Trigger ↬ [ P.JS ]

Chapter 3:

Astrid cut off the awkward silence and cleared her throat. She locked eyes with the girl and collected herself.

"Hi, I'm Astrid Lee. I was assigned to babysit the siblings tomorrow but I figured that it's much better if I met them now. Since, you know. They might throw a fit on me. I live next door," Astrid cocked her eyebrows, waiting for a response.

The girl sighed, oddly relieved that she came.

"My name's Somi. Thank you for coming, gosh. I thought I'd die today. Come on in!" Somi pulled Astrid inside, excited that she met a new acquaintance.

"What? Were you having trouble with the kids?" Astrid worriedly asked, glancing around the house. It was squeaky clean, every inch of the home was shiny and put to place.

"You bet. I'm not really good with- uh," a loud noise came from upstairs, cutting off Somi's sentence.

The girls clocked their heads up, panic filling Somi's system. She rushed to the stairs, bursting the sibling's room open.

There, revealed a beautiful girl and an adorable little boy playing together, peacefully.

Peacefu- wait what?

"Where did the noise come from?" Somi looked around, searching for the possible cause. Under the bed, the toys, lamps, the kids themselves, nothing.

"What the heck. I must be tripping. We must be tripping," she shook her head in attempt to pull herself together.

"Yeah. Maybe we were hallucinatin-"

Another noise, in the same room.

"Oh we're definitely not hallucinating. Wait there, I'm gonna check where it came from," Somi tiptoed to the bathroom, carefully going in making her disappear from Astrid's sight.

Astrid looked at the children, smiling slightly.

"Hi there. I'm Astrid. I'm assuming you're Hwayoung, and you're Hayoon?" she pointed.

The little girl nodded, "Woah. You're right, Astrid! How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch," she chuckled to herself, almost convinced that kids aren't so bad after all.

The siblings just quietly colored their books while they sat on the cold tiled floor which looks like it'd been polished yesterday. Astrid sat down with them, making small talks here and there.

Hwayoung was indeed talkative, Astrid was internally grateful that she didn't need to talk much because of her. Hayoon, well he's focused on the crayons, putting it in his mouth every five seconds.

Astrid exhaled deeply, leaning back to watch the toddlers. Her lips tugging upwards again but stopped.

"Where's Somi?" she whispered to herself, finding it strange that the girl hasn't come back yet.

She looked back at Hwayoung, "Hey, Hwayoung. How old are you?"

"I'm 5, I'll turn 6 next friday! Well, that's what mom said anyway,"

"Do you know what mom's work is?"

"No, but I do know that it needs a lot of traveling,"

"Oh, okay. Uhm, stay there. I need to check on Somi," Astrid stood up from the floor, cautiously walking to the bathroom where Somi went in. She looked around the wide space, furrowing her eyebrows once she saw no traces of the girl she just met.

"Somi? Are you there?" She stepped in further, heart beating faster and faster every second. Her gut felt heavier with every step she took, as if there was something bad that's going to happen.