Hongbin never thought his first mistress's house would be his paradise.
He did not know how or why he woke up on a comfortable chair in her living room.

He carefully stood up and scanned his surroundings. He realised that the living room was not really the same as he remembers because there were lesser furniture. 
The colour of the walls was navy blue rather than red and the wall was covered with picture frames of many sizes.

He heard singing from the direction of the kitchen. He tentatively made his way to the kitchen and was surprised to see his mother cooking with a smile on her face. He could not remember the last time he saw his mother smile, their lives was always in danger from debtors.
He then remembered his sisters and he let out a sob.

The sob caught the attention of his mother and she saw him, her bright smile widened.
"Finally, you arrive. Do you want some bread?", she gestured towards a fresh loaf of bread on the table.
Hongbin wordlessly nodded, feeling a sense of deja vu. This scene felt so familiar but he knew he never experience this in his life.

Then a memory resurfaced. There was one moment in his stay with his first mistress that he dreamt that it was his family who live in this big house. He once imagined the walls were navy blue and his mother would bake a loaf of bread every morning because he likes bread. But he had buried the dream a long time ago which meant wherever he was now, it was not real.

" Seems like you have figure this out. Maybe you have a chance to escape from here", his mother, no, an image of his mother stopped cooking, her smile still intact but her face was stiff and and and her eyes were not blinking like a life-size doll.

"Where am I?", he asked.
" You are in the deepest confine of your mind. I suppose your incredible grief over your sisters have allowed your master to take over your mind completely and trapped you here so he can have total control on your body", she explained as she sat down on a chair.

" How do I get out of here?".
" You can if you can find the main door. But if you check, there's no door. That's because the jailer controls this house. You need to confront him and defeat him so the exit appears".
" So where can I find him?".
"You know the layout of the house. Use it and the pictures will be your guide", she gave another creepy smile before she continued to cook.

Hongbin looked at a picture of him playing with his sisters at the backyard and to his surprise, the people in the picture moved. He looked at more pictures, realising that the pictures were his memories of his past. He walked to the living room, stopping at the picture when he volunteered to take his sister's place.
His eyes slowly followed the pictures of his life as a slave that led to the basement. Thinking of the high possibility of the jailer being down in the dark basement gave him the needed courage to walk down the stairs.
He slowly turned the knob of the door and he opened it.

The basement was illuminated by torches, the underground space was bare except for one huge glass case in the middle.
He went nearer and when he looked inside the case, he saw a boy in tattered clothes, his skin was covered by multiple cuts.
The boy opened his eyes, revealing only white orbs.
Hongbin thought he was blind but the boy quickly stood up, facing him before he slammed the glass with a manical grin on his face.
Hongbin jumped back with surprise because the boy in the case was looked exactly like him.

"Hello,Hongbin. Nice to see you. Then again, I'm Hongbin too, sort of", the boy said with a raspy voice.
"No, you are not me. You are..you are...", the real Hongbin stammered, only to be cut off with a gleeful laugh.

"I am what you imagine your future will be. Forever a slave, broken and hurt, blind to a hope for a new life and always be seen as a display of power and ownership".
"Are you the jailer?", Hongbin asked slowly, trying to stomach the fact he had thought of it before. The broken Hongbin stared at him before laughing again.

" No, I'm not the jailer but I thank him for keeping you here. This future is getting closer than you expected and soon you are going to be like me", the broken Hongbin slammed the glass again but this time it cracked.
" Stay here with me. Make this future comes true".

Hongbin tried to run back to the door but he could not find it anywhere.
" Life full of misery. Life full of sadness. Accept it, Hongbin. You will never find happiness as long as you are a slave", the broken Hongbin crawled out of the now-destroyed glass case, his crazy eyes stared straight at him.

Hongbin closed his eyes, trying to find any happy memories during his time as a slave just to prove the other wrong.
He could not find it, just like how he could not find the door.

Then it happened.
He heard someone laughing with joy, pure joy and amusement. More particularly, Jaehwan's laugh.

The smiley guy slowly put a tray on his lap, the smell of the porridge in a bowl served on the tray caused his stomach to growl loudly much to his embarassment.
The guy just laughed with amusement but he said nothing.

Then another memory came. Sanghyuk's singing.

He screamed and shouted and the boy at the door quickly rushed towards him, saying words he could not comprehend.
But the tone was soothing, which brought back a hazy memory of his mother singing and he calmed down before the more comforatable darkness engulfed his sight.

He remembered how he worked together with Wonsik and Taekwoon in the old witch’s house. He remembered how nice of Hakyeon to accept him so easily with his his usual smiles.

