SEVEN YEARS AGO 

It’s cold… this floor that I feel under me is cold. They are so cold… the sharp edges of the stone stairs feel like ice, stairs that lead to the second floor of this abandoned warehouse where I will breathe my last breath, being exonerated by sins eventually. I feel them so well under me, even though my brain is dizzy and my soul is numbed after the hammer’s hit that I received on the back of my head. And I’m not alone here… My butcher’s hand squeezes my right wrist, dragging me behind him… stair by stair… step by step… gasp by gasp. I hear all this so clearly, even though I can’t see the face of this heartless man who has decided to turn me into his victim without my agreement. I am his victim now… like a beautiful butterfly that fell prey to the cruel spider with a cross on his back… The one that is considered the butcher of the world… The spider that devours souls… The Tarantula of the Underworld. 

Eventually, I opened my eyes and I saw the sky… one made from black stones, which was illuminated by the weak light of something or someone that was behind me. I smiled. „A firefly,” I thought, seeing the blink of that light. Then, my soul froze so suddenly, just like the mad flow of the blood through my veins stopped. It happened the moment I heard his killing voice in my ears when he stopped for a few seconds. Why did he stop? I didn’t know. I couldn’t understand this. I saw only that he stopped and bent above me after that, not releasing my wrist, which he squeezed harder and harder to hurt me, to make me submissive, to let me understand who was the master and who was the servant between us or better said to make sure I knew that I was the prey and he the predator.  

Understanding this, I told him, „I know why you are doing this.” He smiled, with that demonic smile he had. Then, he approached me more, bending over me to be able to see his face. Yet, not willing to do this, I closed my eyes and squeezed them hard because, for an unknown reason, I was afraid to see his eyes. 

Nevertheless, I had to do this in the end, after I winced first and I heard his voice saying, „Why? Why do I do this?” Yet, it was only an illusion: not his voice or what he said, but the fact that I looked into his eyes. What I saw at that moment was the blinding light that pierced my soul, darkening it shortly after this, for a long time, after it entered through my dilated retinas. Yet, after I closed and opened my eyes, several times, and I could see something through that thick darkness, I saw his smile, and this made me shudder because it was a smile I knew once, a smile I got to adore in time and maybe… to love it too. 

„Han YuSan?” I murmured. Then… I shook my head, only imaginarily because I felt incapable of moving. Because of this, I stubbornly squeezed my eyes, trying to chase that image away from my mind, convinced that it wasn’t real and not Han YuSan hurt me, but someone else… a mad soul… a cruel soul that had chosen me as his victim for a reason known only by him. 

Yet… maybe I was wrong and this made my soul freeze inside me again. After that, I shuddered again, from top to toe when something cold dripped from above and touched my cheek. That small drop leaked eventually on my skin, and I felt it running down my neck after this… A sweaty neck… stained with mud and dirt because of the feet that trampled me savagely while my butcher asked me to pay for sins I wasn’t aware of. What was that drop that touched my cheek? A drop of blood. I understood this only later when I remembered the wound I made him. Yes, it was a drop of his life that leaked from that wound, one I made to him, even though I had been weak and not strong enough to finish what I started… killing him, turning myself into his victim again when I wanted to be the butcher. 

„I’m glad!” He said eventually. „That you understood who I am! Yet, I am not sure if you are aware of the sin you have in your soul, dirty woman you are!” He hissed this through his teeth, releasing my wrist after this. 

„No,” I yelled in my head while cold tears bathed my cheek again. „No, don’t let go of my hand,” I murmured, feeling my body sliding on the stairs. Yet, my request was in vain because he had no intention to save me. He only stood up in the end and, from up the stairs, he proudly looked at me, probably feeling himself a God while I started to roll on those stairs… faster and faster, even though I slipped on them before that.

Eventually, when his deep laughter, rough and insufferable, entered my brain, I felt the pain piercing my stomach… I fell from above when I couldn’t control the rhythm of rolling on the stairs anymore. Thus, not getting down the stairs, I fell off them. Yes, I fell from about 2 meters height because those stairs didn’t have a railing which I could have grabbed and saved my baby. 

After the pain let me breathe a little, I understood that everything was over. I understood that I also had to die because… I couldn’t live after this. Not after I had illusions: that I would live with my baby, whom I would have loved with all my heart, and that I would be loved. Understanding this, I closed my eyes, convinced that I got to my end and that there was no going back. I knew I lost everything. 

