Gasp gasp.

The girl let out a quiet pained gasp, inhaling the air that smelled like iron and copper. Blood dripped on the ground with a drip-drop sound. But the girl seemed unaware of the crimson pooling around her feet as she frantically moved her hand, not daring to stop even once.

Please, please, someone please help me.

The girl wrote with desperate pleas, pouring her fear onto the piece of paper she found on her way hiding. The storage room was the only place that was untouched by it, and that was the place she made a shelter. And she hoped earnestly that someone would hear her cries from this depth of infinite darkness.

They know I’m here, they’ve found me. Someone please save me. I don’t want to die……

A sob escaped her lips as something liquid flowed down her cheeks. She wiped it away, not even bothering to see the colour wasn’t transparent but scarlet. With shaking hands, she kept writing.

It’s alive. It’s hunting us. It won’t let anyone go. It won’t stop until it swallows everything like a black hole. So I’m begging you, someone please……

Little Bella~ Where are you~?

A startled gasp almost left her mouth, but the girl immediately slapped her hands over her mouth and looked around with wide eyes. 

The wall, once pristine and violet, had turned into a meaty red, like the inwards of a giant monster. Blood dripped in constant motion, as the purplish vein beneath it moved, shifted, like a giant worm in a blood vessel. Crimson climbed onto the wall, crawled on the floor, and painted the miscellaneous things around in a deep shade of red, as if gobbling them up. The girl, huddled in a corner behind a half-broken bookshelf leaning sideways, quickly picked up the paper and began writing again.

The corruption has spread even here. It’s gonna eat me. It’ll turn me into those vile things. Whoever finds this note, listen carefully; you have to stop the corruption. To do that, you…..

Little Bella~ Where are you hiding, darling?

The voice sounded again, this time closer than before. The girl immediately looked up, her panicked eyes falling on the crack under the door. A shadow, the hue a deep red, redder than blood itself, passed by quickly. Then came the sound of thumping, and finally, someone giggled.

Hehe, hehehe.

The girl frantically moved her hand, writing whatever came to her mind. In her busy movement, she failed to notice the countless eyes that popped up on the wall, they darted around like a disco ball spinning, then all of them zeroed on one spot.

They’ve found me, they’ve found me!

That was the last message the girl could write as the crimson on the wall crawled toward her, like a giant python slowly slithering to its prey. It merged with her own blood pouring around, and then let out the loudest, most creepiest laugh that sent the girl’s soul flying, literally.

Hahaha. Hahahaha!

With the final scream from the girl, everything turned redder, so red it even put the colour red in shame, then as quickly as it came, it vanished.

Then, only silence.

Endless silence.

* * *

Ann stumbled into the apartment after a day of tiring work. After getting the autopsy report, her autopsy report, from Dr. Hopkin, she went straight to Mael Police Station and gave it to Byron. The guy gave her a complicated look for a moment but accepted it nonetheless. Before she could leave, Byron handed her a thick file telling her to give them a look. When asked what they were for, his simple reply was:

“Missing reports. A few people had reportedly gone missing around the area of Ferdinand Lake. The chief wants you to go through the details.”

In return, Ann only blinked. Being handed over more work when she was already drowning in work was not a new experience to her. In fact, as a PA, it was her job to overwork and make sure her boss’s schedule is stress free while hers is filled with it. But now the scope of her work has changed. She was already struggling to figure out her murderer, but now she was being handed more cases, possibly more homicide.

Thus, Ann spent the rest of the day reading through the details of each missing person. There were around 20 people in the file, all aged between 18-29, each belonging from different backgrounds. Some were students, some were office workers, and some had their own business. Some lived in the city from childhood while some transferred here a few years ago or recently.

The only similarity was that all of them went missing around the area of Ferdinand Lake, which was supposedly the area they lived.

And since the Ferdinand Lake Area was the crime scene, she also had to visit the place with Byron.

Needless to say, the day was hectic. They had to run around into each victim’s house, asking where the victims had been before they went missing, what they said before leaving the house, if the families had anyone they were suspicious of and etcetera etcetera.

In the whole process, Ann almost blew her cover more than once. Especially when she took out a notebook and pen and started noting the information, a habit she had formed as a PA, only to get weird stares from Byron more than once. She was tempted to make excuses, but knowing it would only make him more suspicious, she gave up and continued what she was doing.

