Chapter Text
Kyungsoo had brought out his foldable table and foldable stool today, along with his homework to sit under his favourite tree, just as he always did on weekends when his parents didn’t have any plans to go out.
He liked that particular spot because the soil was never too muddy, even after a long day of rainso his shoes weren’t dirty when it was time to go back into the house. It wasn’t too deep into the woods either; it was easy to spot from the kitchen inside the house and the tree provided just enough shade to shield Kyungsoo from the sun.
The tree itself though, was another matter entirely.
It was old and big, reaching up towards the sky as gravity and its roots couldn’t hold it down to the earth, no matter the laws of physics. Kyungsoo had tried investigating it once in middle school for a science project, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what species it was.
The leaves were similar to maple leaves, but the underside was a dark, mottled purple and the bark didn’t look like the bark of the usual maple trees he’d seen online. The trunk was a misshapen mess as well, with thick bulges sticking out in the front. The tree looked like a pregnant woman, if Kyungsoo were to personify it.
Just looking at it felt chaotic but for some reason, Kyungsoo loved it. The tree just gave off a nice vibe, like a doting grandparent.
If he couldn’t figure how to balance an equation he liked to stare at it too, trying to imagine what the bulges looked like. And if he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the bulge sticking of the trunk looked like an arm and a little ways from it was a wing, sticking out at an angle.
An angel, Kyungsoo mused, looking up at it now. An angel trapped in a tree, condemned by God perhaps, or a demon, jealous of the angel’s beauty. The possibilities were endless.
But how did the angel get in the tree anyway? Kyungsoo asked himself.
That was a question worth pondering about. A breeze rustled through the woods, gentle and cool.
The rough bark of the tree was dark grey at this time of the year; its trunk looked dry and near death, but the branches still had plenty of leaves. Probably some cross species, Kyungsoo thought, opening up his books and turning to the pages he’d dog-eared in school. He’d long given up on figuring out what it was and had since settled on simply admiring the tree.
Kyungsoo had a bit of reading to do today for English class which was perfect in this weather. Then there were some questions to answer about the chapter he was supposed to read, so with luck he could probably have a free day tomorrow—
“BOO!” a loud voice bellowed from behind Kyungsoo.
Startled, he jerked on his stool and almost dropped his book on the ground. The douche bag behind him started laughing like it was such a hoot and Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes, recognizing the laugh. He didn’t need to turn around to elbow him right in the stomach, heart beating out of his chest.
“Ow!” Baekhyun complained, clutching at his stomach and dropping to the ground dramatically. Kyungsoo took a deep breath and returned his attention to his book.
“Always nice to see you, Baekhyun,” he said icily.
Sometimes Kyungsoo regretted ever showing Baekhyun the path he’d found through the trees when they were younger that led to Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s street. Baekhyun was always abusing the path by creeping up to Kyungsoo and scaring the living daylights out of him, even though he made it clear time and time again that such secret paths were not revealed to best friends only to have your best friend sneak up on you at the worst possible time.
“It was worth it,” Baekhyun grimaced from the ground, holding a thumb up.
Kyungsoo tried to find the page he was reading once more, but it was hard to concentrate now that Baekhyun was here. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure why he was still friends with him when it was obvious that their friendship didn’t have any positive benefits.
“You doin’ your homework?” Baekhyun jeered, getting to his feet. He cocked his head to one side, trying to get a look at the cover of the book.
“I suppose it’s quite foreign to you, since you never do your homework,” Kyungsoo replied nonchalantly. Baekhyun made a hissing sound as if that comment had burned him.
“Nobody does homework these days, it’s the in thing,” Baekhyun said. He started stretching while looking around the area, from the large tree to Kyungsoo’s home several feet away. Even though Baekhyun was silent, Kyungsoo could hardly read a single sentence in his book. His presence was just far too stifling for reading.
“What the hell do you want, Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo said after a minute, shutting his book with a snap. Baekhyun looked bewildered.
“Nothing.”
“You just casually came through the trees one fine day, knowing that I’d be sitting here, for nothing?” Kyungsoo pressed.
“Oh fine. Chanyeol had to go out with his parents for some camping trip and Jongdae’s having piano classes right now so I don’t have anyone to play with. Play with me, Kyungsoo, play with me,” Baekhyun whined, leaning his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder with his hands pressed together in mock prayer.
Kyungsoo sighed heavily.
He couldn’t believe Baekhyun was still in the mood to ‘play’. They were both too old to ‘play’ anything except Xbox or tag, both of which Kyungsoo had no interest in currently. “We’re sixteen,” he said slowly as if he were speaking to a child, “There’s nothing we can play, Baekhyun, not unless you’ve brought your toy cars with you.”
Baekhyun suddenly smiled at him with eyes wide open. “Yes, there is,” he said.
He stared at Kyungsoo for a few seconds, all smiles and wide eyes. Kyungsoo waited for him to say something.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Play with me, please,” Baekhyun replied, employing what he thought was his cutest voice. Kyungsoo wanted to puke all over him at that moment, half in annoyance and the other half in second hand embarrassment.
