Prologue

… … …

A door filled with cold air, which touched gently and clung to the skin of anyone who approached.

Stimulate a person's latent instinct to scream.

Run.

There's something there.

And it's wretched and evil.

As soon as she cast her gaze straight at the door, Emma immediately felt a strong stimulation all over her body.

The lamp hanging near the door didn't help to relieve her either, from the atmosphere that slowly and gradually gripped her mind inside.

With twinkling lights that illuminate for a moment with its dim light, only to make everything feel dark, silent and empty the next moment.

The lamp seemed to be groping and whispering softly next to her ear.

As if trying to tempt and invite her in.

To inspect the room.

Simultaneously, it also warns her that she will have to bear the consequences herself, if her intentions are wholly rounded, wanting to know what is behind the door.

And take what she really needs.

Her hand that was originally still warm, was now gradually cooling off.

That cold feeling also began to crawl throughout her body, all the way to the tips of her feet.

It was as if her body temperature had been stirred by a chill that came from nowhere.

The hair on her neck that voluntarily stands up, made her involuntarily gulpep down her saliva.

She was silent for a moment.

Hesitating to make a choice.

Her gaze was still fixed on the door, filled with fear, curiosity, mixed with jittery and confused thought.

Because all this time, something behind the door made a sound she really really can't understand.

The sound of someone tearing paper.

The sound of bones sliding back and forth from their joints and not staying on their axis, made her feel uncomfortable all over, frustrated and irritated.

The sound of something splattered with a sticky, viscous liquid, wriggling around the room, resounded in the hallway where she was standing now.

The sound of people speaking in a whisper was the loudest of all that reached the thumping of her eardrums.

No matter her intention to understand the contents of those whispers, which sounded clear in a language she knew, but she still couldn't make sense any of it.

It's as if there is a limit. A wall that closes the understanding and concept of her thought pattern, so that she can't embrace the meaning of that whisper.

But...

She can't take it anymore.

She can't waiting anymore.

The time is almost off.

Emma slowly walked over with her cell phone, which had a flashlight function.

Approaching the door that made it seem as if she was hallucinating, that all the things she wanted.

Her dreams.

Is right behind that door.

The door that seemed to stirred her heart and feelings, which had long been the debris of determination and hope.

It had been torn so deep that all of it tasted just like a bitter melon.

An exacerbation feelings that creeping at her mind.

Everyone she knew and cared about turned their backs on her.

They seem indifferent to all of her suffering.

The place where she rests looking for peace and solace, is just a fantasy in her thoughts and perception.

A mirage that deep down she is still holding on to, now… Just a memory from her sanguine, hopeful sentiment.

Who tries to give without being able to receive.

One morning that she kept waiting and hoping for.

However only responded with an indictment.

…

…

Slowly but surely, she approached the dark brown door.

The footsteps she heard seemed to disappear, because the sound of her heartbeat getting louder and faster, against the rhythm of her slow steps.

The wooden house weird and oddly seemed to be in good condition too, for there was no sound of wood creaking, as if protesting the burden they were carrying.

The murmurs were getting louder and clearer.

But she still can't put her mind the meaning and significance of these whispers.

Only, she could draw the conclusion, that the voice inside which sounded dry, was the voice of a man.

*tap*

*tap*

*tap*

Right after standing in front of the door, the flickering light suddenly went out.

Her hands immediately moved quickly to reach her mouth which was almost screaming.

It was as if she knew that, even the slightest hint of her voice that escaped out of her mouth, might have a fatal outcome that she won't ever wish to happen.

She started shivering.

The feelings she thought were gone, made her realize that, at least, she still found fear, anxiety and curiosity within her.

She thought with a joke, that she wanted to create to encourage and amuse herself, which ended in a complete failure that squeezed out of it's content.

...

There's no sound anymore.

No sound of paper tearing could be heard.

There was no bone that rattled round and round, that keep her exasperate.

There was no sound of squirming from something that made her stomach churn with nausea.

And the whispers were silent too.

As if.

It was as if the thing behind the door, already perceiving there's someone just the opposite of it.

Quiet, harrowing and hollowness.

That was how she felt right now, even with the light from the phone accompanying her.

With eye glands that start accumulating tears, and the muffled sound of weeping due to the overwhelming feeling of fear, which had filled all the cells and corners of her thin and small body.

Emma immediately regretted the decision she had made.

Ever wondering why did she did this.

It struck repeatedly at her cognizant.

Just as the thought swell on the corner of her mind, to just expeditiously turning around, and running outside had appeared.

