The Secret Sonata || Ryeji

Chapter 17: Attempted Murder

On and on, Lia let her feet carry her through the hushed neighborhood, scarce of any cars or people loitering the streets since the place was located near the outskirts of town, just a walking distance away from the woods, and in the interim, the majority of neighbors would usually be out in the busiest part of the town or the bustling center of Andong in daytime. Moreover, the brunette was extremely scared out of her wits to even close the gates behind her after dashing out of the haunted mansion, but thieves and burglars weren't her biggest concern during then; not getting caught by the vicious red-haired girl from her nightmares was her only endeavor.

Chest heaving in short intakes of breath and body trembling in tremor, Lia came to a stop right beside a black car, hands pressed on bent knees, shoulders hunched. Then, a little movement from her peripheral vision, coming from the driver's window, prodded her to snap her head in that direction. The dead Hwang was waving at her through the reflection on the window, but she couldn't see anyone behind her once she turned back, so she scuttled away out of shock, mustering all the strength in her thighs as she swung her arms to propel herself forward with quick acceleration. She kept on running and running aimlessly, fear had overpowered her every fiber of existence, muddling her sense of navigation, with a malefic spirit of Hwang tailing after her.

Soon, the smooth asphalt concrete road she was sprinting along had turned into rough detritus, consisting of leaves, branches, bark, and stems, existing in various stages of decomposition above the soil surface, and the urban structure of the town was left behind her back, to be substituted by the forest structure of looming trees. She was too preoccupied with escaping from the wrath of whatever being that was haunting her that she didn't realize she had just entered the outskirts of town, the woods to be precise. The moment she halted in her tracks to gasp for air, she came to the realization that she was doomed because she didn't know which part of the woods she was at, and the neighborhood became a faraway land to her, she'd gone off track, way too far. She swiveled her body around in circles, eyes frantically searching for any traces of familiarity of a landscape or landmark that could help her. Unfortunately, she registered none, and she was only surrounded by plantation and nature, which to her eyes, seemed identical to even perceive which route she should take. Everything around her was an indistinguishable thicket. Trees rustled overhead, joined by the soft caws of distant crows. Lia was definitely lost in the woods.

On the spur of the moment, a branch from a tree beside her snapped and dropped onto the ground, merely missing her by inches, yet the occurrence made her flinch. Then, she instinctively backed away in haste, only to get her feet stuck inside softer and mushier ground. Utterly bewildered, she looked down and found out that she'd stepped on quicksand. She tried to yank her feet free from it, wriggling and threshing helplessly as the sand gradually drew her in. The more she squirmed, the faster the quicksand pulled her.

"HELP! ANYBODY PLEASE HELP!" Lia screamed at the top of her lungs, frightened to the core.

"Oh dear. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk." The redhead sauntered toward the girl, not even tempted to save the girl, let alone have a merciful heart. "There's no one in the woods, but me." Shortly after, the spirit set her butt down on the ground, legs spread wide and propped in front of her, forearms placed on the bent knees, as she watched the poor girl sinking knee-deep into the mushy yet sticky land, smitten with the pathetic screams of the latter.

"Now, I have someone who understands- no, who's experiencing the same emotions I felt when I was right there at the age of five-," the spirit pointed her index finger at the quicksand, "-fear, despair, helplessness, abandonment, loneliness. All in one. Ha-ha." She broke out into fits of maniacal laughter, and then she shut her mouth in a snap, studying how much Lia had submerged. "Now, the sand had reached chest-level. Good. Soon, you'll experience the horrifying feeling of drowning just like I did."