The Unblooming Daffodils
Tom was a rather easygoing man.
Unusually for someone like him, he was a doctor, and rare talent always commands respect. Though his status as a commoner kept him from wielding any real power, he lived comfortably in a house on a good plot of land.
Susan, who loved tending to plants, had a modest garden. Their two-story home was filled with warmth and harmony.
Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they cried.
They bickered often, but it was all so beautiful.
That was the kind of family they were.
I wanted to be part of that picture-perfect trio… more than anything.
Even if it was nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream.
I was endlessly grateful to them for offering me that chance.
The wide-open gate.
Carefully stepping past the shattered remains, I entered to find the garden trampled beyond recognition.
The daffodils Susan had let me choose the day I arrived. She had cleared a spot in the yard and planted them, saying it was to celebrate my coming to live with them.
When I had looked uncomfortable, she told me that if I ever had to leave, I should at least wait until the flowers bloomed.
When the System Window informed me that I only had one week left to complete my task, I felt a quiet regret that the blooming season was still so far away.
Now those unbloomed flowers lay cruelly crushed beneath the muddy boot prints of unwelcome guests.
Those same boot prints continued straight through the smashed front door.
“Susan’s going to have a hard time cleaning this up.”
What the hell was I even worrying about right now?
I kicked aside the debris of the broken door and stepped inside.
A chill ran through me.
The warmth that used to melt my heart on cold winter days when I opened the door was gone.
The fireplace, left untended, had long since died and could no longer heat the house.
I grabbed a poker, hoping there might still be some embers left, but stirring through the ashes yielded nothing.
My eyes were dry and scratchy from the winter air, making it hard to focus. Maybe that was why.
Thud—
I gave up on finding any embers.
I tossed the poker aside and moved deeper into the house. Deeper.
Following the insolent footprints.
I righted the broken and scattered furniture one by one.
Tom had a favorite spot he always returned to.
A small table right beside the stairs.
He would sit there sipping tea, listening to the sounds coming from the second floor.
“You kids, stop fighting!”
Then he would occasionally come up to join us in my room on the second floor. That was our daily routine.
It was the same place where, just a few days ago, he had asked me to become part of their family.
Today, he was there again.
Only this time, not at the table, but on the floor.
Sprawled out, bleeding.
Ah… that scent of blood.
The smell of blood was all too familiar to me.
That metallic odor could sometimes be strangely sweet.
Whenever I overheard people talking about how quickly food loses its freshness, I always felt the urge to chime in about how quickly blood loses its freshness too.
And I would bet anything that this blood was at least a full day old.
The dark, dried blood that coated his entire body had frozen him in that final moment like plaster.
Three stab wounds in each arm, two in the back, one in the chest.
And finally, one in the throat.
That was how the blades had taken him.
Tom’s eyes, still bloodshot, continued to glare at the staircase even in death.
Toward the second floor… with a look of anguish, fury, and utter helplessness.
In this cold place, with his thick beard stained completely red, he clung stubbornly to the floor.
What… what could have driven him to such desperation?
Following that desperate gaze, the staircase looked like the maw of an abyss.
I knelt down.
In my heart, I spoke the words I had never been able to say.
I wanted to stay with you. Even if all of this was an illusion. Even if it was some twisted sorcery of an Anomaly. I wanted to share in that modest peace we had built as a family.
I wanted to see those playful eyes, not the sorrowful ones filled with such rage.
I should have told you before I left.
Leave the rest to me now. Rest easy.
I gently closed his eyes.
Thud. Thud.
I climbed the stairs.
The world spun before my eyes.
Blood surged through my veins, setting my body on fire.
I clenched my fists tightly, trying to contain the rage that had nowhere left to go.
Following the trail of those crimson, criminal footprints, I reached the second floor.
At the end of those insolent steps, Susan sat slumped against the wall, her head resting against it.
“Oh, Han. You shouldn’t stay up so late, you know?”
She always greeted us with a gentle smile, her appearance always neat and tidy.
She would brush her hair back neatly and welcome us home after we had been playing.
Yes. That’s right.
Not like this—hair disheveled, covering her face.
Step.
I took another step forward and stood before her.
Her face, drained of all life like a black-and-white photograph, stared back at me.
Rustle.
When I brushed aside her hair, I saw her face, horribly swollen and bruised.
The long trail of dried blood running from her tightly pressed red lips—was that the wish she could never speak?
Just like her, blood began to seep from the corner of my own mouth.
I wiped it away with my sleeve, then carefully brushed out her tangled hair.
I drew back the curtains and laid her down in the bright sunlight.
The last mark left on her face beneath the light was one of fear.
What had she been so afraid of?
Death? Or the intruders?
Or perhaps… the fate of the daughter she would leave behind.
Rebecca.
I still hadn’t found her body.
She wasn’t anywhere on the second floor.
“Haa… haa…”
My breathing grew ragged with tension.
My throat was parched.
Tom, who had glared with hatred at those heading up to the second floor.
And… the small drawer Susan had collapsed in front of, as if trying to hide it.
Inside that drawer was an ordinary little stick.
