Part 8:

                Brushing its fingers along his face down his neck pausing at the collar, the figure stared at him. Now fully formed it was a mirror of him, a fun house mirror that morphed not the physical features but the mental being.  Their eyes bore into each other, analytical, as they sized the other up. It clicked. Dongwoo knew why these eyes were so familiar not the fact this was his current face gazed at him, however the emotion behind it. I remember this. The eerie melody played from the living room as he fell through the slips in his memory…

                Outside the rain was heavy, so heavy washing his blood off the porch, the same blood that Dongwoo had ran through in hopes of saving him. He had watched the whole event from outside the window paralyzed with horror and fear, not realizing that he should have acted earlier…

                “I know what you do,” Sungyeol hissed, no spat at the man.

“You do?” he grinned like he was a foolish child.

                “You’re a murderer,” Sungyeol accused, finger pointing.

“Ha, what person would believe you?” the man jabbed his chin out confidently.

                “They don’t need to believe me! This house has all the PROOF THEY NEED! Plus, I took pictures of it on my PHONE!” he yelled growing more and more disgusted and livid.

                “Well then I’ll just seal your lips,” he jerked Sungyeol by wrist and smashed his mouth forcibly on the young boy’s. Hands moved, one in resistance, one in advance down Sungyeol’s small waist. Frighten beyond his mind Sungyeol did the first thing he thought of he bit the advancing hand.

                “!’ he placed his hurt arm in his mouth while he slapped his other hand across Sungeyeol’s face.

                “Brat! Didn’t anyone teach you to listen to your elders? Just be quiet and take it like a man,” he growled, his earlier mood destroyed. He grabbed both of the younger boy’s hands and held them over his head as he forced himself on him. Sungyeol tensed his feet and launched both of his feet at the man’s sensitive area. The pressure above him relaxed and he tried to worm his way out from underneath.

                “You!” the man grabbed a sharp object and slashed it across the teenager’s back tearing the cloth and cutting agonizingly into nerves. Spinning the man ripped a lamp out of its socket and whipped it at Sungyeol.

                “Holy !” Sungyeol dodged, sliding toward the open door. The man turned slamming it into his back, like a pile of bricks Sungyeol dropped. From a cut on his head he bleed, poured out iron tingled liquid of life. Using the broken light bulb of the lamp he slashed Sungyeol’s arm not to kill but for the pleasure of hearing him cry out. Blood red, rogue blood pushed its way out of his body as he slowly lost conscious.

                “NO! Uncle no!” Dongwoo rushed in once he realized what the man, he knew as uncle, was about to do.  

                “Hey Dongwoo,” he smiled like Dongwoo was still five years old, not 15 like he was now, and spat out an order, “Stay back boy unless you want to join me in destroying this pest.”

                At the word pest he kicked Sungyeol, a moan escaped Sungyeol’s paling lips. Without a thought, Dongwoo moved away from the scene towards the back of the room where the melody came out of an old music player. Submissively Dongwoo stood by the table and watched uncle turn back to his little brother. The vivid, sudden image of Sungyeol’s smiling three-year self spurred him back into action. Grabbing the nearby scissors with an iron grip he stabbed into his spine like uncle once told him, the best way to keep your prey from fighting back is aim for its weak points like the spine, neck, and heart. A monstrous roar ripped its way out of the large man. Simple-mindedly Dongwoo kept stabbing the man, jugular, wrist, stomach, eyes, arms as the music and rain played in the background. Blood squirted over him splashing onto the floor. The world was stain in scarlet; the smell of iron overpowered the air. Blood covered everything, their blood: of the attacked Sungyeol, of the defending Dongwoo, of the mad uncle. 

                Looking up, Dongwoo looked at himself clothes torn, blood covered, knuckles bleeding, hair matted to his forehead in the mirror, but this wasn’t what shocked him but his eyes, flat and lifeless. He sat there dazed for god knows how long with the music, rain, and him; the night passed and sun rose over the sky. Finally as sirens sounded outside Dongwoo jerked his eyes from the mirror to notice that where Sungyeol’s body should have been there was only a pool of blood.  

                “You’re me,” Dongwoo, at last found, his voice. 

“Yes,” the nameless thing (?) answered.

                “They never found him,” Myungsoo told the two about how Sungyeol’s blood was found at the scene yet never was his body.

                “So there’s a chance that he’s still alive,” Hoya mused.

“Nope, I overheard the medical guy when they talked to the head of the orphanage,” Myungsoo formed quote marks with his fingers, “that ‘Considering the blood lost and injuries it’s very unlikely that Sungyeol survived.”

                Myungsoo’s voice cracked at the word survived and his eyes clouded over. Solemn and sober the three stared at the blood stained wood unaware of the person watching them now.

It was freezing in the room, Dongwoo thought lazily as that creature’s answer brought out more questions in him.

“Why did you kill all those people?” that was probably the most important one of them all.

He shrugged, “Stress reliever most of them, others to protect you, others to cover up for other murders.”

                “That’s it?” Dongwoo silently mouthed.

“Yup,” it answered Dongwoo’s thoughts.

                “I’m such a weak, pitful person if I just killed people for that reason,” Dongwoo dropped his head heavily into his hands and began clawing and pulling his hair. Murmuring under his voice, you could heard it cracking this, and the sounds of crying were in his tone. Watching him you could see that he was falling apart, the room he sat in wall’s yellowed as cracks appeared.

                “That’s why I’m here. To keep you safe, don’t worry leave everything to me,” the creature sighed almost with a childish innocence, then touched Dongwoo’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. Dongwoo didn’t notice it but thin black threads of his depression wrapped around him.

                “I deserve to die,” he wailed loudly, more threads twisted together, cling to him as the room’s walls turned yellow, wallpaper peeled off.

                “NO! I won’t let that happen,” the mirror-woo growled protectively. The cracks and black threads doubled their pace at the words.  Dongwoo’s thoughts were intense with regret, pity, sorrow, tears, pain, all consuming deadly emotions and the threads and fracturing room seem to react to that breaking down and clinging to him even more. Within minutes there was a gaping hole in the room and the thin threads now formed thick ropes tying him up. Falling back on the bed, the ropes became his blanket and his eyes were weighted down with drowse.

                The figure watched Myungsoo’s trembling shoulders for a moment before shouting out, “L!”

“Wae?” he turned to look at the source of the voice and screamed bloody murder. The two other men turned to see the reason behind Myungsoo’s unexpected reaction.

                “No it can’t be..not…you’re…” Myungsoo muttered to himself once he calmed down. Hoya connected Myungsoo’s words and realized with a jolt who it might be. He whispered his theory to Sunggyu and Myungsoo’s reactions when it was repeated to him confirmed it.

                “Hey, can you come with us? We need your help.” Hoya asked half-hopefully. The figure nodded so they, all four of them, ended up in the car.

                Back at the hospital things were quiet, ungodly so. Woohyun sat reading a large medical text while Sungjong snoozed on a plastic sitting room chair. Out of the blue, Woohyun jerked standing, staring at the book in disbelief.

                The Demon woke answering Woohyun’s thought with the words, “He’s resting well.”    

                “Hurry,” Woohyun nearly shouted…when Hoya had called him and told him who they were bringing back…that person might be Dongwoo’s only chance.