Dinner was served. Some bread, hot tea, and freshly cooked eggs. Nothing grand enough for a feast, but it was a labor of love. Mother had poured her heart into it. This wasn't just a meal—it was a ritual of unity. A symbol that we could still sit around the table without the past seeping into every bite.
So I chose to honor it.
I let my palate savor each flavor as if it were a silent testament to the affection she'd woven into every motion. The tea was bitter, yet comforting. Like her tenderness.
Isolde ate as if each bite might be her last, though sleep weighed heavy on her eyelids. Her usual energy was fractured, and drowsiness overpowered her with the same efficiency that reality crushes fairy tales.
I wasn't much different. Our bedtime had long passed, and our childlike bodies demanded what was theirs.
"So you were the one running the entrance exams?" Father asked, raising his teacup with the gravity of a judge.
"Yep. And I'll admit, it was… intense. Now I get why the director personally oversees the tests," Reginald replied, scooping eggs into his mouth as if discussing the weather.
"Oh… Poor kids. That must've been tough on them."
That comment dragged memories back. The burns. The wounds. The absurdity that my body no longer bore them. When did they vanish? Before we got home? No one had asked. Maybe because no one noticed. Or maybe because, in this house, some things are understood without being said.
"Yeah… honestly, it was kind of fun. Haha," Reginald laughed, as if he hadn't nearly roasted children alive.
"Not when you're the one being cooked at 500 degrees," I said without thinking, a piece of bread in my hand.
The kick came instantly. A dull jab to my shin. A sharp pang of pain.
My eyes shot to Reginald. He was sweating. Nervous. Staring at me like I'd just betrayed him before a supreme court.
"What did he do?" Mother's voice sliced through the room like a blade. The table shook as she stood abruptly.
"Shit…" Reginald whispered, sliding under the table as if fleeing a titan. "Erika, you know your kids are eating, right?"
"And what's that got to do with anything?" Her voice was heavy. Not with anger. With disappointment.
"That if you try to hit me, you'll have to lift the table," he added, barricaded beneath the wood.
I couldn't see his face, but his voice trembled. And I didn't understand why… until I saw her smile.
That smile.
The kind that heralds a storm. The kind of expression you don't forget.
A chill hit me instantly. It ran through me like a jolt of electricity. I glanced at Isolde. She was scared too. Father, meanwhile, didn't move a muscle. He just looked at the ceiling, as if seeking refuge in another world. His face said he knew what was coming. That he'd seen it before. But he wouldn't stop it.
And then, the table flew. As if reality itself had given up.
Reginald slammed into the ceiling, like a trapped insect.
Mother leaped. She grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him to the floor with restrained fury.
"Is that why my little girl was so exhausted? Huh? Why she didn't say goodnight before bed? Did you push her too hard?" Mother pummeled him relentlessly with strength and rage.
"She's gonna kill him…" I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
"Honey, can you calm down…?" Father ventured, with the kind of suicidal bravery mistaken for concern.
"What?"
Reginald tried to get up. Failed.
Isolde, in an act of pure innocence, walked toward him. I followed. We crouched beside his battered body. She reached out and touched his head with her finger.
"You okay?" she asked, with an innocence so pure it hurt.
"Y-yeah… I-I'm fine…" Reginald gasped.
"I don't think you should've said that, Lucy," he added, with effort.
"Sorry," I said, with no real remorse.
Come on. He deserved it. This could count as my revenge. One I didn't carry out… but wouldn't stop either.
I looked at Mother. She stood tall, arms crossed, feet firmly planted. The image of an enraged goddess. Father tried to calm her with futile gestures.
And yet… I smiled.
Because all this, chaotic as it was, felt familiar. It was home. And in that exaggerated brutality, in that dynamic teetering between comedy and tragedy, there was warmth. Something my other life never offered.
"Lucius… can you… stop stepping… on my hand?" Reginald pleaded, his voice that of a dying man.
"Nope."
"Okay…"
After the little incident, Isolde and I went to bed. Sleep was killing us. I felt it in my eyelids, in the weight of my limbs, in the sluggish rhythm of my breathing. Sleep was a need. Inescapable. Vital.
Yet unease kept my eyes open.
"Sixteen years…" I whispered, staring at the ceiling with my arms behind my head. Isolde was asleep beside me, facing away. Her breathing was calm but not deep. She was awake too.
"Hm? What's up, Lucy?"
"Nothing. Just thinking about how long Father and Mother went without seeing Uncle Reginald."
Isolde paused for a moment. Then she turned and hugged me around the waist without another word.
"I don't think you should dwell on it. It's not our business."
"You're right."
She was. It wasn't my concern. But something in me resisted letting it go. As if family silences hid more than they seemed. Maybe because, in another life, I'd lived something similar.
His name was Dong-Hyun. A kid I was inseparable from in early elementary school. Or so I thought. After school ended, he vanished. Never called me. Never said goodbye. Just left.
I thought he'd abandoned me. His mother's death tore him from my world, and I believed his grief had turned him into a stranger. It took years to understand that sometimes people need to step away to keep from drowning entirely.
I saw him again at 23.
It was raining. I was heading home after coffee. Back then, I was getting to know a girl. Technically, my next victim. But that day, it wasn't her who threw me off balance.
