---
Yoon Se-ra pov:
I didn't touch my porridge.
Mrs. Song didn't comment.
The radio had hissed again — low, warbled, like something underwater had tried to speak. And just before she turned the dial off, I could've sworn I heard the word again:
> Leave.
My appetite disappeared after that.
Now the dishes were cleared. The sun filtered weakly through the dining room windows, staining everything in a pale, lifeless gold. And still, I sat there, feeling like the walls were leaning in.
Han Jae-yul hadn't joined me.
Of course he hadn't. He was always elsewhere.
I didn't even want to ask.
But something pulled me — an ache I couldn't name — to rise from the table and walk. Past the velvet-curtained halls, past the heavy silence that buzzed in my teeth, until I found myself outside a door I didn't remember passing before.
A long black hallway stretched before me. At the end: a room.
The door was cracked open.
I didn't remember seeing it yesterday.
I didn't remember it being there at all.
My feet moved before my brain could object. My fingers pushed the door open.
And then I stepped inside.
---
The air was colder.
Like something had been locked in too long and forgot how to breathe.
The room wasn't dusty. That was the first thing I noticed — no cobwebs, no forgotten drapes. Just stillness. Polished floors. A grand window framed by deep blue curtains that hadn't been touched in a long time.
But it was the painting on the far wall that froze me in place.
A large canvas. Framed in dark gold. Oil strokes faded with time. But the figure—
My breath caught.
It was a woman in traditional hanbok. Pale skin. Strong brows. Hair braided and pinned high, with a jade hairpin.
And her face—
She looked like me.
Not exactly. Not perfectly. But enough to make my stomach twist and my fingers go numb.
She looked like an echo.
Like someone I used to be.
Or someone I would become.
I stepped closer, unable to look away. Her eyes followed mine — not painted to, but really followed.
There was no nameplate beneath it. No year. Just a small mark in the corner. A symbol I didn't recognize.
A noise behind me made me jump.
Footsteps.
I turned.
Jae-yul stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.
"You shouldn't be in here," he said quietly.
"I didn't mean to," I replied. "The door was open."
"It wasn't, earlier."
I turned back to the painting. "Who is she?"
He didn't move. "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
His eyes darkened slightly. "It's an old house. We inherited it. There are pieces of history here that even my family doesn't talk about."
I glanced back at the woman's face. "She looks like me."
"I noticed," he said after a pause.
The air between us thickened.
"What happened in this room?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away.
Then: "The last person who stayed here… didn't survive."
A chill curled up my spine.
"Eun-bin," I whispered.
He didn't flinch. Didn't confirm.
Just stepped into the room and quietly closed the door behind him.
"It's not the painting," he said. "It's the space itself. The energy here is...sensitive."
"Then why is the door unlocked now?"
"I locked it last night," he said.
The silence was a scream.
"So why—?"
"I don't know."
His voice was tighter now. Less composed. I saw it — the faint crease in his brow, the stiffness in his jaw. He was disturbed.
For once, he didn't have control.
I looked back at the painting. The woman's eyes still watched me.
"You said this house wasn't yours originally," I said slowly.
His lips thinned. "Why do you ask?"
I didn't answer.
Because the question didn't come from logic. It came from the strange familiarity bleeding through my skin the second I crossed that threshold.
It came from the pull I felt in this room. The hum beneath the floorboards. The way the window seemed to breathe against the windless sky.
I wasn't imagining it.
This place… it knew me.
And I was starting to think I had known it too.
---
Later that day, I asked Mrs. Song about the painting.
We were in the greenhouse — a glass room attached to the back of the villa, filled with herbs and old citrus trees. It was the only part of the house that felt alive.
She was pruning mint when I asked.
"Mrs. Song," I said carefully. "That room upstairs… the one with the painting. Who was the woman in it?"
She didn't look up. Just clipped a leaf. Then another.
"Just decoration," she said flatly.
"She looked like me."
"Coincidence."
"She looked exactly like me."
This time she did pause.
Then turned and dropped the shears onto the table a little too hard.
"Don't go into that room again."
"Why?"
"You don't need to be asking questions that don't concern you."
I stepped closer. "Then what does concern me, Mrs. Song?"
She stared at me for a long time. Her eyes, usually so cold, held something like… pity.
"You're here for seven days. Keep your head down. Eat. Sleep. Ignore the whispers."
I stiffened. "So you hear them too."
She didn't answer.
Just walked away.
---
That night, I couldn't sleep again.
The mirror was back in place.
No sound from the hallway.
But I felt it. Something watching. Something waiting.
So I got up. Slipped on a robe. And walked barefoot down the hall — not to the painting room, but further.
Toward the back.
Where the floor creaked differently and the walls seemed to hum with static.
There, at the very end, was another door.
Not locked.
But not open either.
And just as I reached for it—
> Leave.
A whisper.
But not angry this time.
Not malevolent.
Sad.
Pleading.
> You don't belong here… not yet.
I backed away slowly. The door didn't move.
But when I turned, I saw something at the end of the hallway.
A flicker.
A woman in white.
Hair pinned high. Pale face. Watching me.
I blinked.
She was gone.
---
Back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed, heart pounding.
Who was she?
Why did she look like me?
And what the hell was this house hiding?
But even deeper than those questions, something else started to echo louder in my chest.
Not fear.
Not even anger.
But recognition.
I wasn't losing my mind.
I was remembering something I'd never lived.
And for the first time…
I wasn't sure if I'd make it to Day Three.