At last, after hours of moving in, the Im's family is officially at their new home at the countryside. Inside, Yoona's mother serves their new friendly neighbors with a hearty meal of kimchi stew and rice.

"Aigoo your food tastes delicious Miss Im!" The ajuhssi laughs and eats his rice at the same time, spitting out rice grains from his mouth.

The wet rice grains land everywhere but most end up near Yoona's untouched food. Instead, the young girl could only sit still quietly, almost glaring at the old man for his reckless behavior.
 

"Oh thank you Mr. Kim!" Her mother smiles very sweetly. "Would you like some more?"

"Please do!" he spits out more rice from his mouth, lifting his bowl towards the quiet young girl. "Pretty girl, could you please serve me more?"

Pretending to not hear his name for her, Yoona grabs his bowl with no answer and walks away to the kitchen. She is glad to be away from the commotion at the dinner table. While she pours the hot kimchi broth to the bowl, the conversation from the dining room suddenly grows louder to her keen ears.

"So you have how many children?"

"2. My youngest one, Seohyun, is sleeping in right now because she wants to get ready to go to elementary school tomorrow morning and you met my oldest one, Yoona, who is 18."

"Ah... And is Yoona going to school tomorrow also? You know to the all-girls high school in our county?" The ajumma asks.

“Oh Yoona? She never goes to school.”

The silence falls over the dining table. The elderly people are quiet with their mouths wide open while the mother continues to eat her rice calmly.

“Never? But she’s a high school student! Surely she still needs to have some sort of education…”

“Hey. All of us have never gone into schooling either so maybe Yoona wants to become a farmer or a wife of some sort. A wife…Hmm that sounds right-“

CLUNK!

The doe-eyed girl slams the bowl of soup in front of the elderly man. Starling the others, the girl retains her cool composure as she walks towards her mother to give her a kiss on the head.

“Good night Umma.”

“Good night…Yoona…”

Following the awkward silence, the elderly people avoid making eye contact with the young girl as she walks up the stairs. After hearing a door’s slam, the elderly women look to each other uneasily while the old man happily begins eating again from the new bowl of soup.

“I’m sorry…I should have spoken with more details in the beginning.” The mother sighs as she lays down her chopsticks on the table.

“What do you mean Mrs. Im?”

“Yoona…She…She has been suffering from lung disease ever since from birth. But thank god she is still alive thanks to my husband who…who is no longer with us anymore.” The mother looks down to play with her wedding ring on her finger.

Every elderly people didn’t say anything. They blink at her with their old wise eyes. Even the hungry old man set down his utensils to listen to the widow’s story.

“When he died, Yoona has been coughing much worse, so terribly that I had to pull her out of school and made her stay home. The air in Seoul wasn’t very clean so the doctor suggested for us to live in the countryside. But there was one catch. We didn’t have enough money to move even though I worked extra shifts at the restaurant.”

“So how did you come here Mrs. Im?”

The mother sighs, looking up the staircase where her daughter is in the room.

“A young man from my husband’s business, named Ok Taecyeon, came to my apartment one day with money in his hand. His father knew my husband for a long time since they were best friends. With that in mind, he proposes my daughter Yoona to be his wife after her high school years.”

The mother couldn’t dare herself to look up to the kind faces of the elderly people. Closing her eyes, she let tear drops onto the wooden ground.

“And the scariest thing is that even if I want to refuse, Yoona cold-heartedly accepts it. I remember her face when I told her the news. She told me over and over again. ‘Umma…I want you to start a better life. Countryside sounds much better than a city at this point. Also, Seohyunnie could have new friends again since she always gets bullied at her school in Seoul.’”

“And when I asked ‘What about you? Will you be okay with this?’, she replied…”

“’When have I ever been okay?’”

Upstairs away from the tense commotion, the doe-eyed girl in her pajamas lays on her bed; a bed consists of a two blankets on the ground with a pillow. At this time of night, she should really fall asleep. But with a lamp close by, she has her notebook open with a pencil in her hand. Scribbling in the date, she writes over and over again.

