The Downpour

"I'll call the moment I'm finished. If it looks like I'll be late, I'll send someone."

'Mother' rose from her seat.

Until she left the room, Iseor kept her eyes fixed on her plate.

The rain hammered down — a thick, percussive drumming that only grew heavier. Iseor's shoulders trembled, little by little, because that sound reached her as if something were striking a surface out there. Something dense. Something viscous, like mucus.

The cubed steak and spaghetti on her plate were going cold. She had ordered them the instant her startled stomach settled — food she had been eating with real pleasure barely ten minutes ago. Now the mere thought of it touching her lips made her want to be sick. The red of the sauce. The grain of the meat. Both of them filled her with revulsion. A phantom stench of blood drifted just beneath her nose.

"Shall I clear these for you?"

"Could I get these boxed to go?"

The waiter had approached with polite deference, and Iseor answered on instinct. A brief silence settled around the table.

"...Ah. No. Never mind."

Only after the words left her mouth did she realize what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she had said, and she shook her head in a hurry. Asking for a takeout box in a restaurant this expensive. That was hardly an ordinary request. She wondered if he would take her for a difficult customer.

But he only smiled.

"Of course. That's perfectly fine."

His voice was warm, almost gentle.

"Your mother made the request in advance, actually. She said her daughter loves the food here but has a small appetite, so there would almost certainly be leftovers. We'll pack everything up for you. Thank you so much for enjoying our cooking."

"Ah... yes."

Before leaving, 'Mother' had apparently left the waiter with careful instructions.

She must have known I'd lose my appetite.

That was what the girl thought. The monster's judgment was sharp — its actions quicker still. But the true nature of that kindness, and the reason behind it, lay a million miles from the maternal love the waiter imagined.

She rose and walked to the window.

The view outside was almost gone. The bright lamplight pouring from behind her and the darkness lying thick beyond the rain sealed off her sight. Only the faint outline of the city projected through the parts of the glass her small body left unshadowed.

The city submerged in darkness was strangely, unnaturally quiet. But she knew. Somewhere out there, someone was screaming their last. And yet the girl was safe. Because the predator that crawled through this city's darkness was, at the same time, her protector.

What am I doing...?

Just a few hours ago, she had walked through a department store with 'Mother,' shopping. They had picked out clothes, shoes, a wallet. They had sat down to a meal. Like an ordinary mother and daughter.

But that must have been an illusion. Even then, the monster would have been scouting for prey. Wearing the mask of a beautiful woman, licking its lips at the nape of someone's neck.

From the deepest part of her chest, a black shadow unfurled.

Betrayal.

The realization arrived without warning. When, exactly — from what moment — had she begun to feel so close to that monster?

Iseor gripped her smartphone until her knuckles went white.

Thunder crashed against the window. A flash of light swept across her vision, and the girl went rigid. For an instant, a red glow had seemed to overlay her own pupils in the glass. She realized a moment later that it was only the light of the tower rising high above the mountain at Seoul's heart. Even so, that single streak of light burned itself deep into her retina. Like a brand.

Outside, the torrential rain poured down without rest. As if trying to drown out someone's scream — falling harder, and harder still.

Tap. Tap.

The rounded toe of a patent-leather shoe knocked against a clean wall. A meaningless gesture, meant only to soothe a restless wait.

"Iseor."

A low, cool voice slid into her ear. The girl spun around as if struck.

"Have you been waiting long?"

Iseor shook her head. Her dark eyes traveled slowly over 'Mother,' taking her in. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looked no different from when she had left. No dampness on the dress. No clods of mud on the shoes. Not a single trace. As if nothing at all had happened.

...That smell.

But her newly sharpened sense of smell succeeded in catching the faint blood-scent drifting off the woman. The same odor Iseor herself had been forced to breathe in, two weeks ago, in the moments before she fainted — only now it was thicker, more naked, more blatant than before.

There was no mistaking it. She had just eaten raw meat.

And this predator would know that she had noticed.

"Come along."

Neither of them spoke of it.