“Play WHAT?” Kyungsoo almost yelled.
“With, um,” Baekhyun mumbled, toeing the ground and swinging his body from side to side like some Japanese schoolgirl anime character.
“With?” Kyungsoo goaded him.
“With your... your um. Well, your— your Xbox at home,” Baekhyun mumbled, then batted his eyelashes at Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo rolled his eyes.
Baekhyun saw his reaction and immediately went into wailing-and-begging mode. “Please, Kyungsoo, please! Just this one time with your Xbox today and I’ll never bother you ever again. You can sit out here for the rest of the year if you want to, I’ll never crash through the trees while you do your boring homework—”
“I get the point,” Kyungsoo snapped. He looked down at his book in resignation. Taking out the Xbox would mean spending the whole day with it, no matter how much Kyungsoo wanted to read his book. He’d spent days like these with Baekhyun before where he was so engrossed with his game the day would just fly by.
“You’re buying me lunch at school on Monday,” Kyungsoo groused.
Baekhyun threw his hands up and started yelling incoherently, running in circles around Kyungsoo while he folded his chair and table to bring it back into the house. Baekhyun did a little dance as he ran, spinning and waving his arms around like an octopus. A breeze picked up again, as if the woods rejoiced with Baekhyun as well.
Kyungsoo put on his grumpiest expression, stopping Baekhyun mid-run to make him hold some of his stuff.
“Ew, I don’t touch stationery,” Baekhyun looked down at Kyungsoo’s things in disgust.
“Okay, then I can just set my stuff up again and—” Baekhyun took his things quickly out of Kyungsoo’s hands.
Kyungsoo laughed, nudging Baekhyun playfully while they started to walk.“Is your mom home?” Baekhyun asked.
“Yeah. My dad is too,” he nodded. Baekhyun pouted.
“It’s way more fun when parents aren’t around...”
They bickered as they walked together, climbing up the steps to the patio before entering through the back door.
Baekhyun walked in first, greeting Kyungsoo’s parents loudly. Kyungsoo shook his head as he shut the door after himself; Baekhyun came over far too often till he was almost an extended family member. It didn’t help that Kyungsoo’s mother thought he was ‘charming’ and welcomed him like she would her own son.
As he looked down to kick off his shoes, Kyungsoo caught a final glance at the old tree. Its branches were swaying in the breeze, some of its leaves fluttering into the distance. It looks a little lonely outside there, Kyungsoo thought.
He felt kind of sorry for the tree, standing there day and night all year round with not much company except for the other trees around it.
But he wasn’t a kid anymore, and trees didn’t feel anything.
*
“We’re just going to get dinner for you boys. No leaving the house, alright?” Kyungsoo’s mother said admonishingly, wagging a finger at them.
Kyungsoo looked up for a second to nod at his mother.
“Okay, mom. We’ll be inside,” he replied. A zombie suddenly appeared on the TV screen in the corner of Kyungsoo’s eye and he hacked at it with his weapon viciously, fingers pressing the buttons on his joystick frantically.
Baekhyun whooped in excitement, sitting up on the sofa. “What move was that, Kyungsoo, do it again!” he said.
Kyungsoo’s parents laughed and shook their heads at the both of them. “Take a break in a minute, boys. Your eyes will go bad if you stare at the screen for too long,” Kyungsoo’s dad said in a stern voice, getting all dad-ish.
“Don’t worry, I have my glass eyes in today,” Baekhyun replied without hesitation. Kyungsoo’s mother chuckled, taking her keys out from the key box on the wall.
“Have fun, alright? We won’t be gone very long, it looks like it’s going to rain soon,” she said.
Kyungsoo barely heard her, desperate to kill as many zombies as possible before the timer ran out. Baekhyun mumbled a goodbye after Kyungsoo’s parents as they left the house, his eyes peeled on the TV screen.
It was a little after they’dpulled out of the porch that the timer finally ran out, and Kyungsoo sliced three zombie heads off their shoulders just in time. The scores added up and Kyungsoo emerged as the winner of the round by 500 points.
The words ‘Congratulations, p3nguin_s00. You are the winner’popped out on the screen. He smirked as Baekhyun flung the joystick on the sofa beside him, curling up into a ball of silent shame.
“No,” he croaked quietly. Kyungsoo stood up, stretching his arms and legs.
They’d been playing on the Xbox since the afternoon, snacking on sliced fruits from the fridge in between the hours. Kyungsoo’s parents were busy cleaning upstairs throughout the entire time, so they were left to their own devices, literally. Kyungsoo was mildly surprised, in fact; he’d expected his parents to be a little stricter with him.
“How could I have lost the round? I was killing it,” Baekhyun ed. Kyungsoo threw a pillow at him.
“Because I did better than you, duh. Let’s take a break for real, Baek, my eyes are dry and I need to pee,” Kyungsoo said, rubbing at his eyes as he shuffled to the washroom by the stairs. He shut the door, listening to Baekhyun’s footsteps thump past to the kitchen.
“There’s some juice in the fridge,” Kyungsoo called. He heard a rattle and Baekhyun yelled, “But I want something to eat.”