I want to die…When can I die?

I want to die…When can I die?

I want to die…When can I die?

I want to die…When can I die?

I want to die…When can I die?

Dropping her pencil, Yoona bends her head down on her pillow to cry.

----

When the countryside becomes silent, the full moon slowly approaches the sky, shining its luminance over the old house. At the sight of the beauty, the wild animal opens its eyes, blinking its yellow eyes at the event. Coming out from the pit behind the toolshed, the wild animal crawls out slowly out in the open. It raises its hind legs and lifts its head up into the air to let out a howl. A distinctive and rusty howl that can send shivers down your skin.

In the old house, the doe-eyed girl’s keen ears are activated when she hears a strange howling sound. Is it a wolf? Or is it a different creature?

Blinking her eyes, Yoona gets up from her sleeping position and rubs her head in annoyance. Seohyun, although very brilliant at her age, can be really annoying sometimes. Since she likes to wake up early, she would sometimes do this to Yoona. Like when Seohyun pretends to be a crowing rooster for example.

“Seohyunnie that’s enough.” Yoona grumbles as she takes off her covers to stand up. “You are not a wolf so go back to bed.”

Yoona steps up to her window and draws the curtains back to yell at her little sister to come inside. But when she finds is not her sister at all. Her eyes dilate at a rather frightening sight. Her breath suddenly grows short but her heart beats faster than a vehicle running with flying dust.

The creature out in the middle of the yard looks back at her with its yellow eyes. The crawling position it has resembles like a canine but not the face. In the dark Yoona is not sure if the creature is actually a member of the canine family or if it is some sort of humanoid. No…It can’t be that…That’s impossible.

Gripping her own arm, Yoona holds her breath when the creature suddenly crawls closer to her house. Strange, although it is dark, it is like if the creature can completely see her. And that makes Yoona scared.

“UMMA!”

Yoona screams and draws her curtains back into place. She runs out of her room and rushes into her mother’s room, suddenly waking her up from her dirty sleep.

“Huh? Yoona? What’s wrong?”

“Come! Hurry and come with me!”

“Wait! What’s going on-Ah!”

Her mother fails to finish her sentence when her eldest daughter tugs her arm and pulls her out of her bedroom. Rushing into Yoona’s bedroom, Yoona went up to her window and pulls the curtains away, pointing outside.

“Umma! There’s a strange creature outside of our home! A dangerous one! Believe me!” Yoona whimpers, holding onto her mother’s arm close.

Confused, the mother leans close to the window to look for anything suspicious. But all she could see is just an empty yard.

“Yoona…Honey…there’s nothing.” Her mother looks back to her scared daughter, brushing her brown hair down.

“WHAT?”

Yoona quickly looks out of the window. Her mother was right. Nobody was there. Only the sight of the wind blowing on the trees with a mysterious full moon hanging in the black sky.

“I swear! I saw it! There is a monster! A real monster! And…And there was a really loud howl too!”

“Sh… Yoona I think you just had a bad dream.” Her mother shushes her daughter as she now holds her close to her chest, her hair. “There’s no bad creature and I didn’t even hear this howl.”

Too exhausted to say anything, Yoona only stays close to her mother, closing her eyes in fear. Her mother is obviously not telling the truth. She is a very heavy sleeper. Not even the fire alarm system can wake her up.

---

“Did you remember to take your-“

“Yes Umma.”

Yoona is hanging the dry clothes on the laundry line while her mother is washing the dirty clothes. While Seohyun is in elementary school, two women are left alone in the house to do some chores. Fortunately, this is their last chore before they can relax.

“Do you like the air here honey?” The mother asks while washing the clothes.

“It is much better than the city. How about you? Is this life better than the life in the city as a waitress?”

“Well…yes. I like living in the countryside much better than the cities.”

“Good.”

