Day One

Karina awoke on a lumpy couch to Winter leaning over her, gently holding one of Karina’s cheeks with one soft, firm hand. Its pair was stabbing Karina in the face with a corkscrew. Karina screamed. Winter screamed. 

A stressful time was had by all.

“Sorry! Sorry! That should be the last of them,” Winter said, pulling a worm out of Karina's face and hurriedly tossing it away. She leaned away from Karina, looking sheepish.

“Why are you using a corkscrew?” demanded Karina, resisting the urge to put a hand to the hole in her face. Her heart was beating like a jackrabbit’s, and she felt like she was dying. Who knew, maybe she was, though if she had to die from one of her case-related injuries she’d have hoped it would have been from the werewolf instead of worms. It would have made for a better story at the funeral, anyway.

Winter toyed with the bloody corkscrew in her hands self-consciously. “Well, I tried using a knife for the ones in your leg, but just going in laterally wasn’t the most efficient so I thought since they seemed pretty slow burrowing down that the corkscrew would just...work better.” 

Karina slumped into the couch rubbing her eyes and wishing that the couch was more comfortable. “Right.” That was rather clever, actually. Karina probably would have been more impressed if a worm hadn’t just been pulled from her face.

“You probably shouldn’t do that, I need to uh…” Winter petered off and shook a little box of Shiro band-aids. “Yeah.”

Karina sighed and hesitantly sat up again. “Cute.” She muttered when she saw the Shiro bandaids. “Right.” Winter placed the band-aid over Karina's cheek, and as she did so Karina noticed a patchwork of band-aids and bandages covering her arms and part of her legs where her pant leg had been rolled up. “Where’d you put the worms?”

Winter, who had been closing up a little plastic First-Aid kit, looked up at her in confusion. “What?”

“The worms you pulled out of me?”

“Oh, those?” Winter shrugged. “I just threw them away. I mean, what am I going to do with a bunch of bloody worm carcasses?”

“Where are we?” Karina was fairly certain she’d passed out in a musty basement, and not a cluttered apartment with far too many mugs laying around.

“My apartment. You sort of passed out?”

Karina groaned. “I remember.”

“So I had to take you somewhere and I felt we probably shouldn’t lead that thing to a hospital,” Winter explained, casting a disgusted look at the door.

Karina sat up again and rolled back down her pant legs. “We need to tell Giselle. Or the KDCA or somebody.”

“We...can’t,” said Winter apologetically. “The power’s out. I lost my phone back there to the worms and yours was dead before I thought to check it.”

“So? We can make a report in person.”

“That’s the other thing.” Winter looked down at the corkscrew. “We can’t leave.”

Karina just stared at her, panic rising. “What?”

“Do you hear that knocking?”

Karina hadn’t fully understood the meaning of the phrase “hammering at the door” until she’d woken up, and now she couldn’t unlearn it. A deluge of constant, rhythmic knocks tore through the flat and ricocheted off of every piece of furniture and every wall hanging until it settled deep into Karina’s very bones. 

In short, Karina heard the knocking. “I can’t not.” 

“That’s...her. The worm woman.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry she can’t get us in here,” Winter assured her. “Once I was sure you were still alive and I’d gotten you on the couch I plugged up everything, the door, the windows, everything that a worm could get through. She’s been just knocking for hours, so I don’t think they can get in. So we’re safe, at least for now.”

“Just stuck,” Karina summarized.

“For the time being.”

“Right.” Karina re-slumped into the couch.

“We should get some sleep. It’s been a long day. I mean, I don’t need to tell you that, you got wormed,” added Winter, laughing nervously.

“I remember that too, Winter.”

“Of course, right I—sorry.”

“It’s okay Winter, really.” Karina considered putting a comforting hand on Winter’s arm but figured that it wouldn’t be all that comforting coming from her. “Like you said it’s been a rather long day. Some sleep sounds nice.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that.”

“Me neither,” Karina admitted, “but then I got ‘wormed’ as you put it.”

“I guess. You can take the bed if you want, the couch should be fine for me for tonight.”

Karina leapt to her feet, horrified. “Winter are you serious? It’s right by the door! If any worms get through you won’t even be a stone’s throw from them!”

“Well, I’m not going to sleep on the floor, Unnie.”

