“Heyyy Sehun!”

Mingyu thumps the back of my head before putting me into a headlock.

I gasp for air and try to puff out something intelligible. Mingyu laughs, releases me and then hands me a package wrapped in tissue.

I arch a brow. The package itself is disastrously put together. “Did you wrap this yourself?”

Mingyu looks offended. “Hey! It’s the thought that counts. I brought you a gift all the way from Romania!”

I am unsure. Mingyu is a prankster and he can’t be trusted. For all, I know I could be holding a firecracker that’s going to send my school desk on fire.

“Open it!” Mingyu is eager. I am reluctant.

“Happy Halloween!” Mingyu bellows in my ear the moment the tissue comes apart. I stare at the doll in my hand. It looks like something people poke needles into while trying to hex someone. Am I meant to be thankful for this thing? My expression says it all and Mingyu throws his head back and bursts into a peal of laughter. That is the last day I see Mingyu.

*

I stuff some healthy junk food into my backpack. This is for my lunch. I pack some for MIngyu too just in case he shows up to school. I don’t know what happened to him but he seems to have just disappeared after he came back from Romania. I’m not worried. It’s normal for Mingyu to go off somewhere and then come back. He likes to live life spontaneously. This isn’t the first time.

Today at school I gained a new classmate.

His name is Cha Eunwoo. A lanky, pale, quiet kind of guy. He doesn’t raise his eyes the entire time he was being introduced and quietly takes the seat the teacher assigns him. He looks kind of familiar to me, as if I’d seen him before somewhere. He sort of resembles the doll Mingyu gave me, I think, then I shake my head.

It doesn’t take me long to figure out that Eunwoo, the quiet new boy is weird. Some might call him creepy, actually, they did. I thnk that’s kind of mean. I don’t know why he’s called all these names until Rowoon, pulls me aside and tells me that Eunwoo had cuts on his arms.

“He self-harms?”

“I don’t know what he does but he’s got weird marks.”

Rowoon looks distressed. He spots the look in my eyes.

“Sehun, for the love of all that’s good don’t you dare think of trying to make friends with him. There’s something really wrong about him.”

I choose not to speak. Rowoon doesn’t understand, this was something only a person with a history of self-harming can understand. I sympathise with Eunwoo. I know where he is and I fully intend to be his friend because that helped me out of a dark place.

“He’s not like you, Sehun.”

“Why don’t you like him?”

“I don’t know. He just gives me creepy vibes. I don’t like his hair either. His hairstyle looks like Mingyu’s, like he took that hair off Mingyu and put it onto his own head.”

I bellow with laughter. Can’t help it. Rowoon looks pained.

Mingyu is a kind of bad boy fashionista in our school. His hair is a shiny chestnut and longer than what’s allowed in school. Here, we aren’t allowed to have hair longer than 2 inches or dyed in unnatural colours. Mingyu has long hair, he likes to either slick it all back some days or leave it falling into his eyes, says the chicks dig it.

Eunwoo has abundant chestnut hair. I can see where Rowoon is coming from. However, Rowoon likes conspiracy theories. He isn’t shaking off his theory. I’m not going to pull mine aside either. I’m going to befriend that guy because sometimes when life is rough, you just want a friend.

*

Rowoon didn’t come to school today. He isn’t the only one though. It seems like people just don’t like to come in anymore. I don’t know if this is because Halloween is coming up.

School is weird with just half the class.

Eunwoo is in though. Cha Eunwoo, my new friend, is about as troubled as troubled get. I don’t know where to start. Firstly, I discover that he doesn’t have anywhere to live. He’s homeless. Eunwoo won’t talk much about his personal life. He doesn’t like it.

I offer to let him move in with me but he asks to stay in my treehouse instead. Weird, just as Rowoon had said.

The treehouse is a thing of the past, a place where myself, Mingyu and Rowoon would play in as kids. It has been a spaceship, a pirate ship, a submarine and a different planet at some stage in our make-believe play dates. Now it’s dusty and splintering. A family of spiders has taken over the joint but Eunwoo is happy to live here.

He says he’d clean up.

Eunwoo keeps his word because the next time I visit the treehouse in my backyard it looks like something out of my childish imagination.

I give him a dry smirk when I see what he’s done. Spiders are gone, replaced by shelves of dolls in glass cases.

Creepy, Rowoon had also said. Eunwoo is sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by dolls. These things are kind of similar to what Mingyu had brought me from Romania, dolls with deformations. I feel a chill trip down my spine. Eunwoo is unbothered. Needle and thread in hand, he’s cross-stitching an X shape across a doll’s mouth.

I stare for too long. He looks up from his busy task and smiles.

“Sehun!”

I glance at the thing he had in his hand, the doll had no legs. Seeing it makes me want to puke. Why do I want to vomit because of a doll without legs? I won’t know until much later.

*

Cha Eunwoo got taller. This is a nagging feeling that bothers me. I can swear he grew overnight and I’m not sure how. No one else seems to notice that Eunwoo had gained a good 10 cm. He isn’t wearing insoles. Our school shoes are flat and boring. There’s no space to stick in a centimetre.

