She couldn't stop her head from spinning, and her hands shook violently in her lap. It had been hours since Hwayoung had gotten home from seeing–well, Jinki–today and her breathing was still shaky, she still quivered in a mixture of pure confusion and anguish. She felt so unnerved and she was just... so very disturbed by it all.

"What the ? What the ? What the fu-" She whispered to herself. "Was it really... him?" She droned on and on, and mumbled chaotically to herself. A glance at the clock told her that it was 11 pm–she should be getting ready for bed, she should at least be trying–but she couldn't even slow the erratic beating of her heart, she couldn't find her balance because she was just so dumbfounded. All she could do was sit on the edge of her bed, tense from having been unable to relax for hours on end.

"That couldn't have been him, right? Jinki couldn't have been there today. It's impossible."

It definitely was impossible. Seeing Jinki? Alive and walking around like nothing had happened? Like nothing horrible in the last couple years had ever happened... Hwayoung shook her head and rubbed her palms with her thumbs roughly in her lap trying to calm her jittering nerves. No, it was not him, she urged herself to think rationally because Jinki was dead, he was one hundred percent dead and she knew this. It must have been a dream, a bad dream she had had while she was awake. People had those right? Or it could have been someone who looked exactly like him and maybe seeing that resemblance struck something in her to make her believe it was really him. That must have been it. It couldn't have been him standing there in that crowd, that brown head of hair she knew so well and had run her fingers through thousands of times before–it had to have been someone else right?

"It had to be him," At this point she felt so numb, useless where she sat, tears just streamed down her cheeks, "I know it was him."

Hwayoung was so tired, so exhausted in general, but she couldn't even find the strength to get ready for bed let alone even pull a blanket over herself. She fell asleep quickly, weary from the shock of today. The last thing she remembered before her eyes fell shut was her bedroom door slightly ajar, which she vaguely remembered closing when she got home.

____________________________

What woke her was the sound of whispering.

But from who? Her eyes fluttered open, she woke a little disoriented but completely nervous. She lived alone, she had no pets, nobody other than herself had a key to her place. So who's voice did she hear, urging her out of her sleep? Hwayoung laid still in her bed, her back facing the door but her eyes wide open and darting around in every direction trying to focus and figure out what was happening. She quickly looked at her clock then, it was 3 am now.

As soon as she had regained full consciousness, she decided not to move from where she laid because suddenly a new feeling had overcome her. A feeling that she was now not alone.

She wanted to call out who's there? who are you? but was dry and her hands shook in fear. She wanted to crane her neck, take a look behind her and figure out what was going on but her fear had paralyzed her. This presence did not feel good, it made her skin crawl and her stomach twist and turn in what she could only describe as a cold, unfriendly ache. She couldn't figure out what it was that was making her feel like this. Was it a robber? A house intruder? God she hoped so because if it was anything else...

"Hwayoung..."

She almost choked when a unearthly voice murmured her name down the halls of her home.

Hwayoung knew she did not imagine that voice, that crawled up her spine and gripped her heart like a fist. She quickly pulled the blanket over her body, leaving just enough space for her face to poke out and breathe. The voice continued to call out her name, ever so quietly but still effective in terrifying her. 

"Hwayoung... where are you?" She slapped a hand over to muffle her rapid breathing, her heart hammered in her chest and she felt tears stinging her eyes because she could hear it–the voice was getting closer, and it was looking for her.

"Please... tell me where you are?" It didn't sound real. It didn't sound natural, not like a real person, like it was just a trace of what a person was supposed to sound like. She let out a sob, tears fully running down her cheeks now but she still tried her best to be motionless as she could, her back still facing her bedroom door. 

It was at this moment that dread had completely filled her. She heard the sound of her door creaking open before hitting the wall and the room suddenly felt cold as ice, and her breathing completely stopped. Oh god... She cried silently as she could feel someone–or something?– standing in the doorway of her room, and she prayed and prayed that they would leave. She was crying fully now as the person came closer and closer, before she could feel that they had stopped at the foot of her bed. She couldn't even look nor could she stop crying knowing that they were just staring at her, as she could only stare at her bedroom wall in front of her.

"Ah, I found you."

She screamed as a dark outstretched hand jolted in front of her face, grabbed her wrist and pulled her forcefully off the bed. Her head hit the floor with a dull thud and darkness filled her vision before her eyes fluttered closed and she was out.

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Hwayoung woke up later on the floor, her body wrapped up in blankets and her head throbbing like no other. Letting out a long, pained groan she pulled herself into a sitting position to find her equilibrium. She sat there for a moment, almost forgotting what had happened before, before her head snapped up and she jumped to her feet looking around the room for whoever or whatever it was that was caused this. Seeing her room empty, moonlight still shining in through her bedroom curtains, she took a cautious step, but keeping her guard up, and once again looked at the time to see 5 am shining brightly at her on her digital clock.

She let out a shaky, nervous breath as she sat on the edge of her bed, and held her head in her hands. Whatever had happened, it was not a dream. It was not an illusion and unlike night terror like she's ever had in the past. This was real, physical and it touched her. Hwayoung shook, thinking about how it touched her. The fist that gripped her was cold–the skin didn't even feel real– but the sensation she had felt in that moment, was as if that hand had burnt her. She stared at her wrist, as if it really was burned and she would find the shape of a hand imprinted in her skin but there was nothing there. She almost sighed in relief. She sat silently again, trying to make sense of what to make of everything. This was so ed up, because if it wasn't a dream, then what was it?

