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 couldn’t hear any sound, as if she had fallen into a pit where no air existed.

No, it’s not that she couldn’t hear ‘any’ sound. Laila thought. At the same time, she could hear low breathing sounds. It was Eustar’s breathing.

His lips, as he lay on his side, were almost touching Laila’s ear. His lukewarm breath moved regularly, touching both Laila’s ear and cheek. Wherever Eustar’s breath touched, her hair stood on end and a faint trembling was felt.

For a moment, Laila had a strange thought. The thought that if she reached out, she could touch his breath…

And that she might be able to know what it was made of, what color it was, what shape it was. It seemed like it would be soft. Just like his hair that fluttered in the wind.

—Strangle the neck.

Laila’s fingertips suddenly curled up. At the same time, her body, which had been lying straight, turned sharply away from Eustar. But she couldn’t see anything. Only the faint outline of a closed door was visible beyond the deep darkness.

She thought that perhaps that door might never open. Why did she think that? Even though it couldn’t be true.

Laila, who had been breathing heavily, turned her body back to lie straight. I must have heard wrong. Laila, trying to calm herself, closed her eyes. Closed them… and opened them again.

Then two hands, dry and bony like twigs, firmly grasped Laila’s neck.

—Strangle the neckkk—! Like thiiis—!

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

The white eyes without pupils were so large they almost pushed down to the cheekbones, and between the horribly distorted lips, a tongue was hanging out slantwise, dangling.

“Gak…! Eus, Eustar…”

Laila’s hands thrashed about on the bed. She struck Eustar’s body with all her might, but he did not wake up. For a moment, Laila was gripped by a chilling thought. Could it be that this thing had killed Eustar first?

—Aaagh—!!

The ghost gripping Laila’s neck opened its mouth wide, and there was a sound like something being torn apart between its jaws.

The well seems to be attached to the ceiling. Laila thought. If I fall into that well, I’ll never be able to get out. Not while alive, at least.

There was a cracking sound. The back of the ghost’s head caved in, and the left side of its face grotesquely crumpled. The large eye, which was white and glossy like a slippery egg, and couldn’t be called human even at first, slid down further and protruded out.

‘No, at this rate…’

Her vision flickered. Her breathing was short and her heart was beating fast. I might die. Laila thought. If I stay like this, I’ll surely die.

That wouldn’t do, would it, Laila?

Was it a voice in her head? Or did she actually hear it? Was it Eustar’s voice? She didn’t know. There was no time to think. First, I have to remove these hands. If I can’t remove them…

Laila grasped the ghost’s neck with all her might. Now she could see that its torso was stuck to the opposite wall, and only its neck was stretched out long like a writhing snake.

Laila, gripping the rattling and squishy ‘thing’s’ neck, tried to block its mouth, which was gaping open like the mouth of a well, from swallowing her. But her hand, touching the slippery and damp lips, slid in and went straight into the black mouth.

—Keeeyaagh—!

It was a terrible sensation. As the long tongue wrapped around Laila’s wrist like a living rope, she felt a pain as if scratched by thorns. And then her vision turned pitch black, and suddenly it brightened, showing the shaking, ash-colored scenery of the inn room.

There was a woman standing there. Her expression, as she stood in front of the mirror reflecting herself, was filled with worry.

The unfamiliar noise from outside fueled her anxiety. She fiddled with the small diamond necklace around her neck to calm herself. It’s okay, everything… Everything will be alright.

‘She ran away. With a man…’

Laila thought. No, it would be more correct to say she figured it out. Laila was approaching the ghost’s ‘core’.

As she realized this, the hands choking her neck tried to lose their strength. Laila guessed that the ghost was trying to escape to avoid showing its core.

“You can’t go!”

Laila, grabbing the bony wrist, pulled the ghost even closer to herself.

—Aagh! A—agh—! Don’t look, don’t look!

Laila slowly shook her head, baring her teeth like an angry wolf.

“No, I have to see.”

A long scream was heard. At the same time, the static-filled ash-colored screen changed with a pop. The man the woman had been waiting for arrived.

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

It sparkled. On the woman’s sweat-soaked skin, on her flushed skin… At the moment when the woman’s senses were soaring towards their peak, the man’s hands grasped her slender neck with all his might.

‘No, no…! Gak…!’

The sensation of neck bones cracking was transmitted directly to Laila’s hands. And at the same time, she could feel the terrible sensation as if her own neck was breaking.

