Chapter 4: Truth or Lie?

WARNING: This is no longer the sweet love at Christmas, it will be an adventure on Christmas. Ready to ride on this rollercoaster of fate?? Will Anna be able to find out the truth??

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"Why is the store so quiet??"

"Maybe they took a leave??"

They both entered and sat at one table, the light wasn't even turned on. It was like a haunted house. Anna who sat across from Rickie started to feel scared.

Rickie noticed that and held her hand to make sure everything is okay. He took Anna's purse and held it for her as they walked out of the shop.

"There's not many days left!!! We need to escape from this country!!!" a voice from the back of the shop was so loud that it even reached the couple's ears.

They didn't plan on eavesdropping on the conversation but the next line made them stay, not technically both of them, only Anna stopped frozen like a statue when hearing that from a person who talked with the man from before, "Do you wanna end up like Andy and Rose???!! They both died and never came back."

"Anna...isn't that your parents..." Rickie turned his head to look at Anna who was shaking out of fear when she heard something like that. She tried to ignore her parents' death as only an accident for almost a decade, even she herself didn't believe the plane was crashed.

Anna released Rickie's hand off hers and then walked sneakily to listen more to that conversation.

"We can't go against the government. They haven't known we're the rebel yet, we need to stay hidden. I don't want to end up like Andy." a voice of the man who was at her father's age was shaking when he mumbled those things out of his lip.

A woman stood up in the group and raised her voice to everyone, Rickie couldn't leave Anna behind walked to her, and listened to those people with her.

"Do you want to live in this cage forever??? We all knew our fate...do you want our next and next generation to suffer?? We ignore the truth today, but one day we'll regret it."

"Layla, there were tons of monsters out there, out of Korea!!! In this country, we're safe."

"Monster??" Anna gasped in disbelief, she almost made a sound but Rickie put his hand on her lip first before she could do it.

"Then what's the difference??? We're born to the age of 40 and then they will kill us to feed those monsters. If we try to escape, they will wipe our memories and change our identity then put us back in this cage."

"..." everyone became silent, the couple who heard the unbelievable thing couldn't understand what happened, or what's happening?

Are those people the same as the flat earth believer??? With all the media and proof, how could they believe such thing as monsters???

There are a lot of countries in the world such as Japan, America, Thailand, and more...and many students went abroad. Some even traveled around the world.

Anna even had a friend from other countries she chatted with every night. Just what're they talking about??

"Only our country is still standing. Our country is chosen to be the stockpile for those monsters. Out there is a frozen world...we can't go against them...we can't...we didn't even know if we have allies out there..."

"We still have hope...if only we could find Mr.Andy's daughter, we will find that journal. It was all the record of the outside world. It's our only hope." that tall woman murmured in a sad tone as she knew finding such a thing will never be an easy task as everyone in the gang didn't reveal their family background to avoid risking their family's lives.

Cough cough

"Sir!!!"

"I'm alright...I'm alright..."

"What do we do...our leader will turn 40 tomorrow...he will be offered to the monsters..." a man broke down in tears, turn out the man who cough a second ago was the leader.

"We...we will find that freedom soon...ten years...twenty years...we will always find it. Don't lose hope."

Bang

"Who's there??"

All those people ran to where the sound was, it was only a cat. Cold sweat was on their forehead, they were relieved it was only a cat and not the organization.

Anna hopped on the motorcycle and gave the helmet to Rickie as she was the one who rode it herself down the hill.

She rode at a very fast speed, Rickie didn't fully believe in such a thing but Anna was really into it. She arrived at her house, her heart was aching in pain as it beat really fast.

"I'm sorry for our date tonight." she apologized to Rickie and gave him the key. Rickie shook his head and patted her shoulder, he was indeed disappointed but more importantly than the date, he was worried about Anna.

He put the helmet on the motor and asked her to go with her inside her house, she hesitated but she allowed him since he was the one who was beside her eavesdropping on the conversation earlier.

"Arnold."

"Noona, you're back--" Arnold froze when meeting eyes with Rickie's scary eyes. He felt incredibly guilty for causing all the mess for his sister.

"I'm Rickie. You must be Anna's brother..." on the other hand, Rickie was really glad to see his matchmaker. If it wasn't for that little guy, him being a couple with Anna wouldn't have happened.

"Arnold, where is our dad's journal??"

"It's on the table." Anna knew what was written in the journal but she read it a very, very long time ago and her thought was the journal was only written about the fairy tale and the ideas for her dad to write a novel.

She opened the dusty journal and flipped the page to the middle.

She started to understand why her parents never told her about their real works, why they were always secretive about what they did.

<25 December, we arrived at the border of Korea.>

<26 December, the world was covered in snow. There was a barrier on top of Korea. On the same day, we ran into a monster, its size was ten times bigger than an average human.>

<27 December, there was a facility known as an identity changerator! Its power was to change a human to a completely different person.>

<28 December,...

<29 December,...

<30 December,...

<31 December,...

<28 December,...

<29 December,...

<30 December,...

<31 December,...

<28 December 2025, the only chance we could allow escaping the barrier was on Christmas.>

Anna realized why her parents were always busy on Christmas, her tear fell down on the page of the journal. What is the truth?? What is the lie??

How can a lie be so perfect?? She was born wishing she could travel around the world someday, but it turned out that the world didn't even allow her to leave the country.

Stockpile, changing a person's identity...monsters...they were all not a thing a saint human could accept in one day.

"Anna!!" she fainted on the table after having difficulty breathing.

"Noona!!! Please help Noona..."

To be continued...!