It would be Christmas the day after tomorrow. It was going to be a white Christmas. Seeing as how it was snowing like crazy.
A heavy snow was falling, covering the world in white. It seemed like it would hide away any and all filth, unseen.
'I suppose it will erase my traces, too.'
This was no different from the girl's wish. To be wiped clean from the world. To disappear from the memory of everyone who knew her.
A sign reading, 「No Entry to Mountain Due to Heavy Snow」, was hung on the stairs leading up to the mountain entrance.
She ignores it and steps onto the stairs. On the steep path, the girl nearly tumbled and fell several times.
As the girl carefully set her feet, her target destination appeared before her. She would achieve her purpose here.
The place she arrived at was a location considerably far from the stairs. A rough slope where a heavy snow was falling. A place with no trace of people passing by, densely packed with only pine trees.
'Yes, I won't be seen here by people who come to get spring water or those who are hiking. And it's snowing like this. The snow will hide me.'
A worn-out brown wool coat, a navy-blue turtleneck, and a pair of jeans that looked to have no heat-retaining effect. Those things were the girl's identity.
She plops down on the ground and sets down the backpack she had on her back. She fumbles around, taking out the things inside. A thick and large industrial-grade cutter, 300 sleeping pills, 10 bottles of water.
'Perfect.'
First, she tears open the sleeping pill boxes and shoves the pills into her mouth. She had even worked a part-time job to buy the 300 sleeping pills. The water was not enough. So she had to scoop and eat the snow.
Just eating them took almost three hours. Out of breath, the girl panted. Empty water bottles and pill packets were scattered around her.
She pushes up the handle of the industrial-grade cutter. Drrrk. With the sound, a thick, sharp blade revealed itself. Isn't this today's highlight?
'I can do it. I can do it.'
She encourages herself in order to die. Some people might say to live with the courage to die, right?
But do they know? That the days one must live on are so horrifying and hellish, that it's better to pour all one's strength into dying rather than adapting to it.
Her mind becomes hazy. An incredible drowsiness suddenly assaults her. Let's do what must be done before falling asleep.
With her left hand, she brings the blade to her right wrist. Blood seeps out over the skin she is pressing down on.
The girl thought of a certain foreign mountaineer. When his arm was stuck in a crevice, he cut that arm off and came out alive. Isn't that an incredible will?
'With such a will, let me also die.'
She slits her wrist with all her might. For a moment, she gets goosebumps from the feeling of having cut bone.
An unbearable pain rushes through her whole body. She screams without realizing it. There would be no one to hear.
She opens her tightly shut eyes and checks her wrist. The wrist was half-cut, dangling.
Blood was staining the snow red. She lies down on the ground. She was barely in her right mind because of the pain and drowsiness. She would die now. When, indeed, would the body of the girl, who hadn't even left a note, be discovered?
Her eyes opened. Strange. There's no way my eyes should open. But her eyes had clearly opened, and the girl was lying on a soft bed.
She had ended up living. She had suffered so much trying to die, but she had ended up living.
She half-raises her body from the bed. She slaps her cheek with her hand. The sensation and the pain are conveyed vividly.
This was not the afterlife, and the girl was not dead. The girl tried to deny the hard-to-accept reality by wailing.
She presses her eyes tightly with both hands and cries, then startles in surprise.
'My wrist, what happened to it?'
The wrist that had definitely been half-severed and gushing blood was properly attached.
Would it be scarier than this even if she saw a ghost? The girl slowly examines her wrist.
There was an unsightly scar there. It looked like a scar that had formed a long time ago.
'Just what in the world happened?'
She gets out of bed and looks around. This place is a factory. It was a factory that had been renovated and was being used as a residence.
The first things that came into view were giant bookshelves. It gave the illusion of having entered a library.
Next to the bed she had been lying on, a desk and a desktop computer are visible. Nearby, there was a sink, a refrigerator, and two huge wine cellars.
The two wine cellars, arranged in three sections, were filled to the brim with wine.
This time, she goes in front of the refrigerator and opens the door. The side-by-side refrigerator had no freezer compartment. Inside, it was full of a specific brand of canned coffee and all sorts of beverages.
'Where is this?'
She opens and checks every door. A spacious and clean bathroom-cum-shower. Attached next to it, a dressing room made of high-quality solid wood.
In the dressing room, there were men's clothes and shoes of a single size. The owner of this factory is a man, lives alone, and is good at tidying up.
That was the girl's conclusion. This man must have brought her here. Not to a hospital, nor a police station, but to a place like this. Why? For what reason?
It seemed she would have to meet the owner of this factory to find out why her wrist had become like this.
She opens the wide iron door and goes outside. Although she was in clothes caked in blood with zero heat retention, she didn't feel the cold much.
As soon as she went outside, a man came into the girl's view. And she had a premonition that she would never forget this moment for the rest of her life.
He was wearing a thin yellow knit shirt and ripped jeans. He had his arms crossed, but it wasn't because he was cold.
His frame looked solid because of his broad shoulders and chest. He was much taller than the girl, who was 172cm, and his hands were also very large.
His clear, moist eyes were sparkling, and his overall atmosphere seemed calm.
