Bound to the Black Robe

The Emotion Eater

A week passed. My life returned to its normal, dreary routine—going to school, sitting through lessons without any unnecessary interaction, and coming home to find Brahma standing at the door, demanding attention.

​"Don't look at me like that, Brahma. There's no minced meat today—my bag is empty," I muttered wearily, throwing my backpack onto the sofa as the bushy-feathered rooster trailed behind me, making muffled grunts of protest.

Even though I saw the Dream Interpreter in the school hallway again, I didn't bother to ask her what I had actually experienced.

The good news was that my soul hadn't broken free and wandered off into another realm. Instead, my sleep bloomed with nocturnal visions of ghosts at play. They sang, ran, and tumbled around, while I sat quietly at the edge of my dream, watching the sheer absurdity of it all.

However, the fear and awe of what I'd done in the astral realm with Black Robe never faded. I no longer consciously attempted astral projection. I was afraid. I just wanted everything to go back to normal, like before I was sucked into that madness.

"Brahma! Don't steal my spring rolls! You already had your share this morning!" I shouted as his sharp beak recklessly lunged at the plate on the table, successfully driving the chicken back to fluff his feathers innocently.

But, as always, I couldn't force anything—let alone outrun it.

Now, I sat with my chickens on a hanging cocoon swing in the backyard. The only sound is the wind—this house had always been quiet ever since I started living here alone. My parents had divorced. My father had built a new family, while my mother had chosen to end her own life after he married his mistress.

I didn't understand why she chose such a final shortcut. Perhaps my sister and I simply hadn't been enough for her, just as we hadn't been enough for my father, who chose to have children with another woman.

Cluck-cluck!

"Stop teasing me, Brahma! Oh, you think that's funny?"

I knew people still love to gossip: talking about my father's affair, my mother's death, and even the bitter rumors about my sister.

They would never stop, and honestly, I was sick of it. I was utterly exhausted.

Dwelling on all of this, I unconsciously drifted off to sleep…

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"Kyaa!"

The figure before me startled me—none other than my own reflection in a very simple, calf-length white dress.

Wait, I thought I had fallen asleep, and now I had turned into... a ghost?

I looked up, watching the numbers on the LCD indicator steadily climb.

Ding!

The elevator doors opened on the 12th floor. With resolute steps, I walked out, making my way down the bustling hallway. I spotted a few familiar faces, but they were entirely absorbed in their own conversations. Meanwhile, several strangers stared at me, as if assessing my appearance—or viewing me as an anomaly that had suddenly materialized in their world.

Who cares? I kept walking with my chin held high like a runway model.

However, the atmosphere suddenly turned heavy and oppressive. The crowd seemed to fade, leaving a lone figure standing frozen at the end of the hallway, his back to me.

My God… what was this?!

The figure looked ordinary enough, dressed in a neat dark suit, but something was terribly wrong. The air around him felt bone-dry, as though he were siphoning every drop of moisture from the oxygen I breathed.

As I passed near him, he didn't turn his head, yet I felt a strange, magnetic pull deep within my chest—like a vacuum attempting to suck out the lingering remnants of nausea and exhaustion I had just felt.

​"You carry such a sweet scent, Little Mortal," his voice was rasped, smooth yet grating, akin to sandpaper scraping against velvet.

I halted, my chin remaining lifted even as my heart began to hammer. "Who are you?"

He turned around slowly. His face wasn't hideous—in fact, he was rather handsome—but his eyes were empty—twin black holes capable of swallowing the entire history of human sorrow. He didn't meet my gaze, instead, his eyes locked straight onto my solar plexus, right where my resentment toward my father and my grief over my mother resided.

"Just a hungry traveler," he murmured, stepping closer. Every footprint on the floor dissolved into a gray stain that rapidly faded. "Your pain... it's a rare delicacy. So pure, so rich with despair."

​Suddenly, the image of the entity I had seen in my previous memory flash crossed my mind. For some reason, he felt like the reigning lord of all that emptiness.

"Get away," I hissed. I tried to summon the cold energy Black Robe had taught me, but here, in this hallway, my power felt blunted.

The man smiled faintly—a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to help you... lighten the burden that makes you want to surrender."

​He extended a hand, and instantly I felt my emotions—my fury toward those who had judged my family—being forcibly ripped out. My head grew light, but my body suddenly turned weak, as if the very foundations of my soul were being dismantled piece by piece by his ravenous presence.

​The entity stepped forward, and the tugging at my chest intensified. The disgust, the rage, and the sorrow that usually weighed me down were now being dragged out through my pores, leaving me reeling. He wasn't attacking my physical body. He was feasting on my emotional residue.

​"Stop..." My voice choked.

​I remembered the chilling sensation of Black Robe's embraced. I closed my eyes amid the now silent and hollow corridor. Rather than fighting his pull, I let the emotion flow—not to hand it over to him, but to anchor it fimly as a part of myself.

"You cannot take what is mine," I hissed.

I visualized the energy gathering, not as a destructive blast, but as a cold, transparent shield. Instantly, a cool breeze smelling of a forest after rain swept through, violently severing the invisible tether connecting my chest to the entity.

The empty-eyed man was startled. His faint smile vanished, replaced by a grimace of thwarted hunger.

My previously limp hand rose, trembling yet resolute. I wasn't using force to obliterate him, but rather to shove him out of my soul's frequency.

"I am tired, but I am not your meal!" I declared, lifting my chin high once more.

The 12th floor shook violently. The LCD display above the elevator doors flickered wildly, its numbers jumping erratically. Before the entity could lunge again, the elevator doors behind me slid open with a deafening chime.

Thought the gap, I caught sight of a hem of a black robe fluttering, as if offering me an escape route before the hallway completely collapsed under the entity's hunger.

Without a second thought, I threw myself backward into the wide-open elevator shaft. The blank-eyed figure lunged forward, but his fingers merely clawed at empty air as the elevator doors slamed shut with unnatural speed.

THUD!

Instead of moving down or up in a regular manner, the elevator cable seemed to snap instantly. Gravity vanished, replaced by a immensely crushing downward pull. The elevator plummeted, shooting straight through the dark, endless shaft.

"KYAAAA!"

My scream echoed in the cramped room, which shook violently. My stomach leaped into my throat, and the thin white dress I wore whipped wildly in a gale from nowhere.

In my panic, I watched the numbers on the LCD indicator jump back and forth randomly—from 12 to nonsensical negative digits.

CREEEAK! KRRRR-CLANG!

​The elevator walls began to shriek, threatening to splinter under the mounting atmospheric pressure.

Thud!

I dropped to my knees, searching for something to hold onto, but the floor felt like unstable liquid.

Just as the elevator seemed about to hit the bottom of a dark abyss, a black-gloved hand reached out from the shadows of the corner—

CLUTCH!

Long, icy fingers gripping my shoulder in a firm vice. A comforting chill washed over me—right before the entire shaft shattered into absolute darkness.