Chapter Two: Ashes of the Forgotten
The morning came with reluctant light.
Ji-eun sat on the edge of her bed, her fingers trembling around a cup of now-cold tea. The fox hairs still lay on her nightstand, neatly arranged as if someone — or something — had placed them with care. She hadn't touched them. Couldn't. They felt sacred. Or cursed.
She hadn't told anyone. Not her co-workers at the museum. Not Min-seok. Not her therapist, who she saw twice a month and who'd once said, "Maybe the past you're trying to remember isn't yours to own."
But what if it was?
Her phone buzzed, breaking the silence. A message from Min-seok:
> "Don't forget: VIP tour at 11. Try not to disappear into fox folklore again lol."
She stared at the message a moment longer before forcing herself into motion. A shower. Clothes. The same brown boots she wore every week.
When she stepped outside, the city was its usual mess — people, noise, grey skies. The comforting chaos of Seoul wrapped around her like a noisy blanket, giving her the illusion that things were normal.
They weren't.
She kept seeing his face. Not in full. Just flashes. The curve of his jaw. The impossible color of his eyes. The smirk that said, I've burned worlds and I'm still charming.
Who was he?
---
The museum was quiet that morning, and Ji-eun hated it. The same quiet as the night before. It made the old things louder.
She walked through the exhibits, trailing fingers along the velvet ropes. Past the dragon urns. Past the bronze tiger masks. Past the forgotten gods still trapped behind glass, their names fading into anonymity.
And then she paused.
The Gumiho statue.
Still there. Still smirking.
She stared at him.
"Who are you really?" she whispered.
"Talking to foxes now?"
She turned sharply.
Min-seok stood a few feet away, his hands in the pockets of his black puffer jacket. Tall, clean-shaven, and with the kind of smile that could end an argument before it began, Min-seok was both her co-worker and the closest thing she had to family since her grandmother passed away last spring.
"I talk to who listens," Ji-eun said with a forced smirk.
"Let me know when he answers. I'd like to file a report with the board."
She rolled her eyes. "Did the VIPs arrive?"
"Delayed. Some politician's wife and her art club. Probably won't get here until noon." He paused, then squinted. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just didn't sleep well."
"Nightmares again?"
She didn't answer.
He frowned, stepping closer. "Ji-eun… if it's the trauma—"
"It's not trauma," she snapped more sharply than she meant to. "Sorry. I just… It's something else."
"Like what?"
She opened her mouth to answer but didn't know where to begin. Fox hairs. Dreams of burning palaces. Men disappearing into thin air.
"Like nothing," she muttered. "Let's just… prep the exhibit rooms."
Min-seok didn't push further. But his eyes followed her, more worried than before.
---
Hours passed.
The VIP tour came and went. Smiling women in expensive coats whispered about Korean myths as if they were fashion trends. One of them asked if the Soul Fang was real.
Ji-eun replied with a practiced shrug. "Myths are always rooted in something. But we don't know what."
By 4PM, she was alone in her office again. The museum was nearly closed for the evening. She leaned back in her chair, trying to will herself to stay awake, to not drift into the same dream again.
But the fatigue from the night before weighed her down.
And she blinked—
—only to wake up half an hour later.
The office was dark.
And cold.
She shivered, standing slowly, rubbing her arms. Something felt off.
She turned to her desk—
—and gasped.
Everything had been rearranged.
Not stolen. Rearranged.
Her books were stacked neatly. Her drawer slightly open. Her pens aligned. Her computer was shut down.
And on top of her keyboard was a piece of parchment.
Old. Burned around the edges. Covered in ink that shimmered faintly red.
She picked it up with shaking hands.
A single symbol was scrawled on it. A fox curled around a crescent moon.
She had seen it before. In her dream.
On the man's chest.
"What the hell…"
She spun around — heart racing — but the room was empty.
Still, she felt it. A presence. Like someone had been watching her. Like someone was still watching.
She reached for her phone. Dialed Min-seok.
But before she could press "call," the screen flickered. Lines raced across the display, glitching like an old VHS tape.
Then the screen went black.
Her breath came faster. She was NOT hallucinating.
She left the office in a rush, parchment in hand, running down the back hallway to the archive.
Only one person might know what this symbol meant.
---
Professor Hwang was the oldest staff member at the museum — a retired historian who lived in the archive more than his own home. He didn't believe in sugarcoating.
"You're pale," he said without greeting as she stepped in.
"Have you ever seen this?" she asked, thrusting the parchment forward.
He squinted at it. Adjusted his glasses. Then frowned.
"I haven't seen this symbol in decades."
"You've seen it before?"
He nodded slowly. "Fox cults. Ancient ones. Pre-Goryeo era. This mark was supposedly worn by the first Gumiho priestesses. They believed in fox spirits as not demons, but fallen gods. Creatures of passion, memory, and revenge."
"Revenge?"
He gave her a long look. "What have you found, Ji-eun?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "I don't know yet."
"Well, be careful," he said. "The Gumiho were never just monsters. They were heartbreak incarnate. They remembered everything."
His words echoed in her mind as she left the archive.
Heartbreak incarnate.
They remembered everything.
---
That night, she didn't go home. She stayed in the museum library, poring over books about fox spirits, ancient wars, celestial weapons. She found a faded reference to the War of Spirits — a conflict supposedly caused by a forbidden romance between a human priestess and a fox general.
The story ended with the priestess's betrayal.
And the fox's fury burning half the spirit realm.
> "Sae-ri… why did you betray me?"
The words from her dream rang clearer now.
She closed the book.
Was she dreaming about ancient myths?
Or memories?
And who was Sae-ri?
She rubbed her temples. Her head ached. Her heart ached.
And then she heard it.
A whisper.
Barely audible.
"Ji-eun."
She turned.
Nothing.
Then again — closer.
"Ji-eun."
She rose, stepping out of the library.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
Only the soft creak of the old floorboards.
She followed the sound through the halls — past the dragon urns again, past the Soul Fang exhibit.
And stopped.
The dagger was missing.
Gone.
She stepped closer, heart pounding. The case hadn't been broken. No signs of forced entry.
The glass was just… open.
And a single white fox hair lay on the velvet pedestal.
Ji-eun's knees gave out. She collapsed to the floor, breathing shallowly.
This wasn't a story anymore.
It was happening.
To her.
---
Elsewhere, on the rooftop of a neighboring building, the man with the amber eyes watched her through the glass dome of the museum.
The fox mark on his chest burned faintly red.
"She's waking up," he said to the shadow beside him.
A woman stepped into view, cloaked in feathers and fog. Her eyes were hollow.
"She remembers pain first," she murmured. "As all cursed ones do."
"She's not ready for the truth."
"She has to be."
The man looked down again, watching Ji-eun through the glass, collapsed beside the Soul Fang exhibit.
"She doesn't remember Sae-ri yet."
The shadow smiled coldly. "But Sae-ri never forgets."
And with that, the rooftop was empty.
---
Ji-eun didn't sleep.
She sat in her dark office until dawn, the parchment clutched in her hand, the empty dagger case etched in her mind.
Somewhere between fear and awakening, she understood only one thing:
She hadn't just found the past.
It had found her.
And it was coming back with claws.