How many nights have I had this dream?
I stopped counting.
It always starts the same.
I'm lying in bed.
Room dark.
Air cold on the right side of my neck…
warm on the left.
A contradiction I can never explain.
Then something sits on my chest.
Not a figure.
Not a shadow.
Just weight — slow and deliberate — pressing down like the darkness is learning how to breathe.
I try to inhale.
My ribs twitch.
My throat tightens.
Then it whispers my name.
Right into my ear.
The breath is warm…
yet the air against my cheek stays freezing.
That mismatch is what scares me more than the whisper itself.
The physics stop making sense.
I wake up gasping.
Heart racing.
Hands shaking.
I used to tell myself it was sleep paralysis.
Nightmares.
Stress.
But nightmares don't follow you during the day.
The whisper does.
My family always said I was special.
Marked.
Followed by bad luck.
"Bad luck sticks to you," they'd say.
"Like a second spine."
I thought they were joking.
Until the sheep.
I used to count them to fall asleep:
"One sheep…"
"Two sheep…"
And then—
"Three sheep."
Except I didn't say it.
The voice came from the other side of the pillow.
Too close.
Too gentle.
Too real.
I turned my head slowly…
Nothing there.
But the whisper kept going.
"Four sheep…"
Barely audible.
Shaped like a smile.
"Five sheep…"
Warm breath brushing the cold air.
"Six sheep…"
The blankets tightening slightly — like something else moved beneath them.
I hid under my blanket after that.
Instinct.
Desperation.
Some childish reflex still wired into me.
What — the monster wouldn't see me because I covered my head?
The blanket didn't stop the whisper.
Didn't stop the breath.
Didn't stop the fingers.
Cold.
Thin.
Tracing the line of my ankle as if checking whether I was real.
They tugged once — enough to drag me down the bed a little — before I jolted awake.
And before my eyes opened, I heard it exhale:
"Soon."
I tried to fight it.
Earplugs — still heard it.
Lights on — still felt it.
Different rooms — still sensed it.
Different cities — still followed me.
When I was sixteen, I recorded myself sleeping.
The footage showed nothing.
But the audio…
Someone was whispering.
Right beside the mic.
I showed my friends.
They didn't laugh.
They didn't tease me.
They just stared.
"Why are you recording yourself?"
"That's just you snoring."
But the file had no snoring at all.
Not even breathing.
So what were they hearing?
Why did they look at me like I needed help?
After eighteen, I stopped telling people.
Stopped asking.
Stopped trying.
People don't react well when you describe things only you can hear — or things they refuse to hear.
And then the moment I told my family…
Atheists.
Skeptics.
People who mocked every ghost story alive.
They froze.
Their smiles dropped.
Their bodies went stiff.
The room went dead silent.
Then one of them whispered:
"…djinn."
I asked what it meant.
No one explained.
They just turned away, slowly, carefully — like they didn't want to upset something listening behind me.
But the truth is, the whisper didn't begin in my bedroom.
I used to hear it outside.
I remember being six or seven, playing football alone in my garden.
Kicking the ball against the fence.
Practicing the same shot again and again.
The sun went down.
The sky dimmed.
And from under the tree — the big one in the corner of the garden —
I'd hear my name.
Soft.
Too soft.
"Buck…"
I'd turn around.
Nothing.
No one.
Just the tree.
Just the wind.
But the wind doesn't pronounce syllables.
And it definitely doesn't exhale.
Even now — at twenty-six — sometimes I hear a half-formed breath behind me.
Like it's trying to learn this world's language.
And the strangest part?
It never touches me when I'm angry.
Or loud.
Or moving.
It waits.
It waits for silence.
And that's why—
I scream.
I shout.
I act loud.
Because if there's silence…
if it's quiet…
if there's no noise…
I'm afraid.
What if it comes closer?
Kang acts normal.
Kwon acts normal.
Everyone acts normal.
Laughing.
Training.
Sleeping.
As if nothing is standing an inch behind me, gently breathing a second after I exhale.
As if the cold patch isn't real.
As if the whisper isn't balanced on the edge of my thoughts.
Sometimes I stare at them and think:
Why do they act so normal?
As if it's not right in front of them?
Am I crazy?
Then something warm exhales down my spine.
Delayed.
Precise.
Only happening when the room goes silent.
Silence used to be peaceful.
Now silence feels like permission.
My family had a word for it.
A Qarin.
A shadow.
A mirror.
A breath that isn't yours.
I don't know if I believe in any of that.
But I know something is with me.
Something always has been.
And every night…
every quiet break…
every time I close my eyes…
I exhale.
And then—
something else exhales after me.
Not my breath.
Its own.
If it's just in my head…
why does it have its own breath?