Chapter 165 - Some see, and Others Not

Eun Ha blinked twice, as she was seeing the wraiths, even without the monocle. They were disengaging from their hosts, like dark rags, and ascending to the sky. She didn't have a good feeling about that!

Looking down, she saw Ye Rim more concerned with what was going on over her head than with the humans who acted like zombies. She didn't understand how it could happen, but it was happening. The Hunter and the doctor were dealing with humans, and Ye Rim raised her hands to defend herself ...

Eun Ha needed to do something!

ººº

Those people crowded near a concrete structure they used as shelter, all had shadows attached to them. Then Ye Rim grabbed her oppa's hand to get away quickly. And why did that song start playing so loud and suddenly? They were many, about thirty people, men and women. And suddenly the mob started to follow them. It wasn't a coincidence. The shadows dominated those unfortunate people as Yuna was. She heard the distorted whispers…

"Kill! Kill the woman!"

"Oppa! We better run!" she turned to Jun Hyeon, pulling him. But Jun Hyeon couldn't see what she was seeing. He probably just saw homeless people acting weird. He turned, as if to say something to them, as she tried to pull him away. There would be no dialogue. People could not hear. 

When Jun Hyeon realized this, they ran, but the mob easily surrounded them.

They tried to grab Ye Rim. She was the target. Jun Hyeon was trying to defend her, but he was just one against many. They were trapped.

Then Ye Rim saw the shadows start to come off those people, and as if they were sucked into the sky, they gathered and started forming a bigger thing.

It looked familiar. 

It looked like her nightmare with Big Mouthed Monster.

"Oppa! RUN!" she felt the tears of terror run down her face. In her dream, she could never escape the Big Mouthed Monster.

Dr. Kim didn't even respond, and she knew he wouldn't budge while defending her.

Then Professor Shin arrived to help Jun Hyeon. They were fighting those people, whose only aim seemed to be to grab Ye Rim. Jun Hyeon put her own body in front of her, enduring the fingernails and pushes of those people with empty eyes. Professor Shin threw them away to get to the couple.

Suddenly, the formation of shadows on something bigger and scarier was aborted. They 'pulled apart' and left like rats dispersed by a broom. The homeless people seemed to awaken those numb minds and, temporarily released from their 'demons', those people also fled like rats.

Eun Ha came running and hugged her, which was good, because her legs were weak,

"Are you okay, Ye Rim?" 

She just shook her head, trying to see how Jun Hyeon was doing too. He was bleeding and dirty, but he seemed more concerned with her.

Shin approached them and said, 

"Jun Hyeon, take them home, I'll talk to the police and explain what happened."

'Police?! What police? ' Ye Rim looked around and saw and heard no sign of the police. But her gaze caught Eun Ha's hand, inside the jacket, moving as if he was stirring something all the time. It was so weird!

It didn't take long for the trio to drive home in Jun Hyeon's car. The doctor broke the silence,

"That was the scariest thing I have ever experienced. Those people ... They didn't want to rob us. They wanted to kill us!"

"Drugs, Dr. Kim! It's the drugs! I saw a horrible video about drugs that even make people cannibalize each other!" Eun Ha said, still hugging Ye Rim in the back seat. "Isn't it better to go to a hospital? You are bruised and bleeding..."

The singer looked at Eun Ha out of the corner of her eye. She knew her unnie's 'fudge' and that comment was more of a smoke screen. Eun Ha knew what was going on, she was sure now.

"I'll go to the hospital after leaving you at home safely. I'm happy that neither of you got hurt."

"Thank you, oppa!" Ye Rim said, really grateful. Jun Hyeon managed to keep her safe even with so many people surrounding them. He didn't give up. "But we really must go to the hospital now. I'm fine and Eun Ha, too, but you're bleeding, although you feel okay. As you said, it's adrenaline."

He smiled in the rearview mirror, "You are right, I will do this if you don't mind. Eun Ha, I don't believe in these rumors and videos on the internet. I hope the police will check the situation of those people. The police arrived so quickly and in large numbers, I was thankfully surprised! Did you call them?" Ye Rim was still confused, since Jun Hyeon claimed to have seen the police, but she had not seen any police cars or their arrival.

"Ahem! Yes, I called when Professor Shin ran to help them!" replied Eun Ha, fl.u.s.tered.

"He's a good fighter!" admitted Jun Hyeon, wiping his face once again with his torn jacket sleeve.

"Yes! Is he a martial artist?" Ye Rim asked, starting to be more alert after recovering a little.

