Chapter 649

-Fuck, I knew there was something creepy about this.

-The visuals are insane. Daeguk, this is practically a movie T_T

-Jesus in the back, pastor in the front... Am I the only one who feels like the kids are surrounded? Maybe it’s because I’m not religious, but this is fucking terrifying.

?Feels like they deliberately directed it that way. I’m scared too TT_TT

The service continued.

Standing solemnly before the pulpit, the pastor wore a gold cross pin and a badge shaped like an ear of wheat side by side on his chest.

The sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows made the golden cross gleam especially brightly.

The pastor held a leather-bound Bible in one hand as he delivered his sermon.

“Genesis Chapter 6 says, ‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.’”

In a low voice, with a gentle gaze.

The pastor spoke as though soothing the children of the orphanage.

“Who do the sons of God refer to? They refer to us. To those of us who do not cling to our mothers and fathers of the flesh.”

-Strong cult scammer vibes

-TT_TT call the police

-The words themselves sound really nice but the way they directed it is fucking creepy... Gives me chills

“Then who are the daughters of humans? They are the descendants of Cain, the descendants of the ungodly, the descendants of the cursed, the descendants of the fallen. So we must cherish our bodies, which carry symbolic and spiritual meaning, love our lives, and grow up healthy and strong as lambs blessed by the Lord.”

The pastor smiled brightly at the children.

To children without parents, their father was the man standing before them, as well as the unseen Jesus and God.

So they had no choice but to smile with him.

Because believing that you had not been abandoned made you happy.

* * *

“Taeo. How have you been lately?”

After the service ended, the pastor gently wrapped an arm around young Taeo’s shoulders.

“Well... the same.”

Because,

“Don’t be too discouraged.”

Taeo had once again failed to be adopted.

Taeo was no longer young enough not to know that the younger a child was, the easier it was to find adoptive parents. He also knew that it was about time he started giving up.

“...What am I lacking compared to Isaac?”

“Well. From what I can see, Taeo, you’re a truly wonderful boy.”

Taeo looked through the window at a boy playing outside. It seemed the child called Isaac had found adoptive parents.

Unable to completely hide his feelings, a fleeting look of envy crossed his eyes.

“No, you’re perfect.”

The pastor’s reassurance seemed to put Taeo at ease. He smiled faintly. There was something about that neat, composed look that resembled Han Yohan.

“Do you dislike being here? Together with your brothers and sisters, and with Father?”

The pastor, referring to himself as Father, looked warmly at Taeo. Taeo shook his head.

“No... It’s not that.”

“You’re a good boy.”

“...Yes.”

“You have no idea how happy Father is that a perfect child like Taeo is here with us. You set an example for everyone, you’re someone they can rely on, and more than anything.”

Through the window, Lia could be seen smiling.

“Lia is weak and such a spoiled little thing. She couldn’t manage without our Taeo.”

The two seemed especially precious to each other. Warm sunlight flooded the interior of the church. Taeo, too, gazed at Lia affectionately.

“Yes. So actually... I don’t want parents that badly. I already have a family.”

Lia was happily running around and playing. Shouting, “The hibiscus flower has bloomed,” she tagged the seeker’s back and ran away.

She was an innocent child who looked as though she had stepped straight out of a fairy tale.

“I’m just a little disappointed. If I had a family, then later... when I became an adult, I could give Lia a safe home she could trust. Because someday... we’ll have to leave this place.”

“Don’t say things like that. Under God, we are all one family.”

The pastor hugged Taeo tightly. Taeo left the chapel and ran toward the children outside.

And the pastor.

“....”

Pressed against the window, he stared fixedly at Taeo without so much as blinking.

Beautiful opera music began to play.

Lascia ch'io pianga

la dura sorte e che sospiri la liberta,

e che sospiri e che sospiri, la liberta!

sol per pieta, di'miei martiri...

* * *

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

The children played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would be it. After a fiercely contested match, Lia ended up being it.

“I’m counting to thirty!”

With her back turned and her forehead pressed against a tree, Lia began counting as everyone hurried off to hide. Taeo ran quickly as well.

“Twelve—thirteen!”

Lia’s clear voice rang out. Children hiding nearby giggled quietly.

Taeo kept running. A smile had spread across his lips as well.

Before long, Lia’s voice had grown faint in the distance.

“Thirty!”

Now separated from everyone else, Taeo had run quite far. Beyond an old silver metal fence, he spotted a warehouse.

“Found you! Found you!”

Lia’s voice came from below the hill. Several children had already had their hiding places discovered. Taeo smiled brightly as he decided to go inside.

“I bet you won’t find Taeo even this time!”

“No way!”

“It took you forever to find him last time too!”

After briefly watching Lia and the other children through a gap in the leaves, Taeo took off running.

Toward the warehouse.

-Ah, this is fucking ominous

-There’s definitely something in that warehouse TT__TT

-Taeo... They’re not gonna kidnap him the moment he shows up, right?;

-Fuck, my heart is pounding

Taeo struggled over the towering metal fence and walked toward the warehouse.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crunch.