However, it wasn’t over for my hangman yet, whose steps I heard descending the stairs… one by one, somehow with an interrupted noise. This made me wonder why I heard that noise that way: was it because of my interrupted breath? Was it because my heart was so slowly beating in my chest? Or… was it maybe because of the life that left me in the form of blood drops? 

Who knows?! Perhaps he knows! And… with the last possible strength, I turned my head and carefully looked at him. Yes, he was! My hangman’s name was Han YuSan, the man I had trusted, the man I thought I’d get to love one day, and I felt all this because of the warmth he wore in his soul. 

Yet, while looking at him, I understood that something was different. Yes, his eyes were different… They were so cold. He had that demonic light sparkling in them. Why? „Why are his eyes different this time?” I yelled in my head. And, even though I was afraid of him as of death, I kept looking into his eyes while he continued to advance toward me. Eventually, only one step from me, he stopped and squatted, looking at me with cold eyes, with those empty eyes he had, with the eyes of a demon. 

I felt the same: that I couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. Why? Because I felt confused and that I couldn’t find in them that warm glance I came to love and miss on the cold nights. This made me whisper, „Who are you?” He smiled: coldly, demonically, provocatively, trying to drive me crazy and make me fear. 

„I thought you knew who I was!” He confidently said. „I thought you knew who I was. Yet, it seems that I’ve been wrong. What a disappointment!” Then, he sketched a bitter smile. 

„Why?” I asked, only to continue that meaningless conversation. I asked this because I didn’t want to close my eyes and start that one-way trip, even though I wanted so badly to sleep. So badly I wanted this. 

„Because you aren’t as I have expected you to be,” he said. 

„I’m not as you have expected to be? But… how?” I asked. Then, a harsh pain pierced me inside. Yet, even though I thought at first that it was because of the falling, I understood soon that I was wrong. I felt this because of the delusions and because I understood that others saw me as someone who had never existed, that they considered me a fake person, a self-righteous one. This made me yell eventually, as loud as I could, that it wasn’t true and that I had always been sincere. 

My words made him confused. „You didn’t pretend?” He asked. „What do you mean? That you…?” 

„…I liked you,” I told him then. „I liked your eyes, your warm glance, your words of encouragement, your hands that touched my hands to give me courage.”

Hearing me talking like that, my butcher told me sadly, „Still, you are seeing him and not me. Yes, you are seeing him even if you are with me now.” His sadness made me confused because I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. I really couldn’t understand what was in his head because, even if I thought he would grab me by the throat and squeeze it with all his force - I thought that after I saw his eyes savagely sparkling - he only stood up and took a few steps up and down in front of me. Then, he looked at me and roared like a crazy man, making me shudder from top to toe. „Why don’t you see me?” He yelled. „Do you really not see me, Ian SolHi? It’s me! Me! Me and nobody else!” 

At that moment, I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. I didn’t understand what exactly was in his head. I understood only one thing: that he hated me with all his heart. I even felt that strength the moment he grabbed my wrist again and squeezed it hard, forcing me to look into his eyes. And yes, it hurt. I felt that pain all over my body when he raised my head, trying to see my eyes from close. Then… I shuddered. 

I didn’t shudder because of the pain. It happened the moment I saw the scar on his beard. Yes, he had one, barely visible if looking at it from far away, but so well-seen at that moment when our faces almost touched each other. And, catching my insistent glance over him, he released my hand and stood up again. 

When he let go of my hand, I lost the last drops of power I had inside. Thus, hitting the cement floor with my head again, I felt that it had torn apart inside. I felt that pain deeply in my brain and this made me gnash my teeth. Even so, with all the pain from my soul and my bones, with all the wounds received, I was still clearly thinking. My thoughts were madly spinning in my head like the bees in their hive. More than that, what was insufferable, was that thought that got to the top of my tongue eventually. „The scar,” I murmured in the end. „Why didn’t I see it before? Why didn’t I understand before what was different with you? It’s because of the scar! This is the difference between you and him. And the eyes. Yes, your eyes are different. They are so different from those times when he kindly looked at me. Now I understand why: there are two YuSan in this World!” 

„Keep your mouth shut!” He suddenly shouted. „You don’t even know what you are talking about!” Then, as though possessed by the devil, he grabbed me by the back of my neck and hardly squeezed. And his eyes, those eyes in which the flames of the hell were seen dancing, fixed on my eyes as though he was trying to disarm me and convince me that I wasn’t right and that he wasn’t different from the real YuSan in fact, from that YuSan I knew once. 