Dong-Hyun was leaving a convenience store, bag in hand. We crossed paths, and when he saw me, he smiled. He walked toward me like not a day had passed. He didn't notice how strange I felt. We exchanged words. Small memories. Old names. We laughed. I faked it. Because we weren't kids anymore. We were adults carrying invisible corpses.
"By the way… sorry for disappearing all those years ago, Ha-Neul," he said, with the tone of someone who's carried guilt too long. The rain had eased just enough for his voice to reach me clearly. "When I heard about your parents' death, I tried to find you. Didn't expect you'd moved to Seoul."
"Don't worry. It was tough at the time, but I got through it."
I lied. Because I never got through anything. I just learned to walk with an open wound.
"Good. But really, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stay away so long."
"Come on, man. The past is the past, right?"
"Haha. You're right."
"Now that we've reconnected, wanna come to my place? It'd be good to catch up. Think it'd do us both some good."
"Sure. Always nice to talk with a friend," he said, smiling, hands on my shoulders.
I smiled too. An empty, false smile. Because inside, the beast in me stirred. The hunger to kill burned in my throat. My blood boiled with every kind word he threw my way. Not out of hate. Not betrayal. But because he reminded me of what I'd lost… and what I'd become.
"Cool. Let's head to my apartment."
We walked together in the rain. Spoke little. My mind couldn't stop. The sound of raindrops hitting the roof's metal sheets echoed like a countdown.
I took out my keys. Opened the door.
"Why're you just standing there? Come in," I said, flicking on the light.
Dong-Hyun took a step and frowned.
"What's that smell?" he asked, covering his nose.
"Probably rotten meat in the fridge. Power went out yesterday, and I haven't had time to clean it."
"I see. But you shouldn't live like that."
"I know. I'll deal with it later. Have a seat."
He walked in and sat on the couch. Right on the blanket covering a dried bloodstain. A detail he ignored. Or his mind refused to process.
"Like wine?"
"Oh, yeah. A glass wouldn't hurt."
I walked to the fridge. Opened it carefully. Kept his eyes from seeing what hid inside: cold bodies, scattered pieces of humanity. I'd learned to organize them, to make space between the bottles and the viscera.
I grabbed two glasses. Opened a drawer. Took out a small bag. A bit of drug. Just enough to leave him defenseless.
I poured it into his glass. Stirred the wine slowly.
I approached him, glass in hand.
"Thanks," he said, taking the glass with trust.
I took a sip from mine.
"Must be tough living alone. How do you cover expenses?" Dong-Hyun asked. His discomfort with the smell was clear, but his voice was kind. My presence didn't faze him. Not yet.
"I work two jobs. Keeps me afloat. What about you? What're you doing here? Thought you were still in Busan."
Busan. Where it all began. Where blood first touched my hands, when I didn't yet know what killing meant. An accident, I told myself so many times, like a prayer to keep from breaking.
"Oh…" Dong-Hyun drank from his glass. I watched closely. The first step was taken. The rest was just a matter of time. "Came to pick up some papers. Heading back to Busan tomorrow."
"I see."
"Yeah… so I gotta go. Sorry."
"But we were just getting started."
"You're right, but I need to sleep early for the trip."
"Hm… at least let's finish our drinks, yeah?"
He hesitated. I saw him wrestle between courtesy and instinct. Maybe something in him sensed it. But he nodded.
I raised my glass.
"Cheers."
We drank quickly. When he finished, he handed me his glass. Outside, the rain pounded harder. The wind rattled my bedroom windows with a crash that startled him. At the same time, the bedroom door creaked open, letting out the uneven hum of the TV.
"Alright, I gotta go. Good seeing you, Ha-Neul."
I nodded.
He walked toward the door. But I stopped him.
"Hey," I said.
He turned.
"What's up?"
"You shouldn't have reminded me you abandoned me when we were kids."
"What? What're you talking about?"
"You shouldn't have agreed to come to my apartment either."
"What's going on with—"
He didn't finish. His body weakened, as if his muscles forgot how to hold him. He collapsed to the floor with a dull thud. I approached, unhurried. Unfeeling.
I carried him with effort to my bedroom. Laid him face-down on the bed. Then I returned to the kitchen. Opened the drawer.
A scalpel. A drill. A bag.
I came back slowly. The TV crackled with that imageless static, as if it spoke a language only I understood. I closed the door. Leaned over his body and turned him over. Lifted his shirt. Began to cut.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Blood started to flow like a warm river, staining the sheets. His reflexes still responded to the pain, though his consciousness was already slipping away, trapped in the drug's residue.
I separated the skin with surgical precision. Took the liver and placed it in the bag.
I dipped a finger in the red pool. Brought it to my mouth.
Not for pleasure.
It was a need. Like tasting a poison you've grown used to.
And then, as the body lay there, open like an old, broken book, I felt something inside me stir.
A dark, blind, ravenous impulse.
But just as I started to unzip my pants, a voice pulled me back.
"Lucy!"
I opened my eyes.
The room was dim. Isolde was shaking me gently, sitting beside me on the bed. Her expression was worried.
"You were trembling," she said.
I didn't answer. I brought a hand to my face.
I was sweating.
Just a dream.
But I knew it wasn't. It was a memory.
One my mind had dressed up as a nightmare to make it bearable.