The sound of leaves crumbling beneath each step was especially eerie. Taeo took a deep breath as he approached the warehouse.

Rather than a single-story building, it was a full four-story warehouse, so there seemed to be plenty of places to hide.

Climbing shrubs wound thickly up the building’s exterior walls. Thick, thorny stems were tangled densely together as if clawing at one another, swaying ominously whenever the wind blew.

“Aw... It’s locked.”

But Taeo’s choice turned out to be a failure. The warehouse door was firmly locked. Even when he tried turning the metal handle, the door refused to budge.

And then.

“....”

Taeo noticed a staircase leading down beneath the building.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Taeo cautiously descended.

Clatter... clatter...

He thought he could hear some strange sound, and with three steps remaining, Taeo froze.

As though whatever was making the noise knew Taeo had stopped, the sound fell silent for a moment.

Summoning his courage, Taeo started moving again.

At last, he reached the basement door.

Taeo carefully pressed his ear against it.

BANG!!!

Startled by the sudden deafening crash, Taeo fell backward. The fall sent a loud clatter echoing around him.

From beyond the door came a series of explosive crashes, almost as though something were calling out to Taeo.

BANG!!! BANG!!! BANG!!!

Terrified, Taeo bolted up the stairs. After running for some time and climbing back over the metal fence, he raced down the hill.

Through the deep-red and pure-white flowering quinces blooming along thorny branches before their leaves emerged, Lia’s voice could be heard.

“Oppa! Where are you?! I can’t find you!”

At the bottom of the hill, Lia was sniffling beneath the tree she had pressed her forehead against earlier.

“Taeo oppa! Taeo oppa!”

Taeo’s expression softened at the sound of Lia’s voice, and he ran without stopping. The children who spotted him in the distance shouted.

“Hyung!”

“Oppa’s coming!”

At that, Lia finally burst into tears in relief.

Taeo hugged her as though he were used to doing so.

“Where did you go?! I’ve been looking for you forever.”

“Lia, don’t cry.”

Some neighborhood women who happened to be arriving by car smiled as they watched the two of them.

“Oh my, just look at how fond they are of each other.”

“Taeo really does take good care of Lia.”

“Kids! Play nice, and don’t eat too many snacks! We’ll make you something delicious for dinner later.”

“Okaaay.”

“Isaac! Look forward to your party tonight!”

Isaac, who had found adoptive parents, grinned.

He was the star of tonight’s party, after all.

That child was leaving the orphanage.

-This is so fucking suspicious

-TT_TT Daeguk’s directing is so good it makes it even scarier. Feels like a dark fairy tale?

?Oh, I know exactly what you mean

?For real, I thought the child-actor part would be boring, but they pulled it off insanely well

The children lay together on white beds in pure-white pajamas.

Inside the enormous bedroom, the children lay in symmetrical rows without being separated by gender, each of them still fooling around before bedtime.

Lia, lying beside Taeo, had turned to face him. Taeo had done the same.

The two gazed at each other.

“But you know.”

“Yeah.”

Exactly one bed was empty. It seemed to be Isaac’s.

“Why did the adults choose Isaac? You’re better than him at studying and sports, Oppa. All he does is throw tantrums and cause trouble... If it were me, I’d never choose Isaac. Sion was weird too.”

“Don’t say that. Isaac probably has things he’s better at too.”

“Isaac looked really happy when he blew out the candles on the cake earlier.”

Lia hesitated for a moment before asking.

“Oppa, do you actually want to leave this place too? Like Isaac?”

Taeo shook his head.

“Where would I go without you?”

“Right?”

As though that was exactly what she had wanted to hear, Lia smiled proudly.

“Because whenever Lia calls you, you have to come.”

“That’s right.”

Another child suddenly cut into their conversation.

“I’m still jealous of Isaac!”

“Me too. I want to have a mom someday.”

“Sion must be really happy to have a mom and dad. Do you think he forgot all about us?”

“He hasn’t even contacted us....”

-Is the °• N ?? v ?? l i g h t •° person locked in the warehouse Sion? T_T

-Ah fuck please don’t do this

-I’ve got fucking chills

“Even if we get moms and dads later, let’s never forget each other!”

“Yeah. We have to write letters too.”

“We’ll come visit every Sunday.”

The children giggled among themselves as they made their promises.

“Let’s never be apart.”

“Promise.”

Lia and Taeo made their promise.

Hooking their pinkies together.

Rustle—

An eerie wind blew beyond the window. Outside the orphanage, trees with long, bush-like leaves swayed in the wind.

Taeo seemed to remember the warehouse from earlier, and for a moment, his gaze lingered outside the window.

* * *

Isaac, dressed in white pajamas, knelt before the pastor. The pastor gently placed his hand atop Isaac’s head.

“God has never forgotten our Isaac, not even once. We should offer a prayer of thanks for the new family you’ve been given, shouldn’t we?”

“Yes!”