Eventually, he looked up at the ceiling. I also looked at it and I shuddered. Even so, with that insufferable headache, which I felt after he touched the wound I had on the back of my head after he threw the hammer, I still managed to understand what he intended to do because his eyes were focused on the big black hole from the center of the ceiling. „The perfect place to be your grave,” he murmured in the end. 

Then, suddenly, he stood up, making me shudder again. I tried to fight with him when he grabbed my wrist and dragged me after him toward the stairs again. I had a strong reason to shudder from top to toe because I knew that if I had fallen through the hole at that time, it would have been my end. Because of this, I was fighting with my teeth and nails with him, to make him give up on his madness. 

It didn’t help me eventually… that I fought with him… because he managed to drag me toward the hole that could be found on the second floor. Once next to it, he stopped and let go of my hand, forcing me to hit the cement floor with my head once again. The last hit made me gnash my teeth. Then, I started to shudder with all my body when I felt the cry taking me in its power. A cry that was pressing so hard over my chest at that moment. After that, I heard a calm whisper in my head even though I was sobbing. „It’s over,” my soul whispered to me. „These are the last moments before your death.” And, determined at least to die with dignity if I hadn’t been able to impede him from hurting my body so cruelly that night, I closed my eyes, I stuck my body on that cold cement floor, and I waited… for nothing more than for my end.  

Stolen story; please report.

Eventually, I winced when I heard something falling through the hole from my left. This made my breath stop halfway through my throat and shudder again. Then, when I could control myself a little, I opened my eyes and looked around. Thus, I saw a second victim, lying on the floor not that far from me. Who was that person? I didn’t see him. I didn’t have any idea who he might be. All that I could see was that he wore a gray suit and that he seemed familiar. Who was he? I will probably never find out. 

Knackered, I closed my eyes in the end. Nothing mattered to me at that moment. Yes, it really didn’t matter to me who was the second victim or what would happen to me after that. All I wanted at that moment was to sleep: for an eternity if possible. Because of this, I closed my eyes, lying on that cold cement floor, and allowing time to pass by me… or maybe years were simply passing by… 

 ***

 PRESENT

When she awoke, SolHi gasped. Then, she shuddered, realizing that she was lying on the cold floor of the cell. And, from top to toe, she was bathed by cold drops of sweat, as cold as her hands were at that moment. 

SolHi didn’t know why she felt all that at that moment. She could only squeeze her fists hard when she understood that she was about to have another epileptic crisis. After that, gnashing her teeth when she could control the flux of her thoughts, SolHi wondered, „Why? Why did I have this dream? Why now?” 

There wasn’t anybody in that cell to answer her questions. There could only be heard her loud gasps when the crisis shook her more powerfully than before. SolHi even felt at one point a big pressure on her brain, something that made her feel as though she had been in a trance. Then, step by step, the convulsion took absolute control over her, and SolHi felt that she wasn’t able to stay awake anymore. Even so, she kept clearly feeling the cold floor under her and that it was very harsh, something that entered deeply into her soul and in her bones. Feeling this, SolHi realized that she wanted to scream something at that moment, but she didn’t have the power to do that. She could only struggle with herself, tightly held in the arms of the agony, and she had the power only to shed bitter tears that bathed her face in a sea of sadness. 

Why was SolHi crying? Because she understood that she was alone in that cell and alone in the whole world. Yes, there was only her and her pain. Because of this, SolHi didn’t have anyone to ask for mercy because nobody cared about her anymore. Yes, nobody cared about SolHi anymore, even though she still cared about so many souls. She cared about all those people, but she loved only one soul from them, the soul of the man she would have liked to have with her at that moment, but who was so far away from her. Even so, SolHi didn’t blame him for this because she knew how much she had hurt him a year ago. She had trampled that soul, injuring it to blood when merely stupidly allowed others to deceive and convince her to accept a crime and to pay for it for an entire life. Yet… there was no way back for SolHi, not as long as HE was still in danger. 

For him to be safe, SolHi decided to suffer. She suffered a lot, locked in that cage with four empty walls and bars at the door and the window. A cell where only her memories kept her company: memories about a past when she loved and when she’d been loved, a past that threw her so many times in the world’s arms making her suffer more than she was already suffering, where she’d been mercilessly trampled under feet. Yet, there were still memories about her life, one she willingly left behind, where she would have liked to turn back to it. SolHi would have given everything she had to return to that beautiful life… in his arms.  

Nevertheless, there was no way back for SolHi. She could only dream about this, just as she could only dream that his arms would wrap around her body once again, and… that’s all. Well, she could also dream of feeling once again his heartbeats dancing on the skin of her chest, like the flap of the wings of a wild bird that was closed in a cage, with no hope for that dream to come true one day. 

