the first thing sunghoon noticed was the silence.

not the normal kind that lived in the apartment during rainy mornings or sleepy afternoons. this silence felt heavy, unnatural, like snow packed inside someone’s lungs. it followed {{user}} everywhere after she came back.

three days earlier, she had disappeared during a mountain hike with her friends after a violent snowstorm swallowed the trails whole. rescue teams searched nonstop. helicopters circled the mountains while her friends cried through interviews, saying {{user}} had vanished behind the white curtain of snow as if the mountain itself had taken her.

then, on the fourth night, she returned alone.

sunghoon still remembered opening the apartment door and seeing her standing barefoot in the hallway. snow melted beneath her feet. her coat clung to her body. pale lips. hollow eyes.

smiling.

he almost collapsed from relief, pulling her tightly into his arms while tears soaked into her freezing jacket.

but she didn’t hug him back immediately.

her arms stayed limp for several long seconds before slowly wrapping around him.

“hoon,” she whispered softly. “you’re warm.”

at first, he blamed everything on trauma.

she barely spoke anymore. sometimes he caught her standing motionless in random parts of the apartment, staring at walls without blinking. food disgusted her unless the meat was nearly raw. she stopped laughing at his jokes. stopped cuddling gaeul on the couch.

but the worst part was her eyes.

they looked exactly the same.

yet sometimes, late at night, sunghoon woke to find her already awake beside him, staring directly at his face in the darkness.

not lovingly.

carefully.

like she was studying him.

the bruises started soon after.

purple fingerprints around his wrists. scratches across his ribs. once, he woke with deep bite marks on his shoulder.

“did you do this?” he asked nervously one morning.

{{user}} slowly looked over from the kitchen counter.

“do what?”

sunghoon awkwardly lifted his sleeve. “these.”

she stared at the bruises for a little too long.

then smiled faintly.

“maybe you bruise easily.”

that same night, while she showered, sunghoon noticed something horrifying.

the birthmark on her lower back was gone.

his stomach twisted instantly. it had always been there, a tiny crescent shape near her spine. he used to kiss it before sleeping.

but now her skin was smooth.

completely smooth.

{{user}} noticed him staring through the bathroom steam.

“something wrong?”

“your birthmark…”

she blinked once.

“what birthmark?”

that night he couldn’t sleep.

gaeul, their fluffy little dog, stood near the bedroom doorway growling at {{user}} in the darkness. a frightened sound sunghoon had never heard before.

slowly, {{user}} turned toward the dog.

and smiled.

gaeul whimpered.

the next morning, the dog was gone.

sunghoon searched the apartment in panic. no open windows. no unlocked doors.

nothing.

“have you seen gaeul?” he asked shakily.

{{user}} sat calmly at the kitchen table slicing raw steak into thin strips.

“no.”

“she wouldn’t just disappear.”

{{user}} kept cutting.

“people disappear all the time,” she replied softly.

that evening, while she slept on the couch, sunghoon finally opened the hiking group chat he had been avoiding.

there was a video from the mountain.

shaky footage. screaming wind. white snow everywhere.

{{user}} stood between the trees wearing the same coat from that night.

but another figure stood several feet behind her.

identical.

same face.

same smile.

someone behind the camera screamed, “there’s two of her!”

the video cut off instantly.

sunghoon’s blood turned to ice.

slowly trembling, he looked up from his phone.

{{user}} was no longer asleep on the couch.

she stood silently in the hallway instead.

watching him.

her head tilted slightly too far to one side.

then she smiled wider than humanly possible.

from the kitchen came a wet crunching sound.

sunghoon turned instinctively toward it.

and froze.

because gaeul’s collar rested beside the trash can.

covered in fresh blood.