“Help yourself then,” Kyungsoo called back. He flushed when he was done, washing his hands at the sink and observed his reflection. His eyes were a little red around the edges, and his skin looked a shade paler than usual.
The classic gamer look, Kyungsoo mused. Oh well, he’d get some eye drops from his room upstairs before going another round with Baekhyun.
He stepped out of the toilet a minute later, padding to the kitchen to see what Baekhyun had found in the fridge. He was munchinghappily on an energy bar, seated on a stool by the island. Baekhyun too, looked a little pale. Kyungsoo had no idea why staring at the TV for long hours did that to people.
“That energy bar belongs to my dad,” Kyungsoo said flatly.
“You said help yourself,” Baekhyun shrugged. Kyungsoo shrugged back; it wasn’t his problem if his dad came home later only to find out that his last energy bar for the week was gone.
“Don’t you need to head home soon? Or are you planning to sleep over?” Kyungsoo asked, pulling the fridge door open to get some juice. He took two glasses from the kitchen counter, pouring juice for the both of them while Baekhyun spoke.
“My mom hasn’t called so I guess she wouldn’t mind me sleeping over since it’s Saturday... But do I wanna be stuck in the same house with you for an entire night?” Baekhyun asked lightly.
Kyungsoo stopped short from spitting into Baekhyun’s glass of juice. He handed it to Baekhyun with a surly look.
“Well, why don’t you think about it while I go upstairs and grab something?” he replied sarcastically. Baekhyun laughed, holding the glass up in cheers as Kyungsoo gulped down some juice before he placed it on the counter.
“I’ll think hard, I promise,” Baekhyun said, tapping his temple.Kyungsoo scoffed in amusement, walking away from him.
He hummed a little song to himself as he went up the stairs to grab some toffee candy he’d hid under his bed just for Baekhyun. He never put them in the fridge because he knew that Baekhyun wouldn’t be able to resist eating all of them at once and so he fed them to Baekhyun in small trickles whenever he came over. Again, he wasn’t quite sure how they were still friends through the years. Baekhyun was such a dumb .
It was dark with all the doors closed and the lights out. Some moonlight shone in from a small window above the stairs, but apart from that it was almost pitch black. Kyungsoo was hardly afraid of the dark, though it was a little unnerving to hear the trees swaying in the wind like they were afraid of something.
He always thought it sounded like they were whispering warnings to one another, their soft voices carried by the wind.
Stop scaring yourself, he thought, shaking his head. It was probably an after effect from all that gaming the entire afternoon. Kyungsoo opened the door to his bedroom, feet padding on the soft carpet.
He didn’t bother with the lights, just went down straight on his knees to crawl under his bed. Kyungsoo felt around blindly with his hands for the air tight jar and tugged it out when his fingers curled around it. With a bit of difficulty, he shuffled out from underneath his bed and yelped when he conked his head on the metal frame.
“Goddamn it,” he mumbled, rubbing his skull. The things he did for Baekhyun sometimes. Without any further preamble, he unscrewed the cap from the jar, sticking his hand in to grab a few of the toffee sweets in his fist and shut it again, pushing it under his bed when he was done.
Kyungsoo got to his feet, about to walk out of the room with the candy in hand when thunder and lightning crashed loudly in the sky.
He ducked on instinct out of surprise, catching a glance of blinding white in the corner of his eye from the window facing his bed. “HOLY !” he heard Baekhyun yell out from downstairs.
Holy indeed; that was the loudest clap of thunder Kyungsoo had ever heard in his entire life. He immediately thought of his parents who were probably on the road and hoped they were fine. I think I’ll give ‘em a call, Kyungsoo thought anxiously.
And he would have been dialling up his parents seconds later downstairs, if only he didn’t spot something moving outside his window when a flash of lightning illuminated the outside world for a second.
Kyungsoo frowned, freezing in his tracks. He thought he saw his favourite tree move, and it wasn’t just the branches. The trunk itself seemed to have moved, as if it had come to life on such a thunderous night. Kyungsoo approached the window, squinting out carefully into the darkness. With his astigmatism he couldn’t see much, but he thought he could make out a few shapes.
A large branch had fallen from a tree and lay between the short distances of the woods to Kyungsoo’s home. Some of the trees were leaning unnaturally towards the ground, bending in the direction of the wind. Another flash of lightning, and he caught sight of his tree.
Its trunk was split in half to his amazement, as if someone had tried to break out from the tree. The middle was charred black too, probably from the powerful strike of thunder. Of course, Kyungsoo knew intellectually that he had seen the tree move now because it had been cracked apart like an egg by the thunder, but somehow he couldn’t quite shake it off.
That was probably the creepiest thing he’d ever seen happen to the woods behind his home. It’s probably just the shock, Kyungsoo told himself. What if he’d been out there for some reason? He would’ve died without a doubt, cooked to death in a split second. A shudder ran down his spine. Goosebumps sprung to life, prickling his arms and the back of his neck. His imagination was running wild as he backed away from the window.
It was time to go downstairs.
He hurried out of his room and down the stairs, too shaken to be thinking straight. It wasn’t like there was anything to be afraid of at home, but the darkness didn’t seem so welcoming anymore.