The chandelier next to the door, which had originally been the only light source in the small hut, suddenly lit up slowly, still in its dim light.

Emma who saw that immediately turned around, while taking out a small knife made of silver.

With cold sweat all over her body and hands that trembling as she held it, she pointed it at where she had been standing before, as if she was sure that there was something behind her shoulder.

However, there was none there.

Only she and she were alone in the hallway.

She breathed a sigh of relief, then turned back towards the door.

Many things began to swirl in her mind.

Like a broken tape recorder, the fragments reveal the deepest pain in her heart.

It slice her into the intricacies, from the windows of his happiness.

From the stairs, meaning of her smile and innocence, which flows out without a dam holding it back.

Until at the end.

All her spirits were broken like dry branches, which fell from the trunk of a tree.

The feelings were mixed in her heart, without being able to vent it out, or finding a solace.

So, she could only suppress it.

Keeping it at bay.

Till it ruined her.

It made her heart bitter, like words choking on the corner of a terrace whose warm fire had die out.

Like the sigh of the falling snow with its melting flakes, hopelessly returning to its original form.

All the things that happened, made her despairing.

So that in the end…

She ended up here.

Not long after that thought, she decided the next course of action she would take.

Slowly, she reach with her hand and grabbed the handle of the door.

Slowly, she pushed it.

*krreeicck* The sound of the open door made her flinched for a moment. Picking up the tension that from the start, already made her knees soft.

With her heart that beating faster and faster, she imagined something horrific or sadistic that might, made her frozen in overwhelming fear, or vomit on the spot.

Or maybe…

She tried to bring out all the scary, terrible and dreadful things, which at that moment might also happen to her.

Unexplainable feelings, which had begun to creep into the door of her guts.

Causing herself to shrink in the blankets, which she imagined comforting her, as she squirmed in her bed.

Slowly but surely.

The door was starting to open wide enough for her to look inside.

And...

…

…

Bit by bit, the sight start to unfold before her very eyes.

The flashlight from her cellphone, following the direction which she lay her eyes on.

But so far.

No.

There's nothing there.

She curb all of her intention to open it wider. Even though there's nothing weird so far.

And her heart that start to gradually calmed down.

But she still knew, and not dumb enough to rule out any possibility, that may put her in state of crisis.

She then substitute it by utter a few words in a low voice,

"Anyone's here?"

"Hello."

"Anyone's here?"

She stay silence for a moment.

Seeing that there seemed to be no problem so far, she began to muster up the courage to speak louder, in her somewhat normal voice that end up echoed louder then what she expected.

"Excuse me."

Without realizing it, behind the door, there was a thin and tall figure.

Attached to the door she slowly opened.

The figure also pressed its left ear against the door, and as if weightless, Emma could easily open the door, to peek, took a glimpse at what was inside.

The figure had shoulder length hair, which seemed to fall out, causing its head to look bald in several places.

With some pasty, rotting flesh too.

Has eyes that melt, like a corpse left without special treatment.

Its mouth was slanted, lean to the side.

Added with dry, shriveled, chapped and brittle lips that looked like they could easily be pulled out, if one might dare to do so, of course.

The figure is also grinning with a sinister smile. Seems happy for another prey that come to its abode.

And it containing cruelty, wickedness and blackguardism.

Coupled with yellow teeth, while some of them out of it's gum.

The knees of its feet were twisted in the opposite direction, leaving its heels in front, with the marks of flesh and bones that being forcefully deform.

Its hands had a similar condition to its feet.

The exception is, it started to twisted from the shoulders.

It made its hands bend in an unorthodox way.

Then the figure slowly poked its head out, matching Emma's flashlight as it scanned the dark room.

Until finally.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…" a woman's shrill scream reverberate.

Resonance in the small old house, located in forest that soon muffled it's sound waves. At the corner of the city.

…

…

…

"Brandon ... Seymour."

"... Brandon ... Seymour."

"Brandon Seymour."

*Plakk*

Then the young man with blond hair woke up, from the deep sleep he was enjoying, due to the blow of something that felt like paper, which was rolled up, compressed into a tool fit for slapping someone.

"Ouch… What the…? The young man who woke up, suddenly exasperated, ready to blow out his ire out from his mouth.

However, anything that he wish to convey out was cut short, due to the figure he considered the perpetrator, who woke him from his sweety meaty dreams.

"Walk out. Run on the square. Twenty times."

Ordered by the a man, who looked at him with harsh eyes, and an expression that clearly trying to restrained himself, to hit the blonde young man again.

… …

...