Chapter 1 The Zoo

'Today,' Jimin Park thought to himself, 'is going to be another bad day'.

He was alone in his little flat in West London. It was the end of September 1999, the last quarter of the last year of century. The millennium, in fact. The sun was coming through the the window and outside the trees were moving slowly in the autumn wind. A bus came along the road, stopped outside the house and moved off again. Jimin listened for a few moments to the traffic sounds outside his window. Life was going usual.

Slowly, Jimin stood up and himself some coffee. He took it back to the table by the window and sat holding the cup. This was no good. He didn't want to do any work. The dream he had last night was still with him, following behind him like a ghost.

He had started having bad dreams several weeks ago, the night after her father died. Sometimes it the dreams he was in a place he didn't know. He was very afraid of the dark, deathly thing that was changing him. Often a voice called his name loudly in his dreams and he woke up. Although it was a dream, he was sure that the voice was real.

He finished his coffee and looked at his watch. It was just after 10 o'clock. 'Come On', he told himself. 'Time to go out, get moving.' He found his coat and camera and left a message on the telephone answering machine for his husband, Taehyung: I've gone out to do job. I'll be back around midday. Leave a message and I'll call you back'.

The underground station was fairly quiet at this time it the morning. He bought his ticket and waited for the train. Between stations, the train stopped for a few moments and Jimin looked at the other travellers. He studied their faces in the glass it the window opposite. Outside the window, everything was black. He thought of his father again. He tried to see his face in the window glass as well. But his kind eyes and smiles didn't come. Had he forgotten his face so soon? He felt a wave of sadness.

He'd felt so terrible when he got the phone call from the hospital. It had all happened very suddenly, they him. His father went to the hospital very quickly by ambulance, but they couldn't help him. The doctor said that he was very Sorry. Now Jimin felt like a small child again, lost in the big adult world. Well OK, he had Taehyung, but that was different. His mother had died when he was a baby. The only family he had left now were his cousins in South Korea. But he didn't know his Korean Korean cousins very well. Moreover, he didn't even knew how to speak Korean that well. His cousins phoned him him when they heard about his father. It was the first time he had spoken to the them since he was a child. 'His heart just stopped', he told them. No-one could do anything. It was very sudden.

He had dreams about his father, too. In last night's dream he(Jimin's father) was smiling. 'Don't worry about me' he said. 'I am fine.' He was back home in the village in Slovenia where he was born. He was having a great time, seeing old friends and family.

' I'll come and see you as seen as I get home,' he promised. Just as he used to when he was alive, every week.

In the dream he had thought, 'Ah, he isn't dead after all. It was all a terrible mistake.' And then he'd woken, and remembered.

He got out of the train at Regent's Park and walked towards the zoom This one was one of his favourite parts of the city. It was such a different place from the busy world of shops and business and London traffic. He liked to watch the animals as they played, ate or lay on the ground asleep.

The zoo wanted some photographs of the animals. You had to very good in the photography business, and Jimin knew he was good. But that was not enough. He had to work hard taking photographs. At the same time he had to find new jobs to do. He loved his work but it was a difficult life. He was beginning to feel tired of it. And now her father was gone.

Was it time for a change? For the first time in his life, he wanted a child.

A child for his father's lost life.

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This morning there were nit many visitors. He almost had the place of himself, except for the zoo keepers, who were giving food to the animals. Jimin stopped to look at the grey wolves as they walked hungrily up and and downm They were like large friendly dogs, really, not at all wild or dangerous. He remembered the stories his father used to tell him about the Volkodlak. It was a terrible thing, a sort of man-wolf-vampire who stole bad children away in the nighy and drank their blood. When he was little, of course, he thought the stories were true. He smiled as he thought about it.

He lifted his camera. One of the wolves stopped moving and watched her. Jimin found himself looking back through the camera. The hair on his skin stood up and he felt suddenly afraid. He couldn't move. He felt sure that the animal wanted to tell him something.

The next thing he knew was that he was lying on the ground. The worried fave of one of the zoo keepers was above him

"Are you alright, sir?" he asked. ' I've sent for the doctor.'

'Umm,' wad all that he could say.

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