The scene changed. The drone camera sped forward as though climbing the hill Taeo had run up earlier toward the warehouse.

Clang... clang...

A faint, feeble noise could still be heard from inside the warehouse.

As though he found it difficult to sit still, Isaac happily swayed from side to side. The pastor prayed.

“Genesis Chapter 6, Verse 5. The sixth of the Eight Beatitudes. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ Lord, I entrust this young mission into Your hands. The heart is kardia, the very foundation of our being. Without a pure heart, one cannot experience the kingdom of God. As in Matthew Chapter 13, the seed is the word of God, and the soil is the field of the heart.”

The chapel was dark. The crucified Jesus looked down upon Isaac, while the candles flickering on either side seemed precarious.

Clang... clang...

A noise came from the locked basement.

Listening closely, it was an unpleasant sound, like fingernails scratching against the door.

“The Apostle Paul said that faith is believing with the heart. Romans Chapter 10, Verse 10: it is with the heart that one believes and is justified. Isaac, wherever you go and whoever you meet, whether you are deemed righteous depends upon your heart. Do you understand?”

“Yeees!”

Isaac squirmed as though he found the prayer unbearably boring. The pastor helped Isaac to his feet. Taking the child by the hand, he left the chapel.

Creeak—

Bang.

The stained glass gleamed sacredly in the candlelight.

The basement door of the warehouse came into view.

There was no sound coming from it anymore.

* * *

The two walked together down the orphanage corridor.

The pastor’s measured footsteps and Isaac’s bouncing little steps formed a discordant rhythm.

For some reason, the sound grated strangely on the ears.

The pastor picked up one of the opaque, pure-white bottles hanging on the corridor wall. Dozens of identical bottles were arranged in perfectly aligned rows, giving the display an oddly obsessive quality.

“Now then, my little angels.”

Isaac ran forward and jumped onto his bed. The pastor sprinkled holy water over each child’s clothes and gently kissed each of them on the forehead.

“Wash away all your bad feelings and bad thoughts, and have sweet dreams.”

After sprinkling holy water equally over Taeo and Lia, the pastor watched Isaac torment the child beside him and smiled as though there was simply no helping him.

“Isaac, make sure you get plenty of sleep. You’ll have to leave early tomorrow.”

Bang.

The door closed.

An eerie wind blew. Long leaves scraped against the dark window as though sweeping across it.

Among the softly sleeping children, Taeo alone remained awake.

“....”

As though he were still thinking about the basement of that warehouse.

* * *

Something seemed wrong.

Every viewer watching <Code Name: Time Seven> felt it.

It should not have been easy to feel such dissonance while looking at innocent children, a kind pastor, and a sacred chapel, yet they could not shake the feeling that some foretold catastrophe was waiting to happen.

It was there in the unnaturally orderly composition of every shot, and in the light that seemed weighed down by an oppressive sense of order.

Despite the warm sunlight and the crystalline clarity created by the stained glass, there was something about it all that left viewers deeply unsettled.

The camera zoomed in on Taeo and Lia waving goodbye to Isaac as he left Eden Orphanage in a black van, seen off by the villagers.

Lia looked cheerful, while Taeo remained composed.

“Oppa! Now we can—”

“Let’s talk later.”

Taeo hurriedly ran off, leaving Lia behind. He felt he needed to investigate yesterday’s noise while it was still daylight, the noise he had been unable to tell anyone about.

Clank.

Taeo climbed over the metal fence. The path from the fence to the warehouse felt unusually long.

Taeo walked through the path overgrown with wild grass like some tiny prophet. There was something precarious and dangerous about the sight of such a small child walking there all alone.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Taeo descended the stairs just as he had yesterday. This time, however, there was hesitation in every step.

One step.

With exactly one stair remaining, Taeo hesitated for a moment.

But in the end, he summoned his courage.

Knock, knock—

Taeo knocked on the door.

“...Is someone in there?”

This time, however, there was no sound whatsoever from beyond the door.

“Is anyone in there? Is nobody there?”

Bang, bang, bang.

Taeo knocked on the door several more times. He even rattled the padlock.

Still nothing.

“What... Did I hear it wrong?”

Taeo tilted his head and left the warehouse basement. The child’s light footsteps receded, but the camera remained perfectly still.

Slowly, the camera zoomed in.

The padlock on the door came into view.

-Holy fuck

-Look closely, isn’t the padlock different from yesterday????

-This padlock has a cross on it, fuck T_T

-HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT I’ve got chills

A blood-red cross.

The padlock bearing it like a scar looked brand-new.

As Taeo walked away with the warehouse behind him, he glanced back several times.

Something about the whole thing did not sit right with him.

Then Taeo suddenly stumbled and fell.

“Ah, ow....”

He had scraped his knee. As Taeo blew gently on the knee where red blood was beginning to seep out, he noticed something glinting among the grass nearby.

“Huh? This belongs to the pastor.”

It was a cross necklace, its ends elegantly fashioned.

Taeo had not been the only one who came here yesterday.