Thump...

Boom...

Thump...

Boom...

Thump... Boom...

The dreary noise coming from the underground rhythmically thundered as though it was a steady heartbeat.

Slowly but surely, the thumping shrouded the city, transforming it into an ominous abyss disguised as a gigantic pulsating heart.

Just then, the dark, bottomless chasm produced an enormous ball and sent it flying towards him.

I can't breathe...

"Argh!"

Zeha woke up with a start, gasping for air.

He breathed heavily as he stared at the ceiling with wide eyes.

It was white and unfamiliar.

"What the..."

Zeha didn't need to look around to know where he was. The smell of chemicals assaulting his senses was enough for him to tell.

"The hospital...? What am I doing here...?"

Just as he grew aware of his surroundings, a sudden intense pain shot through his body.

"Ouch!"

Zeha immediately withdrew his hand and brought it up to his chest. It was at that moment that he felt the bandage tightly wrapped around it.

The pain was coming from there. Just then, Zeha couldn't help but recall the heart. He frowned, unsure how it was relevant to his current plight.

I think I dreamt about a heart...

While he couldn't remember the dream in detail no matter how hard he tried, Zeha knew that it was far from a pleasant one.

He recalled being chased by an ominous darkness, which eventually caught up to him and coiled itself around his heart as though it was a python strangling its prey.

Zeha closed his eyes as he squeezed his hand against his chest and willed the pain away.

What happened? What am I doing in the hospital...? What is this pain that I'm feeling? When did I even get hurt?

Zeha couldn't remember anything, no matter how hard he tried to. It was almost as if someone had forced their hand into his brain and messed with it.

Just as Zeha was struggling to comprehend how he had ended up in such a state, a sharp pain shot through his temple.

"Ow...!"

Zeha doubled over and groaned in agony. The pain felt like it went on for eternity before it eventually subsided.

What's wrong with me?

He couldn't understand anything that was happening to him.

Just then, Zeha remembered encountering a suspicious man while leaving his home.

.

.

"Don't you want to know how and why your parents died?"

He did.

Alas, the teachers and the staff at the orphanage never told him. Instead, they turned away with an uncomfortable look on their faces every time he asked.

And so, the faint memory that he had of his parents' death was pushed to the back of his mind. Since nobody had the answers to his questions, Zeha decided that he would figure it out on his own one day.

But that was when he was young and naive.

When he was old enough to leave the orphanage, Zeha realized that some things had to come first. Finding out the truth about his parents had to wait.

First and foremost, he needed to survive.

Although being born in Sin-si came with many benefits, he needed the money to support himself.

He couldn't afford investigating his parents' death when he had to worry about putting food on the table every day.

And so, Zeha abandoned that lofty resolve in favor of working various part-time jobs from dawn till dusk, rinse and repeat.

That was when his memories of his parents began to fade away. Zeha started to believe that his parents had abandoned him. Soon enough, his yearning for them turned into resentment. He became a cynical and pessimistic young man. And so, Zeha went about each day struggling to make ends meet. That was when he appeared.

Had the man come to see him when he was still a young orphan boy with lofty dreams, Zeha would've jumped right into his suggestion without even thinking twice.

However, he had stopped being an innocent child who would follow a stranger promising him candy a long time ago. As such, Zeha turned the man down.

"Like I care."

He gave him the middle finger before walking away. But, alas, instead of backing down, the man started to follow him.

"Hey, don't you want to know why your parents had to die so tragically? Don't you want to know how they died, how they'd shrieked in agony right before their fateful deaths?!"

Zeha couldn't quite decipher the man's tone. It sounded like he was mocking his parents' death. Yet, it also sounded as though he was criticizing Zeha for forgetting about them.

"Oh, wow. Really? That's so terrifying."

"Inwang Mountain. There's a secret about your parents there."

Inwang Mountain.

Zeha furrowed his brow. But since he had his back turned to the man, he pretended to be unaffected.

"Well, I'm not into hiking." He shrugged nonchalantly.

The call of his name made Zeha stop in his tracks.

He turned around and glared at the man. The man smirked, revealing his clean set of teeth.

"I see that I have your attention now," he hummed, "Do you want to know why I know your name?"

"Well, there are many ways you can find that out. I mean, it's not as if it's some super secretive personal information. I mean... To think that you've gone out of your way just to find out the name and address of a handsome young man like me... Are you, by any chance, a stalker? Or a perv?

The man scrunched up his nose.

What was that?

At that moment, Zeha sensed that the man wasn't human.

He exuded an aura that Zeha had never felt before.

He shuddered at the thought of the man morphing into a ferocious beast and sinking his sharp fangs into his neck at any second.

"Do you remember that your mother was a shaman?"

The man stepped forward.

Zeha willed himself to stand his ground.

But he couldn't help but take a step back by reflex.

"Have you forgotten about how you and your parents had lived near the Beom Rock of Inwang Mountain?"

The Beom Rock of Inwang Mountain.

I remember.

Zeha remembered his father sitting in front of the Beom Rock with him on his lap as he hummed a song to him.

He remembered his father running his fingers through his soft hair.

His gentle touch.

Father...

Zeha remembered how he, still in his father's arms, had turned his head to see his mother smiling faintly at him.

Her eyes were always filled with affection whenever she looked at him. Zeha remembered just how happy he had been.

It was at that moment when he remembered...

"Run!"

His father had shouted.

"Zeha!"

That was the last word that he had heard his mother utter. Memories of his early life flashed before Zeha's very eyes as the voices of his parents echoed throughout his mind.

