Cold air bit in Hongjoong's lungs. It stung as if his chest were stabbed with a knife and the rest of his body echoed. He was burning up, heaving for the icy caress of the winter air to soothe his agitation. His legs flew across the ground, pumping scorching blood through his veins to carry him into the thicket. Bramble and broken branches grabbed for him with wicked hands, but he barely felt them. He broke through, hastened, and gasped. His sight blurred, and the night made the forest ground a death trap, but he couldn't stop.

He was dead if he stopped.

"Vampire!" A voice behind him bellowed. Every exhaustion that wore his body down evaporated when fresh panic sped up his pace. Like a bunny, he dashed between the looming trees, each appearing from the dark as if they wanted to put an abrupt stop to this ridiculous chase.

And perhaps splitting his skull open on a tree to bleed out was the kinder end than what his pursuers had in store for him.

A mob of people followed the boy through the forest. They stomped down the bramble and thicket and came crashing through with the noise of five boars in their pursuit. Their torches spent enough light for Hongjoong to find his way, but that meant they were close. Hongjoong had seen the murderous glint on their swords and pitchforks. They thirsted for blood, vampire blood.

"You can't run, monster!" The blacksmith heaved. Hongjoong knew them, each of their names and stories. They were the people of his village, the ones he grew up with every day. Now, their smiles had evaporated and ire threw ugly shadows over their grimaced features. They were just as blood-thirsty as their weapons and once they caught up, they would reap their prize.

Hongjoong had tried to argue with them. He still would. He would ask for forgiveness, would prove it to them by visiting their priest and receiving his blessing.

He was no vampire. This was all wrong. The story got twisted and fear blackened their pure hearts. Hongjoong ran with tears pricking in his eyes as they chased him from his home, but no one would hear him out. Not his aunt, not the girl living in the neighbouring house to whom he had gifted flowers with a shy smile, and not anyone else.

"I'm not," Hongjoong heaved. "I swear, I'm not." He barely had the breath to talk, but he was desperate. Even as he ran and the forest threatened to consume him, he needed things to be right. Those were his closest friends. He couldn't end up speared on their weapons.

But there was no mercy. Hongjoong had seen them burn women they accused as witches when Hongjoong thought their proof questionable. Once anger consumed their frightened minds, they wouldn't rest until they believed themselves safe.

Everything went wrong. In the morning, Hongjoong was at home, stretching languidly from a good sleep before making a fire to prepare a stew for breakfast. In the evening, Jongho came tumbling in, that big buffoon. He was the butcher's son, and he needed to show Hongjoong a mouse that had curled up in his pocket overnight. When he came rushing in, he still carried a bowl of pig blood from his family's work to provide their village with food. He tripped, spilled the bowl all over the floor, and shrieked loudly enough to alert the elders. They came rushing in, spotted a pale Jongho, Hongjoong unbothered, and blood all over the floor.

They lost two villagers to monsters just recently, be it a vampire or wild animals. Their bodies had been mutilated and strewn about a clearing, creating a similar mess.

The villagers hadn't listened to Hongjoong, and Jongho failed to explain on time. The next thing Hongjoong knew, he was running. By now, his legs started to give out on him.

He tumbled, towing against thorny bushes painfully. With a struggle, he launched back up. His legs begged him to stop, didn't want to take even another step, but Hongjoong forced them, pleaded so they wouldn't end on a spike. More tears spilled as he understood there was no way he could make it out of there. Too many villagers were after him and they knew how to hound animals to death.

Sobbing, Hongjoong reached for a tree. He lost his way, couldn't tell anymore where the deceptive darkness led him. An owl called overhead, ghostily announcing his death. Hongjoong's head whipped left and right and he urged his legs to keep moving, but the voices drew closer. They hadn't lost him. There was nowhere to hide. Only death awaited those accused.

"Halt if you have any sense of honour for those who brought you up! We saw the blood, creature, there is no going back!"

"The Lord will punish you as you deserve!"

"Rot, foul one!"

