Episode 1
The ominous cawing of crows filled the desolate sky.
Just a week ago, this land was home to a great family estate, but now it was nothing more than a landscape of scorched ruins. Every wall and pillar had collapsed and blackened, transforming the once cloud-touched roof into a gigantic stone tomb.
From the main beam, now like a grave marker, a harsh smoke rose and drifted south. The season of the north wind had arrived.
Half a day after the flames, which had raged on night and day for a full week, had finally subsided, the sunset stained the sky as red as the blood of those wrongfully killed. The only living things left were the crows, gorged on human flesh.
The barren land of Seomun’s Woonso-Mu-Ae(The clouds clear away the mist) would be an eternal reminder. It was meant to awaken the world’s sense of caution and instill fear.
In one corner of this devastated land, which seemed destined to weather away in perpetual ruin, a small movement occurred.
Charred wooden splinters, small stones, and broken pieces of pottery were disturbed by a faint vibration from below. Before long, a hidden small door opened ajar, and fine gray ash spilled into a narrow underground space.
A hand, trembling and feeling its way out from within, emerged—of a child.
Maybe around seven years old, the child was dressed in a navy blue silk outfit, incongruous with the ruins. Severely weakened from huddling in the confined space for a week, the child found it difficult to stand. When they tried to kneel on the debris outside, their hands and elbows were already scraped and pierced by the remnants.
Sitting with a gaunt face, the child absorbed the horrifying scene before them. Gathering strength, the child began to crawl away, unable to stand as their knees kept giving out.
As they crawled, the remaining debris under their palms and shins crunched and crumbled. Though their tender skin quickly turned bloody, they couldn’t stop. Their eyes were fixed on something in Seomun’s front yard—a sight of something unfamiliar.
They descended—a tumble—down a stair-like stone mound. Up close, it was a towering pillar, as thick as a child’s thigh, sharply pointed skyward.
Impaled on it was the charred corpse of a person, barely recognizable as human anymore.
The child approached the pillar slowly, placing a hesitant hand on the burnt feet of the corpse, and looked up. The body had no hair, and the sharp end of the pillar jutted out from the mouth, which was opened in a grimace of pain.
The skin, when touched, felt hard, rough, and cold. The child instinctively knew they would never forget this sensation.
Their gaze lowered to the corpse’s chest. A piece of jade, no larger than a fist, was stuck to the clothes and flesh. The child recognized it well.
Pulling their hand back with a start, the child fell backward. As they tried to retreat, they vomited repeatedly from the overwhelming disgust. The muddy vomit soiled their front, but they couldn’t tear their eyes away. It felt as if the horrific visage of a murdered relative was beckoning, pulling them closer by the hair.
Escape was impossible; thought was impossible. They could only watch the bodies until death. They hadn’t survived; they were just a little late in following them.
At that moment, hands covered the child’s eyes.
The first thing they noticed was the smell of herbs, long-boiled. Next was the cool touch on their face, and finally, a voice like a gentle breeze. Only then did the child close their parched mouth and realize their vomit tasted bitterly sour.
They couldn’t understand most of what was being said. But as they swallowed, the lump in their chest rose up and burst out as a wail. The herbal-scented arms embraced them, and the child clung desperately, like to a lifeline over a cliff.
The child continued to retch for a long time. Even when their lips tore and their throat filled with the taste of blood, they couldn’t stop. Their thin fingernails dug into the stranger’s clothes, their cries resembling a wild animal’s, rigid with grief. Eventually, when no sound could come out and tears turned to blood, they stopped.
The child’s memory ended there. They did not know when they had fainted.
The last thing they remembered was a fleeting thought that the white hair they saw before closing their eyes looked like the feathers of an egret.