“I...didn't mean that.” Karina suddenly started heating up as she thought of what she was trying to propose,“We can- both-the bed.” She managed to utter, not a grammatically correct sentence nor a grammatically correct phrase, but at least the words that matter.

“What? Oh!” Karina could hear the flush in Winter’s voice. “Are you sure?”

Karina swallowed and looked up. “I mean if you’re okay with it—”

“Of course, I mean I don’t want to make you—”

“It wouldn’t mean anything, it’s just so you don’t get—”

“I know, I know it’s alright I—”

“Just like at Ryujin's, and that was...yeah. Right.” Karina didn’t point out how different the situation Ryujin’s had been, them both being rather drunk at the time. Karina certainly hadn’t been herself, and she couldn’t imagine Winter would have acted the same way sober.

“Okay.” Winter stood, face still the color of primroses. “I’m going to go get changed, do you want something else to wear or…?”

Karina looked down at her own outfit. It’s not like she hadn’t slept in her work clothes before. She certainly didn’t make the effort to change when she spent the night at the office. Still, she remembered how comfortable Winter’s sweater had been. If they ended up being trapped here longer than a day or so, she certainly wouldn’t complain if she had to borrow a thing or two. Not that she could justify doing so now, though. She smiled awkwardly at Winter. “No, I...this should be fine. Thank you, Winter.”

“Right!” Winter started inching towards the other room. “I’m just going to...yeah.”

Day Two

Karina awoke in Winter's arms.

For the second time.

The worst part was she didn’t even mind it, not at first. Winter was warm, and the faint sunlight filtering through the blinds lit Winter’s hair up like a halo. Karina certainly hadn’t fallen asleep like this, and she was fairly certain Winter hadn’t either, the pair of them putting as much distance between them as they could without falling off the bed. And yet…

Karina had to leave. As quickly and gently as she could, she extracted herself from Winter’s arms. Winter didn’t wake up. she just curled in on herself more. Karina would never understand why such a small person spent so much time making herself smaller, even in sleep. She forced herself to tear her eyes away from the dozing Winter and made her way to the living room.

Karina needed something to do. Not just to distract herself from...well from the bedroom and its contents, but also just in general. She didn’t take well to being bored. And in lieu of work, she’d have to find something else.

What she needed was a book.

When Winter awoke who knew how many hours later, she entered the living room to find piles and piles of books, and in the middle, a cross-legged Karina staring thoughtfully at a well-loved paperback.

“Unnie? What?”

Karina didn’t even look up at her. “She’s still here.”

Winter cast an annoyed look at the door. “I can hear that.”

“So I’m making myself busy,” Karina explained, setting the book in a pile to her left.

“By creating a fire hazard?”

“By looking for something to make myself busy.” Karina furrowed her brow. “Is that alright?”

“Yeah, of course just...I didn’t realize I still owned some of these,” Winter admitted, shuffling over to Karina and her precariously stacked kingdom.

“Some of them were tucked in hard-to-reach places. Especially those.” Karina gestured to a stack of romance novels, about half the size as most of the rest of the piles and twice as bent out of shape. 

Winter turned beet red. “Right, well feel free to read anything you want. They’re all good, or well, I like them,” she finished, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear nervously.

“I’m sure they're wonderful, Winter,” Karina assured her. “Maybe not your rather extensive poetry section, but—”

“Are you not a poetry person?” Winter squinted at her, face returning to a normal color.

Karina just shrugged dismissively. “Not particularly. Some of it’s alright I guess.

“What, are you not one for romantics?” Winter asked, crossing her arms indignantly.

“Certainly not for the Romantics.” Karina rolled her eyes and picked up a hardback that sported the name of the author in far too large letters for how comparatively small the title itself was. “It’s all a lot of flowery bluster to say nothing at all.”

“Nothing at all?” Winter looked like she was going to huck a book at her. “Christ, unnie, I’m going to have to throw you to the worm woman. That one is all about tragic love and doomed romance.”

“There’s enough of that in real life with clear language, Winter.”

“Maybe, Winter conceded. “But sometimes it’s nice...not feel so alone with it, you know?”

