The forest engulfed Wooyoung hauntingly. In the night, no sun doused its rays through the treetops and no birds crooned their merry songs. The only one of their kin that got a word in was a crow, whose ghostly call startled Wooyoung upon first hearing it.

Long shadows stretched between the trees. They were accompanied by misty wetness that clung to the leaves and the forest ground that hadn't seen a single bit of light for the entire day. The animals lurking in the dark rustled in the thicket and made it move like waves of an ocean. None of them showed their faces, so Wooyoung was left to wonder if they were as harmless as a badger, or as terrifying as a wolf.

As Wooyoung wandered the woods alone with his racing heart, whose flutter appealed to the predators nearby, he wondered what would happen to him once he reached the beast's castle. The more thought he spent on it, the worse theories his anxious mind conjured. He could get eaten, as Yeosang had suggested. Or perhaps the beast needed him for some vile task like cleaning the well and then left him to die in there. If the creature had a mindset of a human, it might even lock him up to ask a ransom for him, thus ruining Yeosang's life beyond their promises.

The terrified boy shivered as such horrid imaginations accompanied his way through the dark. A sniffle in a bush to his left sped up his steps. Even the unknown beast sounded like less of a horror to die to than the wolves. Wooyoung convinced himself that there must be some good in a creature able to communicate. It could be taught and educated.

All his lies to ease his terrified mind evaporated when the tall towers of the castle appeared between the trees. It cowered in the frozen landscape and its unfriendly grey stone was as appalling as the dead trees circling it. Poison ivy raked up its sides as if nature tried to lure the building into its lulling embrace and have it disappear into the earth. The weathered stone crumbled under such weight in some places.

Wooyoung reached the cast-iron gates. One door hung from bent hinges and was so entangled with raking plants that Wooyoung almost couldn't tell its swirls from the vegetation. He squeezed through the gap with his breath held in his chest. As he entered the castle's premises, he dreaded to be lunged at. No amount of courage could prepare him for his guts being stripped from his body.

"Hello?" Wooyoung called, for he saw no door leading inside. The chilling call of the crow answered him and a shiver akin to frosty fingers crawled down his spine. His nervous hands fidgeted with the corner of his cloak.

"I'm Wooyoung, I was sent here by the travelling merchant who invaded your home. I wanted to apologise." His brittle voice carried less volume than he would have hoped. Skittish in his step, he walked through the gardens to find an entrance. Compared to the gates, they were tended to in a meagre attempt at order. Large patches were dead and frozen in winter, but some rose bushes stubbornly clung to their grace. Wooyoung was careful not to stray too close to them, for the wounds on Yeosang's face had shown their greed for human warmth.

As he searched the towering facade, he found no window doused in light. Some were shattered and the idling snowflakes ventured inside to rest there, but they were too far up for Wooyoung to reach.

"Hello?" He asked once more. What if no one heard him? What if Yeosang had imagined things in his exhaustion? Surely, Wooyoung couldn't just leave, right? The beast wouldn't have sympathy for his excuses.

After rounding half of the vast premises, Wooyoung found a door. It was a massive gate, double-winged in solid wood that was secured with studded iron ornaments. No strength in Wooyoung's body would be enough to make his knock heard through such a gate, but he tried his very best as he hammered his fist against it. He shook his wrist out afterwards, pained by the impact.

Unsure, he stopped in the night and blinked through the floating snow.

Nothing moved, nothing sounded. Wooyoung stood alone in the dark, shivering in fear and coldness. Had he come here in nought? Would he get attacked by wolves on his way back and never see Yeosang again, as he had sworn?

Wooyoung's patience - or perhaps he was frozen in dread - paid off. After another moment of idling, the massive door in front of him creaked open. Only the left wing opened in agonised slowness, as if the castle was reluctant to allow even enough space for Wooyoung to enter.

He hesitated as he gazed into the darkness awaiting him on the other side. Would he die tonight?

His shivers got him moving into the castle ultimately. He hoped to find some corners of it warm and lit, as Yeosang had told. No animal would willingly approach the fire.

However, no person stood behind that door, and no beast either. As if the wood had come to life on its own violation, it had granted him entry. Once he was in, the door fell shut behind him with a resounding boom that rang in his ears. Shaky in his boots, Wooyoung peered around the main entrance area.

The castle was in a disarray after years of being abandoned. Broken vases and a shattered chandelier took over the left corner. Wooyoung trod carefully across crunching glass as he passed wilted flowers on dusty furniture. The coldness cast the castle in an unfriendly atmosphere, and no fire breached the shadows. Wooyoung had to tap around in the dim light of the moon outside that cast pale patterns through the windows.

Fidgeting, he stayed on the lower level since he didn't trust the stairs. He wandered into a dining room, but no feast sat on the table and no flame danced in the fireplace. The place was hauntingly empty.

Somewhere, the breeze penetrating the open windows made wood creak. The curtains fluttered in a ghostly haze.

"Is anybody here?" Wooyoung asked of the room, but his voice didn't carry in the imposing halls. They seemed loaded with dread that lurked around every corner. Wary of their shadows, Wooyoung lingered in the middle of the area.

"I come because of the merchant who was here earlier... I apologise for his intrusion. If you would like me to work to make up for it, I am your loyal servant." In the barren castle that felt like the stomach of some monster, Wooyoung's brittle voice couldn't convince even himself.

Once more, he gathered his courage, about to make his straightforward offer, and if it wouldn't be taken, he would leave. Whatever invisible force that had led him inside had to show his purpose here, or else his sanity wouldn't bear lingering in this place.

