“Daddy?”  The old and pale man turns around. “Daddy? Where are you going?” A little girl asks softly, appearing behind him. The man smiles and kneels down to her. “Micha, my daughter, daddy needs to go…” he says softly. “

“When will Daddy come back?”

“I don’t know, Micha…”

The girl pouts. “Is daddy going to leave me alone like how mommy did?” “No, no, don’t worry, Micha…you won’t be alone this time.” The man could only look at his daughter sadly. “Micha, I need you to listen to me very carefully now…” He hands over a doll to the girl. The doll was dusty white and shaped just like a gingerbread man except rather than having toppings and cream, it had stitches and staples. Instead of smiling, it looks like it was frowning slightly.

A voodoo doll.

As soon as the girl holds it, 6 shadowy figures appear in the dark surrounding the two.

“D-daddy?”

“No, no, don’t be scared, Micha. They won’t hurt you…”

Looming around them, the six figures stood silently, their eyes fixed on the little girl. The man tried to smile to comfort the girl. “Micha-ssi…now listen. Whenever you feel scared, hold onto this doll and give it a tight squeeze. They will be right there for you. They will take care of you…” The man explains before hugging the girl tightly. After a while, he stands back up again.

“Goodbye Micha, Daddy loves you…”

“No, Daddy wait. Don’t go! Daddy!”

"Daddy!"

Micha's eyes fluttered open as sunlight beams through the window. The room was filled with the sound of her alarm going off. "Okay okay, i'm awake..." she grumbles as she reaches out for it. After doing so, she slowly sits up and rubs her eye. So it was all just another dream. Its been around 12 years since it happened  and it was common for her to have that dream. She would have it maybe once or twice every few months or so.

She looks back at her clock.

7:15 A.M

Micha sighs as she stands up. Time to go to school yet again. After a quick bath, she grabs her bag and got ready to go. She didn’t bother to go downstairs to eat breakfast…if there was even a breakfast in the first place. She didn’t fancied eating together with her step father and sister. She doubts they’ll even let her. She’ll grab something to eat when she’s on the way to school.

“Wait…where is it?” Micha looks around as she finishes tying her shoe laces. She looks around the room and inside her bag. Something seems to be missing and that something is non other the doll her father had given her 12 years ago. “I must have left it…” she thought to herself. She looks back at the clock.

7:46 A.M

It takes her 20 minutes to get to school. She better hurries if she doesn’t want to be late.

Micha creeps out of her room.

The house was silent. There were no noise downstairs either, as she was staying at the second floor. She quietly locks her room before heading downstairs. She passes her step-sister’s room. No noise came from inside. She decides to knock.

“Minji noona?”

Still nothing.

Micha knocks again and hears a soft grumble from inside. She decides to open the door to take a small peak.

“Minji noona?“ Micha was quite surprised to see her sister already up and right in front of the door. 

“What do you want? Can’t you see you just disturbed my beauty sleep?” Minji asks sternly. “Oh..uhh, it’s nothing. I just wanted to see if you’re awake since it’s already this time and you’ll be late for schoo-“  “I don’t care.” Minji glares at her younger sister before slamming the door right at her face.

“I was just trying to help…” Micha could only sigh. She didn’t really mind her sister’s behavior. Though it may really get on her nerves sometimes, she was already used to it. Thus, she proceeds to go downstairs. As expected, no breakfast was set on the table. She could here soft snores from the door across the living room; her step-father’s room. Unlike Minji, she was horrified to wake him up. She knows that his temper was probably the most terrifying thing in the universe. Heck, he would’ve probably beaten her up or something.

Micha slowly closes the front door behind her and runs off. She needs to hurry or else she’ll miss the bus. She runs to the quieter part of town just a few blocks from her house. Carefully, she heads over inside an abandoned building. The walls were cracked and most of the paint has disappeared. It was surely some place no other people would like to enter. Thus, Micha has to carefully come inside without anyone noticing or else it shall cause suspicion.

Luckily though, not much people were around and she went in unnoticed. The inside of the building was more horrifying than what it looked on the outside. The air was heavy and an eerie silence loomed around the place. Some lights were well lit while others were half dimmed. Cracks and a few holes decorated both the walls and ceilings. Quite a frightening place for most people. Not for Micha though, she was used to it.