Karina didn’t know, not really. She wasn’t really a love person, not like that. Not in the grand, cosmic, flowery poems way. She’d really only loved two beings in her life, Ryujin, and Dallie, and she’d certainly never felt like she lived in a world without bird song or whatever other nonsense romance novels authors spouted; she refused to think of them and their poems more than she strictly had to. It was clear Winter had, though, and so Karina dropped it.

Karina continued sorting through the paper stacks, moving anything that seemed interesting to a steadily growing tower to her right. She’d already read a handful of Winter’s books, though she was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of Winter’s non-poetry books. Most skewed romantic, (Karina was starting to realize Winter was just a very romantic person), though there was a healthy selection of heavily annotated mysteries and, excitingly enough, a remarkably diverse group of non-fiction books.

One of the books that had been relatively hidden away wasn’t like the others. It was leatherbound, for one, though just as worn as the rest of Winter’s tomes. It also lacked a title and author, which probably should have set off a few alarm bells in Karina’s head though she very much doubted Winter would own a grimoire, even accidentally. 

Karina furrowed her brow at the book. “Winter?”

Winter looked up from a collection of novels Karina knew she’d picked up just to be spiteful. “Hm?”

“What’s this?” Karina shook the little book in her hand.

Immediately Winter went red again. “Oh, um, don’t look at that one.”

“Why?”

“It’s poetry, you wouldn’t like it,” said Winter, far too quickly.

“Right.”

Winter dropped the book she was holding and held out her hand. “Can I have it?”

Karina shrugged and handed it over. “It’s your book.”

“Yeah, just...don’t look at this one, alright? You can do whatever with the rest, but I’d rather you leave this one alone.” 

Karina just shrugged again. “Alright.” She grabbed a dirty green paperback and held it up. “Is this any good?”

The color faded from Winter's cheeks as she began a whole spiel about the book in question, and the leather book was forgotten.

Day Three

Karina was in the kitchen when she saw the first worm. It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that her first instinct was to immediately hurl her book at it in a blind panic, but she was nonetheless shocked to find the book out of her hands and the black gel of the worm’s insides making a ruin of the gratuitously shirtless protagonist lounging on the cover.

When the second worm came, Karina was without a projectile. She scrambled back off the countertop she’d perched herself on. “Winter! Winter, they’re getting in!”

Winter’s head popped out of the bedroom, her eyes like saucers. “What?”

“Get blankets, towels, anything hurry!”

“R—right!” Winter retreated, the sound of hurried footsteps as she dashed around and the occasional thump of something being knocked over almost for a moment drowning out the incessant knocking. 

The worms were still coming, trickling through a crack in the wall like water from a faucet, and in numbers far too great for Karina to just stomp them all. She couldn't throw more things at them either; she lacked the speed and accuracy needed to make a dent in the steady stream of worms pouring into the kitchen. She had to do something though, had to make a move before they burrowed into her again. Even as she watched them form a growing pile of wriggling bodies she felt an itching beneath her skin. 

And so Karina grabbed something to stop them, the closest thing she could reach that could do anything to prevent the worms from making her into whatever the woman outside the flat door was. Her fingers closed around a small metal fire extinguisher, and she only fumbled a moment with the release before she released a torrent of CO2 on the writhing mass of worms at her feet.

And then...they weren’t writhing anymore. They weren't moving at all, in fact, they were dying. The CO2 was killing them and so Karina kept spraying, killing all of the worms on the floor and then moving up the wall to fill the crack the worms were coming in from with the gas until the hole was filled with the shriveled remains of the worms. Karina felt her head start to swim. She probably...she probably shouldn’t have been inhaling that much CO2, but she just needed to know that the worms were dead.

By the time Winter returned with armfuls of linens, Karina’s breathing was heavy and she was swaying on her feet. But the worms were dead, and that was what mattered. 

Winter dropped the cloth in her hands just in time for Karina to pitch sideways into her. “Unnie, what? What happened?”

“Worms,” Karina managed, righting herself and leaning heavily on the counter. “The—they don’t like the CO2.”

“I—right. I’ll fill this hole up and you just take a second to breathe some wormless oxygen, alright?”

“Sure.” Karina hunched over the countertop, taking long, deep breaths. The wormless oxygen helped, though that wasn’t much of a surprise. She could think clearly again, and as such Karina lurched forward and grabbed Winter’s arm before she began throwing worm carcasses into the garbage. “Wait! We should save those.”

