“It’s okay,” the woman whispered, closing the door behind her, “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

    “What did you do to him?”

    “I killed him.” the black-haired woman said matter-of-factly, stooping down on the floor so that she was level with the younger girl. Yerim felt slightly ashamed that she was glad that the man was dead.

    Yerim cowered as the woman drew closer, scooting herself back along the floor and flinching. The woman frowned sympathetically, her eyebrows coming together as she did so.

    “I’m not going to hurt you, silly,” she said, “You have a nasty cut on your face, and you’re very dirty. I don’t want it to get infected.”

    It was then that Yerim noticed how much her face was bleeding. The throbbing pain of the wound was returning as well, rapidly intensifying as Yerim’s body slowly began to relax.

    “O-okay,” Yerim mumbled, trying, and failing, to pull herself to a standing position. Her body was still very wobbly and ungainly, as if the previous experience had sapped every ounce of energy from her.

    The woman noticed Yerim’s struggle and reached her hand out for the younger girl to take. Yerim hesitated, staring at that porcelain-like, bloodstained palm. It was only then that the woman seemed to realize the issue.

    “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with a slight giggle.

    And then, her palm was clean. That was it. There was no other way to explain it. Simply put, her palms were dirty one second, clean the next. Yerim hadn’t even blinked. But she’d watched the liquid disappear as if it someone had simply pressed “delete”. Then, Yerim’s eyes shifted to the woman’s body. It was pristine, in the exact same state it had been when she’d opened the door for Yerim. No more blood splatters. The woven fabric of the dress was spotless, the only sign of the prior confrontation being the ski mask in her other hand.

    “How?”

    The woman shrugged nonchalantly, looking away, a momentary look of shame coming upon her expression before she looked back.

    “I’m clean now. Come on.”

    Yerim obeyed now, taking the outstretched hand. The woman pulled her up with very little ease, doing all of the work for her. Yerim swayed to the side as she stood, and the woman wrapped one of her arms around the younger girl’s waist to steady her.

    The brunette looked around, trying to get an idea of what the interior of the house was like, but found that she couldn’t. Aside from the few streaks of moonlight streaming in from the ancient-looking windows, revealing only the shiny hardwood floor, the place was pitch black.

    “I can’t see anything,” Yerim said in a small voice, although her fear was quickly receding, especially with the woman’s secure-feeling arm wrapped around her.

    “Oh, right.” the woman replied, as if she hadn’t even noticed.

    And then, the lights were on. It happened about as immediately as the blood disappearing before. Yerim blinked hard at the sudden burst of illumination. There were candles all about the room that provided the light source, although how their tiny, flickering flames were able to produce such brightness was beyond Yerim (many things that had happened so far that night were beyond her).

    They were in a large foyer, as she expected. The general theme of the house was classical and subdued, with hues of gold and purple and scarlet interspersed throughout. It was decorated with antique-esque items, such as expensive-looking rugs and finely crafted tables. Upon these tables sat small vases with flowers, picture frames (but no pictures), candlesticks, and other similar trinkets. Directly in front of them was a large staircase that led up to a second floor. Above them hung a finely-crafted chandelier with a countless number of crystals hanging from it. There were two doorways at either side of the wide staircase, alone with two other doors that led off to the right and left.

    “Better?” the woman asked, smiling warmly again.

    Yerim nodded sheepishly, and allowed herself to be guided to one of the doorways next to the staircase.

    As they walked through the door and into the darkened room beyond, several candles flickered to life, revealing the large space as a kitchen. It was just as ornate as the other rooms of the house, with windowed cupboards, granite countertops, and steel utensils. Everything was neatly arranged, so prim and proper that it seemed like it had never been used. The woman led her to the table at the center of the large kitchen, sitting the younger girl down before taking her own seat directly beside her.

    “My name is Joohyun,” the woman said, “I would try healing your cut myself, but I’ve never tried doing things to a living person. Well, not healing. My girlfriend, Seulgi, is much better at those things.”

    Yerim assumed that Joohyun meant whatever supernatural forces she had utilized to get the lights on, to wash the blood off of her skin… to kill that man. Yerim still wasn’t entirely sure that she wasn’t in a hellish, hyper-realistic dream.

    “I’m Yerim. Kim Yerim,” the younger girl offered shortly, still not feeling as though she was completely absorbing the situation she was in.

    “Yerim. What a pretty name. You hit him hard, didn’t you?” Joohyun asked, taking Yerim’s injured hand in hers and looking over her raw knuckles.

    “Yeah… I was trying really hard to get away,” Yerim muttered, “Did you not hear all the commotion from before?”

    Joohyun paused and looked away, biting her lip in what appeared to be anxiousness.

