Devil of the crossroads

June 29, 2021. I see this date in my nightmares every night since my dad died. It’s been 3 years.

"Hyunjin, Wake up. Are you going to sleep through the school hour?"

A woman's voice echoes in her ears when she tosses and turns in her, woken from a dream, brushes back her long black hair behind her ears.

Up from her bed she strolls to the door. A calendar hanging just behind it over the white wall. The dates were crossed with a red ink till 22 June, 2021.

"Come home straight after school. If you go somewhere call me.’’

Hyunjin looks at her mother straight in her eyes. The bob cut made her round face rounder. That face is a bit unfitting for a thin person like her. Somewhat looks like a hibiscus in a thin long vase. She walks away through the two-part wooden door of their mansion. The head of that door reaches at the end of the celling, a marble furnished home. That home doesn’t give her peace but reflects more loneliness as she strolls inside. Her cell phone left over the table rings.

‘’Hyunmi, I think we should meet.’’

She hangs up to head upstairs.

‘’Weasel, where’s the cash?’’

Walking down the street she hears a bustle. On her right in the alleyway in middle of two house two boys, a fat one and a thin one picks on a boy. His face red and blue, right eye blackened, peaks through them at her, bearing her school logo.

‘’ Leave, while we’re being nice.’’

‘’I don’t want to.’’

In rage the fat one comes at her with all of his strength that becomes his misery. She shifts her body three steps behind. Weight of his body shakes up the ground beneath their feet when he falls.

She looks above where they see a camera at the top of the pole with its head down. Next she sees is them fleeing hiding their faces with their bags.

The boy walks slow paces towards her then walks by her side.

‘’That camera, it’s been broken for weeks.’’

To his reply she just smiles.

‘’What’s your name?’’

She squishes his cheeks then brushes his black fluffy hair.

‘’Lee Heojun. The shy one of our class?’’ Seeing his name on his chest pocket she remembers.

He smiles to be comfortable with her. But her eyes befall behind him at a distance. A man in the shadow of a house leaning over a pole, pale of color, eyes peaking from his chin length black hair strands. Throwing a mysterious smirk at her direction he walks away sticking a lollipop back in his tongue and fixing his black trench coat. After he passes, she sees words written on the pole.

29062021

Her eyes widens in shock, a dog barks right after.

 A golden retriever looks up at her, Heojun brushes it’s fur.

‘’These types of dogs are very calm natured. He won’t hurt you.’’

‘’Stop petting that thing.’’

She walks away, he rushes to walk beside her.

 Wood furnished décor, a Victorian era chandelier, hall filled with old paintings. An atmosphere that takes someone in a different era. The man lighting up the candles comes out of the shadow in the light to sit beside Hyunmi. His black hair brushed back, stepped in his fifties yet tall, shoulders broad and not an eye sore.

‘’Do you find anything unusual about Hyunjin or have you faced something yourself that you would state abnormal.’’

‘’Nothing particular with me. But my Hyunjin became rougher. She was a kind kid, everything changed after his death.’’

‘’Greed leads to addiction, which then becomes greater than fear. Something like that might have happened to your husband. All we know that he sold his soul for his dream. Devils are bad loan sharks; they won’t give him a ten year of life span with that kind of success he must’ve traded something more precious.’’

‘’What could be precious to him than his own life and success? His grave is full of secrets like he himself was. If not then he wouldn’t have instructed to dig it in the downhill of Busan mountains’’ Hyunmi says with a frowned face.

‘’I thought it would stir chaos in your lives if I dug his grave. But as its already stirred I won’t hold back.’’

‘’Isn’t your home on that road?’’

A short haired girl of her class asks her seeing her heading to the mountains. Hyunjin walks away without a word. Walking a distance of half an hour she comes to the forest, the downhill of the mountains. Through the bushes she finds a field of tombstones. She reads the writings over the farthest cornered one.

Korea’s pride, Singer Han Tae Sul

Bringing forth a shovel she digs the grave that belonged to that tombstone. Her shovel hits something after digging well enough. Removes the dirt with her hand to find a wooden both. Through the bushes a heart wrecking howl of a hellhound is heard close enough. Her feet get stuck in a puddle. She feels sweaty, her palms wet to pull her feet out.

 She couldn’t bring herself to look back after her feet is free. A hand in the dark picks it up after her. The hound chases her for a long way. Slipped on a rock she falls over her face. Nothing but silence and a timid darkness around her. Brushing the dirt of her shirt she stands up to find a crossed road with four paths to walk around her. One feet away behind her a boot against the ground sounds like a whip against her pounding heart. A gravely disembodied voice of a man calls her name.

‘’I’ve seen you in the alleyway. Who are you?’’ she turns around.

‘’Your question should be what am I?’’

A man whose appearance screams mystery in every part of him that she looks at. The same black aura, same eyes staring at her.

Han finds the graveyard, Taesul’s grave dug open. Let alone a proof there wasn’t a single bone found but a hair tie under his shoe.

