2
by 제이여라 · 2026-10-28
Cold muzzles surrounded the three people. Rebecca turned and ran. Her entire face was contorted. It was a face Chris had never seen before. Rebecca spread her arms to embrace Chris and Sarah. A gunshot echoed like a death rattle. Blood splattered around.
“Mom…?”
Chris held the fallen Rebecca in his arms. She was limp, her eyes half-open. Blood dripped onto her white fingertips. Chris kept shaking Rebecca.
Mom. Chris slowly called her name.
There was no answer.
Chris's murmur faded into emptiness.
The color was draining from her skin.
Sarah screamed.
“Mom!”
“Quiet!”
One of the soldiers aimed his gun again. Click, the sound of metal friction echoed in the room. Chris supported the swaying Sarah. Among the soldiers, a man adorned with many medals kicked Rebecca.
“Operation complete as ordered. The target is alive.”
Chris raised his head.
Something was wrong. Following his instincts, Chris spread his palm to cover his eyes and embraced Sarah. One of the soldiers spat on the floor.
“No need to go to such lengths to appease them. Just take them. There’s no time. It was an imperial order. Our mission is…”
A loud bang echoed in the house. It sounded like the front door had been broken. The soldiers stirred, aiming their guns backward. A woman wearing a very wide-brimmed hat entered the house. She approached slowly with elegant and delicate movements.
“Who are you!”
Chris was momentarily stunned. It was an inappropriate expression for the situation, but her smiling lips were so beautiful, as if she wasn't human. Her hair, loose down to her thighs, moved in wavy motions as if it had a will of its own, then sliced through the air. It snatched a soldier's neck and slammed him against the wall.
The soldiers, finally grasping the situation, fired their guns at her simultaneously. She dodged the bullets effortlessly, as if she had wings, and took down each one. Chris and Sarah blinked at her unrealistically beautiful appearance. She exhaled, then calmly and slowly tied her hair up. Then she slowly extended her hand to Chris. Chris hugged Sarah and curled up again.
“Hmm, did you perhaps not understand the situation?”
Her face, as she approached, was enchanting, though it didn't fit the situation. How could a person look so much like porcelain? It was as if each feature had been meticulously crafted. Rie glanced at Rebecca, then smiled brightly.
“Still, it’s not too late.”
“Don’t, don’t come closer!”
Sarah quickly interrupted. Chris looked at Sarah.
“No matter how I look at it, we’ve never met, so how can I trust you? Are you going to kill us too? Or are you someone who works in the dark places…!”
She slowly knelt down and met Sarah’s eyes.
“Half right, half wrong. I don’t know where the dark places are, but I came from the bright places.”
“What?”
Chris looked at the two of them. She slowly straightened up and took off her hat, letting it fall to the floor.
“Then, as a sign of trust, I’ll show you my eyes and my name. My name is Rie.”
Her eyes glowed red. Sarah slowly nodded. Rie offered her bare hand to Sarah, and a clump of white hair to Chris. The feeling of standing up by holding the hair was strange.
“I’m sorry about your mother. I was late.”
Rie buried all the casualties, including Rebecca, in the ground.
Even as they buried her, Sarah couldn't let go of Rebecca's hand.
“My mom is cold…”
Chris hugged Sarah.
Rie slowly looked down at her grave and murmured in a very low voice.
“…Perhaps you were right.”
Sarah slowly wrapped the unfinished scarf around the grave. It was a short scarf, not yet fully knitted.
Rebecca always liked to make long scarves. She said it felt like someone was hugging her when she wrapped it around her neck.
Sarah always tried to knit long scarves for Rebecca but would often fail.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t make a scarf for Mom again.”
A scarf that could now never be given.
Snow fell upon it.
Sarah buried her face and began to sob.
Chris reached out to put a hand on Sarah's sobbing shoulder but stopped in mid-air. A fierce wind enveloped the three of them.
It felt like their bodies and minds were tearing apart. He remembered reading in a book that happiness is like glass. The most transparent and beautiful, but when it breaks, there is no pain quite like it…
The pain of having glass shards embedded all over one's body.
But the helplessness of being unable to do anything enveloped Chris and Sarah.
“Let’s go.”
Rie gestured. Chris frowned and asked.
“Where are we going? Thank you for helping, but we still have no reason to trust you.”
“There are people who want to meet you, like the elders. They said they’d look after you too.”
Rie slowly extended her hand towards Chris and Sarah. Sarah looked at her and said.
“Mom…”
“Yes?”
“What about Mom? We can’t leave Mom alone.”
Chris said, supporting the swaying Sarah.
“Let me at least pack Mom’s things. Please.”
With those last words, Chris and Sarah went back into the house. Rie watched their retreating figures, then leaned against a nearby wall.
As Chris entered the house, something hit his foot.
It was Rebecca’s mirror.
Chris slowly picked up the mirror and put it in his pocket.
“Did you get everything?”
Rie nodded and led the way.
The cherry blossom trees that had bloomed profusely were on fire, and their house, and the bakery they had seen yesterday, were all burned to ashes. Sarah, staring blankly at the sight, burst into tears again.
“Whoa, whoa, don’t cry, pretty lady.”
Rie placed a clump of hair on Sarah’s shoulder. Sarah squinted and looked at Rie.
“If you hadn’t been late in the first place, Mom might still be alive…”
“Hmm…”
Rie’s expression changed slightly. Rie continued.
“You’re right. I’m always one step too late.”
A vein throbbed on Sarah’s forehead. Chris, who barely managed to restrain Sarah who was about to lunge, asked Rie.
“What’s your objective?”
“Objective, you say…”
Rie pondered for a moment, then shook her head.
“Perhaps it’s better not to know yet.”
“What? What kind of answer is that?”
“But I’ll tell you one thing. Your mother was just an orphanage teacher, so why did she have to meet her end at the hands of soldiers?”
Chris raised his head.
“Do you want the answer to the question? We can help. It wouldn’t be bad to go and think about it.”
Rie led them to a covered carriage. As Rie handed over a wad of money, the coachman exhaled cigarette smoke and hid them. The carriage traveled down an endless path. Even when asked where they were going, Rie only raised her elegant lips without a word.
The carriage stopped in the middle of a forest. As they got out, the coachman turned back without hesitation and disappeared. Sarah said.
“Where is this? I don’t see any houses.”
“From here, we have to walk.”
Rie led the way, slowly gesturing. After walking through the forest for a long time again, they came upon a very small abandoned house. Rie felt around the floor of the abandoned house and found a trapdoor. Rie opened the trapdoor and pushed the two of them inside.
“Wha, what are you doing!”
The inside of the trapdoor they were pushed into was another forest. But it was different from other forests. In Chris and Sarah's understanding, a forest was a place full of winding trees, but in this forest, all the trees stretched straight up towards the sky and had no leaves. Not even the cries of animals or the chirping of insects could be heard.
“Where is this?”
“Here, inside. See the house?”
As they shifted their gaze, a very large mansion stood there. No, it wasn't just a mansion, but a grand mansion, large and gaunt. Rie grabbed both of their shoulders and pushed them further into the grand mansion. Pushed with immense force, the two of them now stood in the living room of the grand mansion.
“It’s you two.”
“Who are you?”
The curtain shadow flickered and slowly took on a human form. The voice came from that form.