CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Mother's Teeth (The Past Never Stays Buried)
The room was too quiet.
He stood in the doorway. There was no sound now. No whispers. No flickering lights. Just… a hum.
Faint. Familiar. Like the old refrigerator motor from his childhood kitchen.
And then—he saw her.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, back turned to him.
Hair up.
A red apron wrapped around her frame. One slipper on, one bare foot.
Just like he remembered.
"Mom?"
Her hand twitched. But didn't turn. While stirring something in a chipped porcelain cup, she asked.
"Do you remember this house?" "I made it so clean. You used to mess it all up."
Sangwoo swallowed.
"..This isn't real,"
he trembled.
"You're dead. YOU'RE DEAD! I killed you."
Now she turned.
Slow.
Face still. Eyes dull.
But her lips curved into a soft, bitter smile.
"Oh, sweetheart," she said. "You think death ends anything?"
Sangwoo stepped forward, the floor beneath his feet sticky, like honey and blood.
"I buried you." "I wrapped the cord around your neck myself."
Her eyes didn't blink.
"I remember," she said. "You cried." She tilted her head. "Do you remember why?"
He flinched.
Because he had loved her. Because she had made him hate her. Because she deserved it.
Because he thought killing her would make the screaming stop.
But it never did.
"I was sick," she said. "I was loud. I was cruel. But I kept you alive."
Sangwoo's hands curled into fists. "You broke me."
"And you broke me back," she replied. Her tone never rose.
"That's what you do, Sangwoo. You break things. You break people."
She stood now. The chair scraped backward without making a sound.
She walked toward him.
"You killed me."
Step.
"You killed Yoonbum."
Step.
"You buried pieces of yourself with each body you touched."
Now she was inches from his face. And her eyes weren't dull anymore. They burned.
Like hers had that night—right before the cord snapped.
"You came down here to escape," she whispered. "To forget." "But this place remembers you."
She opened her mouth—
And inside it—
Teeth.
Too many teeth.
Row after row, jagged and animal, stretching into the back of her throat.
Her smile widened impossibly.
"You don't believe in hell?" she rasped.
"But I'm here."
And she reached for him.
He ran.
Through the hallway. Through the doors. But every wall was covered in her eyes. Every room echoed with her laugh.
And he knew—
He would never outrun her.
Not here.
Not in this place that shouldn't exist.
Because some mothers never let go.
Not even in death.