Possessed as Yeonjung (2)
The happy conclusion I'd dreamed up? I tore it up — well, honestly, I ripped it to shreds and hurled it straight into the garbage. The moment the premise that the killer's personality was gone proved false, that fantasy circuit of coasting through life on easy mode all the way to a happy ending was clearly the most useless thing in the world.
Replaying last night's events made me feel like throwing up all over again, but regardless — last night, at the murder scene….
"Urp, huuurgh…."
No.
Dammit, I can't even think about it.
So, to restate: last night, mercifully, slipping away from the murder scene was the easy part. It was a back alley with hardly any foot traffic, and the late hour meant there wasn't a soul around, which helped. Then there was the mace, caked in gobs of human flesh— ugh, I really am going to puke.
The mace, caked in gobs of human flesh, had reverted to the shape of a rosario necklace the instant I pressed the end of its handle. And the clothes I'd worn beneath my blood-spattered robe were the proper vestments of a devout priest, no less.
What's more, the bloodied robe must have been treated with some kind of magic, because after a little time passed, the stains — and even that coppery stench of blood — vanished completely.
The murder weapon practically hid itself, and not a single bloodstain stayed on my clothes. I could truly feel the sincerity Niger had poured into his killings. This bastard didn't just like murder. He loved it, genuinely, wholeheartedly.
Having somehow escaped the scene of the crime, I wandered the streets for a long, long while before finally making it home….
Yes, yes, go ahead — mock the original author who can't even find his own house.
But come on. Even if I wrote the novel, I wouldn't have bothered jotting down where the protagonist's house was, would I? And when you black out in some random alley and wake up with no idea how you got there, exactly how are you supposed to navigate home?
The silver lining was that I happened to be a priest and a professor at the Academy.
Since I was still wandering the streets come morning, helping hands found their way to me all on their own, and between my sob story — too ill to walk home, tragic — and my Academy professor's credentials, I got safely delivered to my door.
A priest claiming he's too sick to make it home is an absurd thing to say, even to my own ears, but it beat never finding my house at all.
And so I only made it inside when morning came, collapsed on the spot, and slept in until — well, it's 5 PM right now.
The true blessing, though, was that apparently the killer doesn't commit murder in broad daylight even when I'm asleep. I was discovered fully intact, breathing peacefully in my own bed. I'd been so terrified that merely dozing off might unleash a killing spree that I trembled right up until the moment consciousness left me.
Well… it's equally possible that having already offed a few people, he simply slept the satisfied sleep of a man well fed. Either way, he won't do it in broad daylight. Honestly, killer or lunatic, pulling that shit in the middle of the day is just poor form. I never wrote you that way, you know.
And so, for all these reasons, the emergency countermeasures committee reconvened.
Let me summarize, then: sadly, it appears two personalities coexist within one body. One is the personality of Yeonjung the author. The other is the personality of a serial killer. If you ask which is the worse of the two, the answer is obviously the author.
Look, a serial killer is a fictional character, so we can let that slide — but Yeonjung the author is just plain trash. The problem being that the trash is me, but details.
Anyway. Jokes aside.
Second finding: I can't be certain, but it seemed that when I fall asleep — or lose consciousness under similar conditions — the killer's personality wakes up. Whether the swap is automatic or conditional, I don't know yet. And no wonder: he murdered someone last night, but did nothing of the sort today in broad daylight.
Finally: even if a murder does happen, I probably don't need to worry about my identity being exposed. Last night, sure, the sheer shock of witnessing a murder scene firsthand hit hard — but what weighed on me even more was the fear that the killer in me might get caught.
If I got caught, what would I do? Would I have to silence witnesses in the name of destroying evidence? Would the killer's personality surface again? Questions like those had filled my head to the brim.
But with a mace this easy to conceal, and a magically treated robe on top, it seems there was really nothing to worry about. Besides, Niger — serial murder specialist that he is — would surely pick his times and places with the care of a man who never gets seen.
The existence of such an expert was the biggest problem of all, but having suddenly possessed Niger's body, what choice did I have?
So, faced with these problems, I had no option but to formulate a strategy, and my first move was simple: at the very least, try to talk to him.
It would be lovely if he answered the words I muttered inside my own head, but since that attempt went nowhere, I decided to leave notes instead. If a note were sitting on the desk, I figured, Niger's personality might at least read it when he woke.