“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo called when he reached the bottom of the stairs. His hands were shaking slightly.
“Yeah, I’m over here,” Baekhyun called back from the kitchen. Kyungsoo walked over to the kitchen, expecting Baekhyun to be scared out of his wits. Instead, he was surprised for a second time in the span of five minutes.
“Jesus,” Kyungsoo hissed.
Baekhyun was crouched on the ground with a handheld broom and dustpan set, shattered glass scattered all over the kitchen floor. It looked like there were a million pieces on the ground, reflecting light from the chandelier hanging over the kitchen island. He yelled and gestured at Kyungsoo to stop at once.
“Don’t come any closer yet,” he warned, “you don’t wanna injure yourself.” Kyungsoo noticed Baekhyun had his mother’s slippers on his feet. At least he was being careful.
“But Baekhyun, what the hell happened? Did you break something?” Kyungsoo asked, placing the toffee candies on the kitchen island. He looked around the kitchen, trying to figure out what could’ve been the object the pieces of glass once was.
“You got me, Kyungsoo. I have no idea what just happened,” Baekhyun shook his head.
“One minute I’m sitting here eating peacefully and the next minute, the thunder was so loud I thought I went deaf. Then I feel something brushing my foot and it scared the out of me so I looked down at the ground before I realized the window above the sink had broken and there was just glass everywhere,” Baekhyun said, pushing as much glass he could onto the dustpan.
“Okay…” Kyungsoo breathed.
He glanced up at the window; it wasn’t just broken. The frame was completely empty now and devoid of anything to hold back the wind and rain from outside. He spotted some chunks of glass in the sink as well. The little curtain hanging above it fluttered.
That’s new, Kyungsoo thought. It must’ve been some kind of freak storm out there if it could split the tree in half and even break a window.
“Did a stone fly through the windowor something?” Kyungsoo asked, walking away from the kitchen to get an extra broom and dustpan from under the stairs. His mother was going to freak once she came home to this.
“I don’t know, I haven’t found anything yet,” Baekhyun replied.
“It’s okay. Let’s just clean all this up, but leave the sink alone.” Kyungsoo returned to the kitchen and began to sweep up the bits of glass nearest to him.
There was less glass than he initially thought since some of it crashed into the sink, but Kyungsoo was taking no chances. He swept the kitchen five times over even after Baekhyun was done collecting the larger bits. Call him paranoid neat freak, but at least he’d be sure no one would cut themselves on a sharp piece of broken glass later.
“Hey, I think I’ve just found the culprit,” Baekhyun suddenly said when he was throwing the last bits of glass away into the bin under the sink.
Kyungsoo joined him by the sink cautiously, as if staring at the pieces of glass for too long could cut him. Baekhyun pointed with his little finger, “Do you see that under this piece of glass here? It’s not a rock that flew in… I think it’s a broken branch.”
Kyungsoo looked a little closer and saw that Baekhyun was right. It was a broken branch, but it was thick and looked solid with a small leaf stuck to it.“It looks healthy though,” Kyungsoo frowned.
“Branches don’t get sick, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun said in a loud, obnoxious voice. Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, glaring at Baekhyun.
“I mean, it doesn’t look all dry and brittle, which is how it could’ve taken out the whole damned window. It was broken and snapped off a tree, maybe from the storm,” Kyungsoo said, then looked out the empty window frame. He could see from where he stood that the big tree was still split in half (so it wasn’t my imagination, he thought), branches leaning dangerously over its sides like banana peel.
“I bet it came from that tree,” Kyungsoo pointed outside, feeling a shiver run down his spine.
Baekhyun squinted out into the darkness then gasped at the sight of the old tree, or what was left of it just mere metres away from the house. The large fallen branch partially blocking their view of the woods looked even larger from the kitchen, its crooked arms reaching out somewhat feebly in multiple directions. The whole thing was starting to creep Kyungsoo out.
“Let’s just wait for my parents to come back,” Kyungsoo said, more to himself than to Baekhyun. He didn’t like how the woods looked different now. Like it was unsafe, or hiding something dangerous among the shadows.
His best friend nodded, putting the dustpan on the kitchen island. Kyungsoo thought Baekhyun looked a little shaken too, a touch of tension around his jaw.
“Oh hey, is that toffee? Thanks, Soo,” Baekhyun brightened up when he saw the toffee candy Kyungsoo left on the other end of the kitchen island. Kyungsoo shrugged and laughed weakly, shoving him gently towards the living room. If only he could lighten up as easily as Baekhyun did. There was something unsettling in the air now, something like danger.
*
At night Kyungsoo lay in bed wide awake, staring up at his ceiling. There were airplanes, cars and trucks all over it, zooming to some destination only a little boy could imagine.
Admittedly, the wallpaper of his ceiling and bedroom walls had yet to catch up with his adolescence period. But just as his wallpaper was childish now that he was sixteen, soon to be eighteen, Kyungsoo was wide awake not because he couldn’t sleep, but because he was childishly afraid to be alone in his room.
