Chapter 28
“Here we go again.”
The student council president muttered.
Again?
I suddenly remembered how the student council president had been trapped in a coffin earlier.
“Don’t tell me, was it like this before too?”
I asked, then startled to find his face so close to mine.
It was understandable, given that two people were trapped in a narrow coffin meant for one.
The student council president sighed and nodded. His breath touched my forehead.
Ignoring the ticklish breath, I quietly pondered what he had said.
“Then what should we do? We can’t get out unless someone comes to let us out, right?”
Let’s think of a way. There must be a clue to escape.
As I uncomfortably squirmed in his arms, he sighed and said,
“Melody, it’s better if you don’t move…”
Because our bodies were excessively close, his words sent a rush of breath to my ear.
Being so tense, I flinched and shrank back.
In doing so, I accidentally pressed my knee hard into the student council president’s thigh, which must have hurt a lot.
“I’m sorry. Are you okay? Your thigh must be bruised.”
The student council president squeezed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth, and replied,
“It’s not my thigh.”
“What? If not your thigh, then what?”
The student council president didn’t answer. He seemed quite angry.
Feeling sorry, I couldn’t speak anymore and kept my mouth shut.
The increasingly labored breathing was now the biggest problem.
This is really serious. There’s too little oxygen.
That’s when it happened. A cold sensation touched my ankle. It wasn’t human, but it didn’t feel like an object either—a very unfamiliar touch.
Frozen stiff, I said to the student council president,
“At my feet…”
There’s something at my feet.
The student council president pulled me into his arms.
“Don’t look. If you don’t look, it won’t come up.”
I buried my nose in his chest and blinked. But before that, I might die of suffocation.
If I suffocate, will this become my grave right away? I haven’t thought of an epitaph yet.
If I get out, I should write an epitaph first.
“Do you know a way out?”
“I’m thinking. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely get you out alive.”
He spoke as if comforting me.
Such calmness and kindness in this situation. How strong-hearted must one be to act like this?
“You’re trying to save just me? What about you, president?”
“This is what I chose, so it can’t be helped if something goes wrong. If only one person can be safe, it’s better if it’s you.”
“That’s not right. I hate that more than anything in the world. Someone sacrificing themselves and leaving me alone.”
“I’m offering to save your life, and you’re getting angry.”
“I don’t like the feeling of owing my life to a stranger. It’s burdensome.”
The student council president looked at me with curious eyes.
“Seems like you don’t trust others easily.”
“There’s nothing wrong with solving problems independently, is there?”
“You’re right. It’s not. It’s admirable.”
I didn’t expect such a positive response. Feeling a bit embarrassed, I changed the subject.
“By the way, it’s getting harder to breathe. What should we do?”
The student council president rested his chin on my head and replied,
“Wait. I’m requesting help.”
“What? Now? To whom?”
He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he asked something else.
“Those skeletons from earlier weren’t evil spirits, but the ghosts of Chesswind Village. They seemed obsessed with you. Do you know anything about that?”
“Ghosts of Chesswind Village?”
Those skeletons from earlier…?
Why are the ghosts of Chesswind Village here?
I had already left Chesswind Village. This place wasn’t Chesswind Village.
Those skeletons couldn’t possibly be people from Chesswind Village.
‘Come to think of it, the student council president said the Chesswind Village ghost story wasn’t over yet.’
The student council president lowered his head slightly to look at my face. His face was too close.
“I have so many things I want to ask you.”
“I’m curious about your identity too, President. How we were able to meet, where this place is, what you know about Blackie, why Blackie brought me to you.”
If he was the student council president I remembered, he was someone I needed to keep an eye on.
Hmm.
The student council president looked at me with contemplative eyes.
“Are you not going to answer?”
“I am Blackie.”
“Joking in this situation…”
Wait.
Come to think of it, I only asked the president ‘what he knew about Blackie’, but I never told him that I had given Blackie that name.
“I understand if you don’t believe me. I don’t completely trust you either.”
“If you’re Blackie, how can you transform into a cat?”
“I’m not transforming, just borrowing a cat’s body for a while. Cats are spiritual creatures.”
Hearing that, I recalled what Erica had told me. The folk belief that cats can see and chase away ghosts.
“I can’t see things like evil spirits or ghosts like you can. Instead, I can sense their presence more strongly than others. That’s why I borrow a cat’s eyes. Through a cat’s eyes, I can see them.”
“…That doesn’t seem more normal than seeing ghosts. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know why I can do it either. I just know I was born with it.”
Glancing up, the student council president’s face looked completely honest.
“Don’t tell me, you saved me earlier without even seeing those skeletons?”
“I could see the skeletons. They had physical form, so ordinary people could have seen them too.”
The student council president glanced down at me.
“Let’s say your ability to see ghosts is your constitution. I also have a constitution that allows me to borrow a cat’s eyes.”
I felt like these weren’t quite comparable, but I couldn’t argue against it.
“But it’s really puzzling that you have the ability to destroy evil spirits. As I said before, even Sister Gloria, who had the most powerful abilities in history, could only seal them to this land.”
“And as I said before, I don’t know anything.”
“…Right. You do look like you don’t know anything.”
The student council president replied in a voice that seemed to have given up. He didn’t say anything after that.
So we remained silent, looking at each other, lost in our own thoughts.
What broke the long silence was the unknown evil spirit still clinging to my ankle.
The evil spirit kept pulling at my ankle. The eerie, chilling sensation on my ankle was quite unpleasant and unsettling.
After pondering for a while, the student council president finally took out a glass bottle from his pocket and shook it.
“I think we’d better use this.”
The transparent liquid inside the glass bottle was special holy water procured from the Vatican.
This was the same as what the student council president, in the form of Blackie, had given me when dealing with the elevator ghost story.
As the holy water appeared, the grip of the evil spirit strongly holding my ankle loosened a bit.
“I’ve been thinking all along about what the medium for the Chesswind Village ghosts might be. It seems it was you.”
“…..!”
The medium was ‘me’.
Now I understood what he meant earlier when he said the Chesswind ghost story wasn’t over.
Looking back, there was physical evidence too.
When I destroyed the evil spirit from the elevator ghost story, a cross mark appeared on my forearm.
Nothing like that appeared when I left the Chesswind story. It was because I hadn’t destroyed it.
🐈⬛
Thank you for reading! ♡
