I almost fell flat on my face if not for somebody steadying me when we landed right outside my uncle’s house.

‘Whoa there, careful!’ Woohyun gripped my arm till I steadied myself. From the tone of his voice, I suppose I wasn’t the only one who stumbled on her feet.

‘Thanks,’ I said gratefully. When I looked around I was pretty amazed that one second ago I was in the cold marbled teleportation office and now I was in a neighbourhood with lots weird buildings. Some of the buildings were not straight like a kid had built it with his toy blocks. Coloured bricks were sticking out and the windows were long with intricate patterns as grills. From the outside, it looks a bit hard to see the outside with that many things clustered on the window but I’ve discovered that you can’t see the grills from the inside. Which was weird sometimes.

‘Miss Seohyun this is your destination right? If so, thank you for doing business with us and have a good day ahead!’ the teleporter smiled and then disappeared before I could say anything.

I stood there for a while and stared blankly at the space where he was just a second ago. Teleportation was really the best way to travel.

The sound of heavy footsteps from behind the large door snapped me out of my amazement. I froze. How could I have been so careless? I hoped he didn’t see me appear with a teleporter which meant I had to explain a whole lot of things that I wasn’t ready to.

I racked my brain trying to come up with a valid excuse when the door opened. My uncle was at the doorway. He was a big man and tall till he almost filled up the door frame. He was fit for his age and he had a beard. He always wore a scowl on his face and I never knew the reason for it.

Now though, his steely eyes showed tremendous fear.

I was bewildered and worried. Of all the emotions I’ve imagined ever possible on his face other than his scowl, I didn’t expect this.

I wanted to ask what was wrong but then he spoke. ‘What do you want?’ the tone he used sounded like he was talking to a sales person trying to sell him cheap crap and subtly giving a message that you were just wasting his time and if you don’t back off soon, you’ll regret it kinda thing. His expression told a different story though.

I was confused for a moment because he talked like he didn’t know who I was, then he mouthed silently, ‘Go home.’

His eyes were desperate and his body was incredibly tense. He still hadn’t moved from his spot at the door frame. I could see from the way he was standing, blocking the view on the inside that he was hiding something from me.

Part of me wanted to stay to find out what he was hiding and the other part was itching to run away as far as possible.

However, before I could take a step, a voice behind my uncle froze me in my tracks.

‘Ryu? Who is that out there?’ it was a deep and hoarse voice.

My uncle’s eyes widened and made frantic gestures signalling that I should get my moving immediately.

I turned and ran with all my might. So much for showing up here on time.

It was a long way on foot to my home but I wasn’t thinking at the time. I didn’t even notice my surroundings, how dark the sky became and why there wasn’t a single soul on the streets even though it was a little too early for everyone to be indoors.

I ran and ran till I couldn’t. I had ended at a park. There were still a few miles left till I reached home so I bent down with one hand on my knee and the other on my stitch and steadied my breath.

I tried gathering my thoughts, tried to make any sense of what happened just now but it just made everything more confusing.

When I finally calmed down a little, that’s when I noticed something wasn’t right. The sky was pitched black without any stars twinkling or even the moon. It wasn’t right, because today was the fifteenth day of the month.

A cold shiver went down my spine. My senses were more alert and I could feel two pairs of eyes burning holes into my back.

The only source of light around was the streetlights and the gigantic lamp posts in the middle of the park. I drew out my dagger which was pretty handy for occasions like this.

It was eerily quiet, no sounds of crickets or other animals other than my own breathing. Slowly, I turned to the back and my stalker revealed itself.

 No, make that five stalkers.

They were skulking towards me at a considerate pace. They looked human, sort of because of their body structure but that was the only similarity.

Instead of hands, they had blades, a creepy skeletal face and not to mention they were at least two meters tall.

Their empty sockets glowed a sinister green. I‘ve never seen such creatures before in my town and absolutely have no idea why they were after me.

What I do know, was that they were going to kill me.

I got my dagger ready but they looked like the dead, would cutting through them make them stay dead?

I didn’t have time to ponder further because the creature on the far left suddenly launched itself at me. Before it could slice me into half, I managed to dodge and rolled to the side. It was fast and was on to me again. I remembered all the training I went through with my uncle and put it to use.

A shrill scream pierced the silence of our surroundings as my blade sliced through its body. But it was the fire that burned at its legs and was spreading rapidly that did the damage. The scream had been a pretty loud one and I was hoping to see at least a few people emerging from their houses to check out what was happening but it seemed like they had plugged their ears. 

The other four creatures saw what happened and rushed over, slashing the air and hissing furiously. Before they could reach me though, flames erupted at their gnarled feet. Their feet gradually turned into ashes as the flames travelled higher and higher. I watched as they crumbled into dust and the debris left behind got blown away by the wind. It was almost too easy.

As usual, that was just the beginning.

Twenty more hissing blade men appeared from the shadows from the back and front. I was surrounded.

I stood on my ground and got ready to channel heat into my hands. I figured five I could blast them off with ease, twenty wouldn’t be much, right? Something at the back of my brain told me this battle wouldn’t end in a while.

They were a few metres away when I placed my hands on the ground and then the back row of creatures caught fire.

The other ten in front of me stopped in their tracks in shock. I used their moment of distraction and threw my dagger at one of them from the side and it pierced three of them through their heads. Their flesh must’ve been really soft. The bodies that fell disintegrated as soon it touched the ground. No mess to clean up I guess.

