Chapter 5: Empty House, Haunted Heart

“Want to come in and sit?”

“Don’t want to.”

“Oh! Then heading back?”

He looked at me: “No...”

Before I went in, I looked back. He looked away. After I closed the door, I heard the door next door open and close.

Why does Simon live across from me? Too tired to think about it. After a long day, I ate and went to bed.

The next day at work, I ran into Simon, who’d just left, at the door again. Still with a sour expression, I instinctively didn’t want to provoke him. But thinking of yesterday’s elevator not closing, I quietly followed him. Though he had a grumpy face, he probably wasn’t a bad guy.

Downstairs, I wanted to take the subway, but he grabbed my collar:

“Where are you going? From today on, you’re my assistant—drive me to work.”

“...Oh!”

Simon sat in the passenger seat and fell asleep as soon as he got in. The car was stuck in traffic on the highway. I didn’t care—with the boss next to me, being late was fine. I shrank into my seat, dozing off, and vaguely felt someone touch my waist.

I woke up suddenly and saw the young man leaning on my shoulder. His forehead pressed against my arm. I tried to push him away, but he said:

“I hurt.”

“Mr. Young, this isn’t appropriate...”

“It’s fine.”

His voice was low and hoarse.

“Where does it hurt? Are you sick?”

“Not sick. It hurts. My whole body hurts.”

Honestly, I had no idea what to say. After a while, traffic started moving. When Simon pulled away, I saw his eyes were tightly shut, with a sheen of tears.

He must really be hurting, but I didn’t ask any more. People should know their place—I’m just a worker. Besides, after seeing what happened to my idiot dad, I wasn’t interested in getting close to anyone.

Being an assistant wasn’t hard—just making coffee, running errands, sometimes sitting in on meetings and taking notes. Simon, who was usually impossible to talk to, was actually pretty chill. Even when I wanted to work overtime to show initiative, he refused. His exact words: “You need to work overtime? Any random fish could do better. Instead of you working overtime, might as well go home and raise fish—at least fish can be eaten. You working overtime is just wasting time.”

I wasn’t mad: “Boss is right. Are we going home now?”

“Hmph, go drive.”

These days, I commuted with Simon until he went on a business trip. He’d be gone a week, so he gave me time off.

On the second day of the break, it rained hard. I opened the window and heard sirens getting closer, until someone knocked on my door. It was my first time seeing the police, and I was nervous. I thought it was about my debt, but they said something else. A girl living alone on the seventh floor was killed on the sixth floor—raped and murdered. They asked if anything unusual had happened recently.

My back went cold.

I remembered the elevator that wouldn’t close that day. I told them honestly what had happened. The police frowned, warned me to be careful of strangers, and left.

I was scared at home, thinking if I’d gone out that day, would something have happened to me too? Luckily, Simon called right then.

That night I had a dream—Casper, the little octopus, was crying when he saw me, reaching out to chase me. He said he was hurting, but when I got close, Casper turned into Simon. With his pretty face and red eyes, he said:

“Jerk, didn’t you say you liked me?”

Just then, the phone rang and woke me up. As I answered, I heard a sound in the living room—a glass breaking. It was the cup I’d hung on the door handle before bed.

“Mariah, you now...”

“Simon, I think someone’s in my house...”

“...Call the police, then wait for me.”

“Okay.”

I tried to calm down and immediately called the police. There were footsteps in the living room—he’d find this room sooner or later. I quietly got out of bed and hid in a small recess behind the closet. Someone knocked on the door—I didn’t answer.

After a while, it went quiet, the knocking stopped. I relaxed a bit, but then I heard the person outside say confidently, “You’re in there, aren’t you?”

The door was kicked open. At the same time, I heard sirens. “Bitch, you actually called the police.”

I held my breath. He didn’t see me. If I just held out, the police would come up. Apparently, he realized this too. I heard his creepy laugh: “Little beauty, you’re smart, but since I can’t find you, don’t blame me.”

A fire started in front of me, even burning the closet next to me. The heat slammed into me, and for a second, I panicked. But I still didn’t move. Until I heard the police shouting, the megaphone blaring, and the man cursed and ran. I pushed the closet aside to put out some flames and crawled out from the back—the fire was already spreading. The smoke made me cough violently.

“Mariah!”

I saw Simon.

“I’m here,” I croaked.

Simon came over, bent down, and hugged me.

After a night of tension and breathing in smoke, I couldn’t help it—once he hugged me, I completely passed out.

Something fell, and I vaguely heard Simon grunt and his aggrieved voice: “Mariah, hold on, I’m here, don’t leave me again.”

When I woke up, I was in the hospital. The arsonist was the same criminal from the seventh floor—he’d been caught. Because of smoke inhalation, I stayed in the hospital for a week.

I called Simon, but his brother answered. Compared to Simon, his brother Sebastian’s voice was lazier:

“Simon is sick, can’t answer calls right now...”

“How is he?”