Flowers Are Bait

You can’t leave me here! He could only imagine the way her mind was working. I don’t want to stay in a scary place by myself!

Lee-yeon grabbed him by the arm and tried to hold him close. But the force pushed them away and, no matter how many times she tried to take hold, he would just move to make her let go. Despite this, she was persistent. She latched on tightly, even scratching his skin as she did.

Roughly pulling himself away from her, Kwon Chae-woo threw Lee-yeon and the backpacks to the ground. He pushed her into the cave and stacked the two backpacks at the entrance, ignoring her protests. “Hold on tight!”

Lee-yeon was livid. “Kwon Chae-woo!”

“We could have done so much more,” she could hear him say outside the cave. “So, if you die in a place like this, I’ll kill you again.”

Lee-yeon listened to his words, eyes welling with tears. They weren’t the words of a man saying goodbye. They were unwavering and present. They were alive.

But then the landslide swallowed him whole and Lee-yeon could do nothing. She could feel the connection between the two of them physically untether.

“Kwon Chae-woo!” she cried. Her screams echoed in the cave. Dirt began to seep through the spaces between the two bags and Lee-yeon was afraid that she would end up getting swept away too.

She held on for dear life.

The bags shook and her arms ached as she pushed them. She held on until her bones hurt, but it was just impossible to block it all. Her clothes were splattered with mud as the force of the landslide continued to push against her.

It was all happening so quickly. She had no clue what was happening, and it all hit her so fast.

Kwon Chae-woo was gone. He was just gone.

The world was collapsing around her.

But then, miraculously, the landslide stopped.

The mud was already up to her waist, but the force had stopped. Her clothes were soaked and her lips had gone blue from the cold. Her whole body ached.

She leaned against the wall and let out a sob. She buried her face in her hands and cried.

“Kwon Chae-woo,” she called out softly. “Are you out there? Chae-woo? Are you out there?”

No reply came, only the silence of the cave accompanied her here.

After a moment, Lee-yeon tried to pull herself together. She wiped the tears from her eyes and pushed herself from the wall. Her back hurt terribly and the cold was beginning to come through the entrance.

She found the backpack that had been buried in the mud. She pulled it up and found the tablet PC that sat in the front pocket. She grabbed it and hurriedly turned it on.

The screen flashed and, in the dim light, she saw that there was no Wi-Fi here. But that wasn’t what caught her attention. What caught her attention was the wallpaper of the tablet.

It was a picture of her treating the trees. Kwon Chae-woo must’ve taken it.

Lee-yeon felt a lump in her throat form as she let out a cry. He had told her he would kill her if she died here.

That bast*rd, she thought. I should have been the one to tell him that.

She closed her eyes for a long time as her pain washed over her. When she finally opened them, she was determined.

She would find him.

In all this chaos, I will find you.

***

She knew that she wouldn’t be safe if she just waited here in fear. Even now, the mud was still slowly trickling into the cave. Her face became hard as the mud reached her waist and then, eventually, caught up to her collarbones.

She had to get out.

Even if she was hurt, she wanted to be close to him.

She pushed the bag away and, as she did, water came in and went up to her chin. She let out a startled sound when it first rushed towards her.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and dove into the muddy water. Small pieces of debris rubbed against her face and her skin stung like salt being rubbed over an open wound.

When she emerged, she looked like a soldier in camouflage, completely covered in mud.

As she looked around, she began to pale. She figured that the mud would have messed with the forest, but she couldn’t have imagined the carnage that she faced as she stepped forward. All the trees she could see had been destroyed.

“Kwon Chae-woo!” she called out. She shouted from the top of her lungs, but no reply came.

He was nowhere to be seen. Lee-yeon couldn’t tell where he had been swept off to or where he could have been buried. So she kept moving forward in hopes of finding where he was.

She continued to call him, “Kwon Chae-woo!” As she waded through the mud, it felt like she was being weighed down by two tires, pulling her away from where she wanted to go. Her body began to give, but it was nothing compared to the despair she felt inside.