CH 126

A child with a fixation for life had a powerful soul. The more they fixated on the living world, the stronger they were. I was probably one of those kinds of evil spirits.

The people who came back to life ended up completely forgetting about me. They never came back to me and didn’t keep their promise. Even if they remembered me and reunited with me, they feared me and weren’t comfortable with me. It was understandable, but I was still very upset.

Still, I hugged in the shards of light that they left behind close to me when I slept. The good luck of those who stood at death’s doorstep was warm.

When I realized that nobody remembered me, I decided to ask for their luck going forward.

“I’ll bring you back to life, but instead, I’ll take your luck.”

Everyone nodded enthusiastically. They wanted to live. I felt slightly bitter and lonely when I saw how delighted they were. Even though I was the one who gave their life back, I wanted to live too. I was jealous of them. Still, I kept it to myself because I was so very lonely. There was something I wanted more than living.

I waited. I kept on waiting.

Then one day, a young child came to me.

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

The child was nice.

He was so very nice.

This child smiled brightly and told me something others had never said to me.

“But if you don’t give it to me, you’ll be the one who suffers.” He said that was why he wanted to help me. “You also want to be loved.”

To that child, I…

My dream ended there.

“…” When I opened my eyes, the room was dark. I stared numbly at the ceiling and felt around the wall. I hit the light switch, instantly lighting up the room. I wasn’t in the dark mansion anymore. I was in a room in my apartment.

The mansion had long burned down without leaving a trace. I lost the place I could return to.

I stood and looked outside the window. It seemed to be raining; the raindrops outside tapped the window cacophonously. After being aware that it was rainy, the damp air around me felt bone-chilling. I shivered.

It felt like I was still in that mansion.

Occasionally, I heard the moans of those who died in the mansion.

…Woorim could have been right when he said that one could survive if they followed the rules. The small key that Woorim and I found when we first explored—the key that was forgotten because the people doubted him after coming upstairs—that key was still sitting on the table in the hall, forgotten by everyone.

That key could open one of the rooms on the floor with the toys to reveal… the exit.

While people fought and pointed fingers at me and each other, we completely forgot about the key that could unlock the exit. If only we had carried that key around, we could have been able to all escape unscathed—according to “him.”

After unlocking the exit and showing me out, “he” burned down the entire mansion. Someone reported the fire on the island, so I was rescued promptly. The fire was so wild that despite continued firefighting efforts, it burned for several days. Only ashes remained. The only salvaged items were burned corpses that were difficult to identify. Not all the corpses were found.

The investigation continued, but it was quite sloppily done.

The perfect crime happened when the weapon and the corpses disappeared.

They couldn’t uncover how many people were swept up in the fire, so the investigation on the bizarre accident that I was involved in was soon closed. It was concluded to be the result of reckless young people who went to the mansion without permission, all burning to death. I had the feeling that someone influenced this conclusion because Seohang had also died.

I didn’t know where Haeseo Nam went.

“Wait for me until I return, trapped in my body just as you are now.” He only left those words.

I stood up and stomped to the kitchen. I pulled out a knife and put it against my wrist. My hands trembled. I bit down on my lips and pressed the knife hard. The sharp blade dug into my wrist. But that was how far it went and no further. I dropped the knife and clutched my bleeding wrist. I crumpled to the floor and cried.

“It’s someone else’s—another person’s body.” That was why I had to return it—because it was my fault. I needed to return it as it was.

There was nothing more I could take responsibility for. My mother and grandmother all died. The mansion was burned and gone. There was only one thing that I could return.

“I have to return it,” I mumbled.

The mansion that I could return to had gone up in flames.

Even if I ended the life of this body, there was no guarantee that Haeseo would return to this body. He seemed to have already forgotten about being human. He had lived freely and at large among the living. He had only learned how to live as a ghost… and learned about me.

He had only studied about me.

Just like back then, black things crawled next to me after hearing me cry.

I could now hear what they had to say to me. Haeseo Nam’s brain could no longer restrain me to the body’s memories, habits, physical characteristics, and other traits—because I realized that I wasn’t Haeseo. That was why I could vividly hear what those things had to say.