Simulation Swarm ? Kang Dae-ho ╱ 388

THREE Wild Horses
HUNGRY FOR STRAYS
[ LONG CHAPTER ]
Mentions of blood,
death,       violence.

THE LARGE, SUNLIT ROOM felt oddly nostalgic to Minseo as she walked in hand-in-hand with Gi-hun. Her eyes immediately caught sight of a tall, daunting doll standing facing toward the players, eyeing them down with direct eyes. Minseo felt a sense of deja vu staring at the familiar doll, her eyebrows tightly nit as she tried to remember where she had seen the doll before. Its orange dress and yellow shirt was warm and her peach colour skill was pristine like porcelain, her face displayed no emotion or expression of neither worry or joy, yet a sense of uneasy exuded from her large frame.

Minseo was distracted by the tug of her hand. Along the way, the niece and uncle had discovered an old friend of Gi-hun's, Jung-Bae, who Minseo was quite familiar with. The old Marine had babysat and cared for Minseo countless times during her youth, and had even been the one to encounter her drunk for the first time after a sneak out. He hadn't ratted her out, despite the concern after finding her stumbling on the streets of Ssangmun-don, and only told Gi-hun, who found the whole scenario entirely amusing.

         Gi-hun placed Minseo between himself and Jung-bae, securing her safely between them as he glanced around nervously.

          "Hold on," Jung-bae pointed at the familiar doll before them. "What that?"

          In that moment, all the pieces seemed to click. "Younghee," Minseo spoke aloud. Both Gi-hun and Jung-bae looked at her, both as confused as the other. "I remember her from school, don't you? In all the books with the boy, Chulsoo. They went on adventures and the teachers would always use them as a lesson to keep us away from danger. They━They told us they were a sign of danger."

          Minseo paled significantly as she recalled the distant memories of her primary school days, the illustrated textbooks depicting Younghee and Chulsoo as they took on crazed adventures, each one a lesson to steer far from trouble to the young children. She began to unconsciously question what Younghee was hiding, the danger piercing through her eyes━sure, she was just a doll, but if Minseo was following her common sense, adding another piece to the jigsaw by the previous assumptions made, Minseo was sure this was no ordinary game of Tag, or Pitch-Pot, or even Red Light, Green Light.