His mother, as Kyungsoo wisely predicted, was terrified and worried out of her wits when she came home with pizza and pasta to learn that a piece of broken branch had smashed into the window.
She was worried that Baekhyun might’ve been hurt and sent Kyungsoo’s father to drive him back to his home at once (with three slices of pizza and a serving of creamy fettuccine of course, to thank him for helping with the clean up). Then she fretted over the window, lamenting that it would cost a bit of money to get someone in to fix it and not to mention, “How are we going to sleep tonight?” she complained.
Kyungsoo had frowned. How did the broken window have anything to do with sleeping?
“What if a robber slips in through this window and takes our money, our things? The back door is just right here and they could reach for the doorknob if they really tried... Oh Kyungsoo, I’m sorry I left you all alone when this happened,” she said when she caught the pale look on Kyungsoo’s face.
“You must’ve been scared,” she patted his back soothingly.
“It’s okay, mom, I’m not ten anymore,” he had chuckled, hugging her. They taped the empty window frame up just to be on the safe side.
If I’m not ten anymore then why am I still awake? Kyungsoo asked himself. Honestly, there was nothing to be afraid about. His father chose to sleep on the couch tonight to make sure no one would break in from the kitchen, and they had locked up every room, including their own bedroom doors in case someone did break in and managed to creep past Kyungsoo’s dad.
They had never been robbed the entire time they lived in the house, not even so much as have a car drive around the area suspiciously, but Kyungsoo was still scared. Scared enough that he was having trouble sleeping, and he wasn’t an insomniac.
What am I scared of anyway?He thought angrily.
All that really happened was a broken window and a broken tree, not really much of an indication that he should be scared of anything specifically. His senses didn’t agree with his reasoning, however; his ears kept tuning to every little sound, from the sound of the trees still swaying in the wind to brief creaks around the house. The weather wasn’t helping too. The rain had slowed down some and the thunder already stopped an hour ago but it was still drizzling outside. He felt like he was about to go insane with fear and paranoia.
Maybe I’ll read a book or something, he thought. A calming book might soothe him somewhat till he could fall asleep. In the morning, it would all just be a memory, one that Kyungsoo could look back at and laugh at himself for being so afraid of a thunderstorm.
Gritting his teeth with determination, Kyungsoo kicked off the covers and walked over to his small bookshelf, scanning through the titles on the spines of his book collection.
True Singapore Ghost Stories? Not tonight, sorry. Frankenstein? Nope. The Twilight Saga? Jesus Christ, no, and it wasn’t even his set of books to begin with. Baekhyun and his chick lit.
Pursing his lips, Kyungsoo tugged his encyclopaedia of trees and flowers out of the shelf in annoyance, as if his book collection was to blame for all his fears and worries.
He stalked back to his bed, dug out a torch from the drawer of his dresser and began to read the encyclopaedia, one that didn’t contain monsters or ghosts or vampires. Just plain old science, pretty pictures of plants and bits of information that could come in handy if he ever wanted to be a botanist one day.
The drizzle outside stopped after a while. The world tuned out as Kyungsoo lost himself in long words that he couldn’t pronounce, imagining the smell of each flower he came across in the encyclopaedia. His parents had bought him a set of encyclopaedias when he was 12 but this particular one was his favourite. It gave him just enough information to capture his attention without dragging on too much, and he had learned a lot about the plants out behind his home through this book.
Kyungsoo was reading about the belladonna flower under the ‘B’ category and how it was sometimes used as a symbol of ancient magical lore when Kyungsoo heard a low thud from downstairs, the sound so soft and muted he wondered if he imagined it.
He looked up, tilting his head to one side. It sounded like it came directly below him, and what else could be below his bedroom but the kitchen?
Maybe it’s just dad getting some water, Kyungsoo thought. Wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Do got thirsty at night, he had bumped into his father many times in the dead of night looking for a glass of water too.
Then he heard it, a soft thud. It was so low Kyungsoo barely heard it through the silence. But he did hear it and it wasn’t his imagination anymore.
Dad probably bumped into the island, Kyungsoo told himself, feeling his heartbeat quicken in his chest. It’s nothing big, nothing’s wrong, there’s no intruder in the house, Kyungsoo tried to tell himself. He bit his lower lip, glancing at his bedroom door. He half expected the doorknob to suddenly twist like someone from the other side was trying to come in, but nothing happened.
Oh God, I can’t take this, Kyungsoo thought, shutting his encyclopaedia.
There were two choices now. Kyungsoo could stay in bed, listening to every little bump in the night and wonder if his father was alright downstairs or he could open the door, go downstairs himself and check on the window and back door, make sure everything was still locked and tight.
The first option, Kyungsoo liked; it would mean he was safe for sure upstairs but that was stupid and selfish. If there really was a robber, they could smash down Kyungsoo’s bedroom door if they wanted to. Which led to the second option; going out of his room to see for himself that everything was fine and reassure himself that he was just being paranoid. Both sounded daunting. Only one made sense.