But I… I knew exactly what it was for.
My head, which had been spinning wildly from the heat of rage, suddenly went ice cold.
My body staggered from the backlash.
My hands trembled violently as I dragged a chair to the middle of the second floor.
Please.
I stepped onto the chair meant to make up for my short height.
Crash!
The uncontrollable shaking of my body knocked the chair over.
Without even feeling the pain, I shot back up and planted my feet firmly on the chair once more.
I stretched the stick in my hand as far as it would go.
Toward the ceiling.
Please, at least spare her…!
Tap—click—tap—
Damn this height. Damn these hands.
My short stature meant the stick couldn’t quite reach the ceiling, and my disobedient hands wouldn’t stop shaking violently.
Goddess.
I was arrogant.
I won’t ask for anything else. Just this one wish.
With all my heart. With all my soul.
Praying for a miracle.
I forced the words out from a throat choked with suffocating fear.
“Rebecca!”
After the loud cry, a terrifying silence swallowed the surroundings.
The silence was unbearable, so I called out again.
Clearly.
My voice was hoarse, but I shouted once more.
“Rebecca! Are you there?”
When no answer came and the bitter silence returned, I gritted my teeth and reached up with the stick again.
“…Han?”
A faint, thread-like reply reached me.
A hoarse voice that sounded like it could fade away at any moment.
A voice holding back tears.
Ah… thank you.
Eternal Flame, thank you.
I am grateful for your mercy.
I held back the tears that had come so often lately and called out to the child hiding in the attic.
“Yes! It’s me, Han. I’m coming right up, so don’t cry. Just wait for me.”
While I went to get another chair to reach the attic with my small stature, and while I gathered a little food for Rebecca to eat…
Telling a child who was already holding back her tears not to cry had the opposite effect.
Rebecca began to cry so hard it was as if she had been holding it in the entire time.
When I finally flicked the latch and opened the attic door, a musty smell of dust greeted me.
The attic was so small that only a child Rebecca’s size could fit inside.
Inside that dusty storage space they usually used as a storeroom, Rebecca was sobbing.
“Ugh… aaah… huuuaaaah… Daddy… Mommy…”
I quickly set up the ladder I had prepared and squeezed my body into the attic.
Rebecca… was completely broken.
The child who had never truly known sorrow despite having cried many times before now wept with real grief.
Her once lively face, even when scrunched up, had lost all its vitality.
And her glossy dark purple hair had turned completely white.
She must have been here from the very beginning until the end.
She must have heard everything from this spot.
Remembering only the words to stay quiet and hidden until she was called, she had remained here all day long.
The screams she couldn’t let out must have become poison, eating away at her.
The terror she had swallowed along with her tears must have brought snow to her head.
I stayed by Rebecca’s side as she vomited endless sobs, sobs far too heavy for her age.
“Haa… aaah… huuaaaaaah…”
For a long time.
Perhaps two hours passed.
Rebecca cried as if expelling every drop of poison inside her.
Once her throat grew too hoarse from it, she could cry no more.
I offered her the bread I had brought, thinking she should eat something, but she only took one bite while still sobbing, then coughed and spat it out.
When I tried to go downstairs to make her some warm soup, she grabbed my hand tightly.
Squeeze—
“Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.”
Her voice, now completely hoarse and weak, clung to me desperately.
“I’m just going to get you something to eat.”
“I don’t want to be alone here anymore… I can’t… I can’t stay here.”
Down there… was not something Rebecca should see…
I didn’t have the heart to show her the blood and the bodies.
“I’ll be right back. Is that still not okay?”
“No. If you’re going… then take me with you.”
This wasn’t the request of a spoiled child.
It was the desperate plea of a child who had trembled alone all day, spoken in a voice worn raw.
“Then when we go down, you have to hold my hand the whole time and only open your eyes when I tell you to.”
“O… okay.”
And so, from within that dusty prison, Rebecca escaped after a full day.
All of it was only possible because I was a child with the strength of a baby warrior Uturi.
Carrying Rebecca down the ladder on my back.
Having her sit with her eyes closed while I moved the two bodies to a place where she wouldn’t see them.
Even cooking a delicious soup to fill her empty stomach.
I had been confident in my cooking, so I was a little surprised when Rebecca, who had been quietly eating the soup, set her spoon down and began to cry again.
I didn’t know there would be even more shocking things to come.
Rebecca wiped her runny nose and tears on her sleeve.
Uh… that’s not very hygienic…
“Han, I have something I want to ask.”
Her voice was strangely calm.
“Go ahead.”
“Mom and Dad… they’re really dead, right?”
“Yes… they are. They went to heaven first and are waiting for you there, Rebecca.”
“Don’t say that. I heard everything. Bad men killed them.”
Did she already know the full story of what happened?
I hadn’t intended to interrogate a crying child and dig up her memories, but I also didn’t feel like stopping her small lips from moving as they tried to give me the answer themselves.
“Then… Han… huuaang… was it really because of you that Mom and Dad died? Huuuh…”
The tears that had barely stopped began to flow again.
A coldness I had never felt before wrapped around my body.