Another night, I’m connected with you
One night, belonging to no one
This quite too transparent thread of fate
Makes me excited heartily
Dancing as if I’m wandering in a dream
You who make me be alive
Go ahead, Taste my heart
I tempted as I desired 
deeply, fully inside my heart

- Mystery Lover - 

Anna bid goodnight to her uncles and climbed the stairs of the old house, stopping on the middle of it on the slightly bigger step where the stairs turned in another direction and raised her eyes to the big window by her side. The moon was really beautiful, her light illuminating the woods around the house and the place where her uncle had the kennels where he kept his two jindo dogs.

Anna loved animals, she was always a little afraid of dogs but still they seemed very friendly and cute and she was eager to go for a walk with them the next day. She was going to resume climbing the stairs when she saw it.

It seemed like a shadow of a man near the other lonely house near the cliff. She furrowed her eyes trying to see better but the shadow disappeared suddenly.

“Is everything ok?” Her aunt asked from down the stairs and Anna turned to her.

“Sure. I was only admiring the moon!”

“You can see it clearly from here!”

Anna nodded and once again said her goodnights before climbing to her bedroom.

Her bedroom was very simple and old and yet it was perfect for her months of self-healing.

She bathed and lied down on her bed falling asleep quickly.

However soon she felt someone watching her.

It was like a shadow walking around the bedroom in her direction. That shadow stopped near the window, the moonlight bathed her but it didn’t stop and walked closer and closer to her, making so that no moonlight was illuminating Anna anymore.

Her heart was beating fast and yet she wasn’t sure if she was scared.

The shadow moved his hand to her head and that’s when she woke up. Anna sat on the bed and moved her eyes around the bedroom. No one was with her inside the room and yet she was almost sure that someone was there.

She lied down on the bed again and sighed deeply trying to calm down her heart. It was only a nightmare.

Anna walked around her aunt’s property and decided to sit near the kennels with her small blue notebook. She was never a writer but sometimes she liked to write her thoughts on it. She opened it and decided to write about her weird dream first. She was so concentrated doing so, that one of the dogs barking scared her.

She let the pen fall to the ground and stood up from the broken tree trump to grab it. That’s when she felt it. It wasn’t the shadow but someone or something was watching her. She quickly stood up forgetting the pen and her eyes scanned the house.

There was no sign of life there and she swallowed nervously squatting again to grab the pen, her eyes still on the house.

Anna closed her notebook and decided to explore the property a little more. Maybe if she knew the house better she would stop having those uneasy thoughts about it.

So she walked around the house, stopped to admire the small garden her uncle was planting and then decided to walk back to where the dogs were.

She passed by a huge box where her uncle did the home composting and she noticed something strange near it.

Anna grabbed the piece of fabric realizing that it was an apron. It was red and she looked at it for a while until realizing that she was mistaken. She let it fall to the ground when she noticed that it was in fact white and that was blood, an awful lot of blood.

“What are you doing?” Her aunt asked and Anna stuttered pointing at the apron.

“It’s blood…it’s filled with blood!”

Her aunt tilted her head not understanding the big deal “Yes it is. That was used by one of the girls that used to help us around the house. One day we found one of the dogs dead and she disappeared. That’s the dog blood. She was crazy!”

Anna blinked her eyes “Did you tell the police?”

“Police? For a dog? No. She probably ran away with one boy from the village.” Her aunt approached Anna “I found a box of condoms on her bedroom once.”

Anna pursed her lips, not surprised with her aunt’s old mentality.

“I see…”

If she only knew how Anna used to give free condoms a lot to the girls who often came to the Help Center where she worked, or the fact that she also used to keep condoms on her purse. It was better if she hide them from her aunt’s eyes. Not that she intended on using them…

“Let’s go inside. It’s getting dark and nights here can be chilly!”

Anna was sleeping again. However this time she had her eyes open in her dream and she was waiting for the shadow to come.

It didn’t take much to happen and she sat on her bed, inside her dream.

She couldn’t see the shadow since everything was fuzzy but she knew it was there in the corner of her bedroom, hiding in the darkness and watching her.

Anna opened and tried to speak “Are you real or am I really dreaming?”

Nothing happened for a while and she wondered if she was right but then the shadow spoke.

“It’s a dream.”

It was a young’s man’s voice and not as scary as she expected.

 “You are the one watching me.” She could feel the eyes of the shadow on her the whole day “Why are you watching me?”

“Because I need you!”

Anna swallowed with uneasiness but she needed to know “You need me? For what?”

The shadow didn’t answer and she gripped the covers of her bed “Who are you? What’s your name?”

“I’m a nightmare.” His voice was too sweet to be scary though “My name is Taemin.”

She repeated the name to herself inside her head. “I am not afraid!” She said, without realizing, because it was true. She wasn’t!

“You should be! In the end you will die in this house.”

His words send a shiver down her spine as if he saw what was her future and had no doubt about it.

“You will kill me?”

“Leave the house!” The shadow said angrily, the order or warning echoing through the bedroom and making her head hurt.

Anna closed her eyes and covered her ears and then when she opened them again she had woken up from the dream.

She sat on the bed and turned the lamp on her bedside table.

The room was empty but the window of her room was open. She stood up quickly, certain that she let it closed when she lied down on the bed and run to it.

She saw the shadow disappearing in the middle of the woods that connected the house she was staying to the one on the cliff.

Who is Taemin and what he wants from her?