Twilight had transformed into the night by the time Jihoon led Lily out for her walk. Clouds covered the moon, so the road was lit only by lamps, which lengthened the shadows along the asphalt. The angle of the street sloped so steeply, the buildings leaned to stay straight. Land was at a premium in the city, but Jihoon's neighborhood retained its quaint short buildings, winding around crooked roads so narrow that cars had no right to be on them.
The dog, no higher than Jihoon's calf and white as the moon, had no interest in going to the bathroom. She stared down the dark road with her ears perked.
"Are you going or not? If you have an accident inside,I am gonna have to answer to Minjae, and I am so not in the mood to be murdered you little shit."
Lily let out rapid-fire barks and took off so quickly, she wrenched the leash from Jihoon. With a curse, he ran after the dog, almost falling down the steep street.
Jihoon stopped in front of Rin Halmeoni, who was still peeling her garlic. 'When will she go home?' he wanted to ask but now he had to go look after Lily.
"Have you seen Lily?"
"She ran past barking like she had been possessed. I think she was heading toward that little playground. Maybe it's just an emergency." Rin Halmeoni held out a peeled clove and Jihoon accepted it, though he still hadn't gotten the garlic smell off his skin from earlier. Groaning internally, he uttered a brief greeting to Rin Halmeoni before rushing off.
The playground sat at the base of the road, adjacent to the first line of trees.
"Lily!" Jihoon yelled, hoping she'd hidden in the plastic jungle gym.
No such luck, as her barking answered him from the woods. Jihoon whistled, hoping it would be enough to gain her return, but she didn't emerge.
Misty clouds hung heavy in the sky. He didn't like the idea of going into the woods when even the light of the moon was absent. A shiver ran down his spine and goose bumps rose on his skin.
'Now is not the time to be scared.' Jihoon told himself. Lily could be in some danger now.
Jihoon clicked on his phone light, squared his shoulders, and entered the woods.
"Lily, come on, girl," he yelled loud enough for his voice to echo back.
At night, the shadows became a menacing gray of shapes reaching for him. Ghosts and monsters shifted in his peripheral vision.
It didn't matter that he'd stopped believing in those things long ago.
Night and darkness made everyone a believer of everything.
Something tugged on his pants and Jihhoon spun around with a shout an octave higher than he would like to admit only to let out a sigh of relief to see the white dog wagging his tail at him, something in his mouth.
Jihoon kneeled down as he patted the dog, smiling. Even though he had been dead worried about her earlier, he could rarely stay mad at her as she moved closer to him, loving the attention.
Jihoon noticed the thing hanging from Lily's mouth. The dog reluctantly let go of it as Jihoon pulled it closer to himself. It was a torn piece of black cloth. The cloth had not been anything like Jihoon had ever seen- it was smooth, yet the texture could be seen as the roughest cloth one could have ever seen. The cloth had been closely and wonderfully knit, yet it seemed like it was transparent, almost like that one of a ghost.
"What have you brought Lily?" Jihoon smiled as he patted the dog again, "Did you yap this off from a nice stranger?"
Lily let out an excited bark as if to say yes. Jihoon chuckled as he looked at the cloth again before stuffing it into his pocket, he would examine it with Minjae later.
Something pulled on Jihoon's sleeve again, but Jihoon didn't mind this time. It was Lily trying to grab his attention again.
"We should probably head home now, come on you little shit," Jihoon chuckled as he scooped her up in his arms.
Wandering back through the woods with a wriggling Lily in his arms soon revealed that Jihoon was good and lost. He couldn't even find a hiking path to give him some help to return to the road.
In his arms Lily's body vibrated with a low growl. Nervously, Jihoon glanced around, expecting to see some wild beast approaching.
But there were only shadows and trees.
It seemed Lily was reacting to nothing.Maybe it was just a random wayward squirrel that had run past then.
But then something had caught Jihoon's quick eyes.
Then Jihoon saw one of the shadows by an old oak shift until he made out the shape of a lurking creature.Lily's body vibrated in low growls again. Jihoon clamped his hand around the dog's muzzle to quiet her. .
Jihoon switched off the light of his phone for fear of being caught. As he stepped backwards, he could realize that the lurking creator was in fact, a man. He seemed to be groaning something incoherent.
Before Jihoon absorbed this new fact, Lily shook her snout free of his grip and let out a tirade of barks.
Jihoon was lucky enough to catch Lily just in time to stop her before she could cause a ruckus and give their position away. Jihoon hid against a tree as he observed what was happening, his eyes trying very hard to adjust to the darkness.
Against a tree, not very far from where Jihoon was standing, a man lay slumped facing a figure. It was an old man. He was short and thick, his balding head pale white under the bright moon, his face bore a look of fear and malice. An unhealthy combination.
His eyes were concentrated on the figure in front of him. Jihoon could have let out a high pitched cry had his voice not been silenced by the shock on seeing the figure.
It was a tall man in a chauffeur's uniform but his face was clear in the moonlight. It was handsome no doubt, with black hair and green eyes, almost flaming. He was looking at the squirming old man, a predator eyeing his own prey. Even Lily became quiet and squeezed in towards Jihoon's body as if she was scared as well.
Jihoon patted Lily as he tried to soothe himself as well.
Shane smirked. Finally he was gonna be out of the chauffeur's uniform.
"What do you want?" the old man spoke, his voice rough.
"Don't you regret what you did?" the robed man bore a knowing look in his face.
"No I don't."
Even though Jihoon wasn't the person being addressed to, Jihoon couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment in the reply of the man.
"Then you've made your choice and I've made mine."
The chauffeur's eyes glowed, his green almond shaped eyes glowed and turned to a greyish red flame. His chauffeur's uniform began to grow bigger in size and it began to undo it's stitches in places to make a grim reaper's robe. The phone in his hands glowed and lengthened until it became a scythe.
The old man squirmed under Shane's intense stare. Jihoon looked at the material in his hand. It looked like the same one as the robe.
"Who are you?"
The other man's smirk glowed creepily in the darkness.
"Oshane Larson Kensington, the child of time and death."
"No-"
Before the old man could finish, the man swung his scythe. The man lay motionless, the ghost of a fearsome look etched in his face.
A small blue wisp flew out of the man's mouth.the robed man was quick enough to catch it and store it in his Scythe which glowed.
The man began to glow and changed back into the chauffeur's uniform again.
The man took out a book from his hand, it sort of looked like a leatherbound journal with a handle for the pen. He smirked at the dead old man and noted down something in his journal.
"Hwang Jaejun, age 63, cause of death: excessive bleeding."
Jihoon staggered back, shocked about the fact that he had just seen someone be murdered. However, luck not being by his side, a twig snapped and Lily let out a yip.
Jihoon cursed.
The snap seemed to have attracted the attention of the chauffeur. Moving fast towards the place where Jihoon had been standing, he shouted, "WHO'S THERE?"
Jihoon didn't reply. Trying to be as quiet as he could, he walked backwards till he had found the clearing he had come from. Holding Lily closer to his chest, he ran as fast as he could, without looking back.
What he had seen would definitely leave an impression in his memory.