Well, in the middle though, Byron suddenly got a call from the chief, urgently asking him to return to the station, so Ann was left alone to handle the rest of the work, which was a relief.

After a day of running around, meeting with people, talking with them, comforting them, compiling the information, all with an empty stomach, Ann just wanted to go home, collapse on the bed, and sleep her days out.

But the moment her eyes landed on the door at the end of the hallway, she froze mid-removing her shoes.

The memory of the morning rushed back to her, and Ann fought the urge to turn around and bolt.

‘But where would I even go…..?’

Ann began contemplating. From the memory of this body, this guy didn’t seem to have any friends or acquaintances he was close to. There was Byron, but that fella was already suspicious as he was, if she called him now and said she wanted to spend the night over, he would definitely grab her collar and demand her to give his friend back.

Swallowing her fear with frustration, Ann slowly removed her shoes and tip-toed to the bedroom, not before clicking the light of the leaving room on.

Only after closing the door did she let out a sigh of relief. Quickly removing her outerwear, she grabbed some casual clothes from the closet and entered the bathroom.

‘Good thing that the bathroom is inside the bedroom.’

* * *

The sound of the door opening made Rayan open his eyes in a daze. He blinked slowly, the memories of what happened today rushing back to him in a wave.

After leaving the hospital, he hailed a taxi with the money from the purse he pick-pocketed and came straight home. However, when he tried to open the door, he found it locked.

‘Why is it locked?’

Rayan couldn’t remember locking the front door. Hell, he couldn’t even remember if he ever left the house the night before. Everything before he became Steve Roddy was a blur, he couldn’t even remember if he was at home or drinking with Byron outside. 

Rubbing his forehead in frustration, he left the building and stumbled his way to the backyard.

As it’s normal for every building, the backyard was the place where people threw trash and seldom visited. He stood in front of a window, which he assumed was the window to his apartment’s kitchen, and began calculating. Once he made the route in his mind, he began climbing.

The way up is always harder than down. When he climbed down from the hospital building, although he felt pain, he managed to hold his grip. But when climbing up, his body protested in agony, and his hands slipped multiple times. Fortunately, the window was only three-story high, and this body seemed to be greatly adapted to climbing and crawling, so he managed to climb through it with gritted teeth.

Once inside, he collapsed near the counter, all strength living his body.

When he came to, he realized he was still lying on the kitchen floor. The pale moonlight indicated that it was night outside. And the sound of footsteps told him that someone else was tip-toeing in his apartment.

‘Is someone here?’

He sat up, his left side immediately protested, but he silenced it with one hand and gripped the counter with the other, intending to stand up. But even after several tries, his aching body refused to move. He was injured, hungry, and overall completely exhausted. Even if someone burglar broke into his home, he would be nothing but a weak lamb ready to be slaughtered.

He gave up on the idea of standing up and crawled around the counter before peeking through the slightly ajar kitchen door.

His bedroom was on the corner left of the kitchen, and when he peeked, he realized the light inside was on. A shadow moved, passing by the door, then the sound of door clicking came once again. 

In an instant, Rayan’s eyes turned sharp. Someone had indeed broken into his home. His mind had already begun making hundreds of plans on how to take this intruder down. Since he was currently in a weakened state, it would be unwise to go to a head-to-head confrontation. The best way would be using tricks to kick this bastard out.

Rayan glanced at his shadow, painted by the moonlight streaming through the open window. As he blinked, it rippled for a moment, then suddenly vanished without a trace.

* * *

A sigh of satisfaction left Ann’s mouth as she wiped her now fluffy locks. Taking a bath after a day of tired work was always the best. Now, she just had to cook something to soothe the hunger in her stomach-

Thud!

“Eee!”

Ann jumped, horrified by the same sound that haunted her this morning. She stared at the closed door of the bedroom with trembling eyes. For a moment, she wondered if she heard it right when the sound came again.

Thud.

“Okay, okay. This isn’t normal.”

Ann swallowed as she slowly stood up. It seemed the house was still haunted. She thought that whatever it was in the morning, perhaps it was just her illusion or it had left not finding anyone to terrorize. But now the sound proved it was neither her illusion nor had it left. It was still waiting for her to make her night a nightmare.

Ann wanted nothing more than to bolt from this apartment where ghosts roamed, but the flashes of lightning outside the window warned her that the night was gonna be stormy again, so it was practically impossible to spend the night outside.

