns back to go home, and instantly the winds starts blowing harder and harder, making her shirt lift up and the weather feels suddenly cold, too chilly to for her to stay any longer and starts walking faster to her home.
She reaches home, and quickly shuts the door and locks it, places the flower on the kitchen table and sits down on the couch and proceeds to remove Artemis's leash.
She gets up, puts the flower in a small vase that she made back in collage for pottery class and starts to make dinner.
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''that'll be about 15 dollars''
Jennie gives the money and hands the bags on her bike and gets on. The bike is one of the most percious things to her as it was the first thing she bought when she actually starting making money, amongst all the depressive stages she's been on, it's a Tuesday and Jennie wanted to go shopping mainly to just to go outside and see people and to look at the busier parts of the city.
Jennie doesn't want to go home so soon, and thinks of going to a mall or something, cause it's usually once in a blue moon that she actually goes to explore the big city. she looks at the high buildings and heavy traffic and it all gives her memories of her teenage life. she ponders about going to either Hill House Home or Tim hortons, and concludes on filling her stomach first before going to the clothing store.
On the line waiting for her turn to order some Tim Bits, She sees a young couple walking past her, giggling and laughing, they seem to be happy in each other's presence, and she wishes she had the same.
It's been about 2 years since her last relationship, and ever since the accident happened and she lost her loved one, she didn't want to get into a relationship again. Now, the loneliness has been eating her apart. and wished for some human warmth.
she gets her food, and eats it in peace and begins checking her phone for messages. no messages the only contacts she has are her family and a few friends.
The only close friend Jennie has is Jisoo, but she's living in the city and has the busiest work schedule ever, Jennie doesn't want to disturb her so she decides to not call her, most people would be working at the office at this time anyway.
she finishes her food fast and enters Hill House Home and decides to pick a few dresses and accessories.
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After some looking through some things and walking around the mall, Jennie went to a small park for a walk and decided it was time to go home.
the weather was lovely, the sun was setting and the sky was pink and orange with little hues of purple, Jennie couldn't help but snap a picture and she got on the bike and rode home.
She had reached home and opened the door to see Artemis, energetic and joyful jumping up to her.
''aww, you missed me? you missed mommy? I missed you too darling-mwah-mwah-mwah'' Jennie cooed while patting his head gently.
The door was still open wide, she hadn't closed it yet since nobody is around anyway and she felt a cool presence on her back.
She looked back and saw nothing and was confused as to why it suddenly felt cold.
The door closed shut.
Jennie didn't close the door, it closed by itself.
Could've been the wind, but it's not windy today.
Jennie shrugged the thought off. and decided to spend her time in the evening by stitching.
Jennie had a small hobby that she would do every now and then and it was making new clothes. she liked making clothes which were usually for her dog. she wished to start a clothing business whenever she's ready.
while stitching a small red crop top in her sewing machine, she accidently pricked her index finger.
''fucking hell'' she huffed and got up to wash her finger.
she didn't have a band-aid with her so she just left the wound to heal it by itself.
After stitching half of the top, she gave up and decided to cook dinner. today it was Vegetable Bouillabaisse and the leftover lemonade from morning.
After she finished eating, she put the cutleries on the sink for wash and from the corner of her eye, she sees the flowers she plucked out the other day. she walks in the direction of the flowers to get a closer look. Jennie picks a flower up to take a sniff and feels a cooling sensation on her finger. she put the flower on the other hand and lifts up her finger-
''what'' Jennie whispers in shock, the wound she got from stitching was gone, the cooling sensation was still felt in the area of the wound, but the wound was not there anymore, she even presses on the skin but feels no pain. she flips the hand back and the front to see if it was actually some where else, but it not there anymore. ''did it really-?" Jennie looks for another wound and remembers the scratch she got from moving the lawn this morning. She places the flower on the scratch, the same thing happens again and She lifts up the finger to see the scratch gone.
