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The Ashen Girl was dreaming.

Memories faded like her hair, turning gray.

In that dream, she was a younger girl.

The sound of her father and mother shouting echoed throughout the house.

“Isn’t it because you drink so much that we ended up like this!”

In response to her mother’s wail, her father retorted even louder.

“Am I the one who drinks? It’s because you keep wasting money that I’m like this!”

Terrified by her parents’ endless fighting, the girl curled up in the corner of the room.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she couldn’t move or make a sound.

It felt like the whole world was crumbling down.

‘Mom, Dad….’

This dream left a scar in the Ashen Girl’s heart that would never be erased.

A memory that remained engraved in her mind, one she could never forget….

Strangely enough, the Ashen Girl had completely forgotten this memory.

Her parents fighting for all sorts of reasons.

An older brother who hardly ever came home.

And….

“It’s okay. It will be alright.”

That’s when it happened.

Her sister quietly approached the girl and pulled her into a tight embrace.

The warmth and comforting scent began to thaw the Ashen Girl’s frozen heart.

“Everything will be okay.”

As her sister whispered, tears fell from the girl’s eyes.

Somehow, it felt like her sister was also saying this to herself, but it was truly a warm comfort for the girl.

Pat pat.

And in the dream, her sister gently patted the girl’s head.

“….”

With that, the Ashen Girl woke up from her dream.

Pat pat.

Looking up, she saw a Yellow Reaper patting her head with a worried expression.

When their eyes met, the Yellow Reaper smiled awkwardly.

For some reason,

It made her laugh.

*

Located on the outskirts of Songpa District was a newly constructed luxury apartment complex.

On a warm sunny afternoon, the Golden Reapers were waddling their way toward the apartment complex.

To the Golden Reaper, this place felt strange, filled with humans and objects mixed together.

“Look over here!”

Hearing the cheerful voice of a Golden Reaper, she turned her head to see people gathered around a flower bed at the entrance of the complex.

Colorful flowers were flaunting their colors, painting a rainbow.

Beyond that flower bed, straight-lined trees formed a green tunnel leading into the complex.

Underneath the shade of the trees, a walking path curved smoothly.

Surrounding the path, well-groomed lawns and benches provided a relaxing space for humans.

At the end of the trail was a small pond.

A fountain splashed water, while the lotus flowers around the pond exuded calm beauty.

Families were strolling along the path surrounding the pond, chatting peacefully.

If only it were really that way….

The Golden Reapers looked at the happy humans with slightly gloomier expressions.

Then, one Golden Reaper furrowed her brow and began to blow firewood into her eyes.

And as she became expressionless like an angry Golden Reaper, the truth of the city began to reveal itself.

Flower beds full of garbage with no flowers or grass.

Only the frail frames left of tree-lined paths.

A polluted pond radiating a foul odor.

And human-like objects looking as if plaster had been randomly stuck on wires.

Among the crowds strolling through this apartment ruin, many such objects were mixed in.

The appearance of those objects vaguely resembled humans and was quite unsettling.

But no matter how hard she stared, those objects didn’t give off a ‘harmful’ vibe.

Rather, they seemed to be leaking a faint positive emotion from humans.

Similar yet different from firewood,

They didn’t resemble Mini Reapers in the least, but they looked like objects powered by positive human emotions.

‘So? Beneficial objects?’

If they made humans happy through mental pollution and fed off that emerging emotion, they surely wouldn’t be harmful like themselves.

Yet strangely, those objects gave a bad feeling to the Golden Reapers.

That’s why this apartment complex had recently come up as an agenda in the Golden Reaper Conference.

[No matter how you look at it, it’s not harmful, so we won’t destroy it.]

[Still, it feels a bit off, so we won’t approach it.]

The conclusion of the Golden Reaper Conference was to leave it untouched.

‘Risky?

‘Unsettling!’

A guest participating, the Orange Reaper’s extreme proposal to exterminate them received some support, but was dismissed.

Especially from the White Hungry Ghosts and Black Reapers, who rallied behind it, but voting power mostly belonged to the Golden Reapers.

Ultimately, a Golden Reaper’s opinion resonated with many others.

‘We don’t kill objects that quietly exist because there must be a reason for such behavior.’

Of course, the Orange Reaper insisted, ‘It’s just lazy!’ but couldn’t change the hearts of the Golden Reapers who loved their ‘moms’.

Though some White Hungry Ghosts protested the voting results and tried to illegally occupy the conference hall, they were all escorted to the Red Reaper.

Thus, the apartment complex had become a place the Golden Reapers seldom visited, but now they were swarming in.

‘Is it dangerous?’

‘It feels off!’

The reason they gathered was due to employees from the James Research Institute hiding all around the apartment complex.

The employees had started dressing up and sneaking into the complex since yesterday, while their Attached Reapers requested help from the somewhat bored Golden Reapers.

‘It feels like Attached Humans might be in danger!’

‘Something feels uneasy!’

So, wherever there were James Research Institute employees, at least five Golden Reapers were waddling around.

Dressed like local residents, the James Research Institute employees seemed to be meticulously filming the insides of the complex or using Spirit Cameras to look for something.

Moving sneakily, they resembled Golden Reapers playing hide-and-seek.

But from the Golden Reaper’s perspective, it was a bizarre sight.

The research institute employees stood out too much!

It was like watching a human trying to hide among unadorned plaster dolls without eyes, nose, and mouth.

*

Late afternoon, in the courtyard of the Sehee Research Institute.