Their conversation ends as two women continues going back to work. Before Yoona could hang up the last clothing on the laundry line, she hears scampering of feet nearby her. A little bit paranoid, she moves her eyes from side to side to find what is making that sound. After hanging up the clothing, Yoona walks back to be by her mother, tugging on her skirt.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Listen…”

Expecting to hear nothing, the mother is surprised when she could hear the scampering of the feet also.

“Hmmm…It must be a wild animal…But where could it be?”

CLINK! CLUNK!

Some of the wooden posts fall down to the ground with a crash. Two women who are startled by the sound whirl their heads around wildly. At the crash site, they could fairly see a shadow hiding behind the fallen wooden posts.

Curious, the mother stands up from her work and went forward, much to her daughter’s protest.

“Umma! What are you doing?”

“Sh!” The mother quickly quiets her before it could scare away the lost animal. “What if this poor animal needs help?”

Unable to change her mother’s mind, Yoona watches with a growing fear in her heart for her mother when she steps closer to the shadow. Seeing the shadow backing away from the mother, the woman brings out her hand, clicking her tongue at the lost animal.

“Come here dear…Come here, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

The shadow didn’t back up anymore. Instead, it comes forward one step at a time. When it stretches its front leg forward into the light, the two women were both in shock.

In the light is not a wild animal of some sort. Crawling on her arms and feet is a dirty young-looking girl, wearing brown shaggy dress. Her black hair is matted and rough, caked with dust and full of twigs and leaves. Her skin is tanned but dusty. Her nails were long and curved like a wolf’s. And finally, her eyes are as brown like Yoona’s hair. The lost girl’s eyes are the only thing that sets her apart of being an animal; with those eyes she looks very human.

“Oh my…” 

Yoona couldn’t say anything. She could only stare at the wolf girl who is staring right back at her. Immediately she feels pity for the wolf girl as the wolf girl looks around her surroundings with fear and anxiety; except until she set her eyes on the basket full of raw potatoes next to the mother.

The mother, who realizes the lost girl’s focus is on the basket of potatoes next to her, slowly drops down to grab a couple of potatoes. Feeling the gaze of the lost girl on her, the mother quickly rolls some potatoes towards the lost girl.

The lost girl widens her eyes and immediately grabs hold of her free food. She ravishes and bites down on her food, making loud chewing and growling noises like a starved dog from the streets. After five or six raw potatoes, the lost girl looks up at the mother with her brown innocent eyes blinking for more.

“I’ll give you more…But first…Who are you? What’s your name? Do…Do you have a family?”

Although the mother speaks very clearly and slowly, the lost girl continues to look at the mother with her pleading eyes, tilting her head in confusion. She only lets out a whimper and scratches the ground with her hands, still begging for some food.

“Umma… She can’t speak Korean…She doesn’t act like a human girl… She’s like a mutt.”

The mother stays quiet even after her daughter’s comment. After looking at the lost raven-haired girl for quite some time, she begins to roll some more potatoes at the lost girl.

“Yoona, get some of your clothes you don’t really like. I will prepare a warm bath for this lost girl.”

“Umma?”

“Quickly! I don’t want to shoo this poor girl away!”

Never hearing her mother snapping at her like that, Yoona quickly runs off into their house to follow her mother’s order.

Turning her head, the lost girl stops eating to see the doe-eyed girl running off to go inside of the old house. Tilting her head in curiosity, the lost girl wonders why is the doe-eyed girl running away from her?

“Yuri-ah, come.”

The lost girl turns her head back around to the woman’s caring voice. She furrows her eyebrows in confusion at the strange name.

“Yuri-ah, come.” The mother speaks again, clicking her tongue and stretching out her hand out for the lost girl. “We have some more food inside. We can take care of you Yuri-ah.”

Yuri-ah? Is that my name? The lost girl’s unconscious thoughts speak in her damaged body.

Going with her instincts, the lost girl, who is now called Yuri, cautiously crawls towards the kind-looking mother.

Having been to face the nature by all by herself, Yuri takes hesitant steps when the mother leads her into their house. At that time, Yuri, the wolf girl will learn how to be a domesticated creature or even, a human. 

TBC