Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Chapter Soundtrack: Track 4 – Another OST

Hide and Seek

Tick. Tick. Tick.

When Ken awoke, he was smothered between two walls of an ugly, plain cream complexion. Clearly, he was sprawled out across the floor. Why he was in the odd position however, well, those reasons were completely beyond him. Bewildered, Ken lazily rose to his feet, scratching his head in confusion.

The dark hallway grew into focus as his eyes began to adjust to the little light available. In the background, Ken could hear the slow, methodic ticking of an unseen clock. The sound seemed to echo through the house and quickly added to the uneasy tension that started to pump through his veins.

Something was very, very wrong.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Ken stepped forward using the walls to guide his progress. Soon enough, his hands brushed across a door before resting cautiously on a metallic doorknob. The touch immediately sparked something in his memory – he was looking for a missing Hyuk. Yes, that’s it. Ken was sure of it now, though the details around the disappearance of the young teenage boy were still just out of his mind’s eye.

With the quick flick of his wrist, Ken twisted the door knob and allowed the door to freely creak open on its own accord. The room was even darker than the hallway – pitch black with the exception of the narrow strip of light that the hallway’s dim glow had to offer. But what was more alarming than the dark void of the room was the silhouette of a hand against the crack of light from the door. A hand that wasn’t his own.

Tick. Tick. Click.

The catch of the door clicked smoothly behind him – but that couldn’t be possible. Ken was standing with the door in front of him so how could the door shut him into the room?  Yet, here he was in utter darkness without even the hallway’s foreboding glow to ease him.

“You know, Hyung,” the small high-pitched voice of a little girl emanated through the darkness.

Ken’s heart stopped.

The fingers the voice belonged to snapped; light flooded the room and temporarily blinded him.

“You’re so very, very late” the voice morphed and deepened – was Ken’s original interpretation mistaken?

Squinting through the blinding white light, seemingly originating from a dainty kerosene lamp in the centre of the room, Ken began to recognize a familiar face: Hyuk. The young man stood at the centre of the room which Ken could now see was filled with unused furniture, many of which had cloth draped over it to protect it from gathering dust. The bright light caused the furniture to cast harsh, elongated shadows.

The boy stood casually, his back arched backwards and his hands were shoved into his pant pockets. An all too wild smile was draped across Hyuk’s face as he shrugged his complaint off with the tilt of his head.

“Oh well,” he teased, “you’re still in time to play – oh, and a piece of advice.”

Ken shivered as Hyuk studied him more carefully. The sense of unease he had felt earlier amplified and screamed at him to run while he still could – what in hell was Hyuk talking about? Ken should just grab him and leave right then so whatever strange nightmare this was could finally be over. But Ken’s feet were frozen in the ground and he felt as if he were slowly melding with the floor itself.

 “Not all things fearsome flee the light,” with that Hyuk casted his head upward in a menacing chuckle. Hyuk turned his back on Ken, stepped into the shadows, and he was gone.

But something else stepped out in his place.

There, blackened corner of this harshly lit room, a mirror image of Ken, himself, was emerging. But it wasn’t him – no, it was a black sculpture-like version of him. Where Ken’s fair skin should be was instead a complexion of soot-black. Even the whites of the creature’s eyes were as black of the very shadows it was emerging from – with the exception of two white iris rings. The creature smiled as he saw Ken’s gawking expression, revealing its pearl-white teeth – a stark contrast to the rest of its nightmarish head.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Ken’s stomach felt as if it was crawling up his throat.

No, this was impossible. He was delusional.

 “Y…you” Ken stammered.

The demon held eye contact and, almost excitedly, opened its mouth to say something. However, instead of sounds, shadows crawled out of its gaping mouth and formed letters on the floor in front of Ken.

Play?

Horrified, Ken gaped at the creature. Surprisingly, the shadow seemed equally perplexed.

“What the hell are you?!” Ken screeched.

Once again the creature tried to form sounds from the gaping black hole he had rather than a mouth.

No talk? Want talk.

Ken spun around, he was going to run. Damn Hyuk! He needed to save himself.

But the door was gone.

The. Door. Was. Gone

The door that Ken had entered must have been directly behind him, but there was nothing but a plain, yellowing cream wall painted with the dancing shadows cast by the one small, kerosene lamp at the centre of the room.

Ken turned while backing into the gates of his cage.

It stepped towards him. It was coming for him. And the door was gone.

The door was gone and it was coming.

It.

Was.

Coming.

The creature drew closer.

Ken’s mind raced – there had to be way out. There had to be, that demon had come from the same place that Hyuk had disappeared into – maybe it was a trap door?

With new focus, Ken lunged to the center of the room, grabbing the flickering lamp. 

“To hell with this!” Ken shouted, hurtling the kerosene lamp at the beast.

The lamp’s glass shatters upon impact, leaving shards of glass to spill across the room’s wooden floor along with the kerosene feeding the lamp’s flame into a small fire. But the creature simply looked at the flame and back at Ken grinning.

Not all things fearsome flee the light.

The shadow’s in the room elongated, sharpened, and strengthened by the flame’s growing light.

And so did the demon.

Ken heart pounded in his ears. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t even scream for mercy.

The beast opened it mouth revealing more shadow letters on the floor before him.

You talk. Want to talk. Share?

It was hopeless now, the demon was going to get him. The creature steps slowed, confident in its victory. Tears streamed from Ken’s face now.

Ken tilted his head to the ceiling, unable to do nothing against the monstrous shadows. He tried looking out to the sky, to a non-existent God. Now, he could only stare at the brightly lit ceiling.

The demon’s face hovered in front of his own, revealing two horrendously white iris so close that Ken could see his pathetic reflection mirrored in them.

He opened his mouth in soundless cry. Fear chocked him. There was no escape.

There is nothing left for him now.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the creature to disappear.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Ken’s eyes opened, his body was back in the room as it should be: mundane and ordinary.  His head nodded triumphantly to himself before turning back to the blazing fire in the corner of the room.

Amongst the amber embers a lone figure emerges: Hyuk.

“Oooh, what happened to your playmate, Ken?” the boy asks, seemingly annoyed by either the flames at his feet or that Ken’s body was still alive and well.

Ken’s mouth moved in response, “Ken?” it asked.

Hyuk’s face tilted in a slight show of interest before his eyebrows rose in understanding.

“Ah, so that’s what happened. I did try to give that pathetic chap a hint – the best way to get rid of a shadow is to turn off the lights isn’t it? I guess I’ll just how to give you name now, eh…. Hyde.”

“Hyde and Ken are sharing, we’re sharing! We’re sharing!” the monster, Hyde, chanted.

“Hyde and Ken are sharing!” Hyuk adding a verse to the creature’s tune, “Hyde and Ken are sharing!”

“So now LET’S PLAY AGAIN!”