It wasn't him. Hongjoong hadn't murdered them. He didn't spill any blood. He was no more but a courier and he helped Yunho by milking the cows with in late summers.

"Please," Hongjoong heaved. His throat was so dry he needed to cough. The soft clothing his parents gifted him before an illness took them from him hung in tattered rags from his frame.

Hongjoong just wanted to go back. To his regular life, to the same day, before everything was ripped from him.

Disoriented, he stumbled towards the tree line. A few cliffs opened to a starry night ahead and though there was no ocean beneath, he would rather take the jump than get questioned and trialled in the town. He had attended once. Screaming women, thrown into the lake, bound at their hands and feet. If they floated, they were witches, but too many of them floated; how could all of them be witches?

Thinking about it made Hongjoong's head spin. He wanted to throw up, or at least lie down to catch his breath, but his pursuers hounded him up the slope of the cliff. No snow had fallen despite the dark days of the year, but the trees stood barren with their gnarly branches. They wouldn't catch Hongjoong if he fell. The death of nature matched his sudden fate.

No one would miss him. Those who would have if the vampire snatched him were the same people now chasing him to the brink of exhaustion. As Hongjoong tumbled for the boulder throning atop the cliff to look out over the forests below, he heard their pants as they closed in on him.

He had nowhere to run. This was the end and he couldn't bear the trial that wouldn't prove his innocence, no matter how he argued. If he wanted peace, he would take the plunge. Even if the thought made his heart race with fear, he knew he could do it. That much, his aching body could bear. Blissful silence.

Hongjoong doubled over in pain and fear. His hand flailed to catch onto the rock next to him as he gulped down his bile. He needed to hurry. If death scared him now, worse was to come. One jump and he spared himself of all torment.

The men behind him scrambled up the muddy hill when Hongjoong noticed the peculiar smoothness below his fingers. He pulled back to study the boulder in the scarce moonlight. It was eerie, the perfect night to spill blood that looked too dark to be real. Another death, but the creature wouldn't be banished. Others would meet the same fate as him. Perhaps Jongho next, if he could bear the guilt. Then Yunho?

Hongjoong pulled from his deteriorating thoughts when he realised he was looking at a building, not at a mere boulder. A lone mausoleum found its way onto the cliff to oversee the lands. Its facade was weathered and claimed by nature's plants that climbed against gravity with determined tendrils. An iron gate gave a view of a stone sarcophagus, plain yet relevant enough to exist in this abandoned place.

Hongjoong never came this far out, didn't know which noble or poet asked for his last resting place here. But now that he realised, this was a solid line of defence against his exhausted pursuers. They would need more men if they wanted to take down the building and until then, Hongjoong might flee.

Hastily, he yanked the heavy iron gate open. It squeaked on its hinges and he had to stem his weight into it when his strength was no longer enough. Clammy, he squeezed his way into the dark shadow. He slammed down the iron bolt and it seemed sturdy enough to hold them back, if not forever. Inside was just enough space to round the sarcophagus, otherwise the monument was cramped. When Hongjoong ducked, he could disappear behind the stone lid, void of decoration, as even the last loved ones of the owner fell to dust.

But they knew he was in here. Hongjoong was trapped and as soon as they opened that door, he was lost. No more running for the cliffs.

Frightened, Hongjoong looked around. His hair stuck to his forehead and his ears rang from their voices, but no weapon offered salvation. The mounts on the walls were empty.

As the villagers slowed their step on the last incline since they were assured of their victory, their chuckles got more sinister. They sounded like other people, as if the kind souls Hongjoong knew never existed.

"Finally, we trapped him. A vampire is a beast to hunt."

"We can be glad he was caught in the act before he committed more atrocities," another prided. Hongjoong whimpered as he hugged his own body. Perhaps he could throw himself into a sword. Anything but the trials and their gruesome punishments.

Just when he thought to go mad, he noticed the stone lid was ajar. He hadn't noticed it before, but the darkness peered up at him, offering yet another hideout. Or perhaps a weapon? Hongjoong was no fighter, but he would rather die trying than get dragged off.

