MBOMEN 12

Chapter 12. The Conditions of Free Lodging (6)
2023.12.12.

Laila did not know when she had fallen asleep.

But when she opened her eyes, everything around her was pitch black. It was so dark and so quiet. She could hear nothing, as if she had fallen into a pit where no air existed.

No, not completely nothing. Laila thought. At the same time, she could hear a low, flowing breathing. It was Eustar’s breath.

His lips, lying on his side, were almost touching Laila’s ear. His warm breath moved rhythmically, brushing against her ear and cheek at once. Wherever Eustar’s breath touched, fine hairs stood up and a faint tremor was felt.

For a moment, Laila had a strange thought. If she reached out, maybe she could touch his breath…

And maybe she could know what it was made of, its color, its shape. It seemed soft, like the strands of his hair fluttering in the wind.

—Strangle the neck.

Laila’s fingertips suddenly retracted. At the same time, her body, lying straight, suddenly twisted away from Eustar’s back. But she saw nothing. Only the faint outline of a closed door beyond the deep darkness.

She thought maybe that door would never open. Why did she feel that way? Even though it didn’t make sense.

Breathing heavily, Laila turned back and lay properly again. She must have heard wrong. Trying to calm herself, Laila closed her eyes. Closed them… and then opened them again.

At that moment, two stiff, skeletal hands grabbed Laila’s neck fiercely like dry twigs.

—Stran-gle the neeeck—like this!—

Laila’s eyes widened at the force of the strong grip clutching her neck. Right in front of her was a skull-like face.

Its white eyes without pupils were so large they almost pressed down on the cheekbones, and a tongue dangled crookedly from between its grotesquely twisted lips.

“Guh…! Eu, Eus-ta—…”

Laila’s hands flailed wildly across the bed. She struck Eustar’s body with all her strength, but he did not wake. A chilling thought gripped her suddenly. Had this thing killed Eustar first?

—Aaaah—!!

The ghost grabbing her neck opened its mouth wide, and Laila heard a crackling sound like something tearing between its jaws.

Looks like a well is stuck to the ceiling, Laila thought. If you fell into that well, you’d never get out alive. At least not while living.

Crack. There was a sound. The back of the ghost’s head caved in, and its left face twisted grotesquely. The large, slippery, white, and glossy eyes — which looked more like slimy eggs than human eyes — slid down further and popped out.

No, if this continues…

Laila’s vision flickered. Her breath shortened, her heart beat rapidly. She thought she might die. If she stayed like this, she would surely die.

That can’t happen, Laila thought.

Was that a voice inside her head? Or had she really heard it? Was it Eustar’s voice? She didn’t know. There was no time to think. First, she had to get these hands off. If she couldn’t…

Laila gathered all her strength and grabbed the ghost’s neck. Now she noticed the ghost’s torso was stuck to the opposite wall, and only the neck writhed long and snake-like.

Gripping the ghost’s rattling, squishy neck, Laila tried to block its gaping mouth — like the opening of a well — so it couldn’t swallow her. But her hand slipped on the smooth, moist lips and slid straight into the black mouth.

—Screeeam—!

It was a horrible sensation. A long tongue wrapped around Laila’s wrist like a living rope, scratching painfully like a wedge. Then her vision went pitch black and suddenly flashed open, revealing a gray-shimmering scene inside an inn room.

A woman was standing there. In front of a mirror, her face reflected deep sorrow.

The strange noise outside made her uneasy. She fiddled with a small diamond necklace around her neck, trying to calm herself. It’s okay, everything… everything will be okay.

She ran away. With a man…

Laila thought. No, it was more accurate to say she had found out. Laila had approached the ghost’s “core.”

When she realized that, the hands choking her began to lose strength. Laila guessed the ghost was trying to escape to keep her from seeing its core.

“Don’t go!”

Grabbing the skeletal wrist, Laila pulled the ghost closer to her.

—Aaah! Aaah! Don’t look, don’t look!—

Laila bared her teeth like an angry wolf and slowly shook her head.

“No, I need to see.”

A long scream echoed. At the same moment, the crackling gray screen changed with a pop. The man the woman had been waiting for had arrived.

They made love on this very bed… The diamond necklace on the woman’s neck swayed. It was the most precious among the jewelry and money she took when she left home.

