Page 61 of Wicked Fox

Rip him apart. It’s what you were made for.

A boot collided with her shoe.

“Wha—”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish the word. Rising from her hiding place, she grabbed him by the throat. His eyes bulged in surprise. They were already bloodshot from drink, his face ruddy from a long life lived the wrong way.

He’s scum,she told herself.He beats his son. He’s a bad man.

She squeezed his throat as he clawed at her hand. She could already taste his gi before she opened herself to it. Siphoning so quickly that he let out a scream of agony. She’d never taken energy so fast before. She never knew she could cause someone pain like this.

“Abeoji?” The door opened again and Jaegil stood there, looking out into the darkness.

And Miyoung froze. What was she doing? This wasn’t another one of her criminals and murderers. He was just a drunk. He was someone’s father.

She dropped the man, now unconscious, but she saw his chest rise and fall. He was alive.

She slunk away, turning the corner and taking off in a sprint.

I didn’t mean it,she told herself.I’m not a monster.

Yes, you did. Yes, you are.

Miyoung spun around at the voice. Had someone seen her?

“Hello?” she called into the night.

Shadows danced in her vision, dark shapes that twisted and turned.

“What are you?” she shouted.

The shadows converged, becoming columns of smoke filledwith faces. A tornado of spirits, all the men whose lives had been taken by Miyoung.

They accused her with their eyes. Their gaping mouths emitting a chorus of screams.

The ghosts of her past had finally broken free from her mind and swirled around her. Was this her punishment for living through death? She covered her ears with her hands to drown out the warbling sound of their voices. And when that didn’t work, she ran.

TO KNOW WHYthe fox was cursed with a murderous fate, we must go back to the first gumiho.

A symbol of wood and tree, the liver feeds the fire that is the heart.

Everything in the body passes through the liver. It detoxifies the chemicals and metabolizes drugs. The liver is the only organ in the human body that can regenerate itself.

This process involves a lot of gi.

The fox did not begin by eating the livers of men.

As with any tragedy or curse, it came about because she loved.

When the first gumiho came to be, she lived off the gi she had gained over her long life.

Though in her later years she grew weary from her travels. She wished to settle in one place, to find a true home. It was then that she met two very different men.

One was a sansin, a mountain god, who would visit her every night to profess his love.

However, she had given her heart to a mortal man and wished to become human for him.

The sansin claimed to know of a way for her to become fully human. He offered the knowledge to her as proof of his love.

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