She sat on the sofa smoothening her dark hair occasionally and smiling coyly; her small lips dipping at the center and a dusting of pink generously making its way onto her plump, glistening cheeks. Her fingers – if not tangled in her hair or the side of her neck – twiddled in her lap and entwined anxiously, followed by her fingernails picking at one another with absent discomfort.

‘Oh, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’ she cooed, smoothening the tail of deep brown hair over her right shoulder with kitten-like .

‘I’ve been meaning to do this a long time ago – really, I have – but… oh, Lu,’ she chuckled nervously, raising a hand over her lips as the humour escaped her.

‘Things never go according to plan, do they? I’ve waited so long for the day we finally meet! I’ve prepared so much—my—it’s a little embarrassing now that I think about it, but if it’s for you, it’s alright, right? I mean, I’m not a bad girl now for all that I’ve done, am I?’

Luhan watched her fixated on the spot beside the open sliding door that every few seconds, allowed for a biting draft of air and what appeared to be specks of snow into the living room. A small cluster of white trailed towards the sofa in a messy scattering and some littered the loveseat where she sat, with her legs together and her significant weight sinking into the cushions. There was a duffel bag at her side squashed under a single large arm and it shifted often when she moved, moving the backrest with her in a jittery way.

‘It’s only fair that I did what I did,’ her face darkened for an instant as if reminiscing something unpleasant, yet the expression was quickly replaced with another wide smile.

‘The timing was so right. Too right. I couldn’t help myself, but—oh gosh—you didn’t even ask me for an explanation, Lu...’

‘Who are you.’

The question sounded more like a statement with the inner winter he felt take over his entirety then. He could see moving and her cheeks vibrating and her hands often reach for her hair in some sort of conversation, but Luhan was so occupied with containing the intense anxiety and fear he felt that he barely registered a thing she said to him during that time.

He had returned to the living room after his short-lived expedition into the attic partly due to the surprisingly freezing draft of air that greeted him from the staircase, but what he returned to was undeniably unlike anything he expected. And the moment Luhan laid his eyes on her, his blood ran cold. He felt the blood from his face drain and his heart sink with inexplicable fear.

‘How did you get here?’

Despite his small, trembling voice, he was surprised to find he was actually capable of producing such questions considering his current predicament. But the moment these questions reached the woman’s ears on the sofa, she appeared to be even more startled than him.

‘Oh, Lu,’ a few fingers from the hand her hair curled in his direction with an eerie, provocative deliberation.

‘You naughty boy, playing so hard to get!’

Luhan watched her with absolutely no trace of the amusement she displayed in comparison. He had no idea what she was possibly referring to or what she was playing at avoiding his questions with such inexplicably intimate responses, but nothing about her eased his tension one bit. There was something incredibly menacing about her smile and her doting tone, and the fact that she acted so affectionate towards him immediately rang alarm bells in his head.

Instinctively his eyes darted to every corner of the room in search of anything he could quickly grab hold of for fear of the stranger, yet his panicked search was to no avail. There was nothing of particular use in sight. And realising how defenseless he suddenly was, Luhan’s body trembled.

‘Are you sure you don’t know me? Certain? I don’t really want to spoil the surprise here, you know…’

Did he know her? She was so confident in the fact that she knew him that he began seriously questioning his memory for a moment as he stared at her face. Yet the genuine fear and confusion twisting his features hadn’t faltered. And noting this, the woman sighed, zipping open the duffel bag on her left and the sudden action sent a jolt of terror right through Luhan’s chest.

She’s going to kill me. They were the only words he could think at that point. But seconds before the hyperventilation set in, he noticed her draw out something bright and horribly peculiar from the bag. His frown deepened as he stared at the shaggy object being tousled around in a single hand of hers and the other reached back into the bag, what appeared to be a pair of spectacles.

‘Well you must remember now.’

She placed the orange object on her head and smoothened the top, thereafter fixing the sunglasses on the bridge of her small stout nose. She posed with enthusiastic hilarity – hands in the air and a wide smile on her short face – accompanied with a loud ‘tada!’, and the moment she did, Luhan’s body and mind went into a cold panic. His legs weakened and his knees buckled and his lungs felt small and shriveled because his breathing became unsteady and short to the point of not breathing at all. Sweat so cold that it burned stung every inch of his back, arms and neck and he struggled to keep himself from falling. He was on the verge of a massive panic attack…

Because he was right. He was right all along, and yet he refused to believe the horror that stared him in the face ever since he arrived here: it was M.

The orange hair was unmistakable. Short, straight, and crusty. And the sunglasses paired with her large cheeks and round face hid a good portion of her eyebrows and messy eyeliner; sunglasses where he stared into his reflection with a haunting sense of needing to get out, of needing to leave, of needing to breathe, of getting the buzzing to stop—

As if tapping into his mind and hearing the perpetual buzzing that like a mosquito closing in eased to life, M’s demeanour changed. She quickly pulled off the wig and the sunglasses and hid them back in her duffel bag, seemingly shoving them far beneath whatever else it contained like it was some lethal predator about to strike again.

‘Well, enough chitchat. Have you eaten? I say we grab some dinner and have a long good talk, hm? Wouldn’t you like that, Lu?’

Whatever capability he had of producing words had suddenly vanished. Every single thing about the situation he was in was unsettling beyond belief, and every time the intimate name Lu escaped her in that shrill, excited tone that reminded him of a little girl’s, his insides squirmed. Luhan felt stifled. Cornered even by the stranger and whatever game they were playing at, and starting to feel physically ill with the intense terror and anxiety that took hold of him, his arm reached out tentatively for the open glass panel beside him.

Whatever was going on right now, Luhan wanted no part in it. He wanted nothing to do with her—with M. His situation was beyond unbelievable at this point that even he doubted his reality.

Of course, that was until he noticed her eyes quickly dart to the hand that reached for the door.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Lu.’

The evenness of her voice was so unfaltering that Luhan froze entirely in position. It filled him with an eerie dread and he slowly retracted his arm after a moment, staring at her eyes that barely blinked. He didn’t know why, but he listened. He knew it was ridiculous but he’d gotten the most horrible feeling in that instance that if he really did decide to step out and make a break for the porch, something terrible would have happened to him…

And the frightening gut feeling remained even after she seemed to relax and smiled brightly again at him despite the deathly, hollow look he stared back with.

‘Well, let’s eat!’ she cried enthusiastically with a clap of her fat hands.

She rose from the couch and Luhan instinctively found himself backing against the wall in fear. M, however, didn’t seem to pay his reaction any mind. She approached him with eyes fixed on the door and closed it with one effortless swoop of her arm, jingling a pair of keys in her pocket before locking it with what appeared to be her own set.

Luhan watched the action alarmed. How could she possibly have keys to the house? It was impossible. There was no explanation for it, unless…

His eyes grew incredibly wide and he felt the sweat from his temples reach his lips as he trembled fearfully at the next thought that hit him: the open door. It was his first