Flashback

Hongbin watched as Jaehwan pulled out two smaller bags from his backpack and with a tap, the two smaller bags turned into tents. One was slightly smaller than the other and Hongbin thought it was for him. But Wonsik rushed into the tent and a few seconds later, Hongbin heard a loud snoring coming from the tent.

Hongbin chided himself for thinking everything would be different after he helped them in the old witch’s house. He was their prisoner after all so he laid down on the hard ground just like he used to. He was about to doze off when someone tugged on his arm.

“ Hongbin, why are you sleeping out here when there is plenty of space for everyone in the big tent?”, Hakyeon said with an amused smile.

 “ Come on in. Wonsik is sleeping in the other tent because his snores can be a bother, if you are thinking why you did not get the smaller tent. You are not a prisoner, you are an important witness, keyword important. Witness must be taken care very well. Anyway, I want to thank you for helping us out in the old witch’s house”, Hakyeon grinned before giving Hongbin a tight hug.

Hongbin opened his eyes and he saw the door materialised in front of him. He turned around to see the broken Hongbin kept crawling towards him.

“ I will make sure I will never be like you. To change the future, I need to change the present and that is what I should focus on. I can still have happiness even if it is temporary”, Hongbin vowed before leaving the basement.

The only option left was to go upstairs and as he climbed the stairs, he found the recent picture of his journey in the woods. He smiled but when he reached the top, he could only see one red door and it could only lead to the first mistress’s bedroom.

Hongbin stepped inside and noticed how it looked simillar to her real bedroom with fancy decorations and all but the thing that caught his attention was the huge oval mirror above the fireplace.

When he got closer to it, he gasped when he found an image of Hakyeon facing him.

“ Hey, Hongbin, do you know where they keep Wonsik? I did not want to ask how they capture both of you because it already happened but it’s important for me to see Wonsik. Umm, Hongbin? Are you okay? Why are your eyes are glowing purple?” Hakyeon went near him with a worried expression.

“ No, no, get away from me! Please, Hakyeon , please just get away from me”, Hongbin shouted but Hakyeon seemed to not hear his warning as he got closer.

“ Must fend off intruders”.

The monotone voice came out from his mouth,no,no, his body’s mouth. He watched with horror as he lunged at Hakyeon with a blade in hand. Hakyeon jumped away with unnatural speed, his eyes were filled with shock.

“ Hongbin, what is it with you? It’s me, Hakyeon”, he said but he had to continue dodging the knife.

“ Stop, stop! Stop attacking him”, Hongbin shouted, trying to stop himself from hurting Hakyeon but his body did not response. He could not control himself.

This time, Hakyeon jumped on him, forcibly grabbing the knife from his hands and pushed it away.

“ I don’t know what Jeowook did to you but you need to snap out of it. I don’t really want to hurt you, okay.”

Hongbin thought it was over but his body did not think so. Hakyeon got kicked in the stomach and in that moment of weakness, the knife was back in Hongbin’s hands. Without hesitation, the knife was drove into Hakyeon’s stomach. When Hakyeon kept on struggling to get away, Hongbin watched himself stabbing Hakyeon multiple times until he stopped moving.

“ Intruder down”, he heard himself said.

Hongbin let out an angry cry and grabbed a nearby chair to smash the mirror only for it to be pulled back by an unknown force.

He turned around and saw Jeowook sitting on the bed, his eyes were glowing purple.

“ It seems that you have find my hiding spot. Good but I expect you will be much faster. To make it quick, I’m your jailer and I will make sure you stay here and watch everything that the real Jeowook asks you to do. Like the real Jeowook, I enjoy watching you suffer”, the man on the bed clicked his fingers and Hongbin was tied down on a chair, facing the mirror.

Hongbin looked back at the mirror with tears in his eyes. He watched as he disposed off Hakyeon’s body before returning to his spot. He tried to struggle against the binds but it was so tight.

“ Why do you this to me?”, he asked with a sob.

“ Why I do this to you?  Simple because I like it. Controlling a person’s body is one thing but watching the owner suffers from his actions is entertaining. “ No, no, get away from me! Please, Hakyeon , please just get away from me”,  hahaha, you sound so pathetic. Please, continue watching. There’s more on the way”.

Hongbin closed his eyes again, trying to find a way to escape. In all of his years as a slave, he never felt so helpless. Even with his previous masters and mistress, at least he has control over his body. What Jeowook had done was the last straw. He could not let him do this. He looked around the room and smiled when he found a suitable object.

He need to wait for the right time.

The real Jeowook appeared in the mirror, discussing his plan with his trusted hunters. They planned to kill the kidnapped children, put their bodies in the woods and blame it on the supernatural wood-dwellers when the villager discover them during the search party.

Then, a fat and drunken man burst into the room and told them that the children are missing.  After the word missing, he was shot dead by Jeowook for his failure. So they discussed the back up plan which was to burn the woods down. He assigned each person a section of the woods to make things quicker and Hongbin was part of the burning team.

