Chapter 20: Alternate persona
Cha Hwa Rim stood up, her eyes fierce, her heart pounding as the groans of her victims reverberated through the hall.
Her eyes shifted into spirit vision as she analyzed the type of energy emitted by the three girls and two boys around her. They all seemed to have red-hot energy swirling around them, yet there was something...
She slowly walked toward one of them, her hand slowly encroaching around his neck.
"Why did you attack me?" Her feminine voice carried a hint of fire and madness.
"We... we are sorry. We just want to live."
"And you think I don’t..." She stopped herself. "Just answer the question before—"
The trembling teenage boy, now raised barely above the ground, suddenly had an accident, peeing on Cha Hwa Rim.
When the pungent smell of urine and the warm liquid dripped down her leather pants, she couldn’t help but throw the boy to the ground as she exploded.
"Fuck. Fuck. You fucking piece of shit! Do you want to die? How dare you piss on fucking real leather!"
As she said this, she couldn’t help but raise her leg, ready to stomp on the now-quivering boy on the ground, about to pay it back with one hundred percent interest—only to stop herself.
She turned back to look at the other four people, who were scared out of their wits. She scanned the girls, thinking of asking them, before turning to the other boy.
"I hope you will do better than that pussy over there. Now answer me. Why did you attack me?"
"We... we received a notification giving us a mission that we could get a chance to negate one of our Skeletons if we beat you up until you break."
"I see," Cha Hwa Rim said as a wide, crazy smile painted her face.
Then, suddenly, a low snickering laugh could be heard at the far end of the dimly lit hall.
Cha Hwa Rim turned toward the direction of the sound as a notification popped up on the screen.
[Catch me if you can]
That’s all it said.
Cha Hwa Rim turned back to the shivering teenager.
"Get lost! Unless you pieces of shit really want to die."
And with that cue, the five crumbling teenagers stumbled and tumbled as they tried to flee.
Cha Hwa Rim turned toward the darkness, filled with malevolent energy, as her body moved before she could understand what she was doing.
Inside Cha Hwa Rim, Dan Woo was still digesting all that was happening. There was a lot to uncover as two different versions of Cha Hwa Rim struggled to reconcile within the physical body. There was the seventeen-year-old Cha Hwa Rim, the cool shamanic exorcist, and then there was the twenty-three-year-old Cha Hwa Rim, who was fiery, hot-headed, and loaded with a mouth full of profanity. They were both fighting for control, and Dan Woo could feel his own identity sinking more and more, being diluted by these two versions of Cha Hwa Rim.
He needed to finish this quickly; otherwise, he would forget who he was.
He turned back toward the source of the malevolent energy.
He needed to exorcise it, but he was not sure how. Initially, he had needed two energies—one from Cha Hwa Rim and another from Im Nari—to merge, then attack the source of the curse or the anchor of the ghost, which Cha Hwa Rim believed was the mirror.
But now she wasn’t sure.
Would he attack without the combined energy of Im Nari and Cha Hwa Rim? It didn’t matter.
Cha Hwa Rim, right now, felt a surge of power fill her organs, body, and bones as the plethora of intimidating tiger tattoos began glowing, radiating an intense light that illuminated the dark, gloomy hall.
Cha Hwa Rim got faster and faster, cutting through the area. Before she knew it, the mass of formless darkness had disappeared, leaving behind a familiar shape.
"We meet again, Cha Hwa Rim," Im Nari began, her voice soft and eerie as it reverberated through the long halls.
"Who are you, and why are you inside Im Nari?"
"Think about it. Don’t you remember me?"
"...Should I?"
"Should I narrate it for you? That dreadful day when the world went dark... when you did that ritual."
"You?"
"Didn’t you want everyone to know your pain? All of them to die?"
"Get lost."
"What?"
"Get out of her."
Dan Woo could feel a torrent of emotions as a set of painful, unfamiliar memories flooded his mind.
This...
Im Nari, now possessed by the evil spirit, stood there looking at the fuming Cha Hwa Rim.
"Get out of her, or I will—"
"Or you’ll what? I have seen how you have lived since then, and it is pathetic. Do you want all of this to end? Then I will grant your wish."
Immediately, a loud air raid siren echoed throughout the whole school.
[Attention, everyone. A state of emergency has been triggered. For the next 1 hour, all of you have been marked. To survive this state of emergency, make sure you hunt at least one of the marked before the hour ends. Good luck, and don’t die.]
Suddenly, a wave of notification buzzes echoed through the many buildings. Cha Hwa Rim’s own phone had its notifications buzzing as well, a timer beginning to tick down once again.
Cha Hwa Rim looked back at the possessed Im Nari, a smirk playing across Im Nari’s face.
"If you want to stop all of this, then we might as well kill them all, don’t you think?"
Soon enough, Im Nari began running with all her might toward the direction of the ensuing chaos.
Cha Hwa Rim ran after her as they whipped past everything. After a few minutes, they arrived at some type of dorms, students running around, each one trying to finish the other. There was chaos—lots of chaos—and blood everywhere.
Cha Hwa Rim looked around as the violence and chaos seemed to trigger something deep within her, but before she could acknowledge it—
"We all die today," Im Nari said as she ran toward the violent outburst of everyone trying to stay alive.
Cha Hwa Rim looked around the area before she breathed in and turned back to her phone.
She stared at her character card for a bit before she looked up to see the crazed mess all around her.
Then—
The air raid siren sounded throughout the school again, slowing the bloodthirsty students.
[Cha Hwa Rim has exposed the secret: Cha Hwa Rim is dead. Cha Hwa Rim now has no Skeletons.]
Immediately, as the words were announced, Cha Hwa Rim pricked her finger once more, letting a little blood spill from the tip of her finger before applying it to her phone.
Then she began chanting and dancing her shamanic dance.
Meanwhile, a vortex of malevolent energy surrounded her, creating a barrier that seemed to repel all others as Cha Hwa Rim began to bleed from her eyes, ears, nose, and many other orifices, sometimes spitting blood from her mouth.
The other students—all of them battered and bruised, some of them bleeding heavily—stopped their destruction and simply watched the mesmerizing dance with the supernatural, waiting to see who would win.