The taxi hummed through the wet streets. In the rearview mirror, a third party's glances flicked restlessly back and forth between the 'mother and daughter' in the back seat.

Well, I'll be. Did they have a fight or something?

The middle-aged driver kept stealing looks at the two of them. The uncomfortable silence held all the way to the shabby one-room building. The girl could not find her footing on any words worth saying, and the monster felt not the slightest need to soothe a child's mood.

"Thank you for the ride."

"...Listen, ma'am, once you get inside, make up with your daughter, yeah? The kid looks completely crushed."

'Mother' pressed the bills into the nosy driver's hand without a word and turned away.

The thick heels of her shoes struck the cement stairs, one step at a time. Iseor had gone up ahead and was waiting for her, one hand on the doorknob, looking back.

The lock clicked shut.

"Is there something you wish to ask."

The moment the door locked, 'Mother's' voice sank into something dry. Iseor bit down hard on her lower lip and shook her head again.

"Very well. Go to bed."

"...I'll study a little, then sleep."

"That's not a bad idea either."

It was only nine in the evening. Far too early to turn in — and final exams began on Monday. Iseor spread her notebook across one cramped corner of the table. 'Mother' sat down opposite her and powered on a laptop.

The scratch of a pen. The tap of keys. A quiet noise filled the room — a faint white hush that could not begin to compare with the mindless roar of the department-store crowds. Listening to that regular sound, Iseor felt her heart sink without end. She could not concentrate on the problems at all. Her gaze drifted sideways of its own accord.

Whether she noticed that gaze or not, 'Mother' was looking only at the monitor. Her face was mineral. Inhumanly still.

Mom's work...

What the blue screen held was a word processor. The top half of the window was packed tight with an English original; below it, a Korean translation filled itself in at startling speed.

Iseor's birth mother had been a translator. She had even had a publisher under formal contract — though the work paid only a fraction better than a part-time job, just enough to scrape through one day into the next. And most of even that money had been poured into alcohol and gambling, which was why Iseor had had to earn her own tuition and a share of the living expenses herself.

But once 'Mother's' hands had touched that situation, everything changed.

Iseor remembered the week before. A man's praise had poured through the speaker of a battered old phone.

That man was Kim Hyunsoo, her mother's assigned editor. Iseor had not known he was even capable of a voice like that. He had always been so high-strung.

Before, he had been the sort of person who did nothing but snap and browbeat at the slightest excuse.

Which meant there was still one unanswered question left. A question she had never quite managed to push out of her mouth, buried as it was under grotesque truth and fear and that sense of betrayal.

"The money for the clothes you bought me today... was that an advance from the publisher?"

The hands on the keyboard stopped.

Eyes that did not glow red — and yet seemed, somehow, to hold a dark crimson cast — met Iseor's.

"That, and some assets I've been turning over on my own."

The voice was dry. The answer, as always, was kind. Whether that kindness was genuine, or merely the sense of duty of someone performing the role of a mother, Iseor could not tell.

"Since the subject has come up, I'll show you myself."

'Mother' picked up her smartphone. On the two screens of the foldable phone she had activated at the department store that very day, two apps opened at once. One was a bank. The other belonged to a securities firm.

"Wh...?"

In the hands of that alien creature, an unbelievable reality unfolded. The balance field of the banking app showed a figure in the tens of thousands of dollars. The stock account held a similar sum, gleaming beside a profit indicator.

Iseor knew perfectly well what those numbers meant. She had tasted that particular bitterness in her previous life. The money she herself had earned over a year and a half of bouncing between part-time jobs had amounted to a few thousand dollars — and even that had been cut in half, handed over to a mother drowning in debt. Dozens of times that sum, this unidentified monster had succeeded in pulling in over a mere two weeks.

A feeling washed through her that was equal parts astonishment and a bottomless hollowness.

"How...?"

Iseor looked up blankly at her mother's face. 'Mother's' expression was calm. A face so indifferent it said this was nothing at all. And from that expression, Iseor became certain of one thing. This monster did not hold economic value in any high regard. And yet, whenever it wished, it possessed some manner of ability that could rake in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the wealth of the human world at will.