I was leisurely looking up at the sky, spending my time.

‘There are fewer Golden Reapers today.’

Normally, when I lay in the courtyard and loaf around, many Golden Reapers would stick around, but today their numbers had significantly decreased.

I vaguely remembered them saying they were going to guard the James Research Institute employees.

They swept away almost all the objects in Seoul during the Association Doll incident; was there really anything dangerous left?

While I was munching on cookies delivered by hardworking Mini Reapers, I heard a whimpering voice.

“Kyuhing-hing.”

Turning my gaze, I saw a White Hungry Ghost speared through with a skewer.

Its limbs were blackened and gone, and its body was covered with marks of revolution.

Come to think of it, there had been a White Hungry Ghost hollering for a vote not long ago. Was that it?

Eating cookies accompanied by the lament of the White Hungry Ghost made them taste twice as good.

Hehe.

While spending time like this, the Mini Reapers began to get noisy.

‘So cute!’

‘Younger sibling!’

While I diverted my attention from the White Hungry Ghost to the commotion, I noticed a Green Reaper floating around.

Like a cloak adorned with many flowers, the Green Reaper was flying about.

“Me-ning!”

It looked somewhat like a ghost covered in fabric and a bit like the giant moss ball I saw at the station.

To me, it seemed like an uncomfortable poncho I would never want to wear, but the Mini Reapers appeared to feel differently.

‘I want one!’

‘Me too!’

The Golden Reapers jumped, clamoring to have the suffocating greenery put on them.

Receiving the fervor of the Mini Reapers, the Green Reaper made a short, loud sound, ‘Ming!’

“Ming!”

Then suddenly, grass began to sprout chaotically from the ground, surrounding the Mini Reapers one by one.

‘Wah!’

The Mini Reapers erupted with joy, bouncing around energetically.

Wearing their grass-padded coverings, they leaped this way and that, rolling around because they couldn’t see ahead.

Seeing everyone like that gave an unexpected Halloween vibe.

*

Late evening, the Ashen Girl collapsed onto the floor.

‘Tired….’

The runaway Ashen Girl wasn’t going to school, just hiding in the Yellow Reaper’s hideout, but she felt several times more exhausted than when she was attending school.

She didn’t even feel hungry anymore, realizing she was an object.

As the girl sprawled on the floor, poking the Yellow Reaper’s cheek in frustration, the Yellow Reaper merely chuckled, ‘Huh-huh.’

‘That’s unfair!’

It was all the fault of the Yellow Reaper that the Ashen Girl was struggling this much.

Instead of going to school, the Yellow Reaper had called upon a Mini Reaper to teach her.

And what appeared was a Purple Reaper that she had only seen in internet pictures!

That Purple Reaper put on glasses made from shadows and genuinely started the lesson.

Weren’t Mini Reapers a bit less intelligent and unable to understand human language?

The Purple Reaper seemed to teach better than any school teacher by a long shot.

Thus, the Ashen Girl, more fatigued than usual, fell asleep in an instant.

As she drifted off, a thought crossed her mind.

‘Could it be that the Yellow Reaper is keeping me busy like this so I won’t think of anything else….’

But before she could finish that thought, she fell sound asleep.

*

The Ashen Girl was having a strange dream.

Late at night, she was wandering through an empty apartment complex in her dream.

Unlike the last time, this time it was not an old memory but a completely unfamiliar dream.

In the dream, she walked through a neatly arranged apartment.

Without turning her gaze at all, she kept walking straight.

‘Was there such a place in the apartment complex?’

She continued walking through a place so foreign it felt like this thought echoing in her head.

Soon, she arrived at a location that existed in her memory.

The wide open lot in the center of the apartment complex.

The only place emptily remaining in the beautifully decorated apartment complex.

However, a building not in the girl’s memories had emerged in that open lot.

Step by step.

As she entered that building, she found a field filled with pure white sand.

The fine sand radiated white light, and the space seemed hundreds of times wider than it looked from the outside.

Scattered throughout the plain were numerous holes dug into the ground.

Rectangular holes, as if they had been dug to place coffins inside.

The girl in the dream kept walking through that bizarre space without hesitation.

Swish swish.

It sounded like she was stepping on sand.

She seemed destined to walk endlessly, but suddenly felt a chilling presence and stopped.

Turning her head as goosebumps rose, she spotted a bony hand unexpectedly emerging from the darkness.

The pale hand looked like it had only bones remaining and grabbed her ankle in a strangely twisted shape.

Just as the terrified girl was about to scream, she recognized the owner of the hand emerging from the hole, causing her heart to stop.

It was none other than her older brother.

His face was covered in white sand, and his lips were dry.

The words he barely managed to squeeze out between his lips were cries for help.

The horrific sight shocked the girl wide awake.

Even after waking from the dream, she panted for a while.

Although she realized she was no longer breathing.

Her hands trembled, and it felt like her heart, now nonexistent, was racing madly.

‘That’s really, really my brother.’

For some reason, she was certain that the brother she saw in her dream was real.

The girl sat up abruptly.

‘I have to hurry and save him.’

And she felt this certainty.

That everything would return to ‘normal’ if she went there.

With trembling hands, the Ashen Girl began preparing to leave the hideout.

At that moment, a Yellow Reaper hopped onto the girl’s shoulder.

‘Are you going to go with me?’

The Yellow Reaper replied by nodding slightly in agreement with the Ashen Girl’s determination.