If he hid, perhaps they thought he ducked behind the building? Could he hope for such foolishness?

As his life dangled from a spider's threat, Hongjoong prayed for anything. Be it God or the Devil himself who sent him salvation, he would take it.

Hongjoong stemmed himself against the lid and the spirits of life must have blessed his last moments because it slid away much easier than he would have expected. The grinding noise was quiet, as if cushioned by the riches inside. Eager, he peered over the edge as soon as there was enough space. He steeled himself to greet the face of death.

The moonlight barely illuminated the room and the dreadful light of the torches outside just barely rounded the corner. Still, Hongjoong could spot the uncanny emptiness of the sarcophagus. Not only was the grave empty of its owner, but it had not even a bottom. A staircase led down, probably to a subterranean catacomb. Why put it inside the sarcophagus?

With no need for explanations, Hongjoong slipped inside, joining the dead. He felt their chill, their rejection of the living, but he prayed they would forgive his intrusion. The catacombs would have weapons. He could defend the narrow staircase against one villager at a time. Though he might fall, they might kill him mercifully instead of dragging him back outside.

Once more, the lid moved easier than he anticipated. He shut out all light and waited with his head ducked into the darkness of the cold grave. No breath escaped his lips.

"He's in there?"

"Come out, Hongjoong! No more games!"

"Spare us of the name that creature used to trick us with! A monster, he is, and he will die like one."

Hands rattled the iron gate and Hongjoong bit his lip until he tasted the tang of his blood. Ironically, the last taste he got before he was murdered under the accusation of being a vampire.

Hongjoong's heart thumped in his chest, so lively on its last beats. Perhaps he wouldn't have grown old, perhaps he would have died of the same illness as his parents soon, but now it raved and begged for every moment under the sky.

"I don't see him."

They shook the gate harder.

"Did he lock it or did he pass by? He couldn't open it by himself."

Right, weren't mausoleums sealed normally? A place of peace, entered only by those with relations who possessed a key? Perhaps age wore down its lock, or grave robbers cracked it in the past.

Icy air caressed Hongjoong's nape and had his hackles rise. The villagers fell silent.

"Did you hear that?"

Hongjoong strained with them. A pack of wolves in the woods could mean salvation or a quicker death.

But it was no howling that whispered from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was a snarl of a creature larger than a wolf. Hongjoong could hear the gnash of its teeth, the hunger.

He shuddered.

"We are not alone," a villager whispered. Nervosity filled their voices. Perhaps it was the ghost they disturbed and suddenly, no one wanted to enter the mausoleum anymore.

"Let's... let's go back. Wait for daylight. If he jumped, we will find him down there and otherwise the eldest will know about a key. Hongjoong can't get far and we are ready when he comes back for food," a smarter one suggested.

Someone scoffed and began to protest, but the snarl sounded again. It was closer now, close enough that Hongjoong's stomach twisted and everything in him begged him to run. He was drained, but he never heard anything like it. Could a mere animal make a sound so wicked? Would he be safe behind these bars in his morbid hideout?

Finally, the villagers backed away. Their feet shuffled as they distanced themselves from the haunted mausoleum.

"If he went in there, perhaps the ghosts killed him already," was the last thing Hongjoong heard before they stumbled into the night uttering curses for light. As if a spell befell them, their desire to hunt him vanished. Suddenly, they remembered they were far from the village and countless dangers lurked in the night. A beast didn't draw a difference between one villager or a group; it would slaughter them all.

Trapped in the haunted place, Hongjoong glanced over his shoulder. He felt watched, felt as if whatever threatened them was also out for him. As the heat of his run subsided, his terror was chilling.

A light flamed in the darkness of the tunnel. It reached further down than he thought and from one moment to the next, a pale green flame started dancing. It illuminated a pathway leading to the catacombs.

Was someone here with him?

Frozen, Hongjoong glanced at the stone lid above him. Something told him it might not budge until he explored, and he desperately needed a break.

If the ghost of this grave's owner protected him just now, he needed to thank them.

Thus, Hongjoong carefully descended the stairs to investigate the dancing light.