As True as a Dream Chapter 124

The kid who played with Eun-ho in the shanty town.

 

“Please…! Please… Hmph! Hmph!”

 

Hae-Joo looked at the desperately mumbling woman with her eyebrows knitting together.

In her confusion, she was being led by this woman across the hardwood floor in a direction she didn’t recognize.

 

Behind them, light footsteps and giggling laughter followed, as if to tease them.

Hae-Joo didn’t even know how she was running anymore.

Her breath was in her throat, her lungs felt like they were going to burst, and her heart was aching.

 

The woman, sobbing and muttering as if chanting, suddenly stood tall.

Nearly toppling over from her sudden standing, Hae-Joo managed to steady herself and stood, gasping for air.

The cawing of a crow echoed in the sky, accompanied by the flapping of its wings.

 

“I can’t… I can’t run anymore…!”

 

“This way…!”

 

‘I don’t know how she could be so strong when she’s so scrawny and small.’

 

Hae-Joo followed her lead, past the straw-woven wall between the houses and into a narrow forest path.

The woman pushed forward as if she knew the area well, and they soon entered another neighborhood of houses.

Narrow, long alleys wove together like an anthill.

The laughter and footsteps of the child who had been following them for some time were inaudible.

 

“Excuse me…! We need to talk!”

 

The woman walked silently ahead of her, never once turning around, and she stood there, not wanting to do it.

Finally, the woman turned around, her face sweaty and exhausted.

Her dilated pupils darted around the darkness, searching for something unsettling.

 

“Hey, ma’am!”

 

“…Do you remember me?”

 

The woman’s voice sounded brittle as she opened her mouth.

 

“I remember, you’re the one on the train to Gyeongseong two months ago, right?”

 

The woman’s eyes widened somewhat sadly, then she nodded and tugged on her wrist again.

 

“Ma’am…!”

 

Hae-Joo called out, wanting to run around again, but the woman shook her head.

 

“We need to hide. We need to hide.”

 

The woman walked for a few more minutes, dragging Hae-Joo around, until she saw two smashed rear cars left behind and crouched down between them.

She made Hae-Joo crouch and hide as well.

Hae-Joo’s lips twitched at the woman’s unintelligible behavior, but she figured there must be a reason for her desperation and urgency, so she followed her lead and sat down.

 

“Ma’am, what about the child?”

 

Hae-Joo asked the woman in front of her after a few moments of silence had calmed her ragged breathing.

 

“Did you leave him somewhere else or hide him?”

 

The woman looked at her as if mesmerized by the unexpected question, but then her brow furrowed.

 

“…You don’t recognize it?”

 

“What?”

 

“That kid who was running after us earlier… you see, that’s him. That’s the kid you protected on the train that day.”

 

Her eyes narrowed as she didn’t understand what she was saying.

 

“What does that mean…?”

 

“That’s my child, the one you advised me to save and never leave alone!”

 

Hae-Joo’s mind flashed back to the face of the child who had been running after them with a joyful expression on his face, as if he were playing a trick on them.

She hadn’t seen him up close, but in retrospect, she realized that he looked a lot like the child she’d been carrying the whole time on the train.

 

“But he looked like he was about seven years old…?”

 

“He’s my child, but he’s not my child anymore! That thing is a monster…! The governor is going to kill all the Koreans in Gyeongseong…!”

 

Hae-Joo sucked in a breath.

The woman’s words rushed out of her, but she doubted her own ears, for they were nothing to be trifled with.

As if reading the doubt on Hae-Joo’s face, the woman suddenly gripped her arm tightly.

 

“Miss, listen to me!”

 

The woman’s voice was strong and pleading, in contrast to her anxious and nervous face.

 

“This envelope… please give this envelope to the person who cleans up at the Bogyeong Ilbo. It’s an old man with a big wart under his right chin and a hunched back!”

 

“…Yes?”

 

Hae-Joo was puzzled as she took the yellowed and faded envelope the woman thrust at her.

 

“What is this… Ma’am, if you’re going to ask for something, at least explain…!”