''this heals wounds?'' Jennie mumbles in confusion, she wants to try it again and looks for other wounds, none that she can remember, so she looks for a wound on Artemis, She checks his paws and but finds no wounds, well that's good, at least he's not getting hurt. Jennie looks at the flower again, she's never heard or seen such a flower that heals wounds this instantly, Jennie was used ayurvedic treatments and knows their benefits, but this flower was very new to her.
Jennie feels baffled, She looks up the net to see if such a flower was found and discovered, but there wasn't, which means she was the first one to find. She wants to tell her little discovery to someone. and as soon as her thumb searches for the contact-
there's a light scraping sound behind her, Jennie looks back around at the kitchen to see that the knife was not on the cutlery rack anymore, it was now floating on air and was pointed directly at Jennie. She drops the flower down in shock, she feels like she's dreaming, she lifts her hand to grab the knife, and it moves away, she reaches for it again, the knife moves again.
Suddenly It's raining and there's loud thunder.
Artemis runs from the bedroom to find his owner and starts barking, Jennie turns to look at him, Artemis is not barking at Jennie. He's barking at the direction where the knife is, Jennie feels like she's going insane, looking back at the knife, It is now moving left and right, up and down, like an infinity sign. Jennie reaches up to grab the knife one last time and the knife moves back and starts to charge at Jennie.
Jennie screams, picks up Artemis from the ground and starts running, the turns back and the knife is still there, charging at her. there's isn't much space for running in the house, so she looks for a place to hide, she goes inside the cupboard and closes shut. Artemis starts whining, Jennie tries to cuddle him and shush him.
It goes silent for a while, There isn't much space in the cupboard, she kept things that will be needed for her sewing, She squeezed herself in as much as possible. Jennie tires to stop her heavy breathing by taking deep breaths and starts to calm herself, There isn't much space to . She thinks of what to do when she gets up, hopes it's just an imagination and It's not actually a Knife trying to kill her.
There's loud banging on the door of the cupboard, Jennie closes her eyes shut, clutching Artemis tightly.
The door swings open, Jennie opens her eyes wide, There's no knife in front of her, Jennie steps out, holding her dog tightly.
''Hello''
Jennie gasps in shock, turns around to look, but she finds no one.
am I actually going insane?, Jennie thinks in worry
''I'm not going to harm you anymore'', The a sweet breathy voice spoke again.
''Where are you? I-I can't see you'' Jennie gulped looking around to see if there's actually someone. she also starts searching for a weapon, though there's no actual weapon avaliable right now next to her, Jennie thinks that anything could be a weapon if you try hard enough. this seems like some hollow man shit, Jennie thinks.
''Can you find me?'' The sultry voice challenges Jennie, and Jennie has no choice but to find.
Behind her, Jennie sees the sage green paint bucket, the one she brought to paint the walls of the storeroom and thinks of an idea, she grabs a large paint brush, instantly opens the lid, dips the paint in, and splashes it all around her, sadly the paint didn't get on who ever it was that was talking and it only made a mess around her storeroom. She tries this several times around her and wants to give up. The creature starts laughing lightly and Jennie is starting to get annoyed.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, she opens them slowly and is very sure of herself this time.
Looking down, Jennie sees footsteps of paint directed towards her and she is now certain that the creature is coming towards her. Jennie quickly grabs the paint bucket shoves it forward, causing the paint to successfully get on the creature and it is now visible. It's not all that clear and It makes the creature look like a green blob but it's enough for Jennie to see.
''Very clever, you won'' The voice praised and Jennie's heart skips a beat. It seems like the creature is raising it's hands, causing it looks like two green branches on each side dripping in green paint. Judging by the voice, it seems like it's a woman, an invisible woman.
''Show yourself'' Jennie hisses.
It goes silent for a moment, The invisible woman stays still and Jennie sighs, throat swallows tightly.
''Go on'', Jennie insists.
Not a second later, sparkles all over the creature starts to shine, Jennie feels like she's watching some children's cartoon and soon as the sparkles start to fade-
Jennie can't believe her eyes, the creature is a woman and looks breathtakingly beautiful. It has long gray wavy hair that goes all the way to it's waist, with soft facial features, round black eyes and pale skin and rosy lips. It does have human features but at the same time, there's something about the way it looks that makes it look like a fairy. It's staring straight at Jennie and she can't help but feel very much intimidated by the pretty woman.
