Jin decides to just accept whatever comes his way, as he can’t really change what happens anyway.

Luckily, he has already gotten an email saying in a month he can pick up his new passport at the ambassy. Even though a month seems like a long time, Jin knows it could have been much longer. That means he’ll be staying with Thorne another month. This doesn’t seem so bad. Jin might even miss Thorne a little after that. Will they never talk again when Jin goes back home?

Over the next days however, Jin’s opinion changes. One day, Jin wakes up as usual, with a new set of clothes next to his bed. When he goes downstairs though, Thorne isn’t there. At the dining table there once again is breakfast and a note:

‘I suddenly had to go out, I’ll be back around 8 PM.’

Jin feels it’s almost the same as the first day he stayed here. Jin decides to go about his day the same as usual. He eats the breakfast prepare for him, takes the red pill, since he’s already gotten used to it and doesn’t question it anymore. After that he goes to the small office space with a PC and works on some stuff Thorne sent him. Surprisingly, today he got less tasks then usually, maybe because Thorne had to leave early. That means Jin is already finished by the time it’s 1PM. As he has nothing else to do after answering a few mails from his colleagues from America, he decides to explore the house a little. He doesn’t dare to go into any of the rooms Thorne hasn’t shown him yet, so he just wanders around the other rooms, looking out of the window.

Since Thorne isn’t there, he decides to go out into the gardens for a little while. Even though Thorne doesn’t like that, he doesn’t seem any harm in going outside for a bit. He quickly Finds a key next to the front door and a pair of shoes, and goes outside.

Just outside the mansion, there is a grass field, outlined by a row of trees. In front of the house there is also a veranda, with the car Jin has already seen. Most of the garden is at the back of the house though. Behind the grass field, there is a small forest, with lots of different plants and flowers growing in it. There even is a small pond with a few fish. All around the forest, there is the same fence, marking the border of the property. The garden is really big, but just not big enough for Jin to get lost. When Jin reaches the back end of the backyard, he can see the mountains all around. There also is a small forest nearby. Jin stays there for a moment, looking around, until he hears some noises coming out of the forest. At first he thinks there’s just an animal running around, but then it stops, and the animal starts making weird noises until a snap is heard and then there’s only silence.

Jin is kind of freaked out, so he goes back to the house as quickly as possible. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone that far. It could have been just a wild animal hunting another animal, but for Jin who’s used to the city even then it would be unsettling.

Once Jin reaches the house, he looks for something small to eat. He goes into the the kitchen, where he hasn’t been before. All the usual tools are there, and like the rest of the house, the kitchen looks very clean. Jin looks around in the fridge and on shelves, but there isn’t almost any food apart from rice.

When he gets to the back of the kitchen, there also is a slightly weird smell. He traces it to where it’s coming from, but finds the small freezer that seems to cause the smell is locked. It’s weird to lock a freezer, right?

Since Jin can’t find anything edible, he just walks away from the kitchen. He still doesn’t want to go into any rooms Thorne hasn’t showed him, so he decides to go to the art room next. Even though Thorne told him to use whenever he wants, he hasn’t entered it even once. Jin hasn’t painted anything for years, so he feels a little nervous.

He walks to the art room, and first properly looks around one more time. The long windows let in a lot of light, so the room is nicely lit. Along one wall there are closets, with canvases, paint, brushes and other art supplies. In another corner, there is a small cupboard and table, that are filled with painted canvases, but they’re all turned away or lying upside down, so Jin can’t see what kind of paintings Thorne has made. Next to those paintings, there are also many paintings wrapped up in cloths, to some of them the cloths is tied to the canvas so it couldn’t slip of.

For now, Jin ignores the paintings, but he might take a look at some later.

He grabs a small, 15-inch tall, oval canvas, and places it in a holder, that is located in another corner in the room. There also are a few stools, so Jin takes one and sits down. On the table that’s next to him he places some paints and brushes that he needs, and starts painting. He likes painting portraits, but today he is inspired by the forest on Thorne’s piece of land. He draws a forest with a dark atmosphere, painting a lot of small colorful flowers that almost look like they’re shining. When he is done painting that part, he feels like it’s still missing something, so he draws a figure in the middle of the painting. It’s a man looking back, with long black hair and glowing eyes.

Jin feels like he’s done for today. He is satisfied with the result, and he realizes it feels good to paint again after such a long time.

As he stands up and wants to walk out of the room, Thorne’s paintings catch his eye. He decides to just look at a few of them.

The first painting he looks at is painted on a rectangular canvas that isn’t too big. Surprisingly, this painting looks similar to Jin’s. It’s a painting of the same part of the garden, and there’s also a figure in the middle, but instead of looking like Thorne, it looks like Jin. The similarity of the two paintings gives Jin shivers. He decides to look at two other paintings, which he soon regrets. One of them is of the forest Jin saw from afar, there are a few dead animals lying around in front of it, and there is a pale figure with shining eyes hanging from a tree. It looks really creepy. The other painting Jin looks at is a painting of a human, he doesn’t know whether male or female. The perso is bleeding from their neck, with their eyes turned back and smiling creepily. It also looks like the person is strangling themselves.

Jin quickly puts the paintings back, and walks out of the room. The first painting looked peaceful at least, even though it’s scary how they both drew the same painting. The other two were horrifying.