Kyungsoo got out of bed once more, gripping his torchlight tightly in his hand. He took baby steps towards his bedroom door, staring at the thin beam of faint moonlight coming through from beneath it. If a person had been standing there then the straight horizontal line would’ve been interrupted. So, squaring his shoulders with a steely determination that he did not have, Kyungsoo unlocked the door and threw it wide open.
Nothing.
The usual vase of fake flowers stood at its usual corner near the top of the stairs, the window above the stairs was still shut tight and locked... Not that anyone could’ve climbed through that unless they could fly.
Coast is clear then, Kyungsoo thought, stepping out. His mother’s bedroom door on his right was closed too. He reached out a hand to try the door, and it was still locked.
Good. Moving on downstairs, Kyungsoo thought, trying to remain as calm and objective as possible. The thud really could’ve been anything, his dad, some misplaced object toppling over... An unwelcome intruder, his thoughts interjected.
Shutupbrainshutup, Kyungsoo shook his head hurriedly as he tiptoed to the stairs. He couldn’t see anything amiss downstairs and that should’ve sufficed, eased his anxieties enough for him to go back into bed. It wasn’t the deal he’d made with himself though, and he couldn’t actually see his dad from the top of the stairs.
I just need to know if dad is okay.That was all he needed, and he could go back to bed, throw the covers over himself and try to settle in for the night. That was all.
Holding the torch up to eye level, Kyungsoo took one step forward, then another and another.
He inched his way downstairs like that, keeping count so he wouldn’t trip and break his neck. It was slow and almost painful for his thighs. By the time he was at the bottom of the stairs, Kyungsoo’s mind was racing, his palms were sweaty and his heart was beating out of his throat. The entire world seemed to be holding its breath in the silence, waiting for something to shatter the quiet.
He turned to the right first, where the living room was. There his father slept on the couch, snoring as he took each breath. A blanket was thrown carelessly over himself, but other than that, Mr. Do was perfectly fine.
Thank God, Kyungsoo exhaled through his mouth. A burden lifted considerablyoff his shoulders, and he patted his chest to calm his heart.
Dad’s alright, he kept saying to himself in his head, Dad’s alright. All that was left now was to check on the window. Kyungsoo his heel, lowering the torchlight to his side. At that moment, he thought he saw a flash of black passing before him.
What was that?He froze, rooted to the spot where he stood.
It had to have been my imagination, Kyungsoo thought. Like the thudding noise he thought he heard, it happened so quick Kyungsoo was almost sure he imagined this too. Almost. He turned his head stiffly to the left where he thought the person or shadow or thing had gone to; there was nothing under the stairs.
Was it just my own shadow against the wall? Kyungsoo thought.
Jesus, how long did he have to keep asking himself these questions? He was tired of feeling afraid and reassuring himself that it wasn’t a ghost or some sort of intruder. There aren’t any ghosts in this world, Kyungsoo recalled his grandmother saying once.
No ghosts.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Kyungsoo murmured under his breath. That was more like it. Saying it out loud made him feel better, like it was the truth just because he could hear himself say those words.
“Nothing to be chicken about,” Kyungsoo muttered once more, taking large strides towards the kitchen. Moving like he was confident reassured him some. “There is nothing to be afraid of, nothing except a burglar with a gun—” he stepped into the kitchen, holding up the torch.
Oh my God. Kyungsoo’s courage dropped down to zero.
Everything was wrong. Or to be more precise, only one thing was wrong about the scene, so very wrong that Kyungsoo felt goosebumps prickle over his spine, arms and legs, his heart rate picking up.
The kitchen was fine. His mother’s kitchen tools were untouched. The window above the sink was still taped up, thin beams of moonlight peeking through the parts that weren’t covered completely. But a breeze was coming through the back door, and that wasn’t right, it wasn’t ing right because the back door was wide open.
I have to warn Dad—
That was all Kyungsoo could manage to think of before the smell of earth and brimstone filled his nostrils and a hand clamped down heavily over his mouth.
Without thinking, Kyungsoo flailed his arms in a panic to get away, dropping his torchlight. He never heard it clatter to the ground and neither did his dad seem to hear it either, because Kyungsoo felt the intruder press his arm over Kyungsoo’s front and drag him towards the stairs, holding Kyungsoo close against his body. Kyungsoo struggled with all his might but it was futile; whoever it was much stronger than Kyungsoo.
He didn’t want to die like this or be before his entire body was chopped up and thrown into a river. He had so much to say and see, so much more he wanted to do before he was six feet into the ground. Kyungsoo wiggled and thrashed against the intruder with all his might despite knowing the odds were against him, angry tears running down his cheeks.
“You’re mine now,” the intruder, a male, rasped in Kyungsoo’s ear, mouth brushing his earlobe. Kyungsoo shuddered and protested under his hand weakly, straining to break out of the intruder’s iron grip.
Before he knew it, the intruder’s arm over him snapped up in a blur to hold Kyungsoo’s face up at a certain angle. Kyungsoo kept his eyes wide open, wanting to know the face of his murderer. Somewhere in the back of his head, Kyungsoo noted that the intruder smelled like earth; what a strange scent to wear.
All Kyungsoo caught were green slit-pupilled eyes like a cat’s, and the next thing he knew was pain.