How did I forget these memories?

Seeing conflicted emotions welling up in his eyes, the man took another step forward.

This time, Zeha didn't step back.

The man whispered,

"Hey, the weather's clear today. Why don't you head to Beom Rock? Find out the truth about your parents. Do it for yourself."

He then turned around.

"Hey, you!"

By the time Zeha came back to his senses and stretched out his hand, the man was gone.

Zeha was feeling so overwhelmed that he didn't notice how the man was unbelievably fast for a human.

The sudden surge of memories from his past completely disoriented him.

What was that scream?

Why did Mother call out to me so desperately?

There were millions of questions racing through Zeha's mind. Just then, his phone dinged.

Zeha cleared his throat to compose himself before checking his phone.

[January 16, Lunar Calendar]

The anniversary of my parents' death.

Is it just a coincidence for a strange man to show up and talk about my parents' death on this very day?

No, it can't be.

With that, Zeha decided to skip his part-time job and head to the mountain.

.

.

Yes, I went there. I took the bus, got off, and saw the mountain right in front of me. I remember that. But what happened afterward? How did I end up in the hospital?

Just then, a nurse entered the room. She rushed to Zeha's side as soon as she realized that he was conscious.

"Sir, you're awake. How do you feel? Are you in any pain?"

"My chest feels a little..."

"That's not surprising. You have a big wound there. Let me just put some pain meds into your IV."

As she set up the IV drip, the nurse commented,

"You've been out for three days, you know. You were bleeding so much and very badly injured that I was afraid that you wouldn't make it. It's such a relief to see that you're all right."

I've been out for three days?

After the nurse left, Zeha struggled to remember what had happened on the mountain. But the painkillers made him feel drowsy.

Zeha fell in and out of consciousness when he eventually woke up to someone calling his name.

"Mr. Zeha? I heard you woke up. Do you have a moment?"

It was a man.

He looked sharp with his eyeglasses.

Zeha blinked, staring at the man with a puzzled look. The man dipped his hand into his pocket and fished out a card in response.

"I'm Detective Kim Soo-hoon from the Sin-si Police Department," he explained.

Zeha took the card and looked at it.

This was his first time receiving a name card from a police officer.

Zeha looked at Soo-hoon and noticed that he was in a suit. He couldn't help but think that he looked more like a prosecutor than a detective.

"I just have some questions about the incident back at Inwang Mountain."

"Inwang Mountain..."

Zeha had questions about what happened too.

He groaned as he sat up gingerly.

"What were you doing at Inwang Mountain on the lunar date of January 16?"

"I just had some business to take care of..."

"And I'm here asking you what that would be."

Something's off. Soo-hoon sounded accusatory, as though Zeha had done something wrong.

Zeha frowned as he glared at the detective.

"It's personal," he retorted, "Do I really have to tell you that as well?"

"Yes, that's why I'm here," Soo-hoon stated firmly. "Listen, you'd better tell me the truth," he warned. "What were you doing on the mountain?"

"I don't want to say." Zeha shot back. "I want to exercise my right. My right to remain silent."

Soo-hoon's cold eyes pierced into Zeha.

"Typically, criminals like to exercise that right."

"Excuse me? I'm simply exercising my rights, and you compare me to a criminal? Don't you think that's too much? I mean, can you seriously do that? A police officer condemning me as soon as I exercise a right that I'm entitled to?"

Soo-hoon sighed as he explained,

"On the day that you didn't show up to work and headed to the mountain, twenty-four mutilated bodies were found scattered around the area."

Zeha was momentarily rendered speechless.

Mutilated? Bodies?

Zeha had only ever heard those words in the news.

Just then, he contorted his face as he brought his hand up to his chest again.

It was starting to throb again as the effects of the medicine that he had been given were starting to wear off.

Soo-hoon took out some pictures from an envelope.

As Soo-hoon laid out the pictures in front of Zeha one by one, seeing the gruesome scenes made Zeha stop breathing.

Torn arms, shredded bodies, and deep cuts across chests and stomachs...

Zeha wondered if he'd seen these bodies there.

Did I?

Just then, an image flashed across his mind.

Splattered blood, heavy breathing, and a scream...

"Zeha!"

His mother's scream was so clear that it was as though she was yelling right into his ear, but Zeha couldn't remember anything.

"Mr. Zeha?"

Soo-hoon's voice was mixed with his mother's scream.

Zeha stared at him with bloodshot eyes.

"What about now? Do you feel like talking about what happened?"

+++

Zeha told Soo-hoon that nothing came to his mind.

"It was the anniversary of my parents' death..." He further explained, "I headed there because that was where we used to live."

Zeha assumed that this detective wouldn't believe him about the suspicious man who came near his house.

"I remember climbing up the mountain, but I can't seem to remember anything after that..."

After taking down Zeha's account, Soo-hoon told him that he would go for now. Before he left, he added that they might have to meet again.

Zeha sunk back onto the bed as he brought up his hands and buried his face in them.

What on earth happened?

The pictures that Soo-hoon had shown him flashed rapidly in his mind like a movie.

A human couldn't possibly have done that... How could someone kill people like that?

The victims' wounds weren't from knives or axes.

Perhaps they were from predators? Like tigers and bears...

But Sin-si was a big city. It was impossible to have predators lurking around.

Oh, my. I really can't remember anything. This is nuts.

Little did Zeha know, these murder cases of Inwang Mountain would shake the city. It was only the start of something malicious.

Original story: HYBE

Co-planning: HYBE / NAVER WEBTOON