The wave rose high in the sky, before crashing back down to the surface. The turbulent wind raged above like a speedy wheel, while the rain fell like bullets shooting from the sky. With an earth-shattering sound, the sky roared, and a flash of light quickly crossed the bridge of clouds.

Boom!

Suddenly, a single hand broke through the surface, it wiggled like an earthworm looking for food right after the rain. A moment later, a head broke through, along with a pair of narrow eyes and mouth open as wide as a hole. However, instead of the air it desperately needed, all it gulped was a mouthful of salt water.

Splash!

As another wave crashed on the surface, the head disappeared back again beneath the water, only to rise up again, this time with a pair of hands beside it.

It was the worst nightmare he ever had. He wasn’t new to nightmares, rather, he was a frequent visitor, to the point he lived in it. Even nightmare was sometimes afraid of him to reveal its true form. So he knew without anyone telling him, it wasn’t a nightmare.

How he went from sleeping under his soft cover to fall straight into this raging sea was beyond him. One moment, he was asleep in his comfortable bed, the next, he felt the grip of suffocation as water poured into his lungs like someone pouring water into a bowl. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in the belly of the vast ocean, above where a fierce storm was rising, and beneath where lay eternal silence.

He gasped, like a fish out of water, as his hands desperately struggled to take him ashore. He could see it, the light on the shore right before his reach, as if it was calling him.

Whoosh, splash!

But right then, another wave crashed, this time on top of him, and the beacon of light disappeared from his eyes as he was once again forced beneath the surface.

‘This won’t do……’

He thought to himself as he broke through the sea surface once again. The light seemed further away now, as he was being carried away from the shore not towards it. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and furiously began swimming towards the shore, not caring for the rising waves in the slightest.

A current of water, glowing faintly blue, appeared beneath his feet under the sea. It circled around his feet, then slowly climbed his thin body, and wrapped around his arms like vines. It tightened around him, as if wanting to pull him toward the endless sea, but instead of slowing down, his speed increased, as if he just strapped a motor on his feet.

Splash…

Finally, with the crash of another wave on the shore, his body was thrown from the belly of the sea and onto the wet embrace of sand.

“Cough, cough…..”

A wave of cough racked through his body as he clutched his side, head almost buried under the sand. Pain shot through every part of his body, as if someone just stabbed him everywhere haphazardly. As he coughed, something thick but dark flowed from his mouth. Wiping his mouth, the faint light on the shore showed the thick substance was nothing but his own blood.

“Shit…..”

Cursing, he clutched to his side and stood up. The onslaught of wind almost sent him crashing back to the sand, but he held on and stepped forward. With wobbling feet and bowing head, he carried himself away from the shore toward the beacon of light.

He didn’t know how he got there, but he was sure where he was. Judging by tall palm trees and soft sand under his feet, he was on a beach, and that wide cement road stretching along the beach told him he was on a beach in a town.

Whoosh, whoosh-

As his bare feet touched the rough cement road, he looked around, shielding his eyes from the rain drops eager to poke his eyes. The shops lined up along the road were all closed, and the light he saw from the sea was streetlights standing tall in this passionate weather.

‘Where the hell…..’

Peep! Peep!

While he was taking in the surroundings, the sound of loud car honking suddenly entered his ears, along with the frantic call of a man. As he looked to the sound, he realized a car was speeding straight at him. In fact, it was him who was standing in its way, and the driver couldn’t brake in time.

Before he could even comprehend why the car was heading his way, it pounded straight on him.

“Holy cow!”

The driver, a redhead, immediately jumped out of his car. He was heading back home from a day’s work in this raging weather, driving quickly to reach his destination and dive straight under the covers. However, perhaps it was the pounding rain on his car or he was in too much of a hurry, he didn’t notice the man who suddenly jumped in front of his car as if wanting to suicide. By the time he did, the car was already too close to stop it. He screamed at the man as he pressed on the brake, but just as he feared, the car didn’t stop in time and hit the man.

“Are you okay!?”

The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was a redhead frantically calling 777 for an ambulance.

* * *

When he came to, it was morning.

Sunlight streamed through the white curtains fluttering in the wind. The white painted wall and the white tiles reflected the light, making the whole room look like a lightbulb. As he looked around, at his now bandaged body lying on a bed with white bedsheets and an IV drip inserted on his hand, he realized two things.

One, this was a hospital.

Two, he had shrunk.

