Sora nodded with determined eyes. If Jongin said so then she would put her trust in him. The both of them sat tight until the two figures jumped into the hole. The blood splashed over the edges and bubbles appeared on the surface. Sora was convinced there was some type of secret passage through that crater. The human wanted to ask Jongin about it, but he still had his tight grip on her face and he didn’t notice her tapping his hands. His eyes were trained on the crater, his breathing was steady, however Sora felt his anxiety creep into her own flesh. Jongin ended up releasing Sora’s face once she started scratching his hand. The human took in a deep breath and ended up coughing.

Jongin completely ignored the struggling human, he stood up and inspected the area with intense, red eyes. He looked for anything out of its place. The Jinn knew things could go south in a flash. He carefully continued walking around the clearing with Sora following him closely like a duckling. The human bit her lip, she wanted to talk to Jongin and have him comfort her on an emotional level. She felt restless and tired, she was hungry and dehydrated, her body was continuously shaking from all the adrenaline rushes. However, she caught on that the Jinn was distracted. She couldn’t ask for anything with him being on high alert, his main priority was probably to leave this place in one piece- physical wise.

“What do you know about this place, Jongin? Like where precisely are we?” Sora softly whispered in the end. She couldn’t help herself and start a conversation. However, the lack of response made the human believe Jongin didn’t hear her. He didn’t even budge! Sora prepared to repeat the question when Jongin cursed underneath his breath. He abruptly stopped walking- causing the human to bump into his back. Sora yelped and held her nose in pain; before she could scold the Jinn for hurting her- he frantically ran off.

The human gasped as the Jinn disappeared in a flash. She rushed through the bushes to catch up and came to a halt. She saw a shed, again. It strongly resembled the shed she had been sleeping in. Sora pulled her eyebrow up. It couldn’t be the same shed. They hadn’t been walking in circles.

The human registered noises coming from the inside- as if pots of glass were being smashed on the ground. She recognized Jongin’s curse and that made her feel confident enough to enter the place. She came eye to eye with Jongin as he quickly hid something in his pocket.

“They dissect humans; they have horrible ways of doing that.” Jongin said, and cast down his eyes.

Sora didn’t respond. What could she say? Sora entered the shed and walked past Jongin. She saw the broken glass of whatever he had smashed to the ground, are those brains? The entire shed was filled with jars, skeletons, dried skin, teeth and more. The jars were filled with human parts- like eyes, organs, hands, faces, tongues, it reminded Sora of her biology classroom. The witches even filled it with a clear liquid so the parts would remain intact- and thus one could observe the different pieces of flesh in detail.

She could only imagine how scared the victims must have been. How much pain they must have had to endure. “I wonder --” Sora started as she turned to face Jongin. The human lost the words in upon locking her eyes with the Jinn. She frowned, Jongin seemed bothered by something. His brows weren’t knitted together in contrast to her expectations. His eyes were not glaring. His shoulders were tense, and his hands were balled into fists… why? What was going on? He lost the anger he had when he walked into this place.

Sora closed her open mouth, it couldn’t possibly be that it was related to these humans dying a terrifying death, right?

“Am I correct to think you’re upset by something related to this?” Sora purposely asked. She lifted her arms and made a gesture. She locked her jaw and carefully scanned Jongin’s reaction.

Soon enough she got her confirmation upon witnessing his obvious flinch.

“No.” he said in a failed attempt to lie. He didn’t meet her eyes a second time and turned away, towards the exit.

“Jongin, don’t lie to me! What happened?”

The human caught up in time before he left the hide-out and forced him to turn. “Jongin, you can tell me… you know you can. Tell me what happened, please.”

The Jinn glared, and then shook his head like a child. “I don’t want to think about it. Let’s go, we found what we were looking for. We’re done here.” But what did we find? What were we searching for?

Before Sora could fathom the super speed her body was moving in, she found herself outside, under the scorching heat of the sun. “Fine, so be it.” she hissed as soon as her mind and body were connected again. The human shook off the two Jinn hands firmly planted into her shoulders and picked a random direction to walk in.

“Where are you going?!”

“Home!”

“Don’t act like a child, Sora! Come bac