The woman tilts her head slightly to the side and smiles, Jennie's heart starts beating even faster and her cheeks starts to feel hot.
''Why are you here in my house?'' Jennie demands for an answer, starts to get angry.
''You took something from me.'' The woman replies, walks to get closer to Jennie.
Jennie takes a few steps back wards and shifts glances around the room, unable to look at the creature in the eye.
''W-what did I take? I don't even k-know who you are'' Jennie replies low and bites her tongue cause she feels embarrassed she stuttered.
''Remember the flower?'' The woman asks and starting to walk even closer.
Jennie furrows her brows, She has took so many flowers for her house decor before, which one could the woman be possibly asking for? She thinks for a second and understands which one the woman is asking about. The damn magical herbal flower.
''Y-yes, I didn't know it was yours, I-I'm sorry, just a minute I'll give it back'' Jennie excuses her self and walks away to the kitchen the get the flower. When she gets away from the kitchen. Jennie takes a deep breath. Seems like she's been holding her breath in there for so long. She's so pretty what the fuck Jennie thinks, She's grabs the flower and looks at it, all because of a damn flower this all had to happen, Now Jennie has some weird fairy creature in her house. She thinks about what it will do after she gives the flower, would it take it and go away and never come back again? or would it not go and demand Jennie some kind of punishment? Jennie thinks of that dancing knife again and shudders. She shakes the thought off and returns back to the storeroom to give back the flower.
''I got the flower'' Jennie enters to see that-
She's gone.
Jennie looks around the room to see that the woman is not there anymore.
There's no one in the room, except for artemis who jumps at Jennie happily.
She sees the large puddle of paint, along with the foot prints around it.
She feels a shudder through her spine.
I probably am going insane
Jennie feels perplexed.
‘’I missed you so much!’’ Jisoo exclaims as she brings Jennie into a bear hug.
‘’Me too’’ Jennie mumbles in Jisoo’s shoulder and hugs tighter.
Jisoo is Jennie’s best friend, they met through collage and been close friends ever since. Jennie is very grateful to have Jisoo has her friend, Although they have different majors, they met through Dahyun’s Halloween party in the bathroom. Jennie was wasted started to throw up and Jisoo just came in to fix her dress, Jisoo gladly helped the younger brunette and to go home and they introduced themselves and became best buddies.
She helped Jennie through her highs and lows and Jennie couldn’t be more happy to have a friend like her. Jisoo graduated Fashion studies and is now working to make new designs and material for models and advertisement, it was her passion from the start and she became very successful although she gets really busy and that makes it hard for the both of them to meet often.
On the other hand, Jennie graduated in Arts school and has a passion for photography and painting, Her parents didn’t support her much due to her major choice, they felt that it was a very ‘’safe’’ choice and she should’ve chosen a something that would be more easier to make money. Jennie chose it regardless of her parent’s decision. Which caused them to neglect her and avoid contact, Jennie moved out soon after and now she’s in a small cottage in the middle of a forest which she calls her new home.
‘’Gosh, I still don’t know how you manage to live out here’’, Jisoo gasps while looking out through the mirror.
‘’Well, I like it so…’’ Jennie shrugs.
‘’No, you don’t understand Jen, what if there’s an emergency?’’, Jisoo queries, worried for Jennie’s safety. She looks through the window with wide eyes, ‘’Who knows what’s in that forest? Bears? Monkeys? Oh lord’’, Jisoo turns to look back at Jennie.
Jennie presses her lips in a thin line and shifts her feet, there is something she wanted to tell her friend, but she didn’t really know how to bring it up, Now that Jisoo does say something regarding the same topic, Jennie didn’t want to delay it. Jennie hesitates for a while and the older brunette finds out something is wrong.
‘’Is there something you want to tell me?’’ Jisoo asks, furrowing her eyebrows.