“What?”

“As proof,” Karina explained, releasing her. “That they’re real. When we get out.”

“I...alright. Uh, get something to put them in I guess.”

Karina began rooting through drawers and finally pulled out a baby blue Tupperware container. “Will this work?”

“Probably? I mean, I’ve never stored dead worms before.” They spent a few minutes dropping worms into the container before putting the mismatched lid on the little bin, making sure to touch as little worm flesh as possible with their bare skin. “Should we just put them in the fridge then?”

“I think the freezer would be better.”

Winter stowed the Tupperware of worms and Karina sank to the floor, back to a wall of cabinets, suddenly exhausted.

Winter sat down next to her. “You didn’t get bit again, right?”

“No, I’m alright. You?”

“I was barely there,” laughed Winter, shaking her head. “You killed them pretty effectively. You were like Rambo with the extinguisher.”

Karina snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far.” It was silent except for the steady knocking at Winter's door.

“You know who she reminds me of?” Winter asked, breaking the silence.

Karina inclined her head towards her partner. “Hm?”

“The worm woman,” said Winter. “She reminds me of Park Sori. I mean, she’s a whole lot worse off but—”

“But she certainly fits the MO,” Karina finished, nodding. Christ, Winter was so much cleverer than she gave herself credit for. Than Karina gave her credit for if she was being honest. She hadn’t even thought of their captor outside of general fear and irritation.

“Like in the Shiho case especially,” Winter was saying, straightening a little against the cabinets as she spoke, “with all the worms coming out of her.”

“We really need to talk to Giselle,” agreed Karina. “Especially if she really is Park Sori.”

Winter glanced mournfully in the direction of the door. “If only we could get out of here.”

Day Four

There was food everywhere in the kitchen when Karina entered it after finishing yet another of Winter's books. Everywhere, it seemed, but the fridge.

“What are you doing?” asked Karina. She cast a wary glance at a half-empty jar of spaghetti sauce. “The worms didn’t contaminate anything did they?”

“No, nothing like that,” Winter assured her, removing a jar of jam and setting it on the counter. “It’s just we’re going to need to go through the perishables at some point, right? If we’re here for much longer they’re going to rot. And it’s not like I’ve got that many perishables here but we might as well use them.”

Karina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in and leaned against the food-strewn counter. “Right. I do remember grand claims about your culinary expertise, Ms. Kim. It’ll be interesting to see what you come up with.”

Winter turned from the fridge, arms crossed and eyebrow arched. “Is that a challenge, Ms. Yoo?”  

Karina grinned. “It might be.”

“I’ll be sure to wow you, then.”

“You’d better.”

And so now they were here at Winter’s chipped and stained dinner table eating a meal that was...well it wasn’t bad per se, but it was, unfortunately. There wasn’t a lot of seasoning, and there were things boiled that probably shouldn’t have been, and, overall, the texture and overall tactile sensation (because Karina refused to even think the word mouthfeel) of a TV dinner. 

Winter looked at her expectantly. “So?”

Karina struggled to make her face move from the grimace it had positioned itself ever since her first bite. “I...well.” Karina struggled for words before electing to just start over. “Remember when I posited that tea making ability is not transferable to cooking ability?” she asked, slowly, carefully.

Winter looked scandalized. “Unnie!”

“Look, I just...not for me?” Karina tried again. 

Winter looked unimpressed. “Well, I’d like to see you do better, Ms. Microwave Tea Lady.”

Day Five

Winter’s fork dropped to her plate with a clatter. “ off.”

“What?” This is the first time Karina heard her curse. Is the food that bad? Karina hadn’t even picked up her own fork and had instead chosen to stare awkwardly at Winter, wringing her hands. “It’s the seasoning, isn’t it? I never could get the percentages right.”

Winter shook her head and stared intensely into Karina’s eyes. “Unnie. Look at me.”

Karina shifted in her seat. “I’m looking.”

“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“Please,” scoffed Karina, glaring at her plate. “It’s not half as good as my grandmother’s.”

Winter gaped at her incredulously. “Was your grandmother Gordon Ramsey?”

“I—no?”

“How could you think you can’t coo