He frowned, wondering if he was seeing things because he had just woken up. But when he sat up and removed the blanket on his body, he realized not only had he shrunk, he had also gotten thinner.

‘What the hell?’

He inspected his body from various angles, thinking maybe he was wrong, but no matter which way he saw, he had definitely gotten smaller.

He felt baffled. He, who was proud of his 6’3’’ height and had always mocked Byron, saying how he was so stubborn that he even stopped growing, had now become exactly like him. He had shrunk to the size of the person he had mocked.

‘This is not normal…… Not only I found myself thrown in the sea but now I’ve shrunk? Like what the hell?’

He lay back down and began pondering. Looking at his thin arms and body, and also the shrunken size of his previous massive frame, two hypotheses formed in his mind.

One, either his body had shrunk to his younger self, probably when he was a teenager.

Or two, his soul had travelled and entered someone else’s body.

Was it surprising if it was any of the two? Yes, it was. But given his profession, it wasn’t his first time encountering something so bizarre. He had tackled his fair share of strange things and situations, so he knew the possibility of it happening was low but never zero. Which is also why he could analyze things so calmly without panicking.

‘Hmm…. Maybe it’s because of-’

Creak.

Just as he was about to dive into another round of pondering, the door opened and a woman in a typical nurse’s uniform entered carrying a tray. Seeing him awake, she let out a gasp and immediately turned around. In a minute, she returned with the doctor in tow.

“How are you feeling? Any pain anywhere? Any discomfort?”

The doctor, a young man, probably in his late twenties, started asking questions as soon as he entered. Uncoiling the stethoscope from his neck, he started checking his heart rate and other vitals, while the nurse got busy with the IV.

‘Hmm, a rookie.’

Seeing the doctor nervously checking his vitals while poking him here and there, he gave a conclusion in his mind. The young doctor gave a few advice after finishing his examination and left, whilst the nurse stood in front of him with a clipboard.

“Mr., you were brought here yesterday night by the driver who caused your accident, but since he was just a passer-by, he didn’t know your name. Would you mind giving us your name and information now? It’s really an important part of our procedure.”

As the nurse rapidly spoke, he stared at her, which only made the woman flinch. While he was silent outwardly, he had already grasped the hold of his current situation.

‘I see. So the guy who ran me over perhaps ran away right after throwing me here, and now they need someone to pay the bill.’

Nodding to himself, he opened his mouth.

“Yes. But can I go to the bathroom first? It’s urgent.”

The nurse gave an awkward laugh as she nodded. With her help, he got up from the bed and stood up. Pain shot through his body at the movement, especially the left side of his body felt like it was stabbed a hundred times. But what was more painful to him than that was when he stood up, he realized he was only a few inches taller than the nurse.

Suppressing a groan, he refused the nurse’s help and stumbled to the bathroom. However, when he stood in front of the mirror, he wished there was someone with him, whom he could shake wildly and ask what nonsense was this.

The face staring back at him, with messy blonde hair, narrow eyes, tall nose and cheekbones fully showing, was none other than Steve Roddy, the gang leader of Roddy Boys, the group he was currently on a chase with.

And why was he chasing them? 

Because he was Rayan Lancel, the famous homicide detective of the Ruhi Empire.

* * *

Chirp, chirp.

When Ann woke up the next day, it was morning. Blinding sunlight was pouring through the cracks of the curtain, as if the storm yesterday night was nothing but imagination. But more than the sudden shift in weather, Ann was concerned about something else.

She couldn’t remember how and when she fell asleep. All she knew was that her head started hurting as soon as the memory crashed back to her, and before she knew it, she had fainted.

Slowly, Ann straightened from her hunched position. Her massive frame was actually sprawled on the desk, with the journal titled ‘Victim Information’ lying on the ground. Books were toppled over, even the pen holder was barely standing straight. But none of these seemed to enter the eyes of the man sitting in front of it. He, with the soul of a she, stared at the desk in a daze.

‘So that’s why….. that’s why this body appeared so familiar to me. He was the detective who was in-charge of investigating my accident case. And he went to meet me in the hospital, even Mom was there.’

Ann rubbed his now thick eyebrows, feeling a bit frustrated. The memory of him, going to the hospital to ask about her situation and also informing her that he was investigating the case only happened a week ago. So she couldn’t understand why she forgot all about it. What’s more, she had a pretty impressive impression of him.

Ann looked outside the window, where sunlight poured in like a waterfall. In her mind, the day she met him flashed.

He was big.

