Her sleep was deep, but she ran through her dreams the entire night.

 

Even in slumber she could not escape the house in glass – where her subconscious roamed in the night. Bare feet touched the wooden floorboards like ghostly grazes, and her fingers reached out in the dim hallway. She didn't know what she was doing, but she knew where she was headed.

 

There was a nursery, and where she had left them, the three life-sized dolls. They sat rod-straight, beautiful and voiceless. She stood in front of the door.

 

One of them turned to her.

 

Like all dreams, it was bizarre, frightening. But like in all dreams, Hayi didn't feel afraid immediately. She just stood there, gazing at the doll's face. The most beautiful one.

 

“Anyeonghasaeyo.”

 

“Anyeonghasaeyo,” Hayi bowed.

 

“Will you pour me tea?”

 

“Of course,” Hayi ghosted over and sat down. The china were not filled, but when she tipped it over anyway as though playing pretend. The doll didn't reach for the cup she extended with both hands. It stared at her.

 

“Have some tea.”

 

“I can't.”

 

Suddenly as though by an invicible hand, the doll's head ripped in half sideways. Hayi screamed, dropping the cup. It smashed to the floor and red liquid began to ooze from the pieces. The largest shard seemed to pulse. Hayi looked from the torn doll, still blinking at her, ivory eyes clattered to the floor where they gazed up at her; then back to the moving cup. Something was controlling her.

 

This was a nightmare, why wasn't she waking up?

 

Slowly, as though her fingers were attached to sttrings, a force tugged her forwards and she fell face forwards into the pool of red, splashing into murky, thick, slick...

 

...Blood.

 

A heart, freashly-ripped out, pulsed before her, pierced in some places by the shards.

 

“Baby doll.”

 

Hayi looked up.

 

Jack stood there in a black cape, eyes gleaming through the mask.

 

“What have you done?”

 

Hayi opened her eyes.

 

A thousand eyes stared down at her.

 

Plastic eyes.

 

No one heard her screams that night.

 

*

 

Despite her understanding of the many virtues of waking up early for any event – Jieun felt anything but motivated to drag herself out from her coccoon of comfort into erratic reality. Ignoring the austere warnings of the alarm clock in her head, she nuzzled her cheek deeper into her pink cotton pillows, reeking of her own organic lavender hair shampoo and breathed in deeply and appreciatively, contemplating the odds of her missing the scent for the next 24 hours. Hence, for the first time in many weeks, she decided that it was justified for her to mutter a 'just five minutes' to herself (since she had gone to bed at 2 last night to finish that stupid filing task she had promised herself to accomplish for 3 years) and returned herself blithely into a state of triple 'z's.

 

In what felt like ten minutes later, a blade of sunlight seemed to reach out from between the opaque curtains to peel apart one of her eyelids, and as she stared ahead with one-eye open, hovering between sleep and wake – she started to register the vicinity as her pupils diluted in the dark – there was a chair by the door, casting a stretched rectangular shadow over the irregularly-coloured parquet...

 

And they all disappeared, as her pupils contracted with irritation at the sudden jangle of her phone.

 

She was a shrink, an occupation that required worldly patience and a load of common sense, but they all evaporated as she lifted her iPhone off the sidetable, registered '3.45am' glowing on the screen and sliding the screen into 'accept call' with maximum possible violence.

 

“It's three-bloody-forty-five,” she growled into the cell phone.

 

“I'm sorry, doc. This is Chaelin, I didn't know who else to call.”

 

Lee Chaelin sounded scared to death on the other line. Jieun sat up, rubbed her eyes into focus and exhaled, before replying in a professional manner, “tell me what's bothering you.”

 

“It's Jinki, I think he's gone insane.”

 

Jieun stopped breathing. Yesung was right.

 

“Call Dr. Yesung,” she said authoritatively into the receiver as she slipped into a pair of jeans and coat, “I'll be there in 5 minutes.”

 

*

 

Jenny Park.

 

Yoon Eunhye.

 

Bae Suzy.

 

Lee Hayi.