“Ah! There it is!” Micha smiles as she sees the doll sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. She runs into the room and grabs the doll. As soon as she does, the room comes alive.

Around her were six of them

Around her were six figures

                                   dolls

                                   people

They all looked up at her, each trapped in his own unique cell.

Each with his own chain to hold it back

Each with his own accessory that was engraved in his skin

Truly something horrifying and painful to see. But they didn’t mind. They’re dolls; they wouldn’t be able to feel the pain.

They said nothing and continue to stare at her. “Hehe, hey guys! Yeah, I guess I left this here yesterday.” Micha laughs to herself. They didn’t reply much. Micha doesn’t expect them to. “Well, I need to go to school now. See you guys later!” Micha quickly says before running off.

“Micha…”  A voice calls out softly right before Micha goes out. She looks back.

“Be careful and have a nice day…” One of them murmurs.

“Oh right! Thanks Hongbin, see you later.” Micha smiles softly back.

She runs out, making sure she remembers to close the door, before running to the bus stop. Thankfully the bus was still there. She jumps in right when the bus was about to leave. She looks back at her watch.

8:01 A.M

It’ll take 10 minutes to the bus stop nearest to the school and another 10 minute walk to actually get to school. She looks at the voodoo doll inside her bag. She doesn’t care where she’s going or when she’s going there. She needed to bring the doll with her. It’ll keep her safe.

The bus suddenly came to a standstill, nearly causing Micha to lose her balance since she wasn’t concentrating. She quickly closes her bag back and jumps off the bus. She could already see the rooftop of the school from here.

“Micha!”

She looks back to see a girl, around her age, running up to her. “Oh! Hi Chaehee.” Micha grins. Chaehee grins back as she take out some bread from her bag. “Gosh, I’m hungry.” “But’s it’s still around 8 A.M in the morning.” “Yeah, I know, but time means nothing to hunger.”

“Oh! Which reminds me! I’ve forgotten to buy myself breakfast…I was in a hurry before…” Micha pouts. “Hmm? In a hurry? What happened? Did you wake up late or something?” “Oh what? Yeah, I did.” Micha quickly says. Chaehee, like all other people doesn’t know about her little secret. Micha doesn’t plan to tell her any time soon either. “Here, you can have this one. I brought two.” Chaehee offers Micha another bread.

The two reached school just as the bell rings, causing the two to run inside. “Slow down, Micha, or else you’re going to choke.” Chaehee looks worriedly at her best friend who was devouring up the bread. “Looks like someone’s hungry…” Chaehee sighs after receiving no replies from Micha.

“By the way, any sign of my sister?” Micha asks. The two looks around. “Nope.” “I knew she would be late.” Micha sighs. “Well, I need to hurry to my classes, okay? See you at lunch.” Chaehee runs off without looking back.

Class was of course quite boring for Micha. She has no interest or whatsoever on what the teacher is saying. She herself has already understand the whole lesson why would she need to listen to her teacher’s boring classes.

Micha opens up her bag and looks at her doll. She knows that a number of people thinks she’s weird. That she’s a creep. Not only was she already 17 years old and still playing with a doll but the doll she brings around was creepy as heck. Thus, she doesn’t like bringing out her doll to public.

“Micha!”

“Yes, miss!”

Micha quickly looks at the teacher who was glaring at her. “What did I just say?” “Oh, umm…” “Han Micha, will you please tell the class what we are  learning about right now?” The teacher narrows her eyes.

“Uhh…well…we’re learning about, err…oh right, history! About the Korean war. According to the data from the U.S. Department of Defense, the United States suffered 33,686 battle deaths. Korea reported some 373,599 civilian and 137,899 military deaths.” Micha gives her speech.

“Good.” The teacher says flatly before continuing to write nonsense on the board. Micha sighs in relief. That was close. Too close.

Micha takes out her notebook and pen. She starts doodling on it in hopes the teacher would think she’s taking notes and not get mad at her for not paying attention. She starts drawing herself. Then her doll. Then the six of them.

“Let’s see…N, Leo, Ken, Hyuk, Hongbin…oh right! Ravi!” She says quietly to herself as she drew all six of them. “I’ll show this to them later.” She smiles. Though she doubts they’ll make much reactions, she knows that they’ll somehow appreciate it.  

