Chapter 4 – Wicked (1)
Ba - dump,bdump…
She could feel her heart hammering against her chest as soon as those thoughts passed through her brain.
The hairs on her arms stood up due to the chill she could feel all around her.
Ba - dump,bdump…
Her heart wasn't supposed to be beating. She was dead. Ribbon was dead. She was alive in a dead woman's body.Breathe in, breath out.
Am I in a dream?
Those thoughts ran through her brain. It was the only logical explanation. Testing out the theory, Yoona pinched her cheeks…
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" she yelled, the pain only disproving her theory, as well as successfully making her feel even more hopeless. It was not a dream. This was real, a cruel, and harsh reality!
Locking eyes with the man, she looked devastated. How could she explain it to him in a way that made it seem she wasn't crazy? That what she was saying was the truth? And who is Ribbon to him anyway?
"Uhm, wha - uh, what was the question again?"
She distressfully addressed him, but he only stared at her in response.
Yoona wondered if he finally realized something was not adding up. He took his sweet time, analyzing, examining her, circling around her like a vulture before finally speaking. Only she wasn't sure if he was talking to her, or thinking out loud as he was only whispering things to himself.
"It's not a mistake," he mumbled.
"Definitely not. The smell's the same. The mana's the same."
He's weird. Yoona thought to herself. He recognized her by her smell and mana.
What's a mana by the way?
"You definitely died. I came back, after the ritual ended. You've been incinerated completely; turned into ashes. How is it that you're alive, unscathed, as a matter of fact?"
He spoke each words with venom and looked at Yoona intensely that made her want to answer him as quick as possible.
She could feel shivers up and down her spine, sensing he did not appreciate waiting for so long.Unfortunately, Yoona didn't know how to answer that. She herself had a lot of questions, trying to come to terms with what was happening around her still gave her trouble to get a grasp on…
"Uh, well, uh," she stuttered,
"You see, I, um-"
She really didn't know what to say. Watching his eyes slowly lose its confusion made her even more nervous since the curiosity was being replaced with irritation.
What do I say?!
She panicked. She was not this woman. She was not Ribbon. She was just an ordinary high school girl, living in Korea preparing for her College Scholastic Ability test, which, unfortunately, got stabbed on the way home, now ending up trapped in a body of a dead woman he knew!
She wanted to say it, but for some reason, she had an inkling feeling she wasn't going to get him to believe her story, no matter how true. Worst case scenario, he might think she's a psychopath, and in this world, she did not know what the consequence of that was…
"Answer me Ribbon!" he demanded, "How are you still alive?!" He was getting impatient.
What he did next was unexpected for Yoona.
Judging by his previous behavior, it was an acceptable confusion.
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled him flush against him, cradling her head to his chest as they slipped and fell to the ground by his abrupt action. His arms were wrapped around her protectively, and although she was shocked, she tried to squirm away, to no avail. As soon as she stopped resisting his hold, she finally took note of the arrow that whizzed right past them.
Her eyes widened in fright as she realized it would have hit them had they not fallen to the ground.
Black smoke began to rise from where the arrowhead hit. It emitted a nasty smell, reeking the air with its stench as the smoke began to spread out. Yoona tried covering her nose to defend herself from the torrentuous smell.
"What's happening? Who shot that arrow? Why does it smell so bad?!" she asked, the palm over her face muffling her questions. He placed a finger to his lips, looking around them warily.
"Shh, stay still." He whispered.
"They're coming." He stared straight ahead.
From where she was lying, all Yoona could see was a group of mysterious men, all wearing identical masks nearing them.