I’m disturbed, not because he towers over me but more so because I’m sure he’s now about as tall as Rowoon. I can’t verify this height thing. Rowoon stopped coming to school. I wonder why. I tried calling him but no answer. It’s as if Rowoon’s skipped town and no ones noticed he existed in the first place. His house is empty and the teachers say they didn’t know anyone called by ‘Rowoon.’

Weird.

Creepy.

There’s something really wrong about him.

Cha Eunwoo sits next to me in the seat that belongs to Mingyu.

“Do you wanna come over later? I have some new dolls that I wanna patch.”

“Sure.”

His shiny chestnut hair is fading into black. If it were Mingyu he would have never let his roots grow out so much. Mingyu always has luxury shiny hair, not the regular shiny but shiny as if there are lights in his hair. No one else seems to have had that sheen until Eunwoo showed up.

I shake my head. What am I thinking? This is Rowoon level conspiracy.

Sure the boy in the treehouse is a bit off, but since when was individuality frowned upon? I’m judging him too harshly. He’s just a guy who collects dolls as a hobby.

Collecting severed, deformed dolls whose mouths he likes to seal up. Perhaps that’s how he copes.

*

People are going missing. This isn’t an assumption, this isn’t some idea borrowed from Rowoon’s mind and inflated by Mingyu as a joke.

At the same time, I think I’m going crazy. I must be. No one else seems to notice that people are disappearing from the neighborhood. Whole families are vanishing.

Everyday Eunwoo gets more and more dolls. I have a mad idea. I counted his new toys and counted the number of people that vanished in a day. It matches.

I must be losing my sanity altogether. Maybe I shouldn’t have put Eunwoo in that treehouse. That place seems to have set my imagination running again.

I feel more jumpy when I think of everything that’s going wrong. The yellowy orange autumn leaves look like they’re mocking me. Creeping on me by scratching the patio, I half expect someone to stab me from behind.

I gulp as I stare at the treehouse. This is all just some mad prank played out by Mingyu. He plays a big joke on me every Halloween. This must be it. He’s got the whole town in on it and he’s got the new kid in town acting too.

Rowoon said Eunwoo had scars. His arms are clear. Rowoon lied. He’s in on the joke too. Nothing is making sense to me. I should confront Eunwoo, tell him that this whole farse is really getting to me and he’s got to stop, tell everyone to come back and let life resume its course from where it left off.

When I climb the rope ladder into the treehouse, Eunwoo isn’t there. I’m surprised. He lives here. The dolls are all there though, locked up in their glass boxes. I feel their eyes on me. Their mouths want to talk but they’ve been shut up. There’s a doll that’s bald. It sits next to the doll with no legs. My own legs grow weak. I have to leave here. There’s a scream in my throat fighting its way up. I open my mouth to let it roar but no sound comes.

Cold shivers run down my back as if I’ve been by a ghostly finger. I almost fall out of the tree on my way down. I rush back into the house, lock the door, close the curtain and rush upstairs to my room.

On my bed, a pretty doll sleeps. It’s the doll Mingyu got me for Halloween as a prank. It’s got Mingyu’s hair. It doesn’t look like a voodoo doll anymore.

Actually, it sort of resembles Cha Eunwoo.

I can’t move. My legs are stuck. Warm piss travels down the sides of legs and collects on the floor. I sweat and I feel cold. I throw up all over my floor.

*

“What’s going on?” I demand of Eunwoo as soon as I see him.

He stares at me, puzzled.

“What kind of sick joke is this?”

Still no reaction. I’m growing conscious of the fact that I appear mental. I can’t help it. Every cell in my brain is screaming.

“Since when did your dolls start resembling everyone in town? Why is your Mingyu doll bald and why does your Rowoon doll have no legs? How did you get your hair and your height?”

Eunwoo is calm. He puts down the doll he’s zipping a mouth onto and stands up. Instinctively, I move back. I don’t know how he got the others but he’s not going to get me. I won’t let him. I think this but I’m not very confident at all.

“Sehun, what are you talking about?”

“Your dolls look like people. You’re absorbing their characteristics. Don’t lie to me Eunwoo, I know what you’re up to. I want you to stop it. Bring them back.”

Eunwoo gives a lop-sided grin. “I can’t bring them back. They’re dead.”

I gasp as if a cold shower has struck me. My lips move wordlessly. Is it true? Is all of this real? Surely not?

“Why?” I rasp with much difficulty.

Eunwoo keeps his smile on. “Why not? I want to be handsome.”

I gulp. There’s something strange about the look in his eyes. They’re not the usual eyes I see in school, they’re glowing with malice. He knows I know his secret. He doesn’t like it.

“Want me to teach you how?” Eunwoo asks.

I shudder. I don’t want to learn anything he wants to teach me. I want to get the hell out of the treehouse and burn it to the ground.

He’s mad.

At the same time I hear myself say, “How did you do it?” I bite my tongue. What am I doing? Am I enticed by this witchcraft? I don’t know. What I’m sure of is that now that he’s offered to share his information, I want to know what kind of a crazy I’m dealing with.