-

“Micha!”

“Huh? What?” Micha looks up to see Chaehee. “Look who fell asleep in class.” She sighs.

“What?” Micha looks around, still dazed. “Wasn’t it suppose to be history class?”

“I heard you doodled all the way through history and slept through all the other lessons.” Chaehee face palms. “Oh, hehe, didn’t really realize that.” Micha laughs embarrassingly. “Oh come on, its getting late, we should go home.”

With that, the two walks out of school. “Hey, I need to go to my extra lessons, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Chaehee greets. “yeah sure, see you.” Micha waves back before walking to the bus stop, only to be greeted by nothingness.

“Shoot, I’m late…” Micha curses softly as she realizes that she missed the bus. “Heck, I’ll just take a shortcut…” She stomps off.

She looks at the dark alley in front of her. This will surely get her to go home faster. Though it was dark and awfully eerie. People were always saying to never venture into the dark alleys of the city as there were many stories or crime related events that happened in them. Ranging from kidnapping, murder to even . But does she care?

Nope.

She steps in with a light heart.

Not much people were around. Most people had already gone home and settled inside their houses, making the part of the city into what seems to be an absolute ghost town.

Micha sees a man standing along in front of her. She calmly walks past him. The man stayed quiet as he stares at her. Soon enough, he starts walking and follows her. Micha ignores him and continues to walk slowly.

“What’s a beautiful young lady doing in a place like this?” he asks softly as he caught up with her. Micha ignores him and continues walking. The man quickly blocked her by standing right in front of her.

“This is no place for a kid you know…” he smirks. Micha stops and looks at him. 3 other men appeared from the dark, surrounding her. The four men moves in closer and closer. Micha swears she can feel their breaths around her. Her hand slowly slips into her bag. Finally, one of them grabs her by the arm.

Micha grabs onto her doll.

Suddenly, the whole atmosphere began to change. The four men looks around them to find six figures standing in the dark. “Who are you?” one of them shouted.

Silence.

“Come out here and show yourself, you cowards!”

All together, the six figures stepped out into the light. The four men were speechless as they were greeted by the sight of six men. But there were something different about these men. Their skin was covered by stitches, staples, glass shards, chains, you name them.

“W-who are you people?” One of the men stuttered.

“Oh who cares? Kill them!” The four men takes out their guns.

It seems as if hundreds of shots has been fired but none seemed to hit any of the six. Their bodies were more flexible than it looks. One of them finally got close enough to throw a punch, knocking the man into the hard wall.

Finally one of the four men managed to take a shot at them. The bullet went straight through him yet no blood spilled out. Then again, he didn’t seem bothered at all.

“T-they’re freaks!” One of them stuttered. “Oh screw this! You’re coming with me.” The man grabs hold of Micha’s hand. Micha could only look coldly at him, causing the man to flinch.

“Finish them.”

Blood.

That was all what Micha could see.

One by one, the four men were severely slaughtered in the most inhumane way possible.

Bashed into the wall.

The sound of bone breaking.

The screams of agony.

The stench of blood.

All in one go.

Finally, complete silence.

The four men laid dead on the ground, each covered in his own pool of blood. Micha didn’t mind seeing so much gore. You could say that…she was actually used to it.

One by one, her six guardians started to disappear back into the shadows. “Wait.” She suddenly says. They all stop and looked at her. “Can one of you accompany me back home?” She looks back at them. The six of them looks at each other, wondering who should go.

“Hmm…okay fine, Hongbin, you come with me.” She signals him. Hongbin didn’t reply and simply walked closely to her. He smiles softly at her and nods back. He looks as if he wanted to say something but no words came out his mouth.

“Micha-ssi…” he finally says. Micha looks surprisingly at him. Sure they could talk but they didn’t talk much. Like a person with really bad social skills.

“Are you hurt? You're okay, right?” he asks. “Yeah, of course I'm okay! Don’t worry about me.” She smiles brightly back.

“Okay, come on, let’s go home.” She grins as she pulls him by the hand. All she wanted was to get home, lie on her bed and actually get some legit sleep.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Hello all :D

Hope you like the first chapter.

Its still the prologue so not much drama is in yet~~^^

Sorry for any typos or errors, hehe^^v