‘’Yeah’’, Jennie fumbles, pushing her hair from her ear, she continues ‘’It happened 2 days ago-‘’ She starts to breath heavily, ‘’I-I went to the woods, a-and t-took a flower-’’, Jennie swallows tightly.
‘’Hey wait-‘’ Jisoo starts to worry, and she goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Jennie chugs the whole glass and sighs, ‘’You won’t believe me if I tell you’’ She looks down at her feet. ‘’Don’t say that, I will always believe you.’’ Jisoo replies with a small smile and rubs the younger girl’s back slowly. ‘’Tell me, Nini’’, Jennie giggles at the nickname, Jisoo usually calls her that when she’s drunk.
Jennie’s eyes sparkles at the memory,’’ I have drinks, Vieux Carré, your favorite.’’ she says with a cheeky smile.
‘’No no no, not now Jen maybe later’’ Jisoo chuckles and shakes her head.
Jennie smiles, her heart feels warm again.
‘’Now, will you please tell me what happened?’’ Jisoo pleads.
Jennie turns her head to look back at the kitchen knife, expecting it to lift up again if she speaks about it any time soon, she breaths heavily through her nose and exhales through her mouth and glances back at Jisoo with nervous eyes and looks back down again.
‘’There was a demon-fairy whatever it was, it was not human or an animal, it came in my house’’ Jennie looks back at Jisoo to see her expression, Jisoo looked utterly confused.
‘’A Demon?’’ Jisoo asks with a raised eyebrow, she thought it was ridiculous.
‘’See I told you you were not believe me.’’ Jennie feels defeated.
She gets up from her chair and crosses her arms over her chest.
‘’Jennie” Jisoo huffs, like a mother disappointed in her disobedient child.
''What is it?'' Jennie replies, narrowing her eyes.
Jisoo closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, prepares herself for what she is about to say next, She exhales through her mouth and looks at Jennie in the eye.
''Have you been drinking?''
Jennie’s jaw hangs open, almost like it’s about to down onto the floor.
Back in college, Jennie did developed some bad drinking habits which took her a long time to stop, due to her feeling lost and hopeless during her time in college where as her friends actually had plans for the future, Jennie couldn’t help but stick out like a sore thumb in her friend group. At one point, she began to push her friends away even though all they did nothing wrong, she felt as if she didn’t belong there. Hence, being alone got her bored so she went to clubs more often to drink and dance, hook up and anything but getting help.
When Jisoo found out about Jennie’s routine, she was not having any of it, told her to immediately stop and find better things to do, being her bestfriend of course she was worried, so day by day she slowly began to throw the alcohol bottles and was shocked to see marijuana stashed behind a stack of bottles in her cupboard. It was an argument, both crying and Jennie finally told her she would end it all.
Fast forward to her graduation, things were getting somewhat better, she got a job, moved out from her parent’s house and took things at a slower pace. She finally found herself and is now working much better at her new home.
Back to present, It makes a lot of sense why Jennie is shocked at Jisoo for what she said.
‘’Unnie? Are you being serious right now?’’ she asks in shock, eyes bulging at the older brunette
Oh boy, Jisoo curses under her breath, bringing back those memories was surely not a good thing to do, but Jisoo could possibly not believe that there’s actually a fairy-demon living in Jennie’s home.
‘’I’m not doing any of that anymore, so you can stop worrying’’ Jennie says after observing how speechless Jisoo looks.
‘’I really don’t understand how this could be real, how are you so sure?”
‘’Because I saw it with my own eyes!” Jennie exclaimed.
‘’You could have been hallucinating!’’ Jisoo said back.
Jennie took a deep inhale through her and presses her pointer finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose and exhaled, chest heaving.
‘’Okay, fine I’ll show it to you” Jennie says pulling Jisoo’s hand from her chair, ‘’Come with me.”