I kicked, stabbed and dodged the whole time. And I was really looking forward to end this whole thing by destroying the last one when something slung around my neck and pulled me backwards.

I realised it was an arm that was strangling me. It was really cold like a block of ice and I couldn’t help but shiver violently. And it wasn’t because of the cold.

Then the images came.

Chains against the mouldy wall where ants and other insects crawled. The cold damp air of the room where a small window was the only place one would believe that the outside world still existed. At the far end of the circular room, a girl was lying on the icy floor. Her back was facing me. She was wearing a tattered white dress and her legs were full of scratches just like mine.

I was terrified but I wanted to know if she was alive, to know that I wasn’t all alone. So I crawled towards her and reached out for her shoulder. I shook her shoulder but there wasn’t any response. I looked over and saw her strands of long black hair covering her face. It was a scary sight but I was still curious what hid underneath. I pushed her hair away carefully.

I didn’t get to see how she looked like because the next moment, I found myself spitting out grass. I didn’t know what was going on. The only thing I was sure of was that I’ll never want to taste grass again and that something was blinding me. My head hurt like I got bashed by a rock.

Then I heard a shout.

I threw my hand in front of my eyes and blinked a few times before I could see clearly. I was back in the park and instead of the skeletal blade creatures I was fighting with, there stood two figures facing each other.

One of them wore a cloak that covered part of its face so there was no way of identifying who that was. The other person was a man with obsidian eyes and hands that looked really pale and his fingers were far too long. His face was equally pale with a sharp nose and he looked mad. He had a sword as a weapon and the cloaked person had a strange purplish white power emitting from his/her hands.

He was baring his teeth in anger when he suddenly noticed that I’d awakened and then charged towards me while shouting something incorrigible. I knew I couldn’t move fast enough to protect myself but a flash of black suddenly passed in front of me. The cloaked figure was protecting me and blasted the sword guy with purple magic.

He fell on his back from the impact and groaned. ‘What the hell are you doing? Aren’t we on the same side?’ he gasped angrily.

The other person didn’t say a word and bent down towards sword guy. I couldn’t see what was happening but then the purple light with the mysterious white streaks glowed and then the man on the ground disappeared with the light.

The cloaked figure got up and turned to face me. I still couldn’t see how my saviour looked like. I hadn’t notice at first but there were droplets of blood on the grass. I wanted to ask so many questions or even croak out a ‘thank you’ but the figure turned away and disappeared in a billow of purple smoke that smelled faintly of grapes.

As soon as the figure disappeared everything returned to normal. The streets around were filled with people again and the dark of the night wasn’t as dark as before because the moon and the stars were back again. My headache also went away and as I got up, I went to look for my dagger and found it near the lamp posts. I checked my watch and noticed that only twenty minutes had passed when it had felt like that encounter lasted for hours.

I was confused, so horribly confused.

What had just happened? From my terrified uncle, to a bunch of zombies who were keen on chopping me up, the disturbing images and not to mention the duel at the end, everything didn’t make sense.

What had made me remember those past memories?

I decided today was just the weirdest day and I should ignore my thoughts and deal with them tomorrow. Now all I wanted was to go home.

When I finally reached my doorstep, a sudden crash and yelp made me barge in and think about those horrible blade creatures again. Were they attacking my family now?

Alas, it was just Tiffany in the kitchen with my mother. I figured the yelp came from Tiffany when I saw the large gash across her arm.

‘Oh my God, what happened?’ i asked. My mother was frantically searching for some of her medicinal herbs and muttering to herself as she always did when she couldn’t find something. I looked at Tiffany’s wound and it was pretty long and deep. What had she been doing?

‘Just an accident with the cooking knife there,’ she said sheepishly. She pointed to the knife with a faint trace of blood on the table top with a bottle of red liquid that I didn’t know of. Must be one of her concoctions again.  She winced when my mother dabbed some medicine on her wound. I’m not sure how she could cut herself that way.

‘Be careful there next time. I almost burned down the house thinking that… never mind,’ I sighed. I didn’t want to think about what happened earlier nor do I want to talk about it tonight.

Tiffany looked at me at me worriedly. ‘You okay, Seohyun? Did something happen?’

‘You’re home earlier than usual too. Did you make your uncle mad again?’ my mom queried.

‘Nah, we are alright. It’s just he wasn’t himself tonight.’ I said cautiously. My mother and Tiffany knew me well to know when I was guarded so they just let it go.

‘Why do you need those herbs for to treat a cut?’ I wrinkled my nose.  I recognized the smell and my mother rarely used them for wounds such as this.

‘Oh, I found a really good recipe that works wonders! Although-‘

We talked for a while more and then Tiffany said her thanks and went back to her own house which was just next door.  I finally went to wash up after leaving my mom to her mixing and chopping. Mom was a night owl because she said that potions were best mixed at night.

I was exhausted so I thought I would sleep immediately when my head touched my fluffy pillow. Instead I tossed and turned and couldn’t help reliving all that had happened a few hours ago. But it wasn’t the blade creatures, the dark memories or the two mysterious people who duelled that bothered me the most. It was back at my uncle’s house when I caught a glimpse of the man who spoke behind my uncle.

His face was one that I’ll never forget in my whole life. I thought I’d saw my father.

After that last image of him, I finally fell into a troubled sleep.

Omg sorry for taking such a long time to update. It's been delayed over and over again XD i'm sorry there. Lol i don't really like how Seohyun is here Lol i'll try to make her more mature or something. Anyway i hope this chapter's okay and not too bloody confusing! XD ENJOY!~