Probably because of this, because she wanted so badly to hear his heartbeats again, SolHi heard them at that moment too when she felt so bad. She heard those heartbeats in her ears and she also felt them dancing on her skin. After that, SolHi smiled. She smiled through tears, through bitter tears in fact because… oh, God, it felt so well for her to feel herself in DooSan’s arms again. Yes, he was beside her, even though it was only a dream. He slowly rocked her body, secretly keeping her to his chest, like a baby whom he couldn’t leave behind, sticking her ear to his chest only to make sure she would never forget the sweet melody of his soul. 

Suddenly, when she heard the voice of a woman, SolHi winced. She heard that voice, even though it seemed to be far away from her. Even so, she understood the words spoken by that woman to her, „Drink this, SolHi! It’ll make you feel better. Swallow this and not spit it! It’s the only way you’ll recover, do you hear me?” 

„Mother?” SolHi murmured, confused because she mistook that voice for SinHa’s voice. Something strange in SolHi’s opinion because, as far as she remembered, moreover since the crisis started, her mother never appeared in her dreams. SolHi never imagined SinHa by her side when she felt bad. She never asked her mother for a piece of good advice or to stay with her while she felt sick. Yet, at that moment, SolHi heard her mother’s voice. „Is it because I miss her? Do I hear her voice because I have always missed my mother? A mother I’ve always longed for, but who hasn’t ever been by my side? Even so, she’s… my mother,” SolHi whispered through tears that abundantly bathed her cheeks. 

„I’m here,” the imaginary voice replied to her. „It’s me, SolHi! Believe in me and turn back to life!”  

SolHi said nothing after these words. She only nodded, hinting to the imaginary woman that she understood the message of her words. After that, she opened her mouth, and the stranger, whom she called her mother, put something bitter on the top of her tongue. „Medicine?” SolHi wondered. „Impossible.” It really was because, since she entered prison, she had never been allowed to have pills. She didn’t receive medicine, not even when she had unbearable pain. Yet, at that moment, SolHi felt a pill under her tongue. However, even if she felt it, SolHi was stubborn in believing that it could be real. For this, she kept saying to herself that she was dreaming and nothing of that was real. Only the fact that she was rocked by her mother’s arms seemed real to SolHi, something she always missed feeling while being a child. 

Eventually, SolHi fell asleep and she slept a lot. She probably slept around two hours. Then, when she woke up and opened her eyes, she saw only the darkness all around her. What amazed her after that was to feel not the coldness of the floor under her as she had felt it other times when she had had crises, but something warm and soft. This seemed strange to her because she clearly remembered that when the pain was gone and her body numbed, right before falling asleep, SolHi still felt the floor under her. At that moment, when she awoke, she realized that she was in bed. Yes, she was in her bed, with warm bedding under her and with her head on the pillow. 

Realizing that it wasn’t a dream, SolHi suddenly sat on the bed. „Did I imagine all that?” She wondered. „Everything: the memories, the crises, even the fact that I saw my mother… Was it only a dream?” 

The moment she heard to her right, „Did you wake up?” SolHi winced and swallowed hard after this, staring at the darkness from her right, at the one who talked to her and told her, „How do you feel now? Better?” SolHi mechanically nodded. „Then… you’ll live, it seems to me,” the voice, surrounded by darkness, said, smiling after this. 

The fact that someone was talking to her from the darkness of the room amazed SolHi a lot. At the same time, that voice came to scare her. Because of this, she often swallowed hard, realizing that she mistook that voice for SinHa’s voice when she had the crisis. Even so, SolHi didn’t understand who the person who talked to her could be. 

She winced eventually when the voice talked to her again. „If you say nothing, it means you remember what has happened not long ago,” that voice murmured.  

„Yes, I remember,” replied SolHi in a shaking voice. „Yet… who are you?” 

„I?” The voice answered with another question. After that, a short silence took over the cell, until a small light was lit somewhere in front of SolHi. Thanks to the light, SolHi could see that who was talking to her was a woman about forty, who looked older for her age, and whose hair was almost gray. Only the eyes of the stranger, dark eyes, the color of the coal, still kept the shining of the old glory times in them… of a youth that she barely remembered. 

Seeing that woman, SolHi frowned. „I don’t know you, even though your voice seems familiar to me,” stuttered SolHi. 

„This is because I’ve been talking to you while you had the crisis. Yet, we never met before. And, my name… Min Ha Rin,” replied the woman, eventually. After that, standing up, the one named Ha Rin, lit the lighter again, which she right away switched off, lighting it again soon after this as though she was playing with it. 