It sparkled on her sweat-drenched skin, on her flushed body… Just as her senses reached their peak, the man grabbed her slender neck with both hands with all his might.

No, no…! Guh…!

The feeling of the neck bone snapping was fully transmitted to Laila’s hands. At the same time, she felt a terrible sensation as if her own neck was breaking.

The man pulled the necklace from the limp woman’s body, broke it, grabbed the rest of the luggage, and left the inn.

The next morning, Mrs. Nolan came to wake the guest who did not respond no matter how much she called. She screamed when she found the woman’s white skin covered with dark bruises.

Again. Laila closed and opened her eyes. She saw Mrs. Nolan. It was the middle of the night — maybe dawn. Mrs. Nolan threw the woman’s body, wrapped tightly in sheets that had been hidden all day, into the dry well behind the inn alley.

“Damn it, if you were gonna die, why did it have to be here?! Who wants their business ruined! That girl looked crazy, deserved this, deserved it!”

A thud sound came as the wrapped corpse hit the bottom of the well. Laila grimaced, feeling a dull pain on the left side of her head.

The gray afterimages had all disappeared now. The ghost, caught by Laila, struggled desperately to escape, nodding its horribly twisted face this way and that. Its long neck bore black handprints.

Laila gasped. What now? She had seen the “core.” But that was all. She could only see and hear. To get rid of it…

“The red thread in the basket, whose blood stained it? That is your blood.”

—Aaah—!

The ghost’s skinny forearm snapped like a burnt branch with a crack.

When Laila rose and got off the bed, Eustar, who she thought was completely asleep, sat up holding his usual small box. Like a proposal, Eustar held out the box toward the ghost and spoke again.

“The white clothes in the wardrobe, whose tears made them? Those are a daughter’s tears.”

—Screeeech…!

A piercing scream was sucked into the small box. A flash of light shone. When Eustar closed the lid, a clear howl came from inside for a moment.

Laila watched him in the dark, wide-eyed like a startled rabbit. Then Eustar opened the lid again. At the same time, black smoke flickered over his shoulder once more.

That again, Laila thought. Something is definitely attached to him…

“Yes, eat. But eat quietly.”

Eustar said. The smoke around his shoulders danced and fluttered briefly. Laila knew it was “laughing.” Eustar’s hand holding the box was covered in the smoke.

Crunch, crack, gnash…

Sounds like chewing raw flesh and bones. Amid the noise, faint cries and screams could be heard, and tiny stones breaking. Laila remembered the diamond necklace the woman had worn last.

When the unknown “smoke” finished its meal — if it could be called a meal — Eustar sighed deeply, shook his empty hands once, and turned toward Laila.

Eustar smiled faintly.

“Sorry, Laila. I’m late. I slept too deeply…”

Laila cut him off sharply with a pointed question.

“What are you carrying around?”

In the dark, Eustar’s eyes blinked silently. Strangely, his face was clearly visible. When Laila hesitated, Eustar stood up. She stepped back unconsciously.

“Don’t come closer…”

At that moment, there was a click sound. It was the sound of a match striking. Eustar lit a nearly burnt wick, and placed a glass cover, covered in thick oil, over a lamp.

The room brightened, and Laila felt slightly relieved, but it didn’t make her fully at ease. She spoke again.

“I asked in the forest, too. Those children… what did you do to their souls? Who did you feed them to? You didn’t answer. Now tell me. That black smoke near your shoulder… what is it? Do you feed souls to it?”

Eustar looked at Laila quietly, with the eyes of a professor examining a student.

When he had that expression, it looked very different from when he smiled gently.

His light lime green eyes felt like sharp knives dissecting her. Cold and chilling, like a blade against her throat.

“One thing is correct, Laila. About feeding souls.”

“Why? Why do such a thing… What exactly is that? A monster? Or another soul?”

Laila almost gasped as she asked. But Eustar’s answer was not what she expected.

“I didn’t know you could see it so clearly. Black smoke… Laila, you really have good eyes. Ordinary people can’t see it at all, and even if they do, they just feel ‘something flickering.’”

“Don’t say nonsense! How can they not see such black smoke!”

“They can’t.”

Eustar said firmly. Then, suddenly smiling smoothly, he tossed his long hair behind his shoulder.

“But it’s not a monster, Laila. And it’s definitely not a ghost.”