The Boy of Cheongan (靑霧)

Episode 7: Red Mirage

As my eyes gradually adjusted to the strange darkness, I calmly followed the trail of the skeletal wooden staircase rising upward through the thick fog, sharply cutting through it.

In the innermost lower compartment at the very bottom of the stairs, a tiny little boy was crouched down. The only clothing the child wore was nothing but ragged scraps of cloth stained all over with grease, and on his pale skin, a heavy gray layer of dust spilled down through the gaps in the ceiling boards had settled thinly and densely. A rusted, heavy iron chain had securely bound the child’s small ankles and wrists to the thick wooden railing. The moment our boots stepped onto the floorboards and let out a low, sharp screech, the child’s head jerked up. The boy’s eyes, wide open toward me, were entirely transparent and wavering, and within them was an almost suffocating, raw, dreadful fear, trembling lightly.

I instinctively bent my upper body forward and took a step. My thick-soled boots landed on the lowest stair with a heavy, regular thud.

Just before I could say even a single word, the dense, heavy blue mist surrounding the child shattered and collapsed in an instant in all directions. A blinding, brilliant crimson flash burst before my eyes like a waterfall. In the blink of an eye, the afterimage of the trembling little child vanished without a trace, and over it overlapped a vivid, lifelike apparition of a fully grown adult man. It was the silhouette of a man with a solidly trained large build, great height, and a cold, dark expression that gave away no emotion from anywhere.

I blinked hard. The wildly rippling crimson light vanished in an instant, disappearing completely. The little boy was still there, remaining only as a frail child, quietly trembling with his body leaned against the cold wooden railing.

I swallowed dryly, as if gulping down something heavy lodged in my throat, and hurriedly turned my head toward Ji-seok and the other members standing behind me. But no one showed any reaction. Their gazes were only absentmindedly sweeping over the wider boundary area of the empty main floor. The members had been effectively blinded, unable to fully see the horrific crimson flash that had just seared my retinas and disappeared.

I tried desperately to comfort myself, forcing down a dry swallow as if I were swallowing something heavily resting there. I struggled to tell myself that what I had just seen was merely some strange trick of distorted air currents, or a bizarre optical illusion brought on by extreme fatigue. But the heartbeat wildly pounding along my ribs was stubbornly telling me that it was reality, plain and simple.

Leaving behind the members who were busy checking the layout of the lower section and the child’s condition, an inexplicable, heavy, powerful physical pull once again strongly drew my gaze back up that creaking staircase. I left the reassuring safety the members provided behind me. And toward that upper corridor, where the blue mist was gradually growing thicker and denser like a giant curtain, I quietly placed my feet on the stairs and began to crawl upward alone.