“Good work today!” bidding usual farewell to his workmates, Yunho eagerly exited the hotel building.

Today he had a night shift so it was a pretty early morning when he finally stepped out of the hotel. Despite how ridiculously tiring the night shift he had, Yunho did pretty well in his job, just like any other days before this. To be frank, he had few instances where he didn’t have much choice but to deal with rude or problematic customers, but other than that, he didn’t have a bad time, no longer crying behind the toilet stalls. In simpler words, it was good shift overall.

There were less people spotted outside so Yunho easily made his way to the usual waiting spot, standing against a lamp pole while patiently scanning the road for incoming taxis. His exhausted legs begged him to sit down and sometimes Yunho wondered why no one ever bothered to place a bench on this spot, given how it was obvious that everyday hotel workers and customers alike would be standing shoulders to shoulders on this waiting zone. Sometimes he would see few workers bringing their own foldable plastic stool, but no one seemed to be applying such tactics anymore nowadays. He guessed those people probably got advised by some uppers, most likely with the absurd idea that bringing plastic chairs would hinder the standard level of the hotel, and if that was the case, Yunho found such ‘idea’ to be outlandish.

Seeing that no taxis were nearby yet, Yunho entertained himself by scrolling down his phone. Yet he didn’t spend minutes browsing the internet. Nothing seemed to be picking his interest, other than the aired morning news. Yunho then altered his gaze to the road once more with a sign, hoping to see at least one cab coming. He saw no cars, but he saw something else.

Dozens of crows crowded the once empty asphalt road in lines. Some of the birds perched on nearby streetlight poles. Few crows still hovered in circles covering the morning sky with their black feathers. It was not weird to see birds early in the morning, in fact it was such a common sight across the world. However, it was strange to see crows. And as if that wasn’t odd enough, there were definitely many of them all of sudden, and they were all staring at Yunho.

Feeling absolutely weirded out, he couldn’t help but to feel somewhat uneasy. Glancing at his sides, it took him seconds to realise that he was literally being surrounded by birds, dark black crows to be specific. Yunho had spent years working as a receptionist at this hotel, and he had often frequented this particular waiting spot from time to time. And he had never even once seen a single crow, let alone many of them. This was the very first time he witnessed groups of crows gathering right few feet in front of him, all eyes were on him as well. Yunho started to gradually feel goosebumps, and something in him urged him to go back inside the hotel.

The way how the environment suddenly went silent along with how the crows were all having their eyes on him, not even one of them chirped, Yunho could feel that something just wasn’t right. Yet he didn’t know what it was. Right now, all he cared for was to go back home. He never knew birds could be potentially harmful to him at all, but right now he didn’t want to be the only one being surrounded by these mysterious, ominous birds.

Luckily for him though, Yunho was startled when a pedestrian was coming to his way. A woman with casual clothing appeared to be walking her dog. The pair seemed to be joyful as the lady kept on talking cheerfully to her buddy, to which the dog responded by happily jumping around.

Yunho couldn’t help but to feel relieved when he saw someone was coming closer. The crows were still there on the empty road all staring silently at him, but at least he knew another human was approaching, at least he didn’t have to feel all alone.

A smile slowly formed across his lips when he watched the rather wholesome interaction between the lady and her dog as the two continued to have a ‘talk’ together where the woman continued to repeat her buddy’s name and the dog just leaped around excitedly.

The pair took some time before they eventually reached Yunho’s vicinity. He had planned to wave and greet the dog when the two would get closer to him. Yunho had always been an animal lover at heart. Although he never had any pets before this, he sometimes would spend some nights watching videos of animals’ cute antics whenever he had a bad day at work. He knew he wouldn’t be able to afford buying a pet, let alone to give them a good life. He just wasn’t financially stable enough to take care of a dog, or similar. One of the few ways he could experience feeling joys from animals was by greeting dogs who walked with their owners, or by feeding stray cats.

Yet when the lady and her dog finally approached him though, something else happened.

Out of the blue, the once joyful and excited dog suddenly barked aggressively at Yunho. Both the woman and Yunho himself were caught off guard by the instant, apparent change of behaviour of the dog. The lady tried to calm her pet down and to stop her buddy from barking. She voiced out some commands that were probably the ones the dog was trained with, such as sit and stop. With the way how she insisted on shouting the commands it was clear that she had expected her dog to obey but weirdly enough the dog didn’t, instead, it continued to bark rather angrily, as if it sensed a major threat.

Yunho was rendered speechless. He had to be grateful with the fact that the dog was leashed because it looked incredibly hostile and certainly wouldn’t hesitate to harm him. Yunho had witnessed few aggressive dogs before yet none of them were caused by him. This was his first time having a once friendly, excited dog to be this violently barking. The dog’s glare appeared purely filled with rage and peril. He watched as the lady tried her best to stop her dog from acting this way. Yunho stepped back, horrified. He turned his head back at the crows that kept on gazing at him silently.

What the hell is happening?

Yunho’s instinct told him that something dreadful was ought to happen and his best choice right now was to immediately bolt off. And so, he did.

Sprinting away confusedly from the scene, Yunho darted across the street to reach the other side. He didn’t know why he was running but one thing he was certain of was that nothing good would happen to him if he were to stay. Luckily for him the road was mainly empty, so he managed to reach the other side, breathing frantically. He wildly looked back at the dog. Even from such a distance the canine was still barking at him despite its owner yelling commands at it to stop. The crows’ creepy gaze at him didn’t help alleviate the mystifying situation either.

Heavily breathing, Yunho felt as if he had just run across an endless barren desert, out of water and hope, while in reality, he barely sprinted across the road. He himself wasn’t athletic but he knew he could easily dash over some distances. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be coughing and out of breath like right now. His heart was pumping with extra effort and sweats accumulated on his skin. He assumed this was all due to his panicked state right now. He didn’t understand why crows were suddenly that scary to him, but he didn’t want to know the answer either.

“Taxi!” Yunho shouted in both relief and desperation as he agitatedly waved his arms to call over the taxi that had just appeared in sight.

The driver noticed him in less than a second since he was the only one standing right now and when Yunho finally hopped inside the vehicle, he hastily told his address and let the car sped up, ignoring the eyes of the crows and the barking of the dog outside.

Moments that felt like 20 minutes had briefly passed since the previous uncanny occurrence. Yunho had found comfort taking shelter inside the taxi car. He was indeed still dumbfounded by whatever had happened back then but eventually he decided he didn’t want to dwell too many thoughts into it. He had already been drained physically and mentally after finishing his night shift, he really didn’t need a bunch of crows and a rude dog to make things worse for him. In fact, he had Jaejoong to ask later back home.

Yunho was now staring out through the window of the car. The weather had drastically changed from a peaceful sunny day to a rapid shower of rain. The water droplets were mostly huge in size as well that when they splashed against the car, they gave out loud thud. He personally found it