Without having to wait more Hyunmi rushes to her door. Right at the door Han and Hyunjin covered in dirt. HyunJin walks upstairs to avoid her.

‘’His grave was dug open. When I got there, I found a hair tie.’’

‘’This belongs to my HyunJin.’’

‘’I found her near the highway and brought her with me. This means she was the one who dug it open. Now, I have no doubt she knows something.’’

Hyunjin quickly shuts the door after she steps in her pitch-dark room. She rolls her sleeves near the window by the moon light. Five fingers down her palm the moon light reflects on her skin. A black mark of a cross.

Hyunmi in the hall finds her daughter leaned over the sofa with her hand over forehead. The sun light falls over her eyes to show those dark eye bags. Walking near Hyunjin she sees the bandage. But she refrains herself to ask about them. An hour had passed of her school hour. Hyunmi leaves her in hand of their maid SeoHi

To lighten up the dark hall in the evening SeoHi switches on the chandelier, leaves leaves her alone in the house to go to the market. Hyunjin in shocked to the core when she solves the answer of the last problem in the workbook.

‘’29072021?’’

She throws them away. Walking around her neighborhood she hears footsteps. Her stalker taps her hand to leave his throat and apologizes. It turns out to be Heojun. On his knees he coughs loudly then shakes his hand to prevent from stiffening.

‘’I was worried so I came to see you. Your eyes! Did you have trouble sleeping?’’

‘’I am fine, leave.’’

‘’I can’t actually. I’ve got a night duty at the convenience store right across this road.’’

She leaves him to walk ahead but he grabs her hand and sees a bandage. Right in the moment the hound howls again to stir fear in her heart. In the hustle to free her hand the tattoo is revealed. Right Infront of his eyes he sees her breathing from her mouth, eyes widened, cornered herself to the furthest where her back touched the wall. He finds that dog again.

‘’I named him Doggo.’’

Doggo calms down when Heojun pats. The hound backs its feet in the shadows. Looking skeptically, leaning at the wall her eyes are stuck in that dark alleyway.

 The hound barks, with a jump chases her. Heojun and Doggo runs after her. Breathless, helpless sitting she collapses. He sits by her on the streets patting her shoulder. She takes deep breaths and hugs him, her face against his belly. Doggo gushes in to hug them. A cold strong wind blows to the bushes over them. The sigh like sound stirs up fear in him.

She hides Heojun and Doggo behind her.

Heojun questions himself of all of her actions but all of it is justified when he looks ahead. Just a breath away from her stands her deal maker, eyes closed, smiling at her. As he opened them, they are as grey as a gravestone. With that sight Heojun collapses.

‘’You’re one tough fool.’’

He circles around her and twists her hand behind her back where she had clenched on a table knife. Doggo barks to shift his sight from her. Hyunjin in the given moment shifts the knife to her left hand, stabs it all the way inside his heart. Black blood drips by the stabbed knife. With a distinct anger he gestures to grab her throat. she feels breathless, groundless. A bullet is fired, after a fall she lands on someone’s lap. Right ahead the devil’s bleeding from his right shoulder.

‘’Hide behind me with your friend.’’

Professor Han lets her down and she does as instruct, he holds his brown leather furnished gun in both of his hands straight at him to defend.

‘’Yooryung, leave right now or I’ll shoot you in the head.’’

‘’You can kill this body not me. I am the demon of the crossroads.’’ He vanishes but reappears behind Hyunjin. Instead of her she sees Yooryung floating in her place. Her eyes meet Han’s while waking up Heojun. His eyes completely black as if all the worlds darkness is condensed into it.

‘’Wake up. I didn’t pay you to sleep.’’

By the splash of water, he wakes up outside the store. Entire scene has changed. It seems to be a dream yet felt to real to be one.

Leaning on HyunJin’s shoulder he makes it to her house.

‘’Your friend will think all of it to be a dream. But tell me, you’ve made a deal. Haven’t you? I’ve seen the cross on your arm.’’

She stands still, back turned away from him. Hyunmi looks at her arm to believe it’s a lie but it isn’t. She asks Hyunjin the reason but she’s as quite as ever.

‘’She knows that you’ve tried to cross deal for her. So she went to the grave. But didn’t have to summon him because she is a part of her father’s deal.’’

Han finds the workbook to discovers she’s facing the symptoms.

‘’She made a deal with the crossroad demon of the downhill, Yooryung like her father did. For what? You’ll have to ask that yourself.’’

The tattoo burns on her skin like a hot coal that she screams in pain.

‘’I can save her making him break the deal. We still have four days left.’’

Heojun walking by a neighborhood tries to call Hyunjin but receives one instead.

‘’Are you Lee Heojun, Mr. Daniel Lee’s nephew? we’ve called the doctor but he asked you to come. Please hurry.’’

Heojun walks inside a mansion to find a man tossing and turning on the floor in pain, he sits by his side.

‘’Hang in there, it’ll be alright.’’

‘’ You don’t understand. The deal is over. He’ll kill me. That hound, get rid of it.’’

