She hugged her pillow to her chest as she heaved, empty of sobs yet not feeling any better. She had failed to keep her doll safe, letting her mother take him away without so much as a fight. She could only imagine what she was doing to her N; she had never been allowed downstairs, but she had had nightmares when their screams echoed through the floorboards.

She plugged her ears that night, refusing to hear N’s.

She still heard them.

She shrieked when a loud noise shot through the air, biting her hand to stop her mother from hearing. Hand still in ; she frantically searched for where the noise could possibly have come from. Eventually, her eyes landed on her forgotten backpack, and inside she found her cellphone where the screen read Taek-woon oppa’s name. She panicked, unsure of what to do, before she hurriedly pressed the answer button, if only to stop its ringing.

“Hello? Saet-byul?” On any other occasion she would have been ecstatic to hear his voice, but now it just made her want to cry. A small whimper escaped her lips and the other seemed to catch on immediately. “Is everything alright?”

“Y-yes,” she stuttered out, furiously wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “W-why are you calling me?”

“I was wondering if Woo-jin was okay. He hasn’t been to school in a few days-”

“N…N is not here right now.”

“Where is he?” She didn’t reply, unable to tell him what was really happening to N. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, she wanted to do anything to save him, but she couldn’t. Despite how dear and close N had become to her, in the end he was still her doll and her mother was still her mother. She could not betray her mother like that. She must have waited too long to respond, Taek-woon oppa calling out her name again.

“He’s sick. He’s asleep.” Taek-woon oppa didn’t respond right away, and she wondered if he could see through her lie.

“Saet-byul, if something is going on and-”

“Nothing is going on!” He didn’t say anything, and she immediately felt bad for shouting. “I’m sorry, I just-” She held back a scream when the door suddenly swung open, and she barely was able to hide her phone under the blanket when her mother entered the room. Her mother smiled down at her with a tray of burnt rice and eggs in her hands, coming over and sitting on the edge of her bed.

She scooted away.

“You should eat something,” her mother said softly, pushing the tray towards her. When she didn’t make a move to eat, she sighed. “I know you’re upset, but this is the only way I can make sure you don’t do this again.”

“I promise I won’t go anywhere after school anymore. I’ll come right home, I promise! Just…can you bring N back now?”

“You know he has to be punished.”

“It’s been four days, that’s long enough right? Please, will you please bring N back?”

“I’ve noticed that you’ve become a lot more talkative recently,” she noted, her face hardening and the look in her eye sending shivers down her spine. “You’ve become less and less obedient. I knew he wasn’t a good doll for you.” Her mother grabbed the chopsticks and forced them into her hand, shoving it in the bowl of rice. “But it doesn’t matter how good a doll you think he is; he’s dead.”

The chopsticks clattered onto the tray.

“Don’t fret though, I’ll get you a better doll.”

“I don’t want a new doll!” she screamed, the first time she had raised her voice to her mother. “I want N!”

Her mother was nonplused with her reaction, unmoving as she shook her head. “I know you don’t want just any doll so, just for you, I’ll use one of those boys of yours. You can pick which one you like. Would you like that Hyukkie or Taek-woon?”

“I don’t want either of them! I only want N!”

“I told you he’s dead!” her mother shouted back, standing up and hovering over that momentarily intimidated her. Her mother was always so much bigger than her; it was why she was always so scared of her. “I killed him! You can cry for him all you want but it won’t bring him back!”

She burst into tears as the full weight of her mother’s words hit her like a ton of bricks, clawing at her head. No! No no no no no no no no no no no no no no NO! N couldn’t be dead! He was her doll! Her mother didn’t have any right to kill her doll! N couldn’t be dead, she didn’t tell him he could die! Her mother was lying; lying to get her to find a new doll.

Her mother screamed something at her, but at this point she couldn’t hear her anymore.

She was cold. She was so, so cold. She wanted N to hug her, to wrap his warm arms around her and kiss her head. He was always so warm, she felt so safe when he held her.

Her mother grabbed her arm and shook her, slapping her head when she only screamed and cried. She didn’t want her mother; she didn’t want to be here. She wanted N.

She wanted N.

She needed N.

She needed N.

Go find him.

Your mother hid him. She wouldn’t kill him.

Kill your mother. It’s the only way to find N.

She screamed as the voices continued to ring in her head, screamed when her mother hit her head again. She couldn’t think straight. N couldn’t be dead, and those voices told her he was alive, but she had to find him. She struggled to break away from her mother’s grasp, though that only resulted in her mother tightening her grip and yanking her to her feet.

The tray of food clanked as it hit the floor, the steaming rice and eggs splattering over her feet and burning.

She finally dug her nails into her mother’s hand and pulled, tearing skin and wrenching her arm away when her grip loosened. She shot out to escape, whipping the door open only to come face to face with a man and a gun trained on her face.

She screamed.