Eunwoo’s grin rips from ear to ear. He’s no longer that elfish pretty boy that came to our school looking lost and lonely. He’s manic. His teeth gleam dangerously. He spreads his arms out as if he’s about to spin a great tale.

“I kill them and I feast on what I need.”

My breath slows down. Eunwoo continues to speak. I can’t make out what he’s saying. His mouth moves but all I hear is droning bees. The bees swarm around me, steal my hearing and then they become grains in front of my eyes. I stumble. There’s a doll at my feet. Someone from school. The doll has had its eyes gouged. There are hollows where the eyeball should be. The skin around the socket sags down and melts near the soles of my shoe. I pull away. The doll groans, twitches and leaps at my leg. It sticks its little teeth into my jeans and I feel the pinching on my flesh. I kick it. The doll goes flying.

Laughter. Eunwoo is laughing. He doesn’t look anything like I remember. His skin is leathery, pointy teeth shine through a mouth without lips, his eyes are yellow, his nose scrunches as he growls at me. He’s shorter than I remember but that doesn’t make him less terrifying. My eyes fall to his long nails filed like razors.

“Join me.”

My mouth is dry. Eunwoo reaches out to me with a hand that is as old as time, a skeleton without much skin. Is this his true face?

The shock paralyses me.

Eunwoo inches closer.

Am I next?

I shrivel away from him.

Will he kill me and take my appearance?

I feel his rancid breath in my face. He’s wheezing like a broken machine.

Sehun run away, my mind shrills.

I’m shaking all over. That’s when it happens. Something steely cold rushes across my face. I scream. I grasp at my face.

Hot.

Sticky.

There’s a disgusting smell in the air. Blood streams down the gashes on my face.

Eunwoo towers over me preparing to strike again. Instincts kick in. I knock into him, throwing him into his precious glass cases. The cases come crashing down. The sound is momentous like the moan of some other thing. Eunwoo lies splayed.

Still holding my face, I race down the treehouse before he can get up. Pain is kicking in now. Blood pools over my brows and my eyelids. I wipe. I think my nose has been slashed. The cool air burns.

My heart pounds in my ears. I need to get away from Eunwoo. I stagger in the direction of the house. Eunwoo jumps down from the tree, executing a perfect landing. I can see him in the reflection of the glass doors. I run as fast as I can past those doors. I lock them. I draw the blinds. However, I can still see Eunwoo’s grin.

I rush to the kitchen drawers, I look for something that will protect me. Pulling out the butcher’s knife I remember those Wolverine nails. The knife is a kitten’s paw in comparison.

I keep the knife anyway. It’s better than nothing. Next, I ransack other drawers to look for a decent weapon. A ceramic pan that weighs the size of Timbuktu catches my eye. That’s mom’s favourite pot. She’s out of town for a meeting. I’m glad. I pull out the pan. Now my hands are full.

There’s scratching on the window. The sound pierces like nails on a chalkboard. He’s playing my nerves.

A lighter on the counter glints at me. I wonder if I can set fire to Eunwoo. They used to burn witches at the stake. Would it work for him? I’d need fuel. Oil?

I drop my weapons to go searching for the 5L bottle of cooking oil. Suddenly it seems like a good day to burn a witch-monster thing. I shiver laughing.

He won’t take me without a fight.

I’ll get him before he gets me.

Equipped with oil and the lighter I run upstairs to the room facing the garden. He’s still playing scratch the glass door to terrify Sehun to death. I uncork the bottle and spill.

The first drops take him by surprise. When he sees what I’m doing, he snarls.

Then he’s climbing the wall up to where I am. I drop the oil and fumble with the lighter. He’s so fast. He grasps my wrist before I can flicker.

“If you don’t join me, we’re enemies,” Eunwoo grins evilly. His grip tightens. I hear a crack and pain shoots up my arm. I move my fingers painfully. Pain races along the length of my arm into my shoulder. Eunwoo opens his shark mouth and bites a chuck into my hand.

His face twists in agony. I scream. Eunwoo pulls away from me so sharply he falls back. Still in his clutches, I fall with him.

Eunwoo convulses as if he’s been hit by lightning and then his face starts to melt. He’s burning. The fire catches him. I rip my arm from his claws. There’s a stub where my hand was. I inch away from him and then turn to run.

The image of his peeling white face flashes in my mind. That’s a memory that’ll haunt me for the rest of my days. My face is disfigured, my hand was amputated in the struggle and my arm was scorched, but the recollection of Eunwoo is what lives in my nightmares.

I don’t know what happened to him. I never looked back. I ran straight to the police station. I remember trying to describe my ordeal and everything else happened too quickly for me to register.

*

A package arrives at Seventeen’s dorm. The boys huddle around it. They’re attracted by the glittery wrapping paper. There’s no address on it. Jeonghan is the first to attempt opening it. When he makes a grab for the box, the boys get into a tussle. They all want to open it. While they argue, Vernon, enters the dorm, sees the package and unwraps it. A doll.

“This is cute in a creepy way,” Vernon declares to the group.

The boys turn to see.

There’s a doll holding a letter. ‘Hi, my name is Eunwoo, let’s be best friends.’