With the gang conflicts, people whose condition was direr than him packed the hospital. A truck crash on the highway also didn’t help the queue. With no pain to bother him and no schedule to catch, he let other first.

”What do you mean?” Rein asked.

”Like I said, it’s just a bruise.” Said the nurse who checked his arm and treat it with some rubbing alcohol and a bandage.

”No, I’m sure my arm is broken and earlier there’s a pretty big swelling here.”

”Well, sir, you can see for yourself, but I have more patients waiting. Please, sir, you can get out.”

”Ah, thank you,” Rein stood and walked out. As the nurse said, no swelling. When he moved it before, the bone moved unlike how it should have. Now, nothing was out of the ordinary. It healed.

When he walked outside, the sun almost set on the west and the sky had turned yellowish orange. If they stuck to the plan, Iris and Friede should shop and on their way to have dinner on an excellent ramen stand he found by chance a few months prior. Before everything lost their taste on his tongue.

But if they didn’t stick to the plan, he couldn‘t confirm their whereabouts. They didn’t follow him to this hospital. Knowing the two, they probably came to his house to check on his condition, which he didn’t want them to.

With that in mind, he decided not to return to his house before midnight. Just to be sure they already returned home when he came back. It was for the better.

He could almost feel it. The hunger, the thirst for blood from ‘her’ on his shoulder. There was no telling what would happen if he came across someone close to him. He didn’t want to know.

A few hours later, Rein spent his time on an arcade. He didn’t bring much money, so he only played a little but that wasn’t a problem. Walking, watching people play, or looking around, there were a lot of different things to amuse himself with.

All the while, he didn’t even look at his phone even once, which he sure was filled with missed calls from Iris and Friede. “Ah,” he remembered. He sent a photo of the mark to Albert to confirm if it was real. He hadn’t checked his answer yet.

”Did you try to get a tattoo or something?” Albert answered. He also sent a photo naked with a woman on the bed. He was still in high school, yet even Rein didn’t know how many women Albert had slept with. The number wasn’t small that’s for sure. Albert was that kind of man, and he often teased Rein for never getting a girlfriend despite fully knowing Rein feeling for Iris.

Rein didn’t reply, just pondering on Albert’s answer. This confirmed the mark wasn’t just an advanced form of his hallucination. He couldn’t tell whether or not this was bad news.

Rein stood up and walked outside. Midnight hadn‘t come yet, but late enough that Iris and Friede should have returned. They have the keys to his house and could have waited inside, but their father was a strict person. No way he’d let his daughters stay overnight in a guy’s place.

A crowd drew his attention when he came out. Many watched a man playing a hard shooting game. It was meant for two people, but the man played it alone, handling the gun in each of his hand. And he hasn’t taken a single hit in the entire time playing it. Not only that, he was an exceedingly handsome and eye-catching man with eyes and hair colored with matching gold. But it wasn’t his insane gaming skills or charming appearance that caught Rein’s attention.

The aura. Rein couldn’t grasp it well. It was strange. The best way to describe it would be the man exuded a calming aura. Like a baby being embraced in the arms of their parents. An aura that blew away all worldly trouble and worries. An aura of life, comfort, and protection. Even that merely described a fraction of the feeling.

Who is this person? His mind raced. The person wasn’t normal. He must knew something. Maybe even knowing the anomaly was the cause of it.

He wondered whether people around noticed it the way he did, or were they crowding around because of his gaming prowess and unbelievable appearance?

Rein pushed through the wall of people. He must speak with the man. There must be something he could do. But before Rein even entered the crowd, “Arthur.” A woman called the golden-haired man. Everyone turned their head, revealing a particular woman with auburn hair. Her getup different from her usual, with casual clothes and handbag on her side and with light natural makeup that made her beautiful appearance even more stunning. Not that anyone often sees her, but what everyone had in their mind was the strict version of her that never use casual clothes or makeup.

Strange. She only called the name ‘Arthur’. It could be anyone within the crowd, yet instinctively everyone knew she was calling the golden-haired man. By instinct too, they recognized the voice and moved out of the way.

Rose walked the path made by people moving away, unbothered by the stare and suspicion they showered upon her. Rein couldn’t imagine how she maintained her calm demeanor with all that pressure around. Before the numbness set in, public attention and peer pressure were nightmares for him. Maybe she was used to it. Everywhere she went everyone realized the strangeness of her being. Showered with distrust and suspicion was just another day for her, no different from being haunted by anomalies for him. Maybe. Or maybe she was just cold.

Arthur put down the gun and turned. “Rose.” With a bewitching smile, he called her name. “You look absolutely stunning today.” With voice sweet as if sung by Apollo himself he complimented her.

Even Rose who maintained a poker face all the way through, blushed when facing Arthur sublime existence. With a stunned expression on her red face, she averted her gaze.

At that moment, Arthur’s aura filled the entire room and enveloped everyone in its warm embrace. The mistrust and suspicion surrounding Rose dispersed, and the pressure lifted. Her existence in the eyes of the crowd suddenly wasn’t a sore thumb anymore, just another young woman entranced by the gorgeous man.