Yet, before a single syllable escaped his lips to cast his white breath into the cold air, a ray of light distracted him. No, no ray. A ball. Its source flicked on near the decorative desk pushed into a corner. Pale blue, it cast its hue over the wilted roses in the vase.

"H-Hello?" Unsure who had lit the light, Wooyoung crept closer. Had the same invisible hands tried to soothe his distress? No, only that one ghostly orb shone on the table. Where was its source? He saw no candle, and no normal fire carried such colour.

The orb surged into the air before Wooyoung reached the table. With a coarse yell, he stumbled backwards. No attack came. The orb floated in the air unmoving, like a soul lost in a foreign world. Its lonesome glow was accompanied by a faint singing. Wooyoung couldn't make out words, but the quiet melody was hauntingly beautiful in the empty room.

Frozen like a rabbit, Wooyoung watched the apparition idle about. It seemed aimless in its drifting, not dangerous.

Wooyoung remembered the tales of ghostly fae lights that led clueless wanderers through the bogs in moments of despair. The outcome of these stories could go either way. Either the wanderer fell down a cliff he oversaw, or the orb guided him to safety or riches.

"Are you a feu follet?"

He didn't expect it to answer. As he stepped in courageously to stretch out his hand and see if it was warm, the flickering orb evaded him. It raced around him as if in a game and halted only when he stopped. Staring at it, he felt it stared right back.

"Do you know where I am? I seek the owner of this castle. I was sent to repay a debt."

The dancing flame of the feu follet hovered on the spot. It gave no reply, and Wooyoung couldn't tell if there was any cognisance in the magic shrouding it.

As he stared cluelessly at the fae light, a second one appeared. This one was bathed in a warm golden glow and it joined its blue brother. The more Wooyoung stared into their light in the dark, the more they looked like two mismatched eyes. Nervously, he chuckled.

"Is this your friend? Can you lead me to the..." He didn't want to use the word beast, but how else could he describe what he searched? "The owner?" The ending was lame enough to reveal his fear and misgiving. He tried a smile, but it wasn't convincing.

The two feux follet came closer. They kept their arrangement of twin eyes as they inched in on Wooyoung. Around them, the dark seemed to be the most obscure. Wooyoung could almost feel it reach for him with shadowy fingers.

With a choked noise, Wooyoung stumbled backwards. Quickened puffs of white breaths filled the air between him and the ghostly flames.

"I didn't want to enrage you! Please believe me that I come in peace!" Wooyoung cried, terrified even when the two flames did nothing but close in on him at that slow, eerie pace. Was this the beast Yeosang had described? The glowing eyes in the dark? The hands made of shadows?

Wooyoung was pushed into a corner when he saw no way around the two flames. Their glow seemed malicious and cold in the creepy castle. Instead of lonely songs, ominous hisses sounded from them, like ancient spells whispered in anger.

Pleading, Wooyoung threw up his hands.

"I meant no bad! Spare my life, I beg you!" His knees gave in and he tumbled backwards. Flailing arms caught onto the desk the first feu follet had appeared on. His leaping heart jumped and yelped as cold sweat covered his nape.

The icy wood was rough under his fingers when his body crashed into the table, frantic to scramble back up and keep his eyes on the flames. As he lost control over his jittery limbs, he knocked off the vase that cradled the dried roses.

Time froze as he watched it fall. All the horrors of what would happen if it shattered crossed his mind. He would be devoured by the shadows and the twin flames, blue and gold. He would lose his sanity first, then his life, and the two would chant maliciously as they finally found a new playmate.

None of that happened.

A hand shot out behind Wooyoung's shoulder; a hand so distinctively black that its form seemed to waver around the edges and blur into black smoke. However, it was solid as it caught the vase.

A chill crept over Wooyoung's nape like a breath. He stood petrified in fear, unable to move as the hand put the vase back into its spot. The presence lingered, human-shaped and yet so freakishly wrong. All hairs on Wooyoung's body stood on edge.

The sound of a clear voice in the harrowing hall should have been a relief, but it had the opposite effect on Wooyoung.

"Thus you arrive," it whispered behind him.

Wooyoung screamed as he whirled around. Two undying flames stared at him, piercingly red under the horned white ballroom mask that gave the shadowy face an outline. They were as offputting as the rest of the creature. A humanoid body made of inky black substance that wavered around its limbs like smoke towered behind Wooyoung.

Wooyoung screamed again at the monstrous sight. Nothing human came with it, though the voice and the general shape reminded him of his kin so.

Without a second to waste, Wooyoung threw his body around. He ran past the two mismatched orbs, leaving the demonic appearance behind. As the twin flames chased after him, Wooyoung's frenzied legs carried him to the main door. But no matter how he yanked and shoved at it, it wouldn't budge.

Tears of fear wet his cheeks as he trained his blurred sight on the dining room. The dancing flames frolicked in his dread as they wafted after him, but behind them and along the long line of the massive table came the white mask that seemed to float in the darkness.

Wooyoung turned around and ran. He jumped up the stairs, taking two at a time, to rush into the unfamiliar corridors. His lungs stabbed at him as he ran and ran. The castle seemed to have no end.

Only when he believed himself to be far away from his followers, he shouldered a door open. He whirled inside and locked it behind him. In an instant, his legs gave out and he sunk to the ground, biting his knuckles to keep silent. Tears streamed over his cheeks as he feared for his life.

No footsteps sounded, but he wasn't even sure if the monster left them.

For long, agitated minutes, Wooyoung sat on the ground of the chamber and waited. Nothing moved in the scary castle. The groaning of the wooden shutters under the wind resonated in the old building. Every creak had Wooyoung flinch and bite his knuckle harder, but no one came for him.

Trapped in the castle with the beast and its malevolent spirits, Wooyoung fell into despair.