Ji-yeol scrambled to his feet, his porcelain leg protesting with a dull, internal chime. He ignored the sting of his pride and fixed the girl with a sharp, suspicious glare.
"How did I get here?" he demanded, his hand hovering near the brass locks of his suitcase. "The mounds... the ink... I was being hunted. Did you drag me into this place?"
Ka-yeon didn't answer immediately. She simply tilted her head, and the contrast of her existence became chillingly clear. The left side of her face was warm, human skin, her lips pulled into a wide, mocking grin. But the right side was a mask of cold, unmoving porcelain, her eye a fixed orb of obsidian that didn't blink. It remained unfazed, a hollow statue's stare.
"Answers have a price, Scribe," she said, her voice a mix of a girl's lilt and the scrape of a kiln. "And in this house, the only currency is fun. You want to know the 'how' and the 'why'? Then you have to play a game with me first."
"I don't have time for games," Ji-yeol snapped, turning on his heel. "The world outside is being rewritten. I'm leaving."
He didn't wait for her response. He lunged back toward the way he had come, his boots thudding against the floorboards. He passed the glass cabinets, the obsidian eyes of the dolls blurring into a dark streak. He ran until his lungs burned, his porcelain leg dragging like an anchor, but when he looked up, the hallway hadn't changed.
He was still passing the same Victorian doll in the same lace dress. He was still under the same heavy wooden rafters.
He pushed himself harder, sprinting past the floral wallpaper until his vision swirled. He turned corners, threw open doors, and burst through archways, only to find himself standing exactly five paces away from the high-backed velvet chair.
Ka-yeon was still sitting there, her long white hair draped over the armrest, her half-human grin wider than before.
"The 'Exit' is a masterpiece I haven't finished painting yet," she chirped, leaning her chin on a porcelain hand. "You can run until your legs turn to dust, Ji-yeol, but you'll only ever find more of me."
Ji-yeol stopped, his chest heaving. The cloying scent of rose water felt like a weight in his throat. He looked at the never-ending corridor and then back at the girl who was half-frozen in ceramic. He was trapped in a loop, a draft of a story that refused to move to the next page.
He let out a long, defeated exhale and dropped his suitcase.
"Fine," he rasped, his eyes narrowing. "What kind of game?"
Ka-yeon's grin turned predatory. She hopped off the chair, her white babydoll dress fluttering. "A game of Hide and Seek, Scribe. But we aren't hiding bodies. We're hiding truths."