She was interrupted by the sound of light humming, a familiar tune rang throughout her house consequently causing her heartbeat to ring similarly in her chest. It felt as if all the air left her body, because she recognized that gentle humming. It was Jinki.

It sounded so eerie, that tune that would instantly bring her back to the times that Jinki would hum when he used to make food for them in the afternoons–those times she would come up behind him, rest her hand on his arm and place kisses all over his face and he'd smile back brightly before enveloping her completely in his arms–it was eerie hearing it in the dead of night, during a time when all she wanted to do was place her hands on his chest and take him in, hearing it in her moments of true terror and solitude. That voice was her most favourite sound in the world, the song one she held dearest because it was Jinki, so hearing it now disturbed her to heights she couldn't even fathom.

"W-what?" She slowly turned around, unsure of what she would see but still stood frozen in her place next to her bed, "Jinki?"

Her room was empty, but the singing still continued, she could hear it down her hall as if it was calling her to come out. She took a step forward almost in a daze, one by one, entranced by the voice that both used to put her to sleep at night and wake her up in the morning under warm sunlight and even warmer kisses from the boy she loved. She couldn't stop herself from moving towards the sound, and she was crying once again because she knew it was wrong and she knew that she shouldn't have kept walking but her body was moving of its own accord. She knew that it wasn't him, but it sure did sound like him and obviously that was enough for her.

The voice continued to sing, and Hwayoung continued to inch closer and closer. She stopped once she reached the edge of her doorway, she didn't know whether to cross the threshold or to just simply close the door entirely, hope the eidolic voice goes away, and cry herself to sleep. It was stupid, she knew, it was not Jinki and she knew that. He was dead, simple as that and she shouldn't even entertain the fact that it could have been him. The image of a sneering Taemin crossed her mind at that moment. Was this him? Did he bring Jinki back and was this Taemin letting her get a glimpse of what she could have if she agreed? If so, what was the purpose of all of this then, this was torture, just hearing Jinki like this did not make her want to say yes anymore than before. She realized that all of it was a load of bull as the voice continued to echo out to her. She was bending, because Jinki was so close, she knew that she was at risk of giving Taemin that final 'yes'. That boy she had loved so much, he was right outside and close enough for her to grab onto him and never let him leave her again.

She stepped into the hall then, and Jinki's melodic voice stopped. She paused in place to look down her long, dark hall and saw–nothing. No Jinki, nobody was there, nothing. It didn't make sense, but she thought, when did anything of this make sense? She searched around and behind her, looked into the other rooms through their open doors and sighed before turning around to walk back into her room.

"Hwayoung."

She stopped in her tracks. It was as if the world stopped spinning and all of the air around her had been dry at that moment. Her eyes opened wide in fear but she couldn't bring herself to turn her head to see the one who called out to her. And she knew, it was really him. She knew the sound of his voice like the back of her own hand. 

She could tell that he standing in the dark at the end of her hall, and could vaguely make out the shape of his body in her peripherals but still she chose not to look at him. It didn't feel right, the presence of this Jinki. She wasn't sure what to expect, because this definitely had to be some sort of trick by Taemin to manipulate her. She was too scared to see what form of him she would find, because she knew it wasn't really him.

"Hwayoung, my baby." She could hear the smile in his voice, that familiar tone of his chuckling. It sounded exactly like him, she really was surprised that it wasn't.

"Baby, turn around. Come to me."

Was she crying again? She must have been, her breathing was caught in , sobs racked her chest.

"Please... I need you. You have to come to me."

She shook her head aggressively, refusing to turn and give in. She knew something was wrong, she could feel it in her bones. It definitely wasn't Jinki, no matter how much this vision tried to suggest that it was.

"Why are you leaving me here? Don't you love me, Hwayoung?" The voice sounded so disembodied at this point, it sounded as if Jinki was moving, but she could see that he–or it–still stood there. "Don't you love me anymore?"

It almost angered her that this thing had the gall to suggest that of her, and she almost laughed out loud. She was weak at this point, she wanted to run to him and say yes, yes I do but she knew she shouldn't. This wasn't what she wanted.

She finally choked out in a hoarse whisper, "I do, Jinki. And that's why I can't go to you."

She bolted into her room, hearing a ghastly wheeze down the hall behind her. She slammed the door shut, locked it, and leaned her body weight against it to keep it closed as more and more tears stained her skin and fell to the floor under her. She was ready to just give up, she felt so tired and this was all too much. She sank to the floor, crying silently, as she fell asleep to the light humming that continued in her apartment through the night.

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When she woke up the last time, with sunlight pouring into her room and shining bright in her eyes, she was tucked in bed and underneath her blankets. Her bedroom door was shut.
 

Hey guys, I'm really sorry about the long and unannounced hiatus but here is
another chapter and I hope you all like it. I will try to be more frequent with updates.

First off, THANK YOU so much for the subs and comments, I love your opinions
and thoughts about what's going on. I tried hard to make this chapter super
creepy but I probably rambled too much with Hwayoung's angst haha.

Good luck to Hwayoung!