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My great-grandfather was a paper craftsman. In the old days, people burned paper crafts at funerals because it was believed that the burnt objects would be given to the deceased. Because he was very skilled, people in the neighborhood often came to his shop. Great- grandfather could make everything from large paper houses to small paper flowers. The best thing he made was paper people. 

There are many rules in paper crafting, and if you break them, bad things will happen. When he was young, Grandpa would help his father with some of the work, but he never made sacrificial items, especially paper people. He was always curious, but his father said it wasn't time yet to make paper men. One day grandpa was left alone at home. He went to the door of the room where the paper men were kept. His father had never let him in, but the door was left accidentally unlocked this time. He gently pushed open the door, and there before him was a room full of paper people — their eyes were without pupils. They were facing him. He was intimidated because they were so realistic. He couldn't help but examine the paper people. Thinking that his father might have gone out in a hurry and forgotten to complete the faces, he grabbed a brush from the workbench and dabbed the pupils on the nearest paper figure. The more he looked at them, the more he thought he should draw pupils for all of their eyes. At that moment, he felt something change. A force drained out of him. He couldn't remember much of what happened next except that it felt like a long dream where people wanted him to follow with them. But his mother woke him up and he saw that his father was looking worried. All the paper people had disappeared.

Zihan Zhong is a graduate student studying illustration as visual essay in the School of Visual Arts. She is an illustrator, writer, and designer. More of her work can be found at: zihanzhong.art.