TMBIPYMEN Chapter 5

Yustar moved forward, gingerly tracing the damp, pitch-black earth with his fingertips. As the darkness deepened, it gradually consumed his form.

Layla followed him desperately, afraid to let him out of her sight. However, the deeper they ventured into the depths of the forest, the stronger her urge to flee became.

Layla hugged herself with both arms and spoke in a small voice.

"This place... feels wrong."

Fear welled up in her usually impassive voice. However, Yustar nodded with a calm attitude, as if this were only natural.

"It's because there's a Sink nearby. If you're not accustomed to the energy it emits, you'll feel overwhelmed by a sense of fear. But you can't let it consume you. Layla, you're especially susceptible to a Sink's influence. Those eyes and ears of yours... and your witch's blood—it all makes you sweet prey to a Sink. You're like a fig dripping with honey."

The moment a chilling shiver ran up Layla's spine, Yustar's movement stopped. Extremely tense, Layla couldn't help but react sensitively to his every subtle gesture.

"What's wrong? Is something there?"

After a brief silence, Yustar straightened his back and stood up.

"A child died near here, and the mother died too."

Then, he swept his gaze across the pitch-black forest devoid of any light source, and looked at Layla's face.

"If you see something, tell me, Layla."

"See what... I can't see anything. It's too dark to even properly see your face..."

It appeared at that very moment.

At first, Layla couldn't fully comprehend what had happened. Escaping from this place was all she could think about.

Although one of Yustar's arms was protecting her, even his presence brought little comfort now. Her heart thrashed violently. A clamorous warning to flee immediately rang clang-clang in her head.

It was a hole. Like the powder Yustar had thrown earlier, it was pitch black, as if another layer of darkness had been overlaid over blackness itself. So dark that its edges could be seen distinctly.

Laila instinctively knew the hole was bottomless. The moment she realized this, her feet began moving toward the hole—the two happened almost simultaneously. The warning that had been ringing in her head had already ceased.

"Layla! Snap out of it! Don't empathize with the Sink!"

Empathize? What is he talking about? More than that, who is this man?

It's so sad. Layla thought. Inside there is someone so... unbearably sad. As she kept having these thoughts, she felt an overwhelming sense of pity. She felt like she should enter that place and help that unfortunate someone...

—Layla Chrysrad.

In an instant, Layla's whole body trembled like someone stabbed with a knife as her eyes flew wide open.

She couldn't tell whose voice she had just heard. It sounded like Yustar's voice, but it felt like someone else—not Yustar—had borrowed his mouth to call her name... No, not someone. It was 'something.'

It definitely wasn't human.

Layla, having barely regained her senses, turned her head to look at Yustar.

"Is that... the Sink?"

He nodded while pulling Layla a bit closer into his arms.

"A Sink is both a 'phenomenon' and a living thing."

"That's alive?"

"It's not an existence with blood and flesh like humans, dogs, or cats, but... conceptually, it's definitely a living being. So you mustn't empathize with it. I told you, didn't I? To the Sink, you're like a fig dripping with honey. It will try anything to swallow you. So don't allow any emotion toward it."

"It's not something I can control. Without even realizing..."

Yustar smiled gently. It was a smile meant to reassure her.

"I know. When facing a Sink without any protection, everyone becomes like that. But remember my words. As long as I'm by your side, no one can harm you. That applies not only to the villagers but to the 'Sink' as well. Now, Layla. This is when I need your eyes. Look carefully. What do you see?"

Layla never wanted to look back, but at some point, she realized that Yustar's hand was gently guiding her once more. And once again, she wondered.

Why isn't this unpleasant?

Then, Layla's eyes caught sight of a figure melded in shades of ash gray and white.

It was a child.

The boy sat with his legs stretched out near the Sink's pit. Several circular objects like marbles rolled around him...

No. Layla thought. Those aren't marbles.

Suddenly, her throat went bone-dry.

"Those are eyes..."

Layla whispered.

"The eyes of dead children. What on earth..."

Yustar embraced Layla again and leaned his head over her shoulder. He gradually adjusted the decorations on the monocle worn over his right eye, then let out a small exclamation—ah.

"Good. I can see very well now. With this much, I can see what you're seeing too."

As he whispered incomprehensible words, the boy's ghost began picking up the scattered eyes and inserting them into his empty eye sockets, then taking them out again. Back and forth, over and over.

Now she could see that where his eyes should have been was also completely empty. As Layla shuddered at the gruesome sight she wouldn't want to see even in dreams, Yustar spoke again.