‘Do I really have to face it?’

Ann didn’t want to. But whatever it was, ghost or spirit, it would bother her the whole night until she did something. She knew well enough how foolish it is to confront a phantom on false bravery, all the horror movies she had seen pointed her to unfortunate death. But now that she found herself in the shoes of those poor main characters, she realized that confronting an unshaped being is far better than living with an unknown fear.

Ann steeled her resolve, grabbed the doorknob, and slowly opened it before peeking out.

The leaving room was dark, a faint thread of moonlight seeped inside from the kitchen window. For a moment, everything was silent, and Ann began to doubt whether she heard wrong. 

But then she suddenly realized that she had clearly turned the living room’s light on. 

Her lips trembled, she wanted to cry, but this macho body didn’t know what tear was. She looked behind her and suddenly a weapon of some sort caught her eyes.

It was….. a thick book.

Thinking she might as well take something with her as a self-defence, she grabbed the book, measured its weight a few times, before stepping out with wobbling feet.

The living room was completely silent, as if it didn’t belong to this world. She quickly turned on the light and began inspecting each corner with her eyes, not moving away from the switch. 

Perhaps if she had, she would have noticed the shadow creeping behind her.

Rayan held his breath as he stood behind the kitchen door. He couldn’t see the intruder, as he was hiding, so he threw the spoon he was holding loudly on the ground before raising the club high in his hand. The club was something he had in the storage room, not because he expected moments like this, but it came handy when beating uncooperative beings. Now figuring he could use it to fight the intruder, he grasped it tightly.

The moment the intruder would come here to check, he would strike the bastard with the club. That was the plan.

Clang.

The sudden sound of something metal hitting the floor startled Ann again. Swallowing dry saliva, she slowly crept into the kitchen and poked her head through the gap to find the source of the sound, or the person. The spoon at the ground caught her eyes, and she couldn’t help but stare at it blankly.

At that moment, Rayan, who had jumped out from behind the door with the club raised high, froze mid-swing as his eyes widened.

A tremendous force came from behind Ann, her instincts, or more like the instincts of this body, a detective, screamed at her to move aside. Before she could begin pondering what this sudden feeling was, one of her feet stepped back, and her shoulder turned, twisting her massive frame so flawlessly that Ann ended up out the kitchen door and in the living room.

When at last her eyes landed on the intruder, her mouth opened on its own.

“Who are you!?”

“Who are you!?”

Both exclaimed at the same time. One in tremendous shock and the other in utter disbelief. Two pairs of eyes, one brown the other black, stared at each other with wide eyes. Except for their rough breathing, nothing but silence ensued between them. Suddenly, the lanky intruder twisted his expression as he muttered.

“You imposter…… what the hell are you doing at my home!”

Before Ann could understand what he meant, the intruder jumped at him with the club raised. Ann immediately twisted her body away from the approaching club, her mind running at a thousand miles per minute.

“What are you talking about. This is my home!”

Whether the intruder listened to her or not, he stopped swinging the club and narrowed his already narrow eyes, making them look like a slit. He clutched his side, which was slowly turning red, as he gasped.

“You….. give me back…. My….”

“What?”

Ann couldn’t understand what the intruder was saying. She just stood there like a statue, one hand still grabbing the book while the other raised for what reason she didn’t know, she hadn’t raised it. The intruder gasped for a while, seemingly in pain, then suddenly let out a loud roar and swung the club down again.

Her other hand without the book seemed to have anticipated it. The moment the club reached her forehead, it grasped it firmly like catching a stick, then her hand with the book raised itself high before coming down again, hitting the lanky guy with narrow eyes straight in the head.

Rayan froze, as if electrified, pain shooting from the base of his skull to the end of his eyes. He stared at the club clutched in Ann’s large hand, which once belonged to him, then at the book harshly kissing his head, then at his once familiar face looking back at him with surprised eyes, before his eyes rolled at the back of his head.

Ann, now realizing what she, more like her hand, had done, watched as the short thin guy tumbled to the floor with a thud. Blood had already started to pool around his mid-section. She gasped for a moment, staring at the blood now crawling to her bare feet, before letting out a loud roar.

“Holy shit, I just killed a person!”

On her first day of her possession, Ann became a detective.

On the second day of her possession, Ann became a murderer.