It made sense. If he were truly a raving madman, conversation would've been impossible. But Niger, madman though he was, happened to hold a respectable social position — the kind of lunatic who played professor by day with a perfectly sane face.
In other words, one way or another: whether he was right in the head I couldn't say, but dialogue would work. If he woke while I slept, he'd read whatever I left behind, so I'd just have to swallow my pride and beg for a reply.
And so I approached the desk — where it seemed Niger had beaten me to the exact same idea.
Who are you. Why have you taken possession of my body.
There on the desk lay a note bearing those short, stark lines.
If we're being precise about it, I was an uninvited guest. A squatter who had barged into someone else's home without permission — a trespasser, a criminal, plain and simple.
And it made sense. Had I seized an empty house whose owner had vanished, no one could fault me. But Niger's personality was alive and well, thank you very much.
So of course he'd left behind a note like this:
Who are you. Why have you taken possession of my body.
Polite, for a serial killer — but those short sentences brimmed with wariness. And with just as much raw emotion beneath them. The feelings and the clipped, guarded voice of a man who'd had his own body stolen out from under him in a single night.
I'd meant to make my request with the courtesy befitting a first meeting, but seeing him so thoroughly on guard told me my plan had gone slightly off the rails.
I am sorry. I did not take your body because I wanted to. I entered it for reasons beyond my understanding, just as you cannot understand. But I have no intention of doing anything that would bring you harm.
Still, humbling myself and bowing my head first was the right call. Picking a fight with a serial killer for no reason and earning his hostility would do me absolutely no good. Besides, I intended to ask him to stop killing people.
Ah — can't wait for that one.
I just woke up, but back to sleep I go.
I set the scrawled note on the desk, lay back down on the bed, and closed my eyes.
And thus began my new daily routine: fall asleep, wake up, repeat. The lag — never receiving a reply right away — was maddeningly inconvenient, but I had one burning conviction, that I had to stop the murders about to happen, so I couldn't afford to half-ass it.
Then again… if we're splitting hairs, he was a courteous murderer.
A courteous murderer is a hilarious concept, but whether he'd simply accepted his uninvited houseguest or resigned himself to the situation, he answered my notes every single time, each reply practically dripping with sighs.
Courteous or not, though, Niger's answers never wavered. Which is to say: he refused my requests with impeccable consistency.
Why should I do as you say.
A typical reply looked about like that.
It is my body. And it is my business. Neither is any concern of yours.
When he felt like writing a little more, it read something like that.
In all my years living this way, my safety has never once been at risk, so there is no need for your interference. Kindly stay out of my affairs.
Or that.
So, to conclude: the conversation was very much ongoing, but progress was exactly zero. Not a drop of my dewy-eyed persuasion moved him. He said he could understand how I'd come to inhabit his body — and then flatly dismissed any notion of stopping his murders.
For now, whether because he was busy exchanging notes with me or simply because no skull had struck his fancy, no killings were taking place. But the day would surely come when I opened my eyes at a fresh murder scene, mace dripping with flesh in hand, and everything would run red from top to bottom again.
Which meant I needed a way to actually persuade him. A grown man's mawkish appeals didn't work in the slightest. And truthfully, Niger — final boss and serial killer both — had no weaknesses to exploit. He'd never shown a shred of attachment to anyone in the story… ah. Wait. There was one person.
Beati.
A young girl living in the Elohim Order's orphanage. She was the one who always approached Niger first, beaming up at him, and as I recalled, Niger never once brushed her away.
In the entire story, she was the only person in front of whom Niger ever smiled a smile that wasn't a lie.
Hmm… so do I have to sell out Beati's name, then?
It felt wrong, writing down the name of a girl who didn't even know me, all to manipulate a murderer, and I hesitated. But my hesitation got neatly folded up and tossed in the trash. I could apologize to her later with a gift; right now, stopping the serial killer came first.
Niger — if you go around killing people recklessly, I will tell Beati everything. The very morning after you take a life, I will run straight to the Order's orphanage. I mean it. I truly will.
I had no actual intention of telling the girl a thing about Niger's murders. But I figured that if he imagined her grieving, even his heart might waver a little.
So please — for the sake of that girl you hold so dear, so that she never has to cry… just listen to me.