It’s the afternoon at 4pm and the weather is a bit gloomy, almost appears to be like it gonna rain at night. The grass is nice and crispy, so at least that’s how Jennie describes it, the wind blows lightly, shaking the trees, looking up, she sees the flock of birds coming back to their homes and making light chirping sounds, with the smell of the forest it’s all calming to her.
‘’I can see why you wanted to live here’’ Jisoo comments, gazing at the sight.
Jennie sweetly smiles at her, and takes the older brunette’s hand in hers.
Marching on the forest, with a bunch of leaves in the way, Jisoo pushes away a large bush, and a swarm of flies come out. ‘’this is so not good, how could you even think of coming here?” Jisoo says grimacing at a large spider crawling on the bark of a tree.
The younger girl laughs at the sudden change of mood in Jisoo, it’s such a sweet cheerful sound ‘’….I wanted to get some inspiration for my photographs.” Jennie replied, smiling at her friend.
And Jennie takes Jisoo to the same place she found the herbal flower, she doesn’t really know what she has in plan with it yet, but she’s just expecting the same invisible women to come back at her with the damn dancing knife.
‘’A few days ago, I came here-“
‘’A few days ago, I came here-“
‘’Ow! What the hell!’’ Jisoo exclaims, holding her right feet in pain.
‘’What happened?’’ Jennie asks worried.
‘’I think something bit me, extremely hard’’ Jisoo hisses in pain and removes her slipper to get the closer look, and there she sees it, a small bruise which is definitely going to get swollen with blood oozing out of it, ‘’Stupid bugs’’ Jisoo curses, puts the shoe back on and looks at Jennie’s sneakers and says ‘’Lucky you, came prepared with the sneakers and shit’’, and Jennie playfully pokes her tongue at Jisoo.
Jisoo throws back her middle finger in return.
‘’Where was I? oh yes- I came here to-“
Jennie get’s interrupted again by the rustling of the bush a few feet in front of her, Jisoo protectively pulls Jennie aback, eyebrows furrowed in concentration of the sudden movement formed in the bushes, they both stay quite for a while and when no strange noise erupts once again, Jennie continues.
‘’Maybe it’s a frog or something anyway, I came here because I was bored-‘’ she pauses to looks at Jisoo’s disapproving look and continues, trying her best to not laugh.
‘’and I saw this flower, it was so beautiful and couldn’t help but take it home, it’s just a flower- nothing harmful in it right? Sure, there are some poisonous flowers, but this one is quite the opposite.’’ Jennie says and leans forward to take out the flower.
‘’Oh wow, it’s beautiful, I’ve never seen this kind of flower before ” Jisoo gasps in awe of the beauty of the flower.
‘’Me too’’ Jennie repiles smiling, ‘’You wanna know something even better?’’ she whispers with excitement like a little kid.
‘’What? Enlighten me’’ Jisoo replies, raising her eyebrow.
‘’It can heal wounds!’’ Jennie whisper-yells.
‘’No way!’’ Jisoo whisper-yells back.
And they both giggle like pre-school kids.
‘’No seriously, I’m not joking, look-‘’ Jennie bend down and the older brunette bends down with her. And Jennie places the flower on Jisoo’s wound and let’s the magic happen by itself. The glowing effect along with the cooling and tingling effect, the younger brunette lifts the flower ‘’Abracadabra, Voila!’’, and Jisoo’s jaw drops in amusement.
‘’No way Jen, no way’’ Jisoo says, inspecting her feet with raised eyebrows ‘’How?’’
‘’It’s magic’’
‘’What did you say?’’ Jisoo raises her head at Jennie expecting her to repeat, but all she sees is Jennie’s shocked face.
‘’I-I didn’t say any-‘’
‘’Ladies up here!’’
They both turn their heads up to see the same invisible women, floating up high in the dark sky with large black wings. She tilts her head to the side and smiles at them, with sharp fangs shining brightly.
‘’I’m hungryyyy, got anything to offer?’’ Shes rasps, showing off her sharp nails in front of both the humans on the ground. And she comes down swiftly and quickly attempting to grab any one of the girls.
Both of them wasted no time in staring at the beast in fear, and began to run as fast home as they could.