The Secret Sonata || Ryeji

Chapter 29: The Long Lost Heiress

Yeji twisted her ankle on the way back as she sprinted to find help, but she didn't let that hinder her endeavor, and she kept running in the woods with a shot of searing pain traveling up her leg that she'd injured. As a five year old child with no sense of direction or navigation, it was easy for her to get lost on the way since the surrounding looked identical to her and she had no idea which way to go, thereby unintentionally delaying the rescue of her twin. Just when she decided to turn back to the way she came from, she descried the figure of a man carrying a chainsaw on his shoulder as he scrutinized the tree he was about to cut down. Next, she rushed over to him and told him about her twin. Luckily, the man knew the exact location of the quicksand and his agility brought them back to the spot, faster than Yeji had found him, yet not fast enough to save Lucy's life. By the time they got there, the poor girl's lifeless body was completely submerged and the soul had left it without knowing her own death, still in search of her younger twin sister and calling her name as she traversed the forest.

"No!" Yeji cried out loud, hot tears of grief and anguish flooding down her cheeks as she crawled over to her twin's lifeless body after the woodcutter lugged it out of the sand with his tools. "Wake up! Wake up, Lucy-yah!" She patted her sister's muddy, pale cheeks and tried to shake the body, in case she woke up. Then, she opened her closed eyes, but she only saw the whites. "Please wake up! I already came back with help. You're out of the ground, Lucy-yah! You should wake up now!"

"Ahgassi," the man spoke softly, feeling sorry for the mourning five year old girl, and he placed a palm on her tiny shoulder, "She's not alive anymore. I'm sorry."

"No! She's just sleeping!" The living twin argued, hugging the cold body tightly in her arms, refusing to let go. "She will wake up soon. I know she will!" Absentmindedly, she began to rub the body and make it warm since she deemed it too cold. "A-ahjusshi, p-please lend me your c-coat. My sister's cold," she begged the woodcutter with a crack in her voice and the compassionate man did as she requested.

Watching the poor little girl as she draped the coat over her dead sister's body, he murmured, "Ahgassi, let's get you and your sister back to your house."

It was the worse day of the Hwang family's life. The moment they all saw the dead body, In Yeop's brain malfunctioned, together with his locomotion, as he was frozen on scene; Seulgi instantly broke down like a madwoman in front of her dead child; Hyunjin tried to calm his mother down while he, himself, was also grieving for his little sister's dead; all the while Yeji's forlorn gaze flickered between her wrist and her dead sister's. Her sister's bracelet wasn't on her wrist anymore. Unbeknownst to her, it had slipped off and sunk into the quicksand.

Lucy-yah... Please wake up. Let's find your bracelet together. You promise that you won't lose it. She thought. I'm counting one to three. On the count of three, you need to wake up, arraseo? She fixated her bloodshot eyes on her sister's shut ones as she mentally counted to three.

****

Night had fallen and the moon had emerged, illuminating the dark forest as a grumpy little girl slumped down on the detritus with little care of getting dirt on her short, white pants. "It's already getting dark and she hasn't returned! Where is she? Don't tell me that the monsters already got her." Then, she turned around to scan her surroundings only to see a thick brisket of trees and not a single clear pathway she could make out easily. "And where am I?" She rummaged her head out of frustration. "I'm not gonna talk to her for weeks- no, months after I get home!" Feeling lost and hopeless, she propped on her elbows and gazed at the stars above. Oddly enough, she wasn't scared of being alone in the forest or eaten by wild animals anymore. Though, she couldn't understand why.

Unbeknownst to her, a demon was sniffing the air, savoring the mouthwatering scent that her soul was giving off from a kilometer's distance. "Mhm... a freshly dead soul of a child," the demon uttered, licking his lips. Without hesitating for a millisecond, he kicked his feet off and dashed in the direction of the scent, his squirrel-like cheeks lifted up into a beam. "Gotcha!" He said devilishly as soon as he registered a little girl sitting unprotected on the ground, stargazing obliviously as she did so. After she turned around to meet him in the eye, he opened his nasty mouth and it increased to the her size, which was humanly impossible.