He possessed a long nose and thin lips, and his facial lines were sharp. The man, looking at her with a smile, seemed as if he had been waiting for her there since a thousand years ago.
"Oh, I just came out for a bit of air, but you've woken up in the meantime."
It was a clear and low voice.
"The one who brought me here..."
Not knowing what to call him, the girl's words trailed off.
"Yes, I'm the one who brought you here."
A note of anger entered the girl's voice.
"Who are you? Who are you to bring me here as you please? Why did you do such a thing?"
"Well, because I didn't want you to die."
It's an unconcerned answer. This man was pouring oil on the girl's anger. This time, she held up her right wrist and shook it wildly.
"Why is my wrist like this?"
"It's attached well."
The girl's voice was gradually growing in volume.
"It's not supposed to be like this! It being attached isn't normal, I'm saying. And why have you been speaking informally to me since a moment ago?"
"You speak informally, too."
"Fine, just tell me about my wrist."
The girl glared, huffing, at the man who was making a slightly troubled face.
"Is only your wrist strange?"
"What?"
"Take a look at yourself."
Know thyself? She's wearing only thin, blood-soaked clothes, but she's not cold. Come to think of it, she's standing barefoot on the snow. She hadn't realized at all. Her whole body feels refreshed and light, as if it could fly.
"Why am I like this?"
"Because you've become a vampire."
"What?"
"You've become a vampire that never ages and never dies."
Although she was a young girl of only seventeen, she wasn't so immature as to fall for such nonsense. No, even if she were eight years old, she wouldn't have fallen for it.
"You... you're crazy."
"Then explain that wrist and your condition."
She firmly suppresses the urge to roar.
"I don't know, how would I know that."
"In that case, I'll tell you one more time. You're a vampire."
The girl brushed past the man's side.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. I won't be welcomed, but I'm going back."
"And attempt suicide again?"
"That's better than listening to your delusions here."
He lifted her up in his arms.
"Kyaa, what are you doing?"
At a surprising speed, he carried her inside the factory and set her down gently on the floor. And he took out the cutter that was on the desk. Then, he deeply embedded the blade into his own forearm and sliced downward.
"Ah!"
The girl took a deep breath. The sight of the flesh healing was like watching a movie.
The forearm was pristine, as if it had never been cut with the cutter in the first place.
This time, he grabbed the girl's wrist. And he deeply stabbed the cutter into her wrist.
"Ack!"
The girl screamed at the pain from the blade. Blood spurted out like a fountain.
"Aah."
Unable to overcome the pain, she shrieked and shed tears. Trembling all over, the girl looked at the wrist stabbed by the cutter.
A drop of blood fell to the floor with a ttok sound. There was no trace left in the spot stabbed by the cutter. The girl became dazed.
"The wound on your wrist was from when you were human, so I couldn't get rid of it."
"When I was human?"
His eyes seemed to be telling her to accept this situation.
"You can't live in the human world anymore."
The pupils, which had been unfocused, slowly regain their light. Anger rose in the girl's eyes.
"You crazy..."
"Neither of us is crazy."
The girl'V's head dropped. A listless voice reached the man's ears.
"Are we both vampires?"
"Yes."
"Why did you turn me into a vampire?"
"Because if I hadn't, you would have died."
The girl lifts her head.
"Who in the world are you?"
He introduced himself with a composed posture.
"My name is Im Se-yun. Age is twenty-three."
"Twenty-three? Not something like, a few hundred years old?"
"The year I became a vampire was 1983. But we don't count our age by the year we became a vampire."
"We?"
"Yes, we. You and I aren't the only vampires."
The more she heard, the more absurd it was, so the girl exclaimed "Ha!" without realizing it.
"Then just how many vampires are there?"
Se-yun stroked his chin with his index finger and thumb.
"Including you, it's become eight people."
"Why did you include me in that?"
Se-yun thought for a moment. How much should he say, and how much should he not?
"As I said before, I don't want you to die."
"How did you find me in the mountains? How did you know I was going to die?"
Se-yun stared into the girl's eyes.
"That wasn't difficult. I just had to follow the smell of your blood. The whole mountain reeked of the smell of blood."
"The fact that I was going to commit suicide today?"
"That, I didn't know. It's just that you weren't home, so I was searching the neighborhood and ended up going to the back mountain."
Goosebumps ran all over her body. He had checked if the girl was home or not?
"Are you... a stalker?"
He stroked his chin with his index finger and thumb and muttered to himself. 'I can't say no to that...'
"You were a stalker. Did you secretly film my room or install a listening device?"
Se-yun felt it was unfair, but it was a protest the girl was bound to make.
"No, I don't do things like that. I'm sorry for watching over you. I know you wouldn't want that. But I was never trying to monitor or control you."
"Then what in the world is it?"
Right, what in the world could it be? That was a question Se-yun himself had asked himself many times.
"I always wanted to save you. And in the end, I did save you."
Pounding Se-yun's chest with both fists, the girl was overcome with tears.
"I wanted to die. I was always trying to die. I finally managed to do it... I put it into action... Why did you make me like this."
Se-yun said.
"Because I want to give you a new world now."