Jonas Lockwood stood on the cracked concrete path, staring up at the two-story house—the quiet, unimposing domicile of his youth.
The sight of the familiar structure instantly triggered a flood of distant, sterile memory.
The setting shifts to his last departure for Seoul years ago. Jonas, already packed, was standing at the threshold. His mother was submerged in the kitchen, meticulously involved in her cooking. The sounds of simmering and chopping dominated the air, a physical manifestation of her preoccupation. Her attention was wholly fixed on her task, an effort that felt less like culinary passion and more like a rigid observance of domestic duty. She offered only a brief, distracted farewell.
After his move to the capital, Jonas made the journey back from Seoul to Busan only three times in as many years, the visits growing less frequent until they ceased entirely. His subsequent interactions were reduced to monthly, functional telephone calls, cursory checks on her physical well-being. He realized now, standing outside the door, that he had forgotten the precise contours of her face.
In the silence of his internal monologue, Jonas addressed the ghost of his childhood: It is not as if Mother subjected me to a struggling or traumatic upbringing. She unfailingly met my material needs; if I asked, she procured it. Yet, the exchange always felt transactional, as if she were merely completing her responsibilities. She never conveyed genuine affection. She never gave me the attention I truly craved.
Jonas snapped back to the present. He pressed the doorbell twice, then a third time. The silence that followed was dense, unbroken by sound. He paused, considering the possibility of an outing, opting to wait a brief interval.
When the silence persisted, his impatience returned. He rang the bell again, a longer, more insistent summons. He attempted the front door handle—it was locked. A quick inspection revealed no open windows or obvious means of ingress. He circled the house until he discovered the back door, situated near the overgrown garden, was ajar.
He slipped through the opening.
The immediate environment was a profound shock. The atmosphere was instantly stale, cold, and utterly dead. The place felt abandoned, as if no occupant had lived there for months. Jonas ran a finger along the dining table; it came away thick with dust and grime. The illusion of a quick, temporary visit was shattered; something was deeply wrong.
He began a cautious, room-by-room search, the oppressive quiet amplifying every rustle of his clothing. He pushed open the door to the bathroom.
A chilling draft met him, an unnatural cold breeze that brought with it a faint, metallic scent. The room was plunged into shadow, lit only by the flickering, scattered light of dozens of candles that lined every available surface.
The floor tiles were desecrated. A large, intricate symbol, crudely drawn in what was unmistakably blood, occupied the center of the room. A single bathtub had been moved to the very heart of the crimson sigil.
Jonas moved slowly, drawn by a horrifying compulsion toward the tub. It was entirely filled with a thick, viscous red liquid. He leaned over the rim, forcing himself to peer closer, the smell now registering as a profound, sweet rot.
Submerged in the red slurry, a final, sickening detail floated near the surface: a cut, rotting goat head.