    Just as she was about to respond, someone walked in from the doorway opposite the pair. It was a woman, slightly taller than Joohyun, with intriguingly thin eyes, wearing a similarly-colored outfit, although hers was slightly different, with transparent sleeves and a much frillier bottom. Her long black hair fell in neat waves down her shoulders and chest. Unlike Joohyun’s initially blank demeanor, this girl looked absolutely shocked at Yerim’s presence.

“Someone's here? I thought I heard something!” she said, bubbling with excitement, rushing over and bringing her face unexpectedly close Yerim’s, “What happened to your face?”

As if picking up on Yerim’s uncomfortableness, Joohyun held an arm out to prevent the newcomer from getting too close.

“You’re scaring her, Seulgi,” Joohyun chastised, “And a man cut her with a knife just now.”

“Oh,” the monolidded girl said, frowning and take a step back, “I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay…” Yerim said, mustering a smile at Seulgi before turning back to Joohyun, “I forgot to thank you for before, by the way. You saved my life back there.”

“You saved her life?” Seulgi asked, eyes widening as she turned to her supposed girlfriend.

“Yeah, sort of,” Joohyun replied humbly, returning to inspecting Yerim’s knuckle wounds, “There was a man chasing her with a knife, and I stopped him.”

“They were within the circle?” Seulgi asked.

“Yeah, obviously, that’s the only way I could’ve helped,” Joohyun rolled her eyes before noticing Yerim’s confused look, “Ahem… anyway, we should get her healed up. She’s probably in a lot of pain.”

“Okay,” Seulgi said, taking the seat opposite Yerim, “Just your face and knuckles, right?”

Yerim nodded.

“That’s easy,” the older girl said with a wide grin, one that crinkled her eyes and bunched her chubby cheeks up, “I’ll fix you up in no time.”

“How?” Yerim asked.

“Magic. Didn’t Joohyun tell you? We’re-”

Seulgi was cut off as her girlfriend not-so-subtly kicked her under the table and gave her a dangerous look.

Yerim wanted to ask just what the sweet was going on, but the pain in her cheek was starting to become unbearable. The bleeding still hadn’t stopped, and she was beginning to tear up from the stinging. Seulgi noticed this and returned her attention to the younger girl.

“Alright, just close your eyes for me,” she whispered in a melodic, almost hypnotic voice, “Close your eyes, and focus on your breathing. In through your nose, out through your mouth. In… out… in… out… good, keep that up. Just relax.”

Yerim obeyed. At first, the pain remained the same, and she wondered why she was even doing this to begin with. And then, slowly but surely, she felt it receding. The sensation was wonderful at first, until she realized what else was happening. She was experiencing the feeling of her muscles, flesh, and connective tissue weaving themselves back together. They weren’t stretching, per say, more like regrowing. And while it wasn’t painful at all, it was supremely uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough for her to unconsciously let out a low whine. Joohyun reacted by slipping her hand within Yerim’s uninjured hand, rubbing it reassuringly with her thumb and shushing her soothingly.

And then, within seconds of starting, it was all over.

“You can open your eyes now.” Seulgi said.

Yerim looked down at her knuckles found the skin to be intact and unmarred, likely in better condition than it had been prior to the incident. She felt the skin on her face where the cut had been. It was smooth, with no trace of damage at all. Even the dried blood that had begun to cake itself to the surrounding skin was gone.

“How,” Yerim asked, rapidly looking back and forth from Joohyun to Seulgi, “H-how did you do that? How are you doing any of this? What are you? Are you human?”

Seulgi gave a small, sad smile and shook her head slowly.

“Joohyun seemed a bit unwilling to divulge that information,” she said, pointing at her girlfriend, “So I’m going to keep my lips shut.”

Joohyun appeared nervous again and looked down at the floor.

“Joohyun,” Yerim said, boldly reaching out and placing both of her hands on the older girl’s surprisingly delicate shoulders. Seulgi let out a gasp, as if doing such a thing was utterly scandalous, but Joohyun merely looked up sadly, her dark eyes meeting Yerim’s for the first time in awhile, “What’s going on? This whole night has been a whirlwind of hell for me, and I’m so scared, I was just walking home from my friends house when that man started following me, and now I’m here in this house that doesn’t make any sense-”

“Yerim,” Joohyun said softly, cutting her off, “I’ll explain everything to you. But it’s probably better if the other girls are here too for it.”

“Other girls?” Yerim inquired, releasing the older girl and looking around the kitchen.

Joohyun turned towards the wall behind them and called out, causing Yerim to jump back slightly in surprise.

“Sooyoung! Seungwan! Come downstairs! We have a visitor!”

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Thanks for reading<3