Hide and Seek (3)
Kim Min-jeong's mouth fell open. She couldn't comprehend what her eyes were seeing.
A murderer swung an electric saw with murderous intent to tear him apart, yet the saw shattered instead. The engine in the electric saw clutched in his hand rattled with a metallic groan before falling silent.
“Ah, aaah...?”
The murderer stared blankly at Han Mir. The boy approached him casually and swung his hand.
*Slap!*
The murderer's body spun and flew backward, collapsing to the ground. He touched his swollen cheek with a trembling hand.
A thin stream of blood trickled from his mouth, carrying the bitter taste of iron.
“Ah, aaahaa!”
He grimaced in pain from the unprecedented agony, but before he could fully feel it, a massive shadow loomed over him.
Under the red moonlight, Han Mir looked down at him with half-closed eyes.
“Ah, aaahaaa!!”
The murderer gasped for air, his skin feeling as if it would be shredded, jolting in terror. He immediately began to flee.
“Aaahaaa!!!”
He screamed madly and ran.
This isn't a human. It's not the delicate prey he's been facing. It's a monster. A monster no one can confront.
“Where?”
A eerie voice suddenly came from the side. The murderer swallowed hard and looked over.
*Slap!*
His head spun first, followed by his body, rotating as he flew and smashed into the wall, collapsing inside.
As he barely regained his senses, something clattered from his mouth. With a trembling hand, he picked up the yellow teeth scattered on the floor.
His teeth were half-pulled out by a single slap. He felt a jaw-shaking chill along with the pain as if someone was squeezing his heart.
“This game is called hide and seek, right?”
Han Mir slowly entered through the smashed entrance. A red glow flashed in his eyes.
“And if someone dies, the game ends.”
Han Mir laughed with a creaking sound.
“Well, then, let's play fun from now on, Mr. Killer?”
“Aaahaaa!!!”
He sprang up from his seat and smashed through the wall behind him in a frenzy.
“Ah! Aaaah!!”
Due to being forcibly pulled, blood gushed from his mouth, but it didn't matter to him. The fear of death that had consumed him had awakened his survival instinct, making him forget the pain and focus only on staying alive.
To survive, he had to run. He couldn't fight this thing. It was death itself.
“You’ll be the one caught, won’t you?”
“Ah!!?!?”
The tingling shock in his abdomen shot up to his head, making his body jump. He collapsed forward. His face scraped, mouth full of dirt, he trembled and looked back.
Han Mir squatted down and grabbed the murderer's thick hair with one hand. The indescribable power emanating from the boy's fingertips made the murderer realize that if Han Mir wanted, he could crush his skull like a head of tofu.
Han Mir lifted the murderer's head and said in a cold voice.
“You trash like you, you know, you only chase irresponsible pleasures. You think you can enjoy your life forever without bearing any responsibility for the evil deeds you've committed. How funny. There's no such thing as absolute in this world.”
As Han Mir exerted force to pull his head up, the entire body was flung into the air. Before his body fell back, the boy's fist struck his abdomen.
“Kek!!”
His body folded in half from the impact and flew, smashing through the fence and rolling across the cornfield. His hard abs were dented in the shape of a fist. Saliva drooled from his mouth, and his mind went blank except for the thought of how terrifying it was. He couldn't think of anything else.
“So, how do you think I should make you take responsibility for those trash?”
Han Mir brushed his hand and smiled faintly at the murderer trying to stand up with his wobbling legs.
“You’ll do to the victims what they did to you. Now, I'll give you 10 seconds.”
The boy whispered softly in his ear.
“Struggle as much as you want.”
“Aaahaaa!!!”
The murderer ran. He ran across the endless cornfield. It wasn't just running in panic from fear. Now that his survival instinct had been pulled to the extreme and devoured him, he recalled the only way to survive.
He had accumulated data through countless games. Thanks to that, he knew everything about this small village — where everything was. That meant he also knew the escape routes by heart.
This place was a cornfield. Calculating the position of the bonfire he had seen earlier while fleeing, there was a secret passage nearby where he could escape.
If he just went there, he could definitely survive, avoiding that horrific monster.
With a thread of hope in his heart, the running murderer...
“Time's up.”
He despaired under the fear looming over his head.
*Crack!*
A sound of something shattering. His vision heading toward the exit suddenly flipped, and he saw the dirt ground. The burning pain in his left leg made his eyeballs move.
“Ah, aaahaa!!!”
The thigh bone pierced through the flesh and protruded, the ankle twisted in the opposite direction. Blood gushed like a waterfall from the fatal wound.
Han Mir grabbed his head and forcibly stood him up. With a kind smile, he said,
“Shall we start over? 10, 9...”
The murderer, without feeling the pain of his broken leg, immediately turned his body and moved. No matter how hard he ran, he couldn't use his left leg fully, so he could only limp and walk.
Just a little more. If he went forward a little more, the passage would appear.
A shadow of the reaper once again loomed before him as he advanced, seeking a ray of hope in front of the darkness of the monster called Han Mir.
“Time's up.”
“Ah, aaahaa!!! Aah! Aaaahaa!!”
He turned direction to avoid the boy and tried to flee. But suddenly, his body's balance collapsed, and he fell sideways.
The right shin bone created a new joint and twisted strangely to the left. Han Mir lightly brushed his foot and stood him up again.
But his legs could no longer support him, so his legs spread apart, and his knees touched the ground.
“Ah, aaah...”
Tears welled up in his eyes like those of a slender girl, not matching his burly frame.
Breathing was already difficult, and a chill spread through his body as if his blood was freezing. He wanted to end it. He wanted to escape this pain. In the desperate abyss where he wanted to peel off his own skin, he was tasting the pain of the survivors he had killed.
“Shall we start over? 10, 9...”
The countdown inevitably started. The murderer, unable to use his legs anymore, used the strength of his arms to lift his torso and ran across the cornfield as if jumping on his legs. Due to the lowered vision, he had no certainty about the direction of the exit.
But this was it. This was the final moment when he still had both arms.
“Ah!!”
Suddenly, the towering corn forest disappeared, and an awkward empty space appeared. A metal door leading underground.
It was the moment he thought he had survived, smiling in relief.
“Time's up.”
Han Mir, sitting in front of the metal door, smiled brightly and waved at him.
“Why? Did you think you could survive if you really escaped?”
“Ah, aaahaa! Aaaahaaa!!!”
Thick tears like chicken eggs flowed from the murderer's eyes. The light of hope that he could reach by just stretching his hand was fading in despair, driving him to the brink of madness. He bit his cheek in agony and then started slamming his head on the floor repeatedly.
“Ah! Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah!”
Even though he couldn't speak, Han Mir could understand his desperate screaming actions.
He was pleading for him to be saved.
Han Mir approached with a gentle smile and lifted his chin with his index finger.
“How is it? Now you know how terrifying and cruel the acts you committed were, don't you?”
“Ah! Aaaaaah!!”
He nodded vigorously. Han Mir smiled brightly in satisfaction and stood up.
“Hmm, good. You understood, that's fortunate.”
“Ah!!”
The murderer, thinking he had shown mercy, shed tears of emotion. There was a thick stain flowing from his crotch, suppressed by fear.
At that moment, the pain felt from his shoulder.
Han Mir was gripping one of his arms.
“Then you have to bear the rest of the responsibility?”
*Crack!*
The murderer's arm reflected in the moonlight shadow was lifted high, then slowly the flesh was torn, the bone exposed, and finally completely ripped off.