That’s the first thing she thought when she saw him entering through the hospital door. Ann was on edge after that accident, so the moment her eyes landed on his massive frame, she unconsciously clutched her mom’s hand. Her mom, perhaps understanding her daughter’s sudden fear, held back her hand tightly, just like she used to when Ann was little. Her mom’s soothing pat brought a sense of calm inside her at that moment, and she managed to relax ever so slightly.

He was intimidating, not in the sense of his size or tall frame, so much so that Ann had to crane her neck to meet his gaze even when he sat on the chair. It was in the sense of how he carried himself, the aura emitting from him, as if it seemed to scream authority and power.

For the second time of her life, Ann felt fear.

When was the first time? Ann couldn’t remember. Maybe it was when that accident happened, but she had even forgotten what kind of accident it was. Her memory seemed to have broken the relationship with her after entering this body.

Throughout the whole questioning session, Ann tightly clutched her mom’s hand, while her mom patted her hand and sometimes rubbed them to ease the tension in her body. Even though Ann’s mom was answering most of the personal questions, like her name, age and workplace, Ann still felt exhausted just from the short interrogation with him. 

It wasn’t like he was threatening her, nor was he glaring at her or cursing at her or being pushy in his questions. Rather, he seemed to soften his tone to appear amicable, and when she hesitated to answer some questions or struggled to remember the details, he even reassured her and moved to the next topic. 

However, the heavy presence he naturally carried couldn’t be diminished in the slightest even if he tried.

When he finally left after the questioning, Ann collapsed onto the bed and buried her face in her mom’s lap. Her mom caressed her head to soothe her tense nerves, and she slowly fell asleep like that.

‘Mom……’

As the face of her mom flashed through her mind, Ann felt tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. Who knows how she is doing now. Did they already tell her what happened to her? Was she crying now? Was her dad comforting her while crying his eyes out?

Ann wanted to cry too, but perhaps this body wasn’t used to crying, her eyes remained dry. Feeling frustrated, she furiously rubbed her eyes.

“Maybe I should-”

Thud!

“Aah!”

A sudden sound echoed just as she started to speak. Ann jumped in surprise and frantically looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. She craned her neck and perked her ears, hoping to listen to the sound properly this time, but nothing greeted her ears as she stayed still. She waited for a while, but apart from the chirping of birds, shouting of children coming from outside and the occasional honking of cars, no strange sound came from inside the apartment.

‘Did I hear it right?’

Ann stood up and began looking around the house. She opened the bathroom door and looked behind the shower curtain, then opened the closet, looked under the bed, under the desk, behind the couch, and when she found nothing, she stepped into the living room and started looking around there.

After inspecting the living room and kitchen and still finding nothing that could cause the strange sound, Ann stared at the door at the opposite end of the hallway, the door she thought of checking yesterday but forgot after coming home. With slow, deliberate steps, she approached it.

The door was emanating a heavy oppressive aura, as if behind it a giant secret was hidden. A very faint humming sound, as if someone started a generator, was coming from the opposite side of the door. Ann pressed her ears to the door, but nothing strange like the sound before entered her ears. 

For a moment, she stared at the door, hesitating to open it. The door was locked, but if she looked for the keys, she knew she would be able to open it. However, something deep within her seemed to whisper to her not to.

No, wait. She could definitely hear a whisper.

Come to ussss.

Ann jumped back, it wasn’t a mistake this time. She was sure she heard a whisper, it sounded right beside her ears. She couldn’t tell whether the voice was male or female, but it definitely wasn’t a voice she was familiar with. The voice carried a sense of longing, as if it came from deep within herself, from her soul.

She dug into her ears, trying to remove the lingering sensation of that whisper. Quicker than she approached the door, she backed away with her eyes fixed on the door.

Only when she entered back into the bedroom and closed it did she let out a breath she was holding. Stumbling, she carried her heavy body and collapsed onto the bed.

“What the hell was that?”

Ann clutched her fluffy locks as she thought dumbly. If she thought yesterday morning was the weirdest in her life, today was weirder. Not only did she wake up in a strange place in a strange body, it was probably haunted as well. No, it wasn’t only the place that was haunted, even this body had a ghost residing inside.

‘I gotta get out of here.’

With that thought in mind, Ann got ready with the fastest speed in her entire life and rushed out of the apartment, not even glancing once at the closed door fearing what she might see there.

And that’s why, she failed to notice the shadow that disappeared under the door of the closed room.