It wasn’t like an ordinary place. The home was beaten up, browned slightly with age. Tears and cracks lined the walls and ceilings; the floor was in desperate need of polishing. Eunji didn’t care; this was a place where she could hide. This was a place where she did hide. It wouldn’t be there for much longer; the council of elders wanted the place to be demolished.

“If only the times were different,” she thought aloud. She ran a hand through her hair, which was a light brown color. What would it have been like to live in `South Korea before all of this? She didn’t know; she had been born a thousand years later.

“The paintings left behind tell so many different stories,” she ran her fingertips over her favorite paintings that were stuck on the walls. Those would be destroyed, as well. “Was it a horrible place, like this one depicts? Was it a beautiful, wonderful place, like this one?” Some of the paintings were smooth, while others felt rough against her fingers. It reminded her of the present day.

Some bits of the new world were perfect, like the council had planned. Many disagreed with the rest, but they were not the ones in charge, so they could not do a thing about it.

“I can’t do anything to protect this beautiful place,” Eunji sighed.

There was a loud clatter from another area in the house, and Eunji gasped and ducked to hide behind a worn sofa.

“What are you doing?” the whispered voice sounded male.

“What am I doing? What do you mean? I’m doing what we both wanted to do,” another male voice whispered back harshly.

“I was joking when I said that! You can’t just steal the paintings; they’ll notice that they’ve gone missing!”

“They’ll have no idea that it was us; we’re the last people they’ll suspect of thievery,” the second voice assured. Eunji’s eyebrows furrowed. These people were going to take the paintings she admired?

There was the sound of things getting pulled away from places, and Eunji peeked around the sofa. A large, canvas bag was placed in the doorway, but that was all she could see. The other people who had entered the house were nowhere in her line of sight.

“Wait, Kai! You can’t just…”

“Shut up,” the second voice, Kai, interrupted. “Who’s to say that they’ll notice, anyway? Do they visit the house? No, they don’t. Quit your whining, and help me.”

A foot stepped through the doorway, and Eunji moved back behind the sofa. She covered to quiet her gasp. There was the sound of heavy boots moving across the floorboards of the room, and then they stopped. Eunji froze.

“Sehun, I think there’s someone else here besides us,” Kai whispered. The footsteps crept closer to the sofa where Eunji was hiding. A feeling of terror moved through her, and she held her breath.

“I told you that coming here was a bad idea!” the first voice, Sehun, whispered; his voice sounded tight and the words were rushed.

“Coming here was not a bad idea,” Kai grumbled. “We should just make sure the place is empty next time.”

A black rubber boot stepped into Eunji’s line of vision, and her eyes widened. She pressed her hands into more. Then she saw it: the strap of her bag. She hadn’t pulled it behind the couch with her.

When his face came around the couch, his grey-blue eyes caught sight of her immediately. Eunji let out a scream and moved further away from Kai. Kai let out a startled noise as well, stepping back from her.

“What? What’s wrong?” she heard Sehun ask. He crept around the sofa, too, and his eyes widened when he saw her.

“I told you