Jongin stopped. He held his breath, straining his ears to catch even the smallest sound. He peered his eyes, scanning the the field for something out of the ordinary. He had the strangest feeling he was being followed. But there was nothing there. Weird.

Wary, he started moving again. He regretted taking the short cut home. He could have walked along the main road, where plenty of people and cars passed by, but he had been in the mood for some solitude. Some peace and quiet. Normally he really liked it out here, but today he had a strange feeling in his gut. Something wasn't right.

He heard a low rustling sound not that far behind him. He turned around as fast he could, to see what it was, but again there was nothing. Was he loosing his marbles? Maybe his imagination was making him hear things. The moment he turned back around, he heard the sound again. He froze. This time it was closer. There was someone behind him. He could feel it. A presence. His heart went haywire, pounding so heavily it was hard to hear anything else. He swallowed with difficulty, his throat dry. Slowly, he forced his body to turn around. He was shaking with fear. Were these his last moments on Earth?

He detected a tall, slender being out the corner of his eye. A shadow that was so close to him that he almost mistook it for his own.

“Waaaaaaaaaa!” he screamed out at the top of his lungs and started running for his life. He had no idea who or what it was, and he was not going to wait around to find out.

When his body refused to continue running, he glanced back to see if he had managed to escape, or if he had just imagined the whole thing. He gasped. There was a boy. A blonde, tall, skinny boy chasing him. Why? Why was he chasing him? He was not going to let himself be fooled by his innocent appearance, he had watched too many TV shows for that.

He ran harder, ignoring the painful protests of his body. The sun was setting and soon it would be dark. He needed to get home. His lungs started to burn as he pushed himself to the limit.

Finally his house came into view. He was so relieved, he almost stopped running. He had to keep going until he was safe behind those doors, he reminded himself. Then he remembered, there was no one home. His dad had gone to Daegu, the closest big town, he would be gone for at least a week or two depending on how quick their crops sold. This was sounding more and more like one of the horror stories on those crime shows about unsolved cases. A young boy, home alone in a remote farmhouse, brutal bloodbath, different parts of him strewn about the house but they never found his left little finger, the killer had taken that as a souvenir. The killer who was never found. No! He was not going to become that young boy! He ran like he had never run before, his lungs screaming for air.

“Monggu! Come on, buddy!” he ushered his dog into the house, slamming the door shut and locking it quickly but carefully.

“Phew!” he fell to the floor, catching his breath as the shock crashed over him. He could have died out there. His whole body was trembling from fear and exhaustion.

He could hear something on the porch. No way. Did he follow him all the way to the house? He wondered if he should call the police. He ran to the backdoor to lock it, and circled the house to check that all the windows were shut, returning with a short plank of wood to nail the dog door shut. Thankfully they owned a nail gun, allowing him to work fast, using a ridiculous amount of nails just to be sure. He almost nailed his hand to the door as well, but he managed to just miss it, only giving him a tiny surface wound. It was the lesser of two evils, at least all of his appendages were still attached and he was alive.

He peeked out the window, careful to stay out of view.

He gasped.

On the porch stood a really tall and extremely skinny boy in strange overalls. He was as pale as a ghost. He had really broad shoulders and a very unique posture. He had never really seen anyone like him. If he wasn't so weird and scary, he would have thought he was a model. He was just standing there on the porch, looking at the ground with a curious expression. But then Jongin realized what he was looking at.

Oh, no!

No, no, no!

Jongin started to panic. Monggu had gotten out the dog door before he nailed it shut. Crap.

He started hyperventilating, not knowing what to do. He couldn't just leave Monggu out there with that weirdo serial killer. But if he went out after him, they would both die.

Monggu was growling, and when the strange boy didn't budge, he started barking fiercely. Brave Monggu!

The guy bent his endlessly long legs and crouched before Monggu. For a moment he just scratched his neck while watching with intrigue as Monggu heroically barked at him. Then the most unbelievable thing happened. The guy started barking at Monggu. Had he lost his mind? What kind of psycho was this? Why were the pretty ones always crazy?

Monggu whined and jumped forward and the boy's face. No! Monggu, you useless guard dog. Jongin sighed. But he froze mid-sigh, not believing his eyes. The guy him back. He him back! This was a total mental patient. He was going to call the cops.

He dug into his pocket, fishing his cell phone out of it, only to find out it was out of battery. Why did he always forget to charge his phone?! He mentally kicked himself.

The boy got back up, and turned to the door. Jongin held his breath, not knowing what to do. The boy waved at him through the window. He knew he was there. . And then he started to bark at him. What the hell. Totally nuts!

After a while of Jongin just looking at him like he was insane, because he was indeed barking crazy, the guy smiled crookedly and scratched his neck again. He had a piece of metal stuck in his neck, it reflected the light. Ah! Maybe he was some sort of half robot, half human. That would explain his strange behavior. A time traveler from the future.

“Hola! Buenos dias!” the guy said something cheerfully in a language Jongin didn't understand. Oh, so it was a foreigner. It didn't sound like any Asian language he had ever heard before, it sounded more European. Maybe he was Asian European. He never realized Europeans were so weird.

“Ayúdame, por favor.” the boy continued.

“I don't understand you! I don't speak European!” Jongin shouted through the window, shaking his head.

The boy hesitated, but then kept on talking in his native language, as if he thought that if he said it often enough he would start to understand him. Well, he didn't.

“Habla, por favor, digame algo.” he repeated.

“Listen! I don't speak whatever language this is, it just sounds like gibberish to me. Do you speak Korean? Or English maybe?” he yelled at him. He had zero confidence in his English speaking skills, but it couldn't be worse than trying to communicate in this utterly incomprehensible language.

The guy gave him a wide, goofy grin. This was hopeless.

“Hi! Good afternoon. I need help.” he suddenly said in perfect Korean. So he did speak Korean? Then why had he been trying to speak that weird European language to him. Jongin was obviously Korean, and they were in Korea, so it made absolutely no sense.

“My ship crashed, can you assist me?” the boy said in a pleading voice.

“Your ship? Do you mean your car?” Jongin corrected him. Okay, so maybe he didn't speak perfect Korean. He looked pretty young to be driving alone in a foreign country, but maybe that was normal in Europe.

Ah. But that explained everything. He had been in a car accident. He had a concussion, that was the reason he was behaving so strangely. He wasn't a psycho, he was severely hurt. He hurried to unlock and open the door. He couldn't turn away an injured person.