Marry me in 7 days.

Yoon Se-ra pov:

---

I didn't sleep.

The woman in white never returned, but the hallway outside my door felt... wrong. The air was too still. My thoughts moved like fog, circling the same three things:

The painting.

The voice.

The resemblance I couldn't deny.

By dawn, I was still sitting upright, blanket tangled around my knees, watching the light bleed slowly through the curtains like a wound that wouldn't clot.

At breakfast, Mrs. Song didn't show.

No porridge. No footsteps. Nothing.

The silence made my skin prickle. I wasn't sure if I was being punished or protected.

Either way, I didn't eat.

---

Mid-morning, I walked.

Maybe to clear my head. Maybe because the room was suffocating. Maybe because some small, reckless part of me wanted to provoke the house — to see what else it would show me.

I didn't expect to end up in front of the door again.

The one at the end of the back hallway.

The one that whispered.

It was still shut, still quiet. But today, something about it looked...different.

The doorframe. It had shifted.

Only slightly. Barely noticeable — a thin sliver of darkness where there used to be none, like the wall was pulling away from it. Like the house was trying to swallow it whole.

I raised a hand and pressed my fingers to the knob.

Cold. Wet.

I pulled back.

My fingertips glistened with something that looked like condensation — but it wasn't water.

It shimmered faintly.

Like oil.

I wiped my hand on my robe and stepped back.

Something in my chest told me not to open it.

But something deeper — darker — told me I already had.

---

The garden called to me next.

It was too bright, too alive for a place like this, and yet… comforting. Overgrown in some places. Wild in others. Like the house had given up trying to tame it.

I sat on the edge of the stone pond and closed my eyes.

And then I heard it:

A lullaby.

Soft. So soft I thought I imagined it.

It wasn't Korean. Not exactly. The words bled together, old and cracked like an ancient prayer.

I stood and followed the sound.

It led me to the northeast wall of the garden — a section overgrown with climbing vines. At the center: an arched wooden gate covered in ivy.

Locked.

I touched it anyway.

And that's when I saw her again.

Not a ghost. Not a flicker.

A girl.

Twelve, maybe thirteen. Standing barefoot among the weeds, her white dress stained at the hem with dirt. Her eyes were mine.

Exactly mine.

She stared at me without blinking.

Then, slowly, she raised one hand.

Pointed to the gate.

Then to me.

Then vanished.

---

I didn't scream.

I didn't move for a long time.

But when I did, it was back to the greenhouse.

Mrs. Song was there again — pruning a rosemary bush like nothing had happened. Like she hadn't been gone all morning.

"Did you lock the garden gate?" I asked.

She didn't look up.

"What gate?"

"The one at the back. Ivy-covered. Near the old pond."

"There's no gate back there."

I stared at her. "There is. I touched it."

"Then it wasn't meant for you."

I stepped closer. "Mrs. Song…"

Her clippers paused mid-air.

"There are rules here," she said softly. "Rules to keep things from waking up."

"What things?"

She looked up then.

And for the first time, I saw fear in her eyes.

Not for herself.

For me.

"Ask Mr. Han," she whispered. "Before it's too late."

---

I found him in the library.

Not reading. Just sitting.

Staring at the fireplace like it had said something that disturbed him.

"You lied," I said without preamble.

He didn't flinch.

"You said your family doesn't talk about the painting. But someone must know something."

Jae-yul didn't answer.

So I kept going.

"I saw a girl today. She looked exactly like me. A child. And I know I wasn't hallucinating."

That got a reaction.

His eyes flicked toward mine — sharp, searching.

"She pointed at the garden gate."

"There is no—"

"There is," I snapped. "And don't bother lying again. I touched it. It was wet. Like the door upstairs."

A pause.

Then he stood, walked past me, and pulled a book from the top shelf behind his desk.

It wasn't labeled.

Just bound in black leather. No title. No author.

He placed it on the table between us.

"Don't open it here," he said. "Not unless you're ready."

I stared at the book.

Then at him.

"What's in it?"

"A name."

"Whose?"

Another pause.

Then: "Yours."

---

That night, I didn't sleep.

Again.

I didn't open the book either.

I placed it on the nightstand and stared at it like it might open on its own.

At 3:12 AM, I heard the lullaby again.

Clearer now.

Closer.

This time I rose.

And I followed it.

Through the hallway. Down the stairs.

Into the back corridor.

Where the shadow door waited.

The frame was wider now. The edges bled ink — or something like it — that pulsed faintly under the moonlight.

And this time, the door was open.

Just a crack.

Just enough.

I reached out.

And then—

A hand burst through the gap.

Small.

Pale.

Grabbing my wrist with impossible strength.

I screamed and yanked back, falling hard against the opposite wall. The door creaked open wider—

And on the other side was not a room.

It was a stairwell.

Descending into pitch black.

The hand was gone.

But something had left a mark on my wrist.

A symbol.

The same one from the painting.

---

Back in my room, shaking, I opened the book.

Inside: a single page.

One name.

Written over and over in fading ink.

Yoon. Yoon. Yoon. Yoon.

And beneath it, scrawled in a child's handwriting:

> "You came back."