Her unnie replied,

"Ah, well, I thought you taught TaeKwonDo in the army."

"Not at that level. Yet everything that happened,… It seemed supernatural," the doctor veered off to the hospital.

"I believe it's because of synthetic drugs abuse. And their homelessness situation... You were in the wrong place..."

"But you were also there, and you weren't attacked," Jun Hyeon countered. Ye Rim saw her friend getting fidgety. Then she asked, pretending to haven't noticed it at all,

"Oppa, I didn't see the police. How can I have missed this? " she was hawk-eyeing her unnie's reactions. And Ye Rim realized by the tightening of the muscles in her face, how tense Eun Ha was. Angry, Ye Rim came out of the embrace of her liar unnie, and opened the window to breathe some air. Jun Hyeon replied,

"Didn't you see? In that case I will ask a doctor to see you and maybe give you a light tranquilizer so you can sleep well today. Don't worry."

"But tell me what I didn't see!" she insisted, on edge. She understood that Dr. Kim wanted to guarantee her well-being, even though he was hurt. But Ye Rim wanted to know what he saw. She was now starting to realize that there was much more than evil shadows at work. 

"That loud music suddenly stopped and police cars approached, with sirens and lights on. Someone spoke into the microphone: LAST WARNING, YOU ARE SURROUNDED! SURRENDER NOW!" said Jun Hyeon, looking uncomfortable about something.

"What is it, Oppa?"

"It was strange, wasn't it? Is this the standard way of acting? I don't think the police could even do that."

"But what matters is that it worked, didn't it?" Eun Ha interrupted quickly, "Maybe they did it because it was a big and dangerous group."

"I don't know," said Jun Hyeon. All the time Ye Rim watched over Eun Ha's reactions. It was plausible that her unnie was nervous about what had happened, but she seemed to be on the defensive too. And it was definitely not normal. When they arrived at the hospital, Ye Rim jumped out of the car, and pulled her best friend by the arm,

"Listen unnie. At this point we'll take care of Jun Hyeon oppa, who is injured, first. But when we get home, you have many things to explain to me! And don't even think about running to your Teacher!"

Leaving her unnie with her mouth agape, she went with Jun Hyeon to the hospital emergency room to get medical attention. Even when he insisted that she should see to a doctor too, Ye Rim refused, as she wanted to be wide awake to confront Eun Ha.

An hour later, they met Professor Shin, who was waiting for them in front of the building where they lived. 

"How did things go? Did the police find them?" asked Jun Hyeon.

"The police didn't believe my report. That they acted like zombies from a movie. They said they would do a search and scolded me for walking in the park late at night," he explained, but of course, his explanation didn't convince Ye Rim. She hadn't seen any police, and it just showed that, as she suspected, Professor Shin was involved in whatever Eun Ha was. That if he were really a Professor. She no longer believed that.

"Did you solve the problem you came here to in first place?" Jun Hyeon asked pointedly. The other man looked at him, and said,

"Yes, a student had a manuscript to deliver to me before going on a trip, and since she lives nearby, she asked me to pick it up there. It was urgent for her, and important for me," he showed the notebook from afar, putting it away again. "I wouldn't have imagined that we would be in danger. In fact, I wouldn't have thought you were going to follow us," there was a slight disapproving tone, and it embarrassed Jun Hyeon. But not Ye Rim,

"I had a bad feeling. And I wasn't mistaken."

"Well, I understand and I'm sorry to have exposed you to this," Shin bowed to them, looking sincere this time. Ye Rim was getting more and more confused with these two!

But when the men said goodbye, and left the two girls alone, she turned to Eun Ha,

"Enough lies, unnie! I want the truth!"

ººº

Soon after the wraiths dispersed in the park, they flew through the night and through the center of Seoul, converging on the same building. A building in an upscale neighborhood of the city. The shadows rose to the top, to the antenna on the roof of the building. Below that antenna was a duplex apartment, and inside it, a sound room. The clandestine radio station, known as the KWB, broadcast from there.

"MR. KWAK PRESENTS 'THE TOP 10! YOU CALLED, WE PLAY'EM! '"A recording was triggered by the computer, which had a sequence of automated tasks to follow. Bots answered calls to, and the hand that used to push the buttons manually lay near the overturned microphone. Worms roamed the rotting flesh. Mr. Kwak, or the Young Jin fairy, had been dead for days.

In a dark corner, the Devourer closed his eyes, slightly bored. 

Hye Seong was bothering him again.