“Listen, you don’t have to do this…”- a voice resounds in the darkness, sounding almost ethereal.

“I don’t want to”- Nayoung was freefalling, deep inside the dark abyss, she wants to scream but nothing comes out, it’s like she has gone completely mute. She closes her eyes, hoping that the darkness would go away.

“Think about Chungha, s-she wouldn’t want this!”- The voice echoes again and Nayoung hears it from nowhere but everywhere at the same time.

“No she wouldn’t”- moves again on its own as she still fails to understand what’s happening.

Nayoung feels the fall stop abruptly, when she opens her eyes she is in the middle of a clearing, flowers of different kinds and scents, b with colors. A sudden gust of wind makes her shiver and she realizes she is wearing nothing but a white loose dress and besides, she is barefoot.

She started walking with no particular direction in mind, for some reason she felt like a child, wanting to run around and explore the seemingly endless plain. She started picking flowers, smelling them and laughing to herself for no apparent reason while she was hopping around, she felt chipper, full of life.

In the distance she saw a huge tree, taller than any tree she had seen before, so she started jogging to it. When she was about 10 or so meters away she noticed something weird, its leaves where pitch black.

The tree was actually huge, even bigger than she thought possible when she first saw it and, at the bottom of it, was a doll, but it wasn’t only a mere doll, this doll was the size of Nayoung herself, had her exact same clothing, the same hair style and the same factions…

And it was looking straight at her.

Nayoung happiness was short-lived, this was creeping her out. Another gust of wind started shaking the tree branches, so leaves began falling. As soon as one of them fell in Nayoung’s left hand, everything turned dark. Darkness engulfed the plain and the only thing that prevented Nayoung from losing her sight completely was the now shinning leaf in her left palm.

She looked up, the human-sized doll was no longer there, the tree was scorched, its branches were dead and it had no leaves left. Suddenly the sound of someone sprinting along the tall grass came from behind Nayoung.

She screamed and backed herself against the burnt tree, shaking in fear. In front of her was another doll, this time blonde with hair that cascaded down to her waist, and it was holding a bouquet full of Black Dahlias.

“Why would you do this to me? To us?”- She heard the doll say, though remained static.

Nayoung was losing her mind, she was trembling from head to toe and so she closed her eyes, unable to continue watching the lifeless figure in front of her.

“Look at you now, you can’t face the consequences of your own actions”- This time there were multiple voices and out of sheer curiosity Nayoung opened her eyes, there were three dolls now. She was surrounded by them while she had her back against the tree.

“It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it! Oh god…”- For the first time since she got here, she talks, her voice coming out hurriedly and shakenly. She then tried to cover her eyes with her hands to escape the scene before her but noticed something unexpected.

The tree and the shinning leaf in her left hand had disappeared and now, instead of it, everything was illuminated faintly by a fire the circled both Nayoung and the dolls. Her dress was now covered in blood and she had a gun in her bloodied right hand.

Feeling a renewed sense of security, she pointed the weapon at the doll that was right in front of her, unsure but slightly more confident. Her hand were still shaking nonetheless.

“I. Did. Not. Do it.”- Nayoung repeated, every word coming out raspy and strong.

She then felt a presence, something was behind her, but it wasn’t menacing, quite the contrary, Nayoung felt comforted. This presence was holding her arm, giving her energy.

“You don’t have to do it, please”-   The doll spoke again only that this time it wasn’t harsh, it was a plea.

“You do”- Another voice interjected, coming from behind Nayoung. - “You have to, there’s no other choice”

Nayoung felt like a child, fidgeting, unsure of what was going to happen next, so she did what any other child should do.

She obeyed the voice behind her, the voice that filled the void with security, so she pulled the trigger.

The last thing she heard were the cries of a baby.

She woke up, her entire body glistening, covered in sweat. It took her at the very least close to half a minute to steady her breath, by that time she had already adjusted her eyes to the darkness that was inside the room.

She was now in the cheap hotel room, if you could even call it a hotel, which she had rented with Jieqiong less than a week ago, when they got to Geumguk-ri. They had been travelling  constantly south of Seoul since they left the city a year ago, only moving after a couple of months or when they were found by the mafia, like it happened recently.

Jieqiong was now sleeping soundly beside her, hugging her pillow like a koala. Nayoung got off the bed making as little noise as she could and maneuvered across the room trying not to hit anything in the crammed hotel room. She managed to reach the balcony doors without much trouble and went outside, closing it behind her so the chilly winter wind wouldn’t wake Jieqiong up.

Truth be told Nayoung doesn’t remember what happened during and after the encounter with Sejeong, she just remembers waking up in a train with Jieqiong by her side, smiling at her and her hair, telling her that everything was going to be alright. Their life was not easy after that, moving in from village to village, staying away from the big cities so that finding them would be at least a little bit harder for the mafia. They were the prey of their sick manhunt.

The organization managed to find them a few times, two to be exact, the first one when they tried to flee the country via airplane, Nayoung should have known the would have people waiting for them in there, it was an obvious move after all. The last one being only a mere week ago.

They had fought a young round-faced girl with chubby cheeks and since Jieqiong had been training Nayoung in her free time, the two of them could easily overwhelm the teen. Nayoung got the feeling that Jieqiong knew her but didn’t ask, the midnight sobs were enough of a confirmation.

She looked around the back pocket of her shorts before taking out a cigarette’s pack. She had taken up smoking ever since they left Seoul and even though Jieqiong was totally against it, Nayoung would find the moment to light one from time to time. It helped her get rid of accumulated stress.

“If you smoke you hinder your progress” Jieqiong would say, arguing that it would affect her overall performance because of carbon monoxide and other stuff Nayoung couldn’t bother to remember.

Both Nayoung and Jieqiong had to dye their hair to avoid being easily spotted, Nayoung was still a famous police officer after all. The color blonde suits her, or so Jieqiong says, it makes her almost a completely different person. She had been working at night in some grotty nightclubs where her identity would not matter as long as she did her job, which included, but was not limited to, beating the hell out of troublemakers. Jieqiong on the other hand resorted to working on a bakery, as she could come and go without nobody noticing who she is.

Speaking of which, Nayoung felt a head resting on her shoulder.

“It’s cold out here, did you have nightmares again?”- The Chinese girl asks in a whisper to which Nayoung just hums in response. It seems that Jieqiong takes that as unwillingness to share so she doesn’t try to push the issue anymore, simply deciding to remain beside her.

“You should really go back to bed if you don’t want to catch a cold”- This time Nayoung is the one to break the silence, she hears Jieqiong giggle and moves to look at her.

“I’m wearing my pajamas at least, you are dressed with some shorts and a tank top, how is it that I’m the one that’s gonna catch a cold?” – There is a little pause – “I thought i told you to quit smoking for real, where the hell do you get them even?”

Nayoung has her ways, even though Jieqiong doesn’t