Shamans Kim

Chapter 3 : The Boy in the Hahoe Mask

      Jungkook had lost count of the steps after the one thousand five hundred and forty-third.

     He found it absurd that a mountain just over three hundred meters high could have such a steep stairs that had so many steps and sometimes looked more like a ladder or a rock face than a staircase. He was exhausted and no matter how much he looked towards the top, he couldn't see the end of this stairs.

     "What took me to engage in this mess," Jungkook cursed who used to talk to himself because of his solitary life and never refrained from complaining out loud.

     The strangest thing for him was that it had been several hours since he had started to rise, he was certain of that, but the setting sun had never set. It was frozen in a sky like an artist's canvas.

     "I must be dreaming..." Jungkook muttered constantly during his ascent. "I am dreaming for sure... "

      But he didn't want to get out of his dream just yet. He was dying to hear again that melancholy voice that seemed to him to have called him down the mountain. It had been a long moment since he had heard it last, but his desire to see the person to whom it belonged drove him to climb ever higher. He had long since driven Jimin from his mind in favor of that voice. He thought only of it, it invaded his whole being and he could not drive it away.

     "Why?!" he moaned in a loud voice, stopping and wiping the sweat beading on his brow, before yelling: "why does this staircase have no end?!!"

     As his voice suddenly covered the silence of the place and echoed, a whisper was heard and Jungkook's heart started beating faster with excitement. It was the voice. The voice he loved the most in the world for a few hours without understanding the reason. The one he wanted to hear forever from now on. If he were to never hear it again, he would die of despair.

     Let me out...

     "Who is here?" Jungkook asked uncertainly while glancing frantically around, "Show up, I want to see you!"

    Let me out...

    "I want to get you out but where are you?" Jungkook shouted.

     "No, don't let him out!"

     "Eh?" the boy reacted, perplexed.

      He did not know the voice that had just spoken, it was not the same as the first. So there were two people watching him? The first - the voice that seemed to speak directly to his heart - wanted out and the second asked him not to let the first out. It was beyond understanding as Jungkook couldn't see anyone. He turned and looked frantically around him, even in the direction of the forest, starting to get scared.

     He might be physically imposing for his age, but the supernatural wasn't something he thought he could put muscle on. If there was a problem, how could he defend himself against voices? Or rather beings that he could not see? Besides, hadn't he gone completely mad?

     "Don't let him out!" repeated the second voice.

      "Who?!! Who shouldn't I let out?" Jungkook asked, desperate not to understand anything.

     "Don't let him out! Don't let him out!" another voice shouted, followed by dozens more shouting the same thing:

"Don't let him out! 

Don't let him out! 

Don't let him out! 

Don't let him out! 

Don't let him out!"