CH 1

“Sister… are you alright…?”

A sound burst through my eardrum, it felt like my brain was going to crack. There was someone who was talking to me but I couldn’t comprehend what that person was talking about.

It took me a hard time to regain myself; the ache in my head and in my body felt ringing and heavy, as if I had been thrown into the sea.

“Sister!”

Someone had grabbed my wrist, the grip was so strong that at that moment my mind that seemed to be swimming afloat the vast sea came back to reality.

My eyes widened at shock.

“Sister, what’s wrong? Are you not feeling well?”

My vision greeted me facing a certain, young lad. A boy who was too big to be referred to as a ‘boy’, yet too young to be called a ‘man’.

Sister…?

The boy and the call name he addressed me seemed foreign and at the same time familiar.

.

“Shall I call for a physician? Your hands are swollen.”

I stared at the boy who grabbed my trembling hands. 

“Wh, who are… you…” I asked, hoarseness in my voice came out.

The boy’s face hardened at my question, his expression was cold and hard to read, but soon his face became sad.

Tears dripped from his eyes.

‘Why was he suddenly crying?’

No clue what was happening and why am I here, and the boy in front of me cried at the first sentence I spoke.

“It’s my mistake. I won’t bring up getting a dog anymore, so please don’t be like that to me.”

“…No, who are you and what are you talking about…”

“I just thought that Sister are fond of animals…”

I desperately recalled the last thing I could remember. The reason for me being here, what I was doing yesterday… 

Memories flashed as I tried hard to remember anything, and imagery of a truck vividly unfold before me.

Ah, so I was hit by a truck.

That’s right. I wasn’t obviously able to dodge that passing truck, and the time I was hit was still fresh from my mind. I am not stupid enough not tell the difference between a dream and reality. Which was why I should have already died instantly then.

“What do you mean? Where am I, why am I here…”

Yet, somehow, I was alive. I quickly turned around and looked at my surroundings. It seemed that I was not located in a hospital. There was no scent of drugs that gave off the distinct smell of a hospital, and there was no noise. In addition to my voice that followed a silence, the place was like another person’s room.

I belatedly noticed something when I looked around.

“Your eyes…”

The boy’s eyes were strange. If I were to pinpoint it out, it was the color of his eyes.

The reason why I wasn’t startled the first time I saw him in this predicament was because the color of his hair was black, a color that’s familiar to me.

“Hm? What’s wrong with my eyes?”

However, the boy’s eye color was not. It was a color of green.

The tip of my toe suddenly tingled. When I lowered my head, an unexpected sight came to view; pieces of a teacup were scattered under the sofa where I was sitting, an ivory rug was set and the teapot was found fallen on the floor.

As I wondered to myself why I felt my feet stinging from pain, I saw myself barefoot. It was fortunate that I was not seriously injured as the broken pieces barely touched the tip of my toe.

“I’m sorry… huh?”

A warm heat enveloped my palm, I raised my head in surprise. I made eye contact with the boy who placed my hand to his cheek, as if it was part of him. Tears were still dripping from his eyes.

“I dislike dogs too, I find them scary. Still, I just thought that Sister are fond of them, so I do too…”

What was he talking about?

“I don’t know who you are for you to act like this.”

I replied with a confused expression, when I tried to pull out my hand from his hold, the boy’s tears immediately stopped. As if it was all a lie. As if he was just only acting.

Does he have a dissociative identity disorder or something?

“I never had a younger brother like you, so please let go of my hand. It hurts.”

What if my memory were just screwed? Wasn’t I got hit by a truck? But no matter how many times I recalled my memory, I would only come up with the same conclusion.

I was obviously hit by a truck while I was crossing a street. The sensation was something I could never forget, my body flew to the air, hitting head first. I heard someone’s screaming when I was on the verge of my death, all of it was still vivid to me.

I was born unfortunate. I led a difficult life, which was why it didn’t occur to me that I would experience a miracle; suddenly die then reborn again.

“Caleb. My name’s Caleb.”

“Caleb?”

“Yes. I am Sister’s younger brother.”

He tried to conceal it, but I sensed a murderous intent in his eyes.

“Caleb. Caleb. Caleb…”

It seemed that I had heard of that name somewhere. Where was it again?

Caleb. Caleb… It was at that moment when I tried to recall anything by calling his name.

“Heuk…!”

Memories flashed through me.

Random memories that forced its way through made me feel that my brain was going to explode.

I gripped my head with both of my hands and with my eyes wide open, memories constructing and organizing inside my brain.

‘Sister. Sister! I, I… He-heuk, don’t leave me…!’

It wasn’t my memory.

A mansion on fire. There was a child crawling on the floor as he gasped for oxygen, and the chandelier that narrowly fell off in front of the child.

I knew the name of that child.

Caleb Vistor.

And…

“My name, what’s my name?”

“Sister?”

“Tell me my name!”

I grabbed my neck, started at my own scream. It wasn’t a voice I was familiar with. A sense of incongruity that I had never felt before came over me.

Memories that sporadically rushed into one another.

“Lizen Vistor. That is Sister’s name.”

As I was denying my ridiculous assumption, the boy confirmed my suspicions.

Lizen Vistor.

The name was also familiar to me, and I knew who the name belonged to. She was the villainess of the recent novel I had read.

I jumped up from my seat and ran towards the wall mirror.

And in front of the mirror, I was confronted to a shocking sight.

“This cannot be.”