CH 121

I thought it might be a device that activated nearby, but I was wrong. The smell of the air that drifted in was different. It was the scent of fresh, clean air—air from outside. I unfurled my body that was curled up like a roly-poly bug and wrung out all my remaining strength to sprint toward the air.

‘Save me, please save me.’

‘Save me, I’m still alive!’

The place I found was a doorless room. That was what it looked like to me.

Light pouring in, the rectangular exit was framed with a golden rim.

I could escape if I went through that. I was certain.

‘Save me, I’m still here! Please!’

However, the place I entered…

* * *

…The room I entered had one person in the middle—a skinny child. The clothes the child was wearing were tattered, and their hair was so long and matted that I couldn’t determine their gender. I wasn’t sure, but they looked around my age. The child looked at me and smiled impishly.

“So you came. It was hard being alone this whole time.”

Yes, it was very hard being alone. It hurt so much.

“You know, I… know a lot of things that other people don’t. That’s why people hate me. I’m all right because I’ve been alone for a long time, but I was still lonely. And it hurts sometimes.”

My mother also disliked me. I didn’t have friends, and I didn’t know anybody. I had always been alone.

I was alone even in death.

I tilted my head at the child’s words. “Doesn’t knowing a lot mean you’re smart? My mom bought me a bunch of books because she wanted me to become a smart person. Why don’t you like that?”

“I don’t know. My mom wails and screams if I go near her,” the child replied.

I felt very sympathetic for the child, so I mumbled, “If your mom were like my mom, she would have praised you. She said knowing more things is better. She said that that was how you would succeed in the future. My mom is always worried that I don’t study.”

An age-old memory—however, a voice interrupted that unforgettable moment, “No, those are my memories.”

It was him.

“I was the one who played with my younger female cousin once a week when she came over, and I was the one who heard from my mom that adults didn’t know everything.”

Haeseo Nam.

This wasn’t my voice. He continued, “It’s probably true that your mom rejected you. You were sold when you were eight and died in this mansion. You died while some people were making a snuff film. You were brutally murdered in this mansion.”

I recalled the children’s clothes that I saw in this mansion. The shirt of a child who was stabbed in the chest—it was the clothes of the child that I had seen when I was younger. The reason that was here… The child was murdered by a group of people who caught me while I was running toward the golden door. They stuck a knife in my chest and said, “Oh, there was one kiddo left.”

I fell to the floor as I bled out. My chest hurt so much that I couldn’t breathe properly. Still, I reached out to the people. ‘Please, please, please save me. Please, please…’ I begged and pleaded. ‘Save me. It hurts. I’m hungry. I’m scared.’ They shoved a camera in my face as I died. They thanked me for letting them witness such a precious moment.

That was what happened to me…

There was nothing I could say. I forced myself to speak, “Then, the one who said it was all right to give it to me…”

My throat felt parched.