"Now you understand. If I give you something from now on, take it quietly and don't talk back. Don't make a fuss the way you did today. You don't need to look for part-time work anymore, either. Just go to school and do well."

Iseor bit her lip. Something that had been held down all this time surged up in a sudden, violent rush.

"Then you could just control me, couldn't you. That would be so much easier for you. I'm just... deferred prey anyway. Aren't I?"

Her voice shook in fine, broken tremors. A strange light flickered in the depths of the monster's eyes. Iseor, her head bowed, did not catch the change.

"Why do I even need clothes that expensive in the first place? Is there somewhere I have to go, walking hand in hand with you? If you're worried people will get suspicious, just lock me up in the house and go out alone!"

The feelings came pouring out of her.

"When you ate my mother — I felt relieved. Because it meant I wouldn't get hit anymore."

"Every day you pack me a lunch with such care. And every time I eat it, I find myself looking forward to your warmth. It makes my skin crawl."

"You put a leash on Hayan and her friends. Once the body gets comfortable, the heart follows — even knowing those kids might already be dead."

"I disgust myself. This weak thing I am makes me sick. I'm being tamed by you. And I know you're doing it on purpose."

"Hah... hah..."

The reason Iseor's words stopped was that the air had run out of her. Only then, dragging in rough breaths, did the girl realize that 'Mother' — that the monster — had not opened its mouth even once.

Stillness. Silence.

A sudden chill of fear climbed her spine. The awareness that she had shown a predator a rash flicker of defiance.

Is this it. Is it going to eat me now.

Her grip tightened on the edge of the table. Death. Of course she was afraid. Being torn apart alive by a horror whose nature she could not even name was a fear too large to hold in the mind. But living forever with her life held hostage was more frightening still. Frightening enough that she would have chosen death instead.

And the only reason she was enduring this living hell at all was the terror that the people who had been kind to her might be the next ones eaten.

Kim Yunseong. Lee Suyeon. Ms. Song Jieun.

Iseor bit her lower lip until she tasted blood. She stood up. She would have to kneel. She would have to beg. Even if it meant begging — she had to plead for their safety...

A touch.

"Don't bite. Your lip is all torn up."

What came back was the same cool voice as always, and that same incomprehensible kindness. Her chin was caught, and her face was lifted against her will. In 'Mother's' other hand was a tube of ointment. The tip of a cotton swab touched her lip, and a sharp sting bloomed there.

"Why..."

Why go this far. Why be this kind. The question she could not finish filled her chest to the brim.

The monster whispered.

No emotion rose in her eyes. None ever did. But in that gaze, Iseor found one realization.

This monster was looking at the girl straight on. Unlike Mom, who at some point had begun to search only for Iseor's father whenever she looked at the boy. This predator had claimed a mother-and-daughter bond for itself. The reason was still beyond guessing. Some bizarre and terrible purpose Iseor could not begin to imagine might well be coiled inside it. But one thing was certain.

She had no intention of setting down a mother's duties. And those duties would include indulging a child's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tantrums — and correcting a child's mistakes.

If that was so, then what was the right answer for someone standing on a wire, the way she was now?

"...I was wrong."

To admit it, simply and without a fight. The wrong of nearly shattering the one protective bond she had — drunk on her own feelings, even though there were people she had to keep safe.

And then.

A soft rustle.

"Good."

Mother stroked her hair. Slowly. For the first time.

Iseor's room.

The latch clicked. Iseor had run inside and shut the door behind her, and she buried herself in the blankets just like that, both hands wrapped around her own head.

Why did I.

What she kept remembering was the monster's cold touch. And yet that sensation had been unspeakably soft.

I liked it. ...Even though I hate it.

Iseor started to bite her lip, then stopped. The taste of the ointment. And the memory of the mother who had put it there.

...I have to check.

Her eyes wavered. And inside that wavering, a hard resolve shone with them.

She could not go on knowing nothing. Not anymore.