-
Kyungsoo dreamed of being stuck somewhere in a place terribly confined.
His body hurt because he couldn’t move, he felt like he couldn’t breathe properly, and the hopelessness he was drowning in was like a pit of quicksand, choking him of life. It felt like torture to be stuck in that one place.
The only solace he could find in such a confinement was a small window of light which he could peer out of, though the view was heavily blurred and distorted. Through it, he could see a white building built right in the middle of a grassy plain. It was a large construction of some sort that looked strangely familiar; a view that he seemed to remember and yet couldn’t place, like a person he vaguely recognized from long ago.
Regardless, the view was peaceful, unlike how Kyungsoo was feeling inside.
Someone abruptly exited the building just when Kyungsoo was starting to lose interest in looking out at the view. The person, perhaps a child no more than ten, could hardly remember to shut the door after himself before running over excitedly.
Now could be his chance to escape this treacherous trap! He tried to move his arms or legs to get the child’s attention though there seemed to be no space for him to do so. It was near impossible to move in the confined space; all that moved in the end were the branches stirring somewhere above his head.
Meanwhile, the child —naively oblivious to Kyungsoo’s internal struggle— meandered close enough to Kyungsoo from him to see that it was a young boy dressed in a sweater and long trousers.
Again, this child was familiar too, like the building just a short distance away, but Kyungsoo could not for the life of him, place where he had seen or met him. The boy soon came so close he disappeared from Kyungsoo’s limited view, his head of dark hair bobbing up every so often.
After a few minutes, the boy brushed his hand gently over Kyungsoo’s hip bone. He startled, but of course he didn’t move an inch. He wondered just what the boy was doing exactly. He seemed to be searching for something or observing the surrounding area of what Kyungsoo thought must be his home. Nevertheless, it was intriguing to see a young boy like him who was so focused that he became deathly quiet during his observations.
Suddenly, the boy’s face completely filled Kyungsoo’s view, eyebrows furrowed together in total seriousness. Kyungsoo shrunk back in surprise though he could not have moved much in his tight confinement.
The distortion cleared for a brief moment, long enough that Kyungsoo could see the boy’s every feature clearly. Pale skin, dark hair falling into his large eyes, too-big lips that took up too much of the lower half of his face... It was a face, Kyungsoo slowly realized, that he had seen many times before.
It was his own face, and he, that boy from all those years ago, was looking right at Kyungsoo now. The fear Kyungsoo felt from that gaze threatened to overwhelm his sanity, to throw him into the pits of hell with no chance of return.
That younger him, the other Kyungsoo’s eyes, started to melt from dark brown to a bright, intelligent green with slit pupils like that of a cat’s. Kyungsoo desperately wanted to look away but he was compelled to remain powerless under that discerning gaze, like looking at God in the eyes.
“You’re mine now,” a voice purred all around Kyungsoo. Though he didn’t agree with what he was saying at all, it felt like those words held so much meaning, a power that he couldn’t quite understand. It was like a compulsion and Kyungsoo was helpless in its grip.
-
A roaring in his ears woke Kyungsoo up.
He sat up at once, eyes flying open in an instant to gauge his surroundings. Last he remembered, he was held down by the stairs near the kitchen where there were green eyes glowing in the dark and pain, pain he never knew existed—
Instead, morning light filtered in from his window, sparrows tweeting chirpily outside.
What?He frowned. Kyungsoo’s encyclopaedia sat at the foot of his bed where he thought he remembered leaving it last night. When he looked down, he was gripping his favourite blanket tightly and when he looked up at the rest of his room, everything still looked the same. Nothing seemed to have changed except the weather, which was surprisingly clear.
How did I get in bed? Kyungsoo asked himself. No, how was he even alive after last night?
Throwing the covers back, Kyungsoo rushed towards the bedroom door (which was slightly ajar, he hurriedly noted) and bound down the stairs two steps at a time, calling for his parents.
“Dad? Dad, are you okay? Where’s mom—” Kyungsoo bumped right into Mrs. Do herself, squashing his nose on her cheek. They both squawked in surprise and pain at the same time before stepping back to look at each other questioningly.
“Mom? Are you okay?” Kyungsoo asked worriedly.
“You have a harder nose than I ever expected,” she ignored his question, wrinkling her own nose at him. Obviously she was fine. In fact, his mother seemed more surprised than traumatized.
“Mom, did anything happen last night? Is dad alright?” he insisted.
His mother frowned at him, perhaps questioning his sanity. The feeling was mutual with Kyungsoo. “Nothing happened, darling. And you can see your dad for yourself; he’s just in the kitchen with the repairman.” The last word hardly left her mouth before Kyungsoo rushed past her to the kitchen rather rudely.
“Are you alright, Kyungsoo? You’re acting a bit strange this morning,” she called after him.
Kyungsoo knew he was acting out of character but after that dream or vision, whatever that happened to him last night...
“Yes, I’m fine,” he called back distractedly. Kyungsoo spotted his father standing outside on the porch talking to a man he didn’t recognize, gesturing at the empty window frame animatedly while the other man nodded along. A bulldozer whirred loudly a few metres away, the sound of breaking branches clearly audible. That would’ve explained the roaring he heard in his ears a minute ago.
