Chapter 56
Looking at Holly, her parents’ faces were a mixture of anticipation and nervousness.
‘That’s right.’
Rather, she was used to this, which eased her mind. Holly let out a sigh of relief and put down the fork she was holding.
“Do you have anything to say?”
She said with a firm heart that no matter how hard they tried, she would never give them a penny more. The next moment, her parents looked at her with a hesitant look and finally lowered their hands under the table as if they had made up their minds.
“This…”
Her dad held out a large box. She didn’t know how he hid it and held it out to her.
“I don’t know if you will like it.”
‘No way this is…’
Holly couldn’t take her eyes off the pretty ribbon that adorned the lid of the box.
“…What’s this?”
“It’s a birthday present.”
She felt as if she had heard a very foreign language. Holly closed her eyes and opened them. Neither the parents sitting there with excited expressions nor the present box they were holding disappeared.
“Hurry up and open it.”
As she glanced away from the box and looked up at her parents, there was a hint of tension on their wrinkled faces. Her stomach rumbled. Her parents’ eyes drooped as she shut her mouth and didn’t do anything.
It was like looking at something very sad.
“You must be surprised. Shall we open it together?”
When her mom opened the lid of the box and unfolded what was inside, Holly’s eyes widened. It was a princess dress that every girl in the neighborhood had when she was little. She, who was too tired to even eat a meal, could only wear it in her dreams.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t buy it for you then.”
There was deep regret in their voice.
Holly looked at them blankly. Parents who feel sorry for her, a warm house, and a table full of food. She went through it all with calm, sunken eyes.
A laugh soon escaped from her mouth.
“…This can’t be real.”
They were the ones who would have a five-year-old take off her clothes if they looked expensive and sell them. She had been stripped of her only clothes and had been wrapped in old sheets. The people who threw their daughter because of debt to the thugs in the neighborhood couldn’t have changed now.
“Where are you going?”
“Aren’t you going to eat the food carefully prepared by your mother?”
As she got up from her seat, her parents reached out their hands impatiently to stop her. Holly looked at them with cold eyes and murmured.
“I want to wake up.”
“What?”
Her parents looked puzzled. Then, belatedly, as if they understood Holly’s meaning, they apologized.
‘…Did I want something like this?’
The appearance of her parents, which was so different from her reality, made her miserable.
“A dream like this is nothing to be happy about.”
She uttered in a firmer voice. The moment she saw the two of them, she thought she could finally turn them over to the debtors and be relieved. Though unless they were real, the regret only deepened.
“I will wake up from my dream.”
In her moment, the scenery she was looking at began to be sucked into somewhere.
Holly stood firm in the middle. The feeling that her body was tied was something she had never felt before. Pulling her chin and looking down, she could see the winding stem all over her body.
‘They say it’s the spirit that makes you dream.’
When she looked closely, the stem twitched feebly.
“If you don’t release me right away, I’ll bite you with my teeth.”
Despite her threatening words, the surroundings remained silent. It didn’t even move, as if it was an illusion. Holly suddenly felt like an idiot talking to a plant.
“Should I get a knife out of my bag?”
As she muttered with a sigh, the stem wriggled and became loose. Holly, who tried to pull herself up and get out, staggered as her feet were pulled. Perhaps the lingering feelings remained, one of the stems was wrapped around her ankle.
“Take out my knife?”
Holly pretended to stretch her arms across her back. Perhaps it understood her words, the remaining stems squirmed quickly as well. The stems swaying in her air looked somehow pitiful.
“Is everyone okay?”
Eventually, she walked towards the place where she felt the wind. She thought it would be better to go to the exit than to wander in the woods since maybe Cahill and his party arrived at the exit early. After a while, she heard the sound of clear water flowing.
Unbeknownst to her, her steps were heading in that direction.
“…A spring?”
Water flowed from the rocks and pooled on the hollow floor. Haunted by the scenery, similar to when her first dream began, she looked around. The strangely peaceful animals were nowhere to be seen.
“It’s not a dream again, is it?”
What happened after that would come naturally as time passed. Holly went near the spring and knelt down on the floor. Her face was reflected on the surface of her water, covered with dirt here and there.
“Should I go wash up?”
Thinking so, she reached out her hand to the water. At that moment, the depths of the water darkened, but perhaps she didn’t notice. Holly lowered herself closer and closer.
Beneath the water, eyes flashed.
“No. I knew what would happen if I touched it.”
Holly pulled her body just before her fingertips touched the spring water. Instead, she brushed the dirt off her face with her hand while watching her reflection in the water. The dry, fine-grained soil came off easily with just that.
“Let’s go find the other.”
Holly looked at her cleansed face and stood up with a satisfied smile.
Behind her back, a bluish face floated above the spring’s surface. The round face was tearing up.
“It’s too bad, it looks delicious…”
Then, they sniffed their nose into the air and licked their lips. It was a sound that Holly, who had already hidden among the trees, could not hear.
As she was briskly walking toward the windward direction, she suddenly stopped. The sound of rustling leaves was no longer heard. Holly tilted her head and accelerated his steps again, but the sound started again.
‘There’s something…’
Holly, who had continued walking as if nothing had happened, suddenly stopped and looked back at him. She scrambled, bewildered by the shadow that followed her.
It belatedly hid among the trees and pretended to be an ordinary tree. Rich leaves in a smooth log shape. Like arms, the ends of the stems on both sides of the body look like the heads of bean sprouts. In short, it was a very suspicious-looking tree.
‘Is it following me? Why?’
Even in the spring and now, she felt someone’s presence around her all the time. Waiting for Holly to let her guard down, all she could think of was that it was about to pounce.
“I saw everything.”
As she spoke, the suspicious log flinched. What she thought was a dot on the torso was eyes, and she could see a small trembling. While she knew that they would attack in an instant and even clenched her fist, it was even cute how it didn’t know what to do.
Holly released her fists and let out a sigh.
“Don’t chase me anymore.”
Holly spat menacingly at the log and stepped back. Soon after, she discovered life other than grass and trees.
“Sky blue hair…”
After confirming the identity, Holly’s voice leaked out of her mouth, as if she was involuntarily disappointed. The first of the three people she found was Badin. His body was wrapped around a trunk and half buried in the ground.
“Should I wake him up?”
Holly approached him with a reluctant look. Except for the first time she met him, he was a more difficult person than Adam, who she was able to deal with.
‘Because it’s Cahill’s subordinate…’
She knelt down next to Badin and shook his shoulder.
“Badin! Wake up!”
When she glanced back, the log that followed her despite her threat stood still and looked this way. Holly woke Badin with a more urgent touch. Even after shaking him even harder, Badin didn’t look like he was going to wake up.
As his body was buried by the collapsing soil around him, Holly winced for a moment, then shook him vigorously again.
“I can’t do it anymore.”
After several more attempts, she was exhausted. Holly sat down next to the sleeping Bardin, and she leaned her back against the tree.
From this location, she could see the suspicious log and Badin at a glance.
“Shall we have a quick nap?”
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