DECIBEL | Golden Child AU

Call One (Pt.2)

WARNING: DEATH/MURDER/VIOLENCE

8.02PM

- Call Emergency Center -

"Someone... Someone is trying to kill me."

Corporal Hong held his breath. Instead of focusing on his ears, he was distracted by his loud heartbeat, quickened with a fresh surge of worry.

It was not because he was scared and he could not handle it. 

Hong Joochan was one of the top scorers in the National Police Examination for his batch, like he was born to be a policeman. He also dealt a few calls of murder like this before. The words she said were not enough to shake him.

His instincts, however, were churning behind his chest, telling him that this call was not going to be easy.

Her breaths ghosted into his ears, with a heat hot enough to scald him. If fear was fire, it was rapidly spreading into a massive wildfire in no time. That could also mean the woman was at her limits.

She was too close to giving up.

Straightened up, Joochan ran his fingers on his keyboard, already profiling the caller as a woman in her early twenties. He clicked on the location of the call and noted the address at Eunhyeong-dong.

"Someone's trying to kill you? Is that what you said, Miss?" Joochan replied a few seconds later.

"Please help me."

Joochan sensed from the shaky rhythm of her voice that she was shivering relentlessly, due to the cold and the brimming fear.

"Where are you right now, Miss?"

Whimpers amplified in his ears which eventually sounded like her voice was muffled. She was covering her mouth with her sleeves.

"I'm not sure."

The slightest difference in her tone told him she was shaking her head.

"Stairs."

Joochan widened his eyes as he listened.

"I see some stairs nearby me."

Corporal Hong pressed his lips in a line. From the little exchange of words, Joochan deduced that the woman was too afraid to make sense of anything she was saying. She could have given him a street name, or basically the reason she was in that area in the first place. Saying stairs was not helpful at all. It only showed she was desperate to be rescued and she was responding for the sake of it.

Then again, why would a young woman be in the vicinity of the Sungun Port, and in the middle of the large complex alleyways?

"What is it?"

Hearing an external voice from the call, Joochan looked up to his senior who had his head popped above his cubicle. Joochan probably had taken a pause for too long that it was sniffed by the Chief of the call operators.

Joochan composed himself and spoke quickly. "I think the caller is hurt and her surroundings makes it hard to hear her. She also doesn't know where she is."

The Chief nodded. "Put me through."

"Yes, Sir," Joochan transferred the call with a click.

"Hello, Miss. Please stay calm," the chief assured the caller while Joochan watched him in action. "We need an address to dispatch the team."

The chief's words unfortunately did nothing to comfort her as her breaths became erratic. Joochan could imagine she was looking around for more hints of her location.