CH 138

The play on the stage ended.

The curtains closed, and the actors exiting the stage forgot or lost their names. Among those who were on the stage, not one maintained their name. They couldn’t use the alias they had used on stage.

I reclaimed the name that I had lost. However, I was placed in a situation far worse than forgetting it because my name had disappeared from the world all too long ago.

A well-maintained cage. Everything was revealed yet I was still inside. The hellish cage was none other than my own creation.

I grew and developed with “him.”

He was brimming with the drive to treat me well, but everything was new to him. Thus, my overly awkward mother, my classmate who wanted to eliminate my root of unhappiness to make me happy, my grandmother who watched me one step away because her confidence was wounded, and Yeonseon who approached me with a kind face—my words had significant influence over his development. Everything that I aimed at him altered him.

And that drove me insane.

This was only my presumption, but if Yeonseon and I hadn’t fallen in love with each other, our relationship wouldn’t have become this twisted. If I had been the only one to like Yeonseon, then he would have clapped once in front of me and said, “I told you so, Haeseo, that you could become happy. I’m satisfied with seeing you happy, so let’s revert things.”

But unfortunately, my love was not one-sided… Eventually, the only glimmer of hope died when our hearts were united. So even if Hyehyun didn’t murder Yeonseon, he had no intention to keep our childhood promise. It was because of me.

Just as Yeonseon was my first love, I was his first love. Yeonseon genuinely loved me.

And thus, our promise made on childish obsession and obstinacy evolved into true love, burying it in a bottomless swamp. Ironically, because it became a pure and unconditional love, both of us fell into a hellish pit.

Love.

Love.

Obsession.

What was the scariest ghost in the world? If one saw a ghost laughing in one’s dream, one needed to wake from the dream, and if one met a dancing ghost on a road, one needed to run from the area. Those described were ghosts with a grudge. But in my opinion, the most fearsome ghost was one with no goal or motive but an obsession.

Me. That ghost was me.

After I lost my body, the first thing I did was pull in people who had untimely deaths like me. At first, they were those who died in the mansion, and after some time had passed, I drew in those who lost their lives in different locations. The bait was singing. I wasn’t sure on what logic and reasoning this was possible. The time that I was a human was only around eight years, so I wasn’t very well-learned.

I had a hunch on what it was, though. My young age and the mansion entwined with many vengeful spirits. This blocked-off, large mansion was like a large box. That was probably a coincidence. The people who designed and built the mansion and planned such atrocious deeds probably didn’t intend it. To begin with, it wasn’t common to have such a young child be among the people locked up in the mansion—a child with a sixth sense at that.

There was one folktale in Korea. It was called a “saetani,” a type of child ghost used to supplement the spiritual powers of a shaman. To summarize, the process went something like this: one would trap a child abandoned by his parents in a dark jar, starving him until he was near death. Right then, one would place food in front of his eyes. Then, the child, dying from starvation, would reach out with all his remaining strength. If one chopped off that hand and preserved it well, the child’s spirit would dwell in the hand and help the shaman as a divine child spirit—or so they said.