 

Lee Chaelin.

 

Jenny Park.

 

Jenny Park.

 

Jenny Park.

 

For hours Junmyeon stared at her photo, right at those quiet eyes above those pillowy lips pursed into a tiny, eerie smile. He remembered those eyes. But where had he seen them before?

 

Flashes of a hundred smiles whirred past his head like an armada of spaceships in warp speed, then his mind began to wander to a beautiful woman in a diamond necklace, with no eyes. He didn't even notice when Yunho dropped a muffin box on his table and settled in the armchair across the table. He munched on a chocolate one, one eyebrow raised as he looked Junmyeon stare into the distance.

 

“Hey,” he snapped his fingers, “muffins.”

 

“No thanks, I'm working.”

 

“I figured, but have one anyway, Jessica brought them in this morning.”

 

Suho reached in and opened the box. He narrowed his eyes. The muffin heads were all gone.

 

“Hilarious,” he slapped the cover close again.

 

“Stick-up-his-,” Yunho muttered and clapped his hands off crumbs, “by the way, I interrogated Ni-chi... Ni-chi... whatever the Thai dude's name was. His gun had never been fired before since he's been here and since we have nothing to hold against him, we're letting him go. As for, Seungri...” he trailed off to see if Suho was paying attention. He was.

 

“...is high as a squirrel. Guy's a junkie, we have him in a criminal facility to get him off enough to talk properly. I'm not talking weed here, he's having his rice peppered with heroine. Even if we don't arrest him for the disappearance, he's going to be spending the rest of his early 20s in rehab. Ji-Eun handed over his files last Monday and I only read them today.”

 

“Jaejoong?”

 

“Dude's clean. He's just annoyingly quiet. Did you know that the goddamn dude smiles when he sleeps? Freaks me out. Oh yeah, I need you to release him. I hate his smile too much to do it. Jaysus, I bet he smiles when he's drunk too.”

 

Junmyeon grinned to himself and helped himself to the muffin ends anyway, peeling the paper away gingerly. Then, he remembered.

 

“Oh yeah, I tried calling Ji-Eun today to ask her about evaluating Jaejoong but she was at the Lee's place. Turns out Dr Onew's been having panic attacks since his sister's disappearance.”

 

“Wait what?”

 

“Yeah, they started when Chaelin was taken. Weirdly intricate dreams about what her sister was going through or some gimmi...”

 

CRASH.

 

Yunho nearly slid off his chair and Junmyeon twisted over his shoulder to look out the shades. Someone was shouting at the top of his voice, and it was strangely familiar...

 

“You bastard, you sick bastard! Where the hell did you take my sister?”

 

Jinki looked wild out of his mind, his voice carrying easily over the chaos of officers clattering past hallways. Yesung and Junsu were tugging at his arms, keeping him from lunging towards the main reception, where the three suspects sat. Jinki's shouts were directed towards Nichkhun, who stood next to Officer Kyungsoo, wide eyes wider this morning as he regarded the shrieking frenzy before him.

 

“I will not tolerate the way you let my sister be treated, you bastard. You coward, you piece of lowlife, kidnapping, murdering !”

 

“What the hell is going on here?”

 

“You tell me where she is, right now! RIGHT NOW!” a couple of chairs clattered to the side and Jinki broke loose. Nichkhun crashed to the floor, the young houseman landing punches into his gut as hard as a mad man could. Junmyeon snapped out of it as Yunho shoved his way between two female officers and hauled Jinki by the waist with all the strength he could muster. The young doctor was not a weak man; and he twisted and nudged, bringing Yunho down as well. Junmyeon and Junsu reached them at the same time. Ji-Eun had burst into the doorway, Chaelin at her side looking terrified. Kyungsoo reached forwards and hauled Nichkhun away from the kicking and twisting man, shouting his voice hoarse.

 

Then one of the senior officers, Xiumin shoved Junmyeon aside and landed a solid, cold punch straight between the struggling man's eyes. Jinki's movements limped immediately and he collasped in a heap in Yunho's arms. Chaelin screamed and Yesung rushed forwards. Xiumin straightened up and glared at Yunho.