"Look carefully. Look and listen well. What is he saying?"

"I can see him, but I can't hear any sound."

"That's not true. Try listening."

Layla took rough breaths. Slowly, she focused her attention on the boy who was endlessly repeating the act of inserting and removing eyeballs.

She knew she shouldn't stare so intently, but right now she had no choice. And with Yustar here, she felt slightly—just slightly—more courageous than usual.

How long had she been doing this?

It was only a few seconds, but to Layla, it felt like several years’ worth of time had passed. Suddenly, a strange sound rang in her ears.

It was a sound difficult to describe. It sounded like dry leaves blowing in the wind and brushing against each other or countless insects flapping their wings while rapidly crawling through a narrow space...

The sound grew clearer, louder. Finally, amid the incessant rustling background noise, Layla could make out a distinct phrase.

—Those kids killed me. They killed me.

A shock came as if someone had thrown a stone at the center of her forehead. Simultaneously, Layla saw the memories of the boy who had created the Sink.

'Vin... that child's name is Vin.'

Vin, who had just turned eleven this year, lived reasonably happily with his mother on the outskirts of the village, though she sometimes traveled to neighboring villages to sell her labor. It would have been a perfectly fine life, except for one thing—he was blind.

Around the age of six, Vin barely survived a severe fever, only to lose his sight. When his world went dark overnight, he couldn't bring himself to leave the house.

Whenever his mother had to work a full day, she would lock the house door from the outside when she left.

Then Vin would be alone in the pitch-dark house where it was darkness whether day or night. The faint warmth he felt when touching the window—with that alone, Vin could sense that time kept flowing and feel reassured.

Then an accident happened.

One day, Vin's exhausted mother overslept. To avoid hearing unpleasant words from the field owner, she rushed out of the house in a fluster, not even properly putting on her headscarf.

The carelessly fastened lock fell off, and Vin knew the door was open. He knew he shouldn't go out, but he couldn't resist the temptation.

When Vin stumbled outside the house, staggering and swaying, Tommy, who played boss in the neighborhood, saw him.

'Hey, look over there! Looks like the blind freak came out for a walk!'

Tommy was a mischievous and spiteful boy who often bullied young children. Vin was roughly the same age as Tommy, but messing with Vin, who could only stagger around unable to see ahead, was easier than twisting a baby's wrist.

Tommy took Vin into the forest with other boys his own age, and at some point they screamed and cackled as they scattered, leaving Vin alone. No matter how much he wailed and shouted, no one came.

"That child... he fell off a cliff..."

Layla spoke, her trembling lips barely moving.

She slowly turned her head and pointed to the cliff ominously shrouded in darkness. It was directly above the Sink. Below, jagged rocks sat menacingly.

Two days later, when Vin's mother found her son's ragged body, wild beasts had already torn apart and ravaged the corpse. She wailed while holding the tattered body, then took her own life by smashing her head against a rock.

The villagers carelessly discarded the two bodies in the forest, then returned home and forgot about the incident. No one spoke of that day. The house where Vin and his mother had lived was torn down.

Layla's body trembled with pain and anguish. The vast fear and terror Vin must have felt stabbed Layla's body like needles. Just before Layla could scream, Yustar lightly patted her hunched shoulders and said.

"Thank you, Layla. Thanks to you, I could see clearly too. Now I'll handle it."

At that moment, Vin's ghost stood up with murderous intent and hostility, glaring at Yustar.

Along with it, the unidentifiable ominous energy pouring from the Sink also grew thicker. Laila was suffocating to the point of nearly fainting, but Yustar moved his neck this way and that with an indifferent expression, as if being bathed in warm steam.

He extended one hand forward. Vin, who had been trying to find eyes that fit him even as a ghost, snapped open his closed eyelids. Two snakes slithered out swiftly from the holes and approached to bite Yustar's ankles.

"You are bottomless itself. Behold, there is no ground beneath you. Look at where you stand."

—I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!!

A piercing sound, sharp enough to tear one's eardrums, shot into the air. Wind whirled, and the tree branches rustled as they rubbed against each other.

"Look beneath your feet. See where you truly stand!"

In that instant—Boom! Something exploded. At the same time, Vin's soul was sucked into Yustar's hand.

What had maintained a complete human form while crouched had transformed grotesquely, like pulled taffy. Vin screamed. Inside his stretched and torn belly, there were no internal organs.

The moment the reverberation of the explosion faded, Layla lost consciousness.