“Let’s go.” Arthur offered his hand and Rose took it with no hesitation. Everyone’s gaze still glued to them as they left.

Rein was no exception. All he thought were Arthur and Rose and how they could help him. He tailed them, watching from a distance and trying his best to blend in with the pedestrian crowd.

But he stopped trying when Arthur brought Rose to a famous five-star restaurant on the busiest street in the city. The whole building was reserved and guards in suits patrolled the outside, the roof, and the other building connected to it. It was a fortress. Try as he might, there was no way in. And who knows when they came out? If they came out that is. There was a passage connecting the restaurant to a five-star hotel, so they might not come out until the next morning.

He could wait for them all night. Tomorrow was already vacation for him and he won’t get sleepy or tired, and his father was away so there would be no one looking for him, not counting Friede and Iris. But looking at the security detail, there was no hope even if he waited. Stalking them wouldn’t help him with that. Taking all that into consideration, he went back home. He could do better things than waiting.

When he came back, he found his house empty, much to his relief. There were signs of Friede and Iris checking on him but they appeared to have left. He took a quick shower and finally looked at the flood of missed calls and unread messages from Iris and Friede.

Something was off.

Amidst the mound of messages and missed calls from Iris and Friede, there was one message from an unknown number. He could just dismiss it as a promotion or a fraud message, but that unknown number sent him a photo. “What-“ The mark on his chest seared.

On the screen, the image of unconscious Iris and Friede bound to a chair showed up. The background was somewhere unfamiliar, like an abandoned building or warehouse. It didn’t look edited, and there was no way someone would prank him with thi- The phone rang. Not his handphone but the house phone.

With little thought, he picked it up. “Greeting, Rein Constantine. You can call me, the Dollmaker.” An unfamiliar old man spoke. The sound gave off an impression of a kind and caring grandpa, but the situation didn’t support that claim. “It seems you finally saw my message, took you long enough. Did you have fun in the arcade?”

“What did you do to them?” His mind and heart raced, but he didn’t show it in his voice.

“You’re very calm in a situation like this, I commend you.” The old man had no intention to answer. “You see, I don’t want to hurt your friends. They are very beautiful and wonderful women and it saddened me to have to take them, but the police forced me to resort to this ... unsightly method. I’m going to offer you a deal.” The police. That word caught rein’s attention. He remembered the news about a recent serial kidnapping. He reached out towards his phone to call the police. “You see, child. I still need two more women for me to do my ... thing. Luckily for you, neither one of your friends fit my criteria, though I won’t rule them out if I fail to procure … more suitable one. If you want to save them, help me find two more that fit my criteria. I’ll send the detail to your phone. Oh, and finally, take your hand off your phone. Call the police and both of them die. And if it comes to that, I’ll make sure to send the footage to your phone for you to enjoy.”

the old man cut off from the other side, leaving Rein unable to do anything. The choice to call the police was at his fingertips. He already entered the number and needed just to press ‘call’, but he couldn’t risk it.

A lot of thoughts went through his mind, but the first one was to check whether Iris and Friede were actually kidnapped. Calling their phones resulted in his call being ignored and their housemaids said they still haven’t returned.

It was real.

Why, why, why?! He cursed himself. All he wanted to was to distance himself from them, to make sure they didn’t fall prey to the curse he brought. So why? Why did this happen instead?

”Calm down! Think! Think! Think REIN!” The numbness in his heart prevented Rein from getting completely panicked, but even it didn’t help him much in a situation like this. He couldn’t think of anything. His mind clouded and his judgment skewed.

He has to save them; he has to save them; he has to save them, but how? How? How?

There was no answer.

“It’s your fault, Rein.” the shade of a young boy in a green jacket appeared before him. His skin was dark and rotten with one eye missing and the other blank. “Just like us, everyone around you is destined to suffer and die a horrible death, and for what? Your own selfishness. You could have spared them the same fate years ago, but no, you want to live a normal life. You drag them to hell because of your own selfishness Re-“

“Shut up!” Rein grabbed a nearby chair and threw it at the boy. The shade fizzled but didn’t disappear.

“Don’t deny it Rein. You know the truth” The boy walked closer with a mocking smile plastered on his decaying face.

“Shut up, you ghost!” He faced the ghost head-on. “Fuck off! Go away! Haunt somebody else!” He swiped and punched and kicked, but everything Rein threw at the boy passed through him.

”She’ll die no matter what. You know it don’t you, Rein? Deep down inside you know there’s no saving her. The other girl might be saved, but there’s-”

“SHUT UP! This … this is not the curse. It’s not because of the curse.” The curse didn’t act this way. The curse, he, didn’t cause this. “I … can still fix this. I can still save them.”

The shade smiled, though it wasn’t the warm smile. It was sinister, mocking smile that ridicules him and his effort. “Try it then and see yourself fail in the most spectacular way. We both know you will.”

Before Rein could say anything back, his phone trembled, revealing a new message from the unknown number.