Fox Sister

It was a silent night.

In the pitch-black darkness,

the faint moonlight seeping through the door crack barely illuminated the room.

I remembered the cow collapsed in the empty barn last night.

My body went cold.

The old man’s eerie prophecy was coming true one by one.

Rats, cats, chickens…and now cows.

What’s next? I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

There was nowhere to run to anyway.

The world had long turned its back on me.

So I bowed my head and apologized to Father for lying.

But after that day, I couldn’t face my younger sister,

locking myself in a secluded room and avoiding going out.

Even after going to bed, sleep wouldn’t come easily.

My mind was filled with ominous memories.

The fox spirit’s mocking voice I once encountered echoed in my ears.

The unsettling warning from the jester at the market still lingered.

“The curse has struck.”

The most painful memory was definitely my sister’s face.

Her pale face glowing in the moonlight.

But it wasn’t the face of the loving younger sister I knew.

At the corners of her mouth were streaks of dark red blood,

her eyes gleaming cruelly like a starving beast.

The sight of her chewing on the cow’s liver she clutched was

more terrifying than any demon.

The blood-stained smile, the greedy gaze, and the animal blood at the corners of her mouth

pierced my heart like a sharp blade.

Tossing and turning through the night, I finally fell asleep,

only to be overwhelmed by a horrifying nightmare.

The old man who gave me the prophecy appeared in my dream.

But when I tried to approach him, my heart froze.

His face was deathly pale,

his eyes rolled back showing only the whites,

and a grin stretched across his lips as blood trickled down.

“It’s too late! Too late!”

The old man’s voice screeched sharply,

like nails on a chalkboard.

“Everyone will die! It’s all over!”

He cackled madly,

his strange laughter sending shivers down my spine.

Even though it was a dream, cold sweat poured down my body.

The old man’s eerie smile overlapped with my sister’s blood-soaked smile from last night.

A sudden scream snapped me back to reality.

The shrill sound made my whole body bristle.

My heart pounded wildly,

cold sweat trickled down my spine.

The scream grew more desperate,

as if gasping for the last breath.

A voice in my head screamed to run,

but my feet were frozen in place.

Faint shadows flickered under the door,

and an acrid smell assaulted my nose.

The pungent, sticky scent reminded me of freshly slaughtered animal blood.

I recalled the bloodstains on my sister’s mouth last night.

The madness in her eyes seemed to come alive again.

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly.

But the screams were vivid,

the metallic smell of blood all too real.

I knew this wasn’t a nightmare.

I bit my lip and gripped the blanket tightly.

There was nothing I could do but stay still.

I lacked the courage to open the door and face the horrifying reality.

Footsteps approached gradually.

They seemed regular yet irregular,

accompanied by a dragging sound.

My heart thundered in my ears.

Breathing became difficult.

I pressed my trembling hands against my chest.

The ear-piercing screams that were just moments ago disappeared suddenly.

Silence.

The silence cut through my chest like a sharp blade.

Yet within that silence,

the approaching shadow of death was unmistakable.

Creak…

The sound of the door slowly opening pierced my ears.

“Sister, I know you’re awake.”

A cheerful voice seeped through the door gap.

That voice which would normally sound adorable,

now resembled a monster’s song echoing from the abyss.

I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter,

but the blood-red aura cutting through the darkness was unmistakable.

I realized there was no escape.

Despite my desperate wish,

my eyelids slowly lifted.

The scene before my eyes was horrifying.

My sister dressed in a white hanbok stained with blood stood there,

dragging Father covered in blood with one hand,

opening the door wide.

The sound of Father’s body being dragged across the floor echoed,

blood stains spreading thickly, the stench overwhelming.

The small white hands of my sister left clear red marks on the paper door.

Her smiling face was identical to the beast that tore into livestock entrails earlier.

Chills, disgust, and icy fear enveloped my body.

But what overwhelmed me most was resignation.

The despair of knowing there was no escape.

My surroundings had already transformed into a blood-soaked hell created by my sister.

Memories of happy times with my sister surfaced faintly.

Holding hands running through fields as children,

gazing at star-filled skies together laughing.

But what stood before me now was not the beloved sister from those days.

“Huup…”

A faint groan escaped from Father thrown onto the floor.

It was a precarious voice clinging to his last breath.

“This isn’t…different from the promise…”

To that anguished muttering,

my sister replied without flinching.

“You’re still alive? How annoying.”

Her cold words pierced my heart like daggers.

She roughly grabbed Father’s hair,

and slammed his head onto the wooden floor with force.

Bang!

With the dull thud of Father’s head hitting the floor,

his groans abruptly ceased.

As if stubborn life had been forcibly severed.

Paralyzed, I could only watch the惨scene unfold helplessly.

My sister slowly turned her head to look at me,

not sparing a glance at Father’s lifeless body.

Every nerve tingled under her intense gaze.

I sensed death had arrived right before my eyes.

Fear made my whole body tremble uncontrollably.

Strangely, no tears came.

As if preparing to endure the impending pain,

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly.

But the expected pain never came.

Instead, an icy silence filled the room.

Though I could clearly sense my sister’s presence right in front of me,

she didn’t come closer.

Confused by this incomprehensible situation,

with my heart pounding violently,

I cautiously opened my eyes.

Bathed in moonlight at the doorway,

nine luxurious tails swayed gently.

Above them, fox ears stood prominently in the moonlight.

In that instant, all the scattered pieces fell into place.

The overwhelming fear gripping my body transformed into cold realization.

“Sister, won’t you have a little chat?”

My sister’s innocent voice echoed through the room.

But even that voice now sounded unsettling coming from the creature standing before me.

Refusal was unthinkable.

I stiffly nodded with my rigid neck.

Then my sister’s face lit up with a bright smile.

“Sister, now it’s just you and me in this house.”

Taking a step closer, she continued softly.

“The third brother ran away quietly,

the second brother, Uncle Dol-Soe, Father… I got rid of them all.”

The sight of my sister confessing such horrors in a clear, pure voice was

mind-bogglingly strange.

“You see, Sister, I just told the truth about you,

but everyone called you a liar, didn’t they?

I got so angry… I killed them all.”

My sister raised her blood-stained hand toward me,

but stopped mid-motion noticing the blood on her palm.

“I can’t dirty my precious sister, can I?”

Her smiling face seemed relieved,

but that smile now felt more eerie and alien than endearing.

“You know, Sister, Father came to me and said,

to catch and eat you and the brothers, remember?

At first, I thought it was quite a good idea.

You all looked so delicious.

But… how could I eat the most precious person in the world?”

My sister’s two eyes stared at me intently.

The once clear and beautiful eyes now swirled with madness.

“So Sister, I won’t eat you.”

She whispered brightly with a smile.

But that smile felt like shackles binding me.

“Sister had a chance to run away, but didn’t, right?

You could have left me behind and escaped alone.”

Her words carried a strange mixture of obsession and affection.

I could only stare blankly.

“So from now on, we’ll be together forever, okay?”

She smiled softly and rested her face on my shoulder.

The faint metallic smell reached my nose.

“It’s just the two of us now, Sister.

We need to cherish each other, don’t we?”

She whispered tenderly, pressing closer.

I could only nod weakly.

Silence enveloped the room again.

Father’s cold corpse lay motionless on the floor.

In this grotesque reality, I found myself embraced by my sister’s warmth.

In this ironic situation, not even a bitter smile could form on my face.

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