Heojun looks but finds nothing but a cross mark in his hand. Daniel clutches over his heart, cracking sounds of bones is heard. Daniel’s misery ends with his life, his head rests on Heojun’s lap.

‘’The famous horror writer Daniel Lee died today in the afternoon in his home. Sources say that he experienced a heart attack and broken bones. The body…’’

Han turns off the tv after he packs a backpack and sets of.

Away from the urban Busan he drives across the highway to the village. To the very depth and abandoned area there he sees a small wood furnished house with a courtyard. To the room in the furthest corner there are weapons of all sorts, books of religious belief and candles lit around across the room.

‘’Raise your hands above. This one’s stacked so don’t try and fool me.’’ A cranky old feminine voice is clear behind him, a riffle behind his neck is warm. Something or someone has been shot before him.

‘’Aunt, it’s me. Han JunWoo.’’

She drops the gun and hugs him.

‘’What are you looking for?’’

‘’ I need the sacred knife and the magnum gun that you own.’’

She walks to the window to a wooden box with sacred seals made on them.

‘’Sacred items have seals on them that a human can bore, but you are bonded with a devil. You never need sacred items except holy water. why do you need them now?’’

‘’To kill the crossroad demon of the Busan mountains.’’

‘’No, he is our blood you can’t kill him.’’

‘’He is not your grandson Han Yoon. His body is just shell to that devil, his weapon against me. If I don’t kill him countless will die like our Yoon.’’

‘’ Come back alive to return them. You have travelled for a day to come here you’ll need another to return. Don’t be late to save them.’’

She brings them forth from behind her. He rushes out with the items in his chest pocket wrapped in a cloth.

Hyunjin sees her mother dozed off by her side. With lack of trust on Han she sets of to the mountains as per the deal.

Hyunmi opens her eyes, to find her daughter gone. She is left with 4 hours before her husband’s death anniversary to save her. For clarifications Heojun comes to visit. He sees not Hyunjin but her mother heading out in plain clothes, he follows her to know

Hyunjin in the bushed face the hound again, its red eyes glowing in the dark. She sniffs its stench and sees its perilous teeth. Following its stench Doggo comes in the line to save her. It bites the hound, gets bitten. She finds Heojun behind her, holds his hand. She looks back at Doggo but he pulls her.

‘’Don’t worry, he’s a tough one. He’ll come finding us.’’

Hyunmi comes to the crossroads to find her daughter.

‘’Yooryung, I’ve come to take my daughter’s place.’’

Yooryung makes himself appear.

‘’That place was never hers to begin with because the one your husband sold is you. That night I showed Taesul’s box of deal to Hyunjin, she saw your picture in it and asked to make a deal to revert her father’s. She has been suffering before the deal because your husband tried to double cross me.’’ 

‘’Yooryung, Break the deals or I’ll send you back to hell.’’

‘’This body of your nephew makes you weak, you couldn’t and still won’t do it.’’

Yooryung appears behind Hyunmi with a knife at her throat. Han points his gun straight.

‘’Shoot and your nephew will die with this woman.’’

Han raises his hands behind his head, takes his paces back, Yooryung walks ahead. Han seeks a chance, stabs the ground with a knife that was hidden behind his collar. His eyes turn to handle the knife, Yooryung feels his feet glued to the ground. Hyunmi crawls behind. A burning golden light travel to his feet and captures him in a sacred circle from the knife.

‘’You crafted the demon trap beforehand to trap me, smarty pants?’’

Han sees his nephew in there begging for help instead of Yooryung’s threats. The spell weakens like his resistance when begins to pull the knife. Misguiding Han he stretches his hand at Hyunmi, casts a black force of energy at her. Hyunmi dumbfounded becomes stiff. But she’s unharmed, Hyunjin shields her.

 Han pushes the knife further down barehandedly. That burn in his hand is nothing greater than the one in his heart. Right at the center of his forehead Han shoots. A black smog leaves Yoon’s body through his eyes leaving a lifeless body behind. Han holds his nephew, Hyunmi holds her daughter, Heojun just stood there. Pure evil dyes by sacrifice, they were the sacrifice.

Months have passed, Han and Heojun visits Hyunmi’s house with Doggo.

‘’She is fine, breathing, living. Doctors say she has slipped into a coma. How’s Doggo?’’ Hyunmi asks Heojun.

‘’He fractured a bone but healed, he misses Hyunjin.’’

‘’I should’ve killed him beforehand.’’ Standing by the window Han looks at them with guilt.

‘’Family makes us weak but works as our strength too. I don’t blame you but thank you for saving both of us sacrificing your family. Yoon will find piece and Hyunjin would wake up, I know.’’

Hyunjin opens her eyes in a different world. Skies of red clouds, nothing but a barren land without grass beneath her.

‘’Welcome to the land of nor the dead nor the living. Pay for your deeds.’’

 A disembodied rough voice of a man echoes. Alone, on her knees chains of metal rises from the ground, her hands and feet shackled. The metal becomes hot like a coal burning her skin. Suffering in that pain she screams in the inhuman land. Escaping one she falls into the clutches of another inescapable punishment.