The man, pulling and breaking the necklace from the limp woman’s body, packed up the rest of his belongings and left the inn.

The next morning, Lady Nolan, who came to wake the guest who wouldn’t answer no matter how much she called, screamed upon discovering a woman with pale skin covered in dark bruises.

Again. Laila closed her eyes and opened them. Lady Nolan was visible. It was midnight. Or perhaps dawn. She wrapped the woman’s corpse, which she had hidden all day, in a sheet and threw it into the dry well behind the inn’s alley.

‘Damn it, if you were going to die, you should have gone somewhere else…! Why ruin someone’s business! I thought the wench seemed out of her mind, serves her right, serves her right!’

There was a thud when the sheet-wrapped corpse hit the bottom of the well. Laila frowned, feeling a dull pain in the left side of her head.

The ashen afterimages were now all gone. The ghost, still caught by Laila, was desperately trying to escape, nodding its hideously distorted face back and forth. Dark handprints remained on its elongated neck.

Laila breathed heavily. What now? She had seen the ‘core’. But that was it. She could only see and hear. To get rid of this…

“The red thread in the basket, whose blood has dyed it? It is your blood.”

—Aaagh—!

The ghost’s bony forearm crumbled with a crack! like a burnt branch.

When Laila got up and left the bed, Eustar, whom she thought was completely asleep, sat up holding the small box as before. As if proposing, Eustar held out the box towards the ghost and spoke again.

“The white dress in the wardrobe, whose tears made it? It is the daughter’s tears.”

—Shrieeeek…!

A scream that seemed to tear the ears was sucked into the small box. Something flashed brightly. When Eustar closed the lid of the box, the sound of wailing inside was heard clearly for a very brief moment.

Laila was watching him sitting in the darkness with eyes wide open like a startled rabbit. Eventually, Eustar opened the lid of the box. At the same time, black smoke rippled again from behind his shoulder.

That thing again. Laila thought. That’s clearly something attached…

“Yes, eat. But eat a little more quietly.”

Eustar said. At his words, the smoke wrapped around his shoulders heaved for a moment as if dancing. Laila knew it was ‘laughing’. Eustar’s hand holding the box was covered in smoke.

Crunch, munch, gnash…

Sounds like raw flesh and bones being chewed continued. Amidst that, faint cries and screams could be heard, and the sound of something like tiny stones breaking. The diamond necklace the woman was wearing at the end came to mind.

When the ‘smoke’s’ meal—if it could be called a meal—of unknown identity was over, Eustar let out a long sigh and dusted off his empty hands once. Then he turned his head towards Laila.

Eustar smiled gently.

“I’m sorry, Laila. I was late. I fell asleep too deeply…”

Laila’s sharp question cut off his words.

“What are you carrying around?”

Eustar’s eyes blinked silently in the darkness. His face was strangely clear to see. As Laila hesitated, Eustar got up from his seat. She unconsciously stepped back.

“Don’t come near me…”

At the same time, there was a click. It was the sound of a match being struck. Eustar lit the nearly ashen wick and placed the glass cover coated with hazy oil over the lamp.

When the room brightened, she felt somewhat relieved, but it wasn’t completely reassuring. Laila spoke again.

“I asked you in the forest too. Those children… What did you do with their souls? Who did you feed them to? You didn’t answer that question. Tell me now. That black smoke that appears near your shoulder… What is it? Are you feeding souls to it?”

Eustar was staring at Laila intently with the eyes of a professor examining a student.

When he had such an expression, he looked quite different from when he smiled gently.

It felt like his pale green eyes, like freshly cut lime, were dissecting her completely. It was chilling and creepy, like a sharp knife touching just below her neck.

“Well, you got one thing right, Laila. About feeding souls.”

“Why? Why do such a thing… What exactly is it? Is it a demon? Or is it another soul?”

Laila asked, almost panting. However, Eustar’s answer was beyond her expectations.

“I didn’t know you could see him so clearly. Black smoke… Laila, you really have good eyes. Ordinary people can’t see it at all, and even if they can, they’d only feel ‘like something is rippling’.”

“Don’t talk nonsense! How can anyone not see such pitch-black smoke!”

“They can’t see it.”

Eustar said in a firm voice. Then, he suddenly smiled smoothly and swept his long flowing hair behind his shoulder.

“But it’s not a demon, Laila. It’s certainly not a ghost.”