The air was heavy that night.
Even the wind seemed afraid to move.
Kim Ae-cha stood barefoot in the middle of the old hallway, the cold wooden floor creaking beneath her. Dust hung in the beams of moonlight slicing through the broken windows. The silence around her wasn't peaceful—it was the kind that whispered secrets through the walls.
She had been here before.
A long time ago.
But everything felt different now.
This was the house where it all ended.
And maybe… where it began.
Her fingertips brushed the faded wallpaper—roses, pale pink and curling with age. A memory flickered at the edges of her mind: a woman's voice humming, a lullaby unfinished. A man shouting. Glass shattering. A child screaming.
She had blocked it out for years.
Now it was crawling back, uninvited.
She took a deep breath.
"Mom?"
No answer. Only echoes.
"Dad?"
Still nothing.
Then came the sound—soft, like fabric dragging across the floor.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
She wasn't alone.
Her hands trembled as she reached for the doorknob to the room at the end of the hall.
The room they always told her not to enter.
The room she had seen in her dreams, but she could never open.
She turned the knob.
The door groaned open slowly, like it hadn't been touched in decades.
The scent hit her first—damp wood, decay, and something faintly metallic.
Inside, everything was exactly how she remembered.
The crib in the corner.
The shattered picture frame on the floor.
The bloodstain on the wall.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She had been too young to understand back then.
Too small to know what death smelled like.
Too afraid to ask why no one came for her.
Now, all she could do was stand there, face to face with the ghost of the child she used to be.
She closed the door gently.
Not to hide the room.
But to bury what was left of that little girl.