 

“You,” he growled, “come with me. The rest of you,” he raised his voice towards all the spectators, “back to work!”

 

Junsu helped Yesung haul Jinki up onto his back and they carried him to the clinic.

 

“Hey,” Junmyeon grabbed Jieun's arm, “what the hell was that?”

 

“He had an attack, he didn't know what he was doing.”

 

“Don't give me that psychiatric crap, what the hell happened there? Has Jinki had.... hey!” Junmyeon tightened his grip as Jieun tried to toss it off, “refusal to answer my questions can get you charged with...”

 

“Witholding information? Negligence as a law enforcement aid?” Jieun managed to toss it off this time and took a step closer to Junmyeon until they were inches apart, “pardon me, officer. But all this forsaken department is able to process for the past few years is insanity, that's all. You don't care for truth. You just want it spit out in black and white for you so that you can use it on court. So pardon me again, but I have a patient to tend to.”

 

She left him standing there, his fingerprints red and ugly on her arm.

 

*

 

I saw through a pair of eyes.

 

I listened to the sounds I was hearing. Everything was strange. Everything was alien. I sat up, I wasn't in my room anymore. I was on the bizarre bed I had ever seen, in a dress. But nothing I did was controlled. Something was doing the looking, the walking, the breathing. I could hear my own breathing, it was softer, lighter, faster. Then, the eyes turned to a mirror.

 

Hayi.

 

My sister stared out at me on the bed in the reflection, her limbs heavily bruised. She had a kind of ring of gashes on her wrist and when she walked, she limped. Her eyes were tired. I could tell by how I was moving – she was tired. But something was forcing her to get up.

 

I've known her for 17 years, nothing I did made her wake up so efficiently. What was this? She walked down a hallway, a familiar hallway I had seen before this, in another dream. It was still dark, early dawn. She was in a nursery. She walked towards the window and laid a palm on the glass. Dawn sunlight touched back, and her brown hair glowed as though on fire.

 

I looked down at her hands, her small hands. Then, she turned our gaze away.

 

There were three dolls in the centre of the room.

 

All beautiful, all life-sized, all insanely human-like aside from the ivory eyes.

 

The chandelier above her snapped on. A tinkling music box melody rang in our ears. I wanted to shield my eyes with my hands, but Hayi never raised her hand. She stared straight into the light, then abruptly down at a red armchair.

 

Inwardly, I started. I could have sworn it was empty two seconds ago.

 

A figure clad fully in black sat carefully on the armchair, a staff on its side. He had on a black mask but underneath the mask, it looked like he had on another. I don't know how I knew, but I knew.

 

He was smiling.

 

“Good morning, baby doll.” He had a strange accent.

 

“Good morning,” Hayi replied.

 

Then, she reached between her skirt and underskirt and drew out a long steak-knife.

 

I wanted to yell out, to stop her. I wanted to so bad I thought I would die.

 

We both watched the figure's smile melt.

 

We both watched the staff clatter to the floor as he stood up.

 

Then, Hayi's fingers holding mine, we both plunged the dagger deep into her gut.

 

 

*

 

 

You coward.

 

You lowlife kidnapping, murdering !

 

Junmyeon traced his own name on the green folders.

 

Murderer.

 

Kidnapping.

 

Coward.

 

Panic.

 

Attack.

 

Trauma.

 

Withdrawal.

 

Suddenly he remembered where he had seen Jenny Park's smile before.

 

He leapt to his computer and keyed in her name.

 

Google knew her, it knew her to be missing.

 

But her body was never found.

 

She was from Hongchen.

 

Then, he keyed in another name.

 

Park Bom.

 

His heart froze. There was no mistaking it. The same smile.

 

The plastic surgery scars were vague but her features too prominent, she had one of the most controversial faces in the entertainment industry.

 

That smile. He knew that smile, the same one where the eyes always looked like they would cry.

 

Jenny Park was alive.

 

---

Hope you like the update! Peace out!

GwagHyeYu