Joon was all over the news for the next couple of weeks.

My mom was the one who reported what had happened to the police, though skeptically. I knew she wouldn’t believe me at first, and she even wanted to go look for herself. But I begged and cried for her not to until she finally gave that idea up, and soon after the police confirmed my story true. My parents were shocked, and so were thousands of others. I heard conversations between strangers about him when I went out; most of them said they couldn’t believe a kid that young could do something like that.

I became famous those few weeks, too. News stations all across Korea were coming to interview me. I didn’t really like it, but I knew I had to do it. But deep down Joon was still my friend, even after all this, and I didn’t want to bad-mouth him. I tried to make Joon seem like not such a bad guy, but you know news stations. They always found a way to twist what I was saying.

As for Joon, there was controversy over what to do with him. They couldn’t do a lot of things because of his age, but I still heard ignorant people shout “Kill him!” Luckily there weren’t too many of those people; most disagreed because he was just a child.

For the next couple of days, while his punishment was being debated, his aunt and uncle bravely took custody over him. It was soon announced that he would be placed in a mental hospital until he turned nineteen years old, and even after his release he would heavy observed for any signs of sickness. The community seemed to be for the most part, fine with this decision.

So I stopped thinking of him as much. School without him had become a normal thing, and I had a lot of good friends. As the years went by, he crossed my mind less and less. It was like he never existed to me. The events that took place when I was six were only remembered when I watched some kind of horror movie, but I tried to stay away from those. I had already lived through my own horror movie.

But we all know horror movies don’t end that quickly, with such a happy ending.

I was sixteen years old now, walking home from high school with my friends. We were laughing and joking about the substitute teacher we had in our history class, saying things like “He was so old” and “He needs a hearing aid so he can hear the phone in front of him ringing”. I knew we shouldn’t talk about our elders that way, but it was just us. It was all in good fun anyway.

We split up as we neared our houses. I waved to my friends and told them I’d see them tomorrow, and continued walking.

When I got home, I dropped my unbelievably heavy bag onto the ground. I swore to myself that thing would give me back problems before I was thirty. I headed into the kitchen to make me a quick snack, but my plans were interrupted by my mom shouting at me to get the newspaper from outside. “Ughh, finee!” I groaned, as if walking outside took an insane amount of effort. “No one reads the newspaper anymore anyway!”

I walked back outside and reached down to grab the newspaper. Normally I would have just brought it back in and tossed it on the table, but today I saw a familiar name on the front page.

Lee Joon.

I widened my eyes and started reading the article right there in my driveway. It was reminding people of what had happened ten years ago, and it mentioned something about his sentence to the mental hospital. My heart beat faster as I read; his sentence was ending tomorrow. I started breaking out into a cold sweat from worry. I knew he must want revenge on me for putting him in there.

I hurried inside. “No newspaper today mom!” I shouted, trying to keep myself from sounding panicked. I went straight to my room to re-read this article, to make sure I wasn’t getting the date wrong. I wasn’t. I let out a pathetic whimper.

My pillow from my bed became an object to hug for comfort. I tried to calm myself down by saying that Joon was probably changed, because ten years is a lot of time to get better. He would be under surveillance too, so I had nothing to worry about.

I couldn’t stop worrying, though. I mean, who could?

I placed the paper on my side table and laid back. I debated stupid things, like changing my name and moving away to some place no one has ever heard of. I knew they were out of the question, but I was seriously considering them.

I drummed my fingers on my stomach as I continued thinking. It wasn’t until about an hour later I managed to calm myself down enough to get up and leave my room. This was the last day I could wander around outside without fear of Joon coming after me, so damn it, I was going to enjoy it.

I went outside and took nice, long walk, which also gave me more time to think. I figured I was safe and there was nothing to worry about, even if Joon was out of the mental hospital. He would probably be thrown back in there if he slipped up once.

I just didn’t want to be that slip up.

I ran my fingers through my hair and told myself to stop worrying. Everything would be fine; surely he wouldn’t be let out if he was still sick. Everything would be fine.

That was what I kept telling myself for the rest of the night. I lay in bed that night, unable to get any sleep, repeating it in my head. Everything will be fine. If I said it enough, maybe I would stay believing it. Fine, fine, fine.

I did finally get some sleep around 3:00AM, but only about three hours because of my alarm clock. I groaned as I woke up, and lazily plopped my hand onto the clock to turn it off. I forced myself to open my eyes, but as soon as I did a hand covered my mouth. My eyes widened and I gasped from surprise and fright; I tried to make out the silhouette in front of me. It took me all but a second to realize who it was.

Joon. I widened my eyes more and began struggling to pull my face from his hand. He wouldn’t let go.

It was suddenly a bit brighter, bright enough I could make out his facial expression. He was smirking down at me, the same smirk I saw the day I discovered he killed his parents and that kid. “Mir, it’s been a while. We never got to finish our game” I began shaking and let out a small whimper, considering I couldn’t talk with his hand over my mouth. My eyes drifted to his side where I saw a slight glisten with every one of Joon’s movements, and I quickly realized it was a knife.

I gasped again. No, no, no, I thought to myself as he raised his knife. He laughed at me. “What? I promise this will be quick”, he giggled, swiftly bringing the weapon down into my stomach. I jerked up and let out a scream of bloody murder, which was a rather fitting scream considering my situation. Joon’s laughter grew louder and more insane, and he finally removed his hand from my mouth. “Look, look how much you’re bleeding! You’re going to bleed out in a couple of minutes at this rate!” I closed my eyes tightly and began sobbing quietly. I heard Joon again. “Hm? Crying? I thought you were the one who said everything would be fine?” I wrapped my arms around my stomach gently and forced myself to open my eyes. He grabbed my neck as soon as I did and began cutting off my air supply. I could only let out another whimper.

My eyes started to flutter closed after a minute of no oxygen. I remember seeing his smirk before fading into unconsciousness.

Or rather, before waking up.

My eyes flung open for real this time. I was sweating and panting, and my body couldn’t help but shake a bit. I could still feel the dream Joon’s hands wrapped around my neck, and the stab would in my stomach. I shook my head and looked at my alarm clock. 5:23AM. Sighing, I covered my face with my hand and tried to forget my nightmare. I still had forty minutes to get more sleep, but part of me was afraid to try to sleep again.

I ended up lying in bed until the alarm went off. Great. I thought to myself. I have to go to school with about two and a half hours of sleep.

But that didn’t bother me much. The only thing on my mind was that dream. What if instead of a dream, it was a prediction to what was going to happen? I denied that thought. “Everything will be fine. . .” I mumbled to myself before getting up to prepare for school.