“Dad! Dad, how did everything go last night?” Kyungsoo asked.
He was about to step out onto the porch before he decided against it, eyeing the open back door suspiciously. Sure, it looked harmless now but everything always looked fine during the day.
His father glanced at him and blinked, stopping midsentence. “What are you talking about, Kyungsoo?”
“The window, t-the back door last night, I—” Kyungsoo faltered, then said, “Did anyone break in? Last night, I mean, through the back door or whatever.” The repairman and Kyungsoo’s father looked at him strangely. Standing there in his sloppy pyjamas and probably mussed slept-in hair, Kyungsoo felt just a tiny bit judged.
Mr. Do slowly shook his head.
“Everything was alright, Kyungsoo. I slept on the couch the entire night and I even checked the kitchen at around four in the morning. No one broke in and nothing happened, son,” he smiled warmly. Kyungsoo could hear the underlying condescension in his toneas if he were speaking to an overly imaginative child; Kyungsoo knew what he saw and did last night. It didn’t feel like a dream in the slightest.
“I came down last night to check on the kitchen too. The back door was wide open,” Kyungsoo said, voice flat.
His father looked a little surprised at that. “Really? Then why didn’t you call for me?” he asked.
“I wanted to but—” But someone with eyes like a cat tried to kill me last night and I don’t even remember how I got back in bed? No one would’ve bought that excuse, not in a million years. Even to his ears, it sounded like a bad horror movie plot.
“I-Ijust closed the door and went back to bed,” Kyungsoo mumbled. He didn’t wait to see his father’s reaction, just his heel to go back upstairs.
If his parents were unharmed and no one had broken in last night then fine, they didn’t have to know what happened, or what Kyungsoo thought had happened. Maybe it really was some kind of dream, he thought, climbing the stairs one by one.
Well, it was one hell of a dream because he could still smell the earth and brimstone from his dream intruder, could still feel the searing pain of being—
What happened anyway? Kyungsoo suddenly thought. Yes, he had felt pain but where did he feel it and what sort of pain, he couldn’t say exactly. Had he been attacked in some way? He frowned, trying to recall his dream. Well, it wasn’t an outright attack since he was holding me down...
All he really knew for sure was that it hurt at the exact moment he saw those green eyes and that he needed to get away in his dream.
Wow, I sound really crazy right now, Kyungsoo realized, entering the bathroom upstairs to wash his face. In the mirror, his reflection was pale and the shadows under his eyes were dark. Perhaps it was all those video games getting to him. Kyungsoo twisted the tap head and cupped his hands togetherto splash water on his face, feeling the cool water shock any residue of drowsiness right out of his system.
“If it really was a dream, then what about the second part?” he asked himself aloud, squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
That dream he had right before waking up definitely had to be a dream; he’d never felt so confined before, and it was so strange to see himself when he was younger. Kyungsoo had never given much thought on how he’d been when he was a kid though he knew most boys at that particular age would’ve been much more content with toys and colouring books than dried leaves and large trees.
By the time he finished brushing his teeth and washing his face, Kyungsoo still couldn’t figure it out. Dream or no dream? He drummed his fingers on the sink, frowning at his own reflection.
Hallucination, or did his father forget to shut the back door properly last night and everything that happened after Kyungsoo came downstairs was just some sort of psychedelic manifestation of the video games he’d played?
Outside, the bulldozer whirred noisily. Kyungsoo wasn’t quite sure what was real and what wasn’t anymore.
When he finally put some proper clothes on to have breakfast, Kyungsoo skipped towards the stairs. He was willing to put it all aside as long as he knew nothing happened in his home and his family was safe, but that all went to hell when Kyungsoo came to the third step of the staircase.
He stopped, bending down to squint curiously at something on the left corner of the step. It looked like a speck of dirt at first but when he touched it and rubbed it between his fingers, it didn’t feel dry and powdery.
The speck of dirt was actually a tiny droplet of blood, and it smeared over the tips of Kyungsoo’s fingers, an undeniable streak of red. He didn’t know why he thought it was blood; it easily could’ve been a drop of Kool-Aid or some other crimson coloured drink.
However, when he stood up and looked over the railing of the staircase, Kyungsoo caught sight of his black torchlight. He froze, blinking at it in surprise. Did I really drop it last night?
He went down the last three steps to pick up his fallen torchlight from the ground. It had taken quite a hit; the plastic cover protecting the bulb was smashed into pieces. The body was fine since it was made of stainless steel, but that didn’t stop the barrage of questions that reeled through his head faster than he could answer them.
It had to have been a dream last night. Maybe he had dropped his torchlight when he came back upstairs. Maybe that little droplet on the third step of his staircase wasn’t blood; could’ve been anything else if he was honest, though something in him doubted it. Maybe the back door was never open and he just dreamt it all up, a product of his imagination combined with fear. Maybe... Maybe it was real, and Kyungsoo just didn’t want to admit it to himself.
God only knew what really happened last night.