The house was never meant to be silent, not in the middle of a city. But down two dozen steps in the damp basement, there is quiet. It's not a natural quiet- it's something else, something meant for whispers and deals in the dark. A silence meant to hide in. 

The walls were covered in white chalk markings. It might have been symbols or words at one point, but they had been traced over and rewritten so many times that the walls were just powdery white now. Candles flickered over the hard cement of the floor, catching dust as it swirled around. Even though there was a living woman sitting cross legged on the floor, she didn't seem to be alive. She was one with the stillness, the silence of the room. Wax dripped lazily into puddles around her. The night moved on outside. Her voice came gently, rising to fill the room so gradually it was impossible to pinpoint when she'd actually began speaking. It wasn't English or Korean, or any language she could claim she knew- her eyes were closed and her lips moved on their own, praying to some unseen god. 

It heard her. 

Hyunae's head snapped back and her voice got louder, echoing off the walls. Her voice was not her own, taking on a deeper timbre and distorting to sound like three people speaking at once. Her eyes were wide and staring but they didn't see anything. The candles went out and there was nothing but her voice in the darkness. She was no longer alone. Hyunae fixed her eyes on a point in the darkness, speaking her lines as she'd rehearsed them. 

"I have a proposition for you"