“ Hahahaha, you are going to watch yourself destroy the woods. How are you going to feel about that?”, the fake Jeowook said with a chuckle.

“ Of course, I will feel bad. But how about you? The real Jeowook kills a man like he’s no different than the animals he hunted”, Hongbin replied.

“ I don’t care about that. He’s a failure. Why do you think I will be affected by that?”.

“ You are a projection of the real Jeowook right?”.

“ Yes, so?”.

“ To answer your question, let me remind you who you are. You are an orphan whose parents died from an accident when they were exploring the woods, leaving you and your brother alone in this world. You pinned the blame on the werewolves but people said it was an accident and the werewolves were just passing by the area”, Hongbin began to recount the story he heard when Jeowook was drunk one night.

“ Of course the werewolves did it. They were there”, the fake Jeowook snapped.

“ So you and your brother had a hard life growing up. When both of you were old enough, you wanted to join a hunting group but to join it, you must prove that you can catch something. One night, you caught a she-wolf and you were delighted to kill it but your brother thought otherwise”.

“ It was our break. With that she-wolf we can change our life for the better but my stupid, soft-hearted brother stopped me. He told me we can't take a life so easily”, the fake Jeowook made his way in front of Hongbin, blocking the mirror.

Focusing his weight to the back of the chair, Hongbin fall backwards and when his legs were at the right position, he kicked the fake, causing him to crash into the mirror. Glass flew everywhere and Hongbin quickly grabbed one to cut the ropes.

He stood up but quickly got knocked by a very angry fake Jeowook. Hongbin knew he could not beat Jeowook with force so he need to continue his story to make him more agitated, hoping for a chance to beat him down.

“ He managed to free it from its trap but you could not let him get away with it so you shot him”, Hongbin dodged another punch.

“ He deserved it but that she-wolf just had to take him away from me”, the fake Jeowook continued to chase him.

“ But years later, when you became a hunter, you found out that your brother was one of them. Even worse, he’s the one leading them”, Hongbin dropped to the floor and grabbed a huge piece of glass.

“ He betrayed me!”, his opponent shouted with rage as he lunged  at Hongbin, blind to the fact he had a weapon.

Hongbin rolled sideways and quickly stabbed the fake Jeowook’s back.

“ And because of that, you kill his wife in front of her son when you kidnapped him years ago”, Hongbin said softly as he realised he had met the son, the one who left him to die because he thought that humans are not worth saving.

“She and her kind took my family. I took his”, the fake Jeowook hissed before he faded. Hongbin stood up and saw a fragment of the mirror showed that the fire had started and was that Hakyeon in front of him?

Hongbin blinked again and watched carefully at the image where Hakyeon was screaming at him to stop, this time Hakyeon held him by the neck, not giving him the chance to move properly.

Hongbin remembered about the exit and and ran down the stairs. He saw a brown door where the exit was supposed to be and he opened it.

“ Stop!”, he shouted, grabbing at Hakyeon’s arm.

“ Hongbin, is that really you?”, Hakyeon released him.

“ Yeah, did you just tried to choke me?”, Hongbin asked as he gasped for air.

“ I want to make you unconscious, that’s all. I do not appreciate of being stabbed again”, Hakyeon held out a hand to help Hongbin to stand up.

“ I’m sorry”.

“It’s ok.I’m a half vampire and I heal fast. That and I know it was not you. Wonsik told me what happened”, Hakyeon replied as he stamped out the flame of Hongbin’s torch.

“ Wonsik”, Hongbin felt a lump in his throat. “ Umm, what about the others? I mean the woods is on fire”.

“ I told Wonsik to save any creatures he can find on his way to his pack to ask for help. Sanghyuk and a group of villagers tend for the creatures who escape to the village while Taekwoon and another group  of villagers are trying to slow down the fire to stop it from reaching the village. Jaehwan is trying his best to make it rain but he can’t do it for a long time. He needs help so I contacted  other magic users to help him out but on the way back, I find you”, Hakyeon explained.

“ But there are other hunters burning this forest”, Hongbin told him.

“ Don’t worry. Some nymphs had alerted the other creatures and the hunters will not go far”.

“ We need to find Jeowook”, Hongbin said before coughing from too much smoke.

“ We need to get you somewhere safe first. Jeowook is not important”, Hakyeon lifted Hongbin on his back and ran through the burning woods, heading for the village.

“ Yeah, he’s not important”, Hongbin muttered as he reached for his choker. He realised it was gone, it probably had dropped somewhere. He smiled. He’s not a slave anymore. He’s free and he had averted his dark future. That’s the last thing he thought before he passed out.