 

“I told you, that’s not my boy, that snake ate my son, it’s just a snake in his skin…!”

 

“Are you sure that’s the boy you saw earlier, the one you left with me that day?”

 

Hae-Joo asked again, not overhearing the woman’s words. The woman nodded.

 

“That day, after you left, a black snake appeared from the waste well, and it went into my child’s mouth, and suddenly he grew up, and he was no longer my child!”

 

The woman’s eyes flushed as she remembered the day’s events.

 

“…A snake? A snake….”

 

The story of the snake in the child’s mouth and the sudden growth of a three or four-year-old into a seven-year-old were both far-fetched.

Nevertheless, Hae-Joo took the woman’s story seriously and naturally.

 

“…The governor said hello to the monster. That black snake called Man Insa killed my child, it’s a monster…!”

 

Before Hae-Joo could ask what the snake was, the woman lowered her voice to a whisper. And Hae-Joo was dumbfounded.The name was familiar.

‘Wasn’t the name of the black snake in the Guishan Dao called Man Insa…?’

 

Her heart began to pound in her chest as she remembered a story she had once heard from Yi Ho.

 

It was then.

Light footsteps came from somewhere.

The woman’s mouth clamped shut in horror.

 

“…Hehe, I’m a monster? Mom, did you really think so? You’re so sad.”

 

The child’s voice came from somewhere in the alley.

It sounded like a broken sob, and Hae-Joo couldn’t help but feel goosebumps all over her body.

 

“…Miss, run away, that monster will kill you too, don’t look back…!”

 

While Hae-Joo was scrambling around, the woman, who had quickly regained her senses, grabbed her arm and shook her, forcing her to look at her.

 

“I said, you didn’t forget, did you? Run away…! And be sure to….”

 

The woman’s bloodshot, wet eyes glanced at the envelope in Hae-Joo’s hand.

Then she pushed herself up from where she was crouched behind the car and tried to get up.

Hae-Joo quickly grabbed the woman’s arm and squinted at her.

The child laughed almost tearfully, and then she cataloged the envelopes.

 

“You lasted… longer than I thought. I have to go… so your shenanigans are over.”

 

“What’s that….”

 

“Run away… make sure you get far away while I distract that monster…!”

 

Hearing the desperation in the woman’s voice, Hae-Joo tugged on her arm again.

 

“If it’s something you’re dying to do, you’re in danger if I run away like this, come with me!”

 

Even if she didn’t know her well, she couldn’t pretend not to know someone who was about to jump to her death.

But once again, the woman shook her head, this time with a firm yet wistful expression.

 

“No, I won’t. Just don’t forget what I asked you to do, please…!”

 

The woman was too scared to finish her sentence, so she pushed Hae-Joo lightly and stood up.

She turned and walked back up the alley they had come from and disappeared into the darkness.

 

Alone, Hae-Joo stared after her in confusion and bit her lower lip tightly.

She took the envelope the woman had given her and stuffed it inside her clothes.

She then quietly slipped out from behind the car and headed in the opposite direction of the woman’s path.

But she didn’t get more than a few steps before she looked back.

 

There were many houses around, but none of them were open, perhaps because they were uninhabited, or perhaps because they didn’t think it was a good idea to get involved in what was happening in the middle of the night.

Or maybe they were cowed by the recent spate of indiscriminate murders in Gyeongseong.

 

I remembered the woman who turned around as if she was ready to die.

And the black snake that came for her… the one with the skin of a child.

It grabbed her by the ankle.

 

In her mind, she also remembered that people from all over Sogok Village had been killed by the black snake Man Insa in the Guishan Dao.

Hae-Joo hesitated.

 

“Mom, is this it? It was still fun, but you’re more tricky than I thought. You’ve been running away from me for four days. Giggle!”

 

Hearing the voice not too far away, Hae-Joo hastily crouched down behind the rear of the car where she’d been hiding a moment ago and poked her head out.

 

The woman rolled out of the alleyway and stumbled, followed by an innocent-faced child.

 

“Is that it?”

 

The woman gasped, as if she had no more strength to get up.