Chapter Twelve
Eun

"Grandpa, what are you doing?” A girl, no older than five years old, sits on the edge of a metal table. The virtuousness in her wide cobalt eyes is enough to make you believe she’s an angel from heaven above. As she’s sitting she hums to herself a tune unknown while she embraces a stuffed polar bear tightly against her chest.
“Grandpa, did you call daddy to come and pick me up? Or are we gonna have another sleep over?” She asks in a voice so light and merry that it would make you burst into tears.

      The old man at the counter slowly turns around with that elderly smile spreading across his face.
“You can’t tell your daddy that you’ve been here Princess. This is our secret hideout, just the two of us know of this place and it would make grandpa sad if you told anyone else.” The old geezer places his wrinkled hand on top of her head of black hair and laughs.

      “Okay grandpa.” The girl nods her head slowly as she flashes an adorable smile right back at the man.
“Now just stay still for a while and don’t cry.” The old man instructs as he holds her shoulder and reaches for something on the counter.
“What is that?” The dark haired girl asks as soon as she sees the light glint off of the metal object.
“It’s a magical wand, princess. Don’t you want to have magic?” the old man asks her. She looks indecisively at the so-called ‘magical wand’ in her grandfather’s hands.

      “Yeah, I want to have magic grandpa.” She finally answers with a bright smile between her rosy cheeks.
“Good, you can have magic my little princess, as long as you stay still for a minute.” He responds, tightening his grip on her shoulders. Suddenly, a wheeze of agony shoots out of as her eyes flicker to her shoulder.

      “Grandpa that hurts, please stop!” The little girl begs with tears already creeping out at the corners of her eyes.
“It’s the only way to give you magic, sweetie. Just stay still for a little while longer, okay?” The man pats her hand lightly and resumes to her shoulder where he cuts into her skin a little deeper. The girl’s eyes are swollen with tears and she bites her lips as to lessen the pain, but it doesn’t help a bit.

      The high-pitched sobs and wails of pain echo throughout the secret hideout as the old man continues cutting through her shoulder and the girl does her best not to squirm.
“Grandpa, are you done giving me magic yet? It hurts too much.” The girl wails out as she brings her other hand to her tear soaked face.
“Let me just put in the thing that’ll give you actual magic, princess.”  He winks at the little girl as he forces a small green chip into her freshly cut wound.

      “Ah!” the penetrating scream comes from the little girl’s throat as a shooting agony runs up and down her small body.
“It hurts grandpa!” She exclaims as she reaches her hand to touch her shoulder, but the old man slaps her hand away.
“The pain will go away, princess.” He assures her as he begins stitching the injury back up.
“You promise?” she asks as she chokes back tears.
“I promise.” He nods his head and plants a soft kiss on her forehead.

      “Remember, no matter what you can’t tell anyone about our secret hideout and what happens here, okay princess?” the old man holds the little girl in his arms now with an urgent expression on his face.
“Not even daddy and mommy?” She croaks out.
“Especially daddy and mommy. This place is sacred and belongs only to us.”

      Brusquely, I burst straight up from the ground, nearly progressing into the small bonfire beside the humans. My hand slaps hard against my chest as I inhale and exhale the smoky campfire air like there’s no tomorrow. I feel as if my heart’s going to pop right out of my chest right now. It thumps right up against my ribcage as I just sit there breathing in large amounts of air.

      I feel the hot tears streaming down my face but my hand doesn’t respond to them. My mind is still back in my nightmare, my past. Hesitantly, I reach over for my shoulder and shrug down the sleeve of my jacket. By habit, I flinch at the sight of the mutilation that scars both my body and soul.

      “Planning to ditch us for the other Cruor to snack on?” My hand presses flat against my heart as soon as the voice reaches my ears. I whirl around, shooting daggers with my eyes at the human boy’s face.
“Are… Are you crying?” The boy blinks blankly at me as if a Cruor could never cry. This time my hand reacts and hastily smears away whatever tears that remain on my face.

      “Why would I ditch you two? Just because I’m a Cruor doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart and conscience.”  I mutter just loud enough for him to hear. I roll my eyes as I inch closer to the fire.
“Why don’t you go to sleep? When I travel I don’t wait up for anyone.” I say as I tuck my legs against my chest.
“I don’t trust you when I’m asleep.” He answers with all honesty intact.
“Smart.” I mumble out as I rest my chin on my knees.

      “What’s your name? I’m getting tired of calling you Cruor.” He fearlessly demands of me. I lift my head and turn my body around so that I face the human face to face.
“Eun. That’s all you need to know.” I tell him as he glances up at the night sky that’s filled with dazzling stars. The amazed smile on his face tells me that he’s missed the surface world, I can’t blame him though, the stars would be the first thing I missed the most if I was stuck underground for four months.

      “And I’m taking it your name’s Baekhyun?” I break the silence between us. His green eyes turn away from the stars and onto me.
“I really hate traveling with a complete stranger Eun.” He replies, changing the topic entirely.
“So let’s get to know each shall we?” Baekhyun asks with that adorable half smirk that all boys do. I lean back on my palms. Hesitantly, I contemplate whether to do so or not. It wouldn’t be a good idea for him to get to know me better, especially since I’m just guiding him to his doom. The least I can do is not become a friend of his so he doesn’t feel so hurt when the betrayal kicks in.

      “I’ll start then.” I guess silence is a way of saying yes nowadays.
“How old are you Eun?” How old am I? Let’s see… I never really paid any attention to how old I am since the Cruor epidemic, completely forgetting who I was for a couple weeks.
“Around seventeen I think.” I answer, pretty confident that my answer was correct.

      “Where are you from?” Where am I from? This question is a bit tricky to answer since my parents had moved around the country many times due to trying to hide me from my grandfather. Although, when I was younger and my grandfather hadn’t started experimenting on me, my family lived in an apartment somewhere.
“Busan.” I finally respond after remembering how I liked to walking through the docks with Jong Min.

      “How come you’re not tempted to eat us?” I stare blankly at Baekhyun for a moment. Does knowing this have anything to do with getting to know me better?
“To tell you the truth Baekhyun, I only need to eat once a month to satisfy my stomach.” I flash a smile, a genuine one for the first time in a long time. I don’t know why I do, but I just feel that the question is funny for him to ask me.

      “If you only need to eat once a month then why did the human population drop so quickly?” Baekhyun interrogates me further into the topic. I my head and narrow my eyes on him.
“The Cruor are like anything else. When you get your first paycheck, you tend to spend it all at once. When you go to a restaurant for the first time, you usually order a lot. So you see, in the beginning the hundreds of Cruor in Seoul are just like that, we drank blood and ate raw meat because we thought we needed to eat as many as we could get our hands on. We’ve learned it’s not like that after the first month or so.” I explain. Truthfully, it feels refreshing to tell a human about us so that they can understand the Cruor better, so they know that we’re not so bad in real life.

      “How did you become a Cruor Eun?” The instant the question pops out of his mouth, my nails dig into the compact earth and my eyes grow cold like glaciers. Why am I even answering his dumb questions anyways!?
“Some things are too painful to tell Baekhyun. Let’s just leave it at that.” 

LOL that was like my favorite scene minus the whole depressing dialogue at the end.
Wow, this just gets more and more cheap. Shame on me T-T