Staring at the lighter, SolHi murmured, „Your name doesn’t sound familiar to me either. Also, I don’t understand why you are here.” 

„And? Where should I have been if not here?” Ha Rin asked, laughing. „It’s my cell too. It’s logical for me to be here.” 

SolHi frowned again. At the same time, she felt terrified, seeing Ha Rin heading toward her bed, even though she didn’t understand why she felt so. Yes, SolHi found it strange to fear the woman who helped her a few hours ago. SolHi not only feared her but had a lot of questions in her head, questions related to the stranger, to Min Ha Rin as the woman told her what her name was. And… SolHi had a reason to doubt the good intentions of that woman because, for a year, since she entered prison, she had no cellmate. However, that night they gave her one, a cellmate that helped her when she felt bad when others would have simply ignored her or let her agonize for a whole night on that cold floor. 

Suddenly, seeing the flame of the cigarette lighter right in front of her eyes, SolHi winced and looked at Ha Rin, terrified, when the woman asked her, „Are you afraid?” 

„Should I?” Replied SolHi calmly, even if she was shuddering inside. SolHi’s answer made Ha Rin laugh, loudly. Because of this, the guardian approached the cell eventually, yelling at the stranger: 

„Min Ha Rin, stop this madness and go to bed! Now!” 

„As though you have a problem if I go to bed or not!” Ha Rin idly replied. Yet, even if she seemed indifferent to the guardian, she still climbed onto the bed that was above SolHi’s bed. Once up, she jumped on it, yelling at the guardian, „You should have at least given us a softer mattress! I feel as if I’m sleeping on stones!” After that, as though she wanted to convince the guardian that she wasn’t lying and that the bed was rough, Ha Rin punched it, making SolHi wince. 

The guardian, at all bothered by Ha Rin’s growl, told her, hissing the words through her teeth, „If you like to sleep on a soft mattress, you should have stood outside and not be here!” After that, hitting the bars with the truncheon, she made that hall deafeningly resound. 

The noise made by the truncheon that touched the bars made SolHi cover her ears with her palms. Usually after the crises of epilepsy, she was sensible at loud noises. Not only her but also the other prisoners seemed to feel the same because, soon after this, they started to yell at the guardian to let them sleep. Their shouts made Ha Rin laugh, barely heard at first, calling them after this, „Bunch of stupid cows! Don’t you think so too, SolHi?” Her cellmate didn’t answer, something that enraged Ha Rin. „I asked if you heard me, Ian SolHi! If I ask something, I like someone to respond to that question!” 

„What we would like is for you to keep your mouth shut!” One of the prisoners yelled at Ha Rin. „If you don’t do that, tomorrow you’ll meet your death!”

„In your dreams!” Ha Rin told her in mockery. „What you’ll do tomorrow is to pray not to meet you or, if you see me, you’ll wag your tail not to kill you! So, if you want to still have a tongue tomorrow, keep it behind the teeth and go to sleep, stupid cow!” 

The other prisoners, who started to argue with each other, didn’t follow that „friendly” advice. Thus, if they had been left to do what they wanted, they would have argued for an entire night. Something that didn’t happen because the guardian, whom they managed to drive crazy, „convinced” them to keep their mouth shut and go to sleep if they didn’t want to spend that night in solitary confinement. Then, when silence took over the prison again, SolHi could hear her breathe, which she kept while the argument between the prisoners was in full swing. 

Eventually, when she felt that she was controlling herself again, SolHi asked, „Why are you here, Ha Rin?”

„Because they didn’t have another free bed for me!” Ha Rin drily answered. After that, she turned her back to the wall, staring at the bars in front of her. „Anyway, this isn’t important right now,” she told SolHi after this. „The important thing here is that Fate has decided for us to see each other again. And now, let’s sleep a little bit because, starting tomorrow, hell will be felt here again.” 

What Ha Rin wanted to say through those words, SolHi didn’t understand. She didn’t insist on finding out the truth behind that weird night though, and she didn’t do that because she was sure that she’d find it out sooner or later. Yet, what SolHi didn’t know, Ha Rin knew it: that her presence in that cell was an order. She received the order to get rid of Ian SolHi as soon as possible. She had to do it that night when SolHi’s crisis started. Yet, she couldn’t do that. Instead of killing her, Min Ha Rin helped SolHi to stand up again. Why did she do that? She didn’t know for sure. She just felt that she had to do that, even though it was a truth that would have haunted her for a long time starting that day, bringing death closer even to her.