Chapter 2: Episode 1 - The Temple

After saying these words, the mysterious old man withdrew. Several people dressed in white robes then entered the room and approached. They began to lift the other people who, like Eun-Jung, were sprawled on the floor. Like with the old man, he couldn't see their faces, their long white tunics covered them completely, and the long hood they wore on their head gave them a mysterious appearance.

One of them approached Eun-Jung and lifted him by supporting him under the shoulders. It had not caught his eye, but he noticed that since they had entered the room, none of the people dressed in white had spoken a word.

They seem too mysterious to appear benevolent, but too innocent to appear malevolent.

The white tunics then proceeded to put them in a row. In front of Eun-Jung, a little boy was shivering with cold, his feet were bare on the stone floor and his clothes were in tatters.

One of the white tunics made a hand gesture to the others and they began to walk. Strangely, the white tunics did not seem to make any noise as they walked, as if their feet never touched the cold ground, almost as if they were floating.

The other people were all silent, nothing disturbed the silence, except for noises that seemed to come from outside the building and sounded like the noise of a busy street. Eun-Jung thought that maybe he wasn't so far from Seoul after all, maybe he had been abducted by a cult.

After a long maze of stairs and corridors, each wider than the other, the sunlight blinded Eun-Jung, who raised his hand to protect himself from the rays.

Looking up, Eun-Jung realized that he was probably not in Korea, let alone South Korea. He saw large stone pillars rising on either side, and looking around him, he saw long steps leading down to a busy street below. The building they were on was immense, it overlooked the entire city, and it reminded Eun-Jung of the Greek temples he had seen in history books. But this one was much more massive, and strangely, the city seemed to be built around it, almost unbelievably.

Down below, they could barely see passers-by going about their business. He realized that he could not be in the world he knew, such a large and majestic building would surely have attracted media attention, this temple had nothing to envy the seven wonders of the world.

In front of him, horses seemed to be pulling what could be likened to a carriage, driven by a coachman.

Long buildings stretched along the streets, and the lampposts, which were very different from the lampposts Kim Eun-Jung had known in Seoul, seemed to be lit with a candle, and were also quite low, low enough for a man to easily light them.

After a moment of contemplation and reflection, Eun-Jung reasoned that he had to forget everything he knew and start over to go back home. He heard the people around him stirring.

"Where did the men in white go?"

Eun-Jung looked around him, he had not noticed but the men in white tunics were no longer there and seemed to have completely disappeared.

"Hey, did they leave?"

"What am I doing here?"

"This must be for a TV game show, I don't have time for this."

"These video games are really realistic, I almost feel like I'm in one."

A young man in his twenties said, smiling.

He then tried to remove the virtual reality headset that he probably thought he was wearing, but his hands only met his hair.

Suddenly, his smile disappeared, replaced by a look of terror in his eyes, his hands and arms began to tremble, and he started to stagger. His smile had faded, leaving a livid face.

"Who are you?"

"Get out of my head."

The young man held his head with his hands and writhed as if he was not comfortable in his own body. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Get out of my head."

The situation made Eun-Jung uncomfortable, and he too began to feel unwell, nervously playing with his fingers.

While the young man screamed, several men dressed in black and white arrived by the steps. They were dressed in white suits and long black coats, their heads covered by black top hats on which a badge representing a shield and a flying dove was embroidered.

Eun-Jung concluded that these two men were probably part of an organization similar to the police and aimed to maintain order in this region.

"It's him, quickly!

- Let's shoot him before he hurts someone."

Said the two men in black and white, rushing towards the young man who was now writhing on the ground.

One of the men placed his hand on Eun-Jung's shoulder.

"Get out of the way, sir."

The man passed in front of him, and to Eun-Jung's horror, he pulled a revolver out of his long coat and pointed it at the head of the boy who was still convulsing on the ground.

The man pulled the trigger.

The sound of the trigger followed by a dull thud echoed against the walls of the temple and in Eun-Jung's ears.

The young man on the ground no longer moved.

The crows perched on the roof flew off in a crescent shape, the blood of the young man had splattered onto the foot of the other man who had remained in the background. He cursed and pulled a handkerchief out of his coat to wipe the blood off his shoes.

The other man put his revolver back in the pocket of his long black coat, adjusted his top hat, and turned around.

"Come on, don't stay here."

Said the man, addressing the whole group who were stunned by the scene that had just unfolded before their eyes.

Eun-Jung, shocked by what he had just seen, found the man's reaction very strange. He did not seem particularly affected by what he had just done. He began to think.

Maybe here, murder is something entirely commonplace.

But he quickly dismissed this hypothesis.

No, murder cannot be considered normal.

However, Eun-Jung could not deny the fact that the person he had just seen had shown no emotion in killing the boy, even though the young man seemed to have lost his mind, the agent had not hesitated for a moment. There was only one hypothesis left: the man did not consider the boy as human, or perhaps the man himself did not consider himself human.

Are humans hunted here?

No, on second thought, Eun-Jung found this last idea absurd; the man looked like a normal police officer, and Eun-Jung and the others were all human, and he had not done anything to them.

The people who had witnessed the scene quickly began to disperse while Eun-Jung was lost in his thoughts. Soon, he was the only one left.

Looking around, he saw a silhouette hidden by the shadow of one of the pillars of the temple.

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