Daki scowled at the soda can in her hand. "What the hell is this?" she muttered, squeezing it with enough force to crumple it like paper. "Tastes like poison… I'll kill whoever made this." She tossed it aside and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, disgusted. "Thank goodness I don't need to eat."
The sun bathed the streets in a golden glow. The air was cool, and a light breeze fluttered her hair, but none of it impressed her. She was still adjusting to the human world, but thanks to hours of watching television the night before, she had learned far more than she cared to admit. What they wore, what they ate, how they lied with a smile.
She wandered through the sidewalk, keeping her hood low. Everything looked unfamiliar but oddly predictable. Until—
A car sped past.
Daki's steps slowed.
Her pupils sharpened as a sudden wave of dark, decaying energy brushed against her senses. Her lips curved into a smirk.
"One of them is inside," she murmured, eyes tracking the vehicle until it disappeared around a corner.
Two hours earlier…
Woo Joon slammed his car door shut and jogged down the familiar slope leading to the beach. Yellow police tape flapped lazily in the wind. Another week, another body.
"Late again," said Detective Kang, crossing his arms.
Woo Joon shrugged, catching his breath. "Sorry. Traffic. And I had to ditch my breakfast—long story."
"Well, you didn't miss much. Same scene as last week. Female. Late twenties. Found about an hour ago by a jogger." Kang led him past the cordoned area, where officers were already marking the body.
The beach was quiet, eerily so. The waves lapped at the shore as if nothing had happened, but the stench of blood lingered in the air.
"This place…" Woo Joon muttered. "It really looks uglier every time we come back."
"Two months now," Kang said grimly. "We've had a body here nearly every week. We placed motion sensors, cameras, even guards. Nothing caught a thing. Just silence… and corpses."
Woo Joon didn't respond. Instead, he moved closer to the edge of the sand, his eyes scanning the area. Something about today felt different.
Then he saw it.
A small, glittering object half-buried in the sand. He crouched and picked it up delicate, metallic, shaped like a butterfly.
His breath caught in his throat.
Flashbacks hit him like waves. Just this morning he'd bumped into a little girl on the way to his car. Two ponytails. Round cheeks. Shy smile. He apologized as she stumbled back, and he'd noticed then—she had a butterfly hairpin on one side. Only one.
This… was the other.
His heart dropped.
He spun on his heel and raced up the path toward the road.
"Kang! I'm going to check something—call me if anything changes!" he shouted over his shoulder.
"Woo Joon! Wait—!"
But he was already gone.
Woo Joon stormed into the security room.
"Pull up the footage from the entrance cameras. Around… forty-five minutes ago."
The officer did as told, scrubbing through the video. The timestamp blinked—8:42 AM. There she was.
The little girl stood nervously near the gate, holding something in her hands. She looked scared.
"Pause. Zoom in."
They did.
Only one butterfly hairpin.
"Now… let it play."
A black car rolled into frame, slowing near the girl. The rear window rolled down. It was too blurry to see the driver's face, but the girl's expression relaxed. She nodded once, then got inside. The car pulled away.
"Pause again. License plate?"
"Muddied. Half-covered. We can't get a full read."
"Try cleaning it up," Woo Joon muttered, but his voice trailed off. He had a gnawing feeling in his gut. Something was horribly wrong.
Back to present…
Daki's gaze followed the same black car as it turned down another road.she whispered. She turned on her heel.