Ae-cha sat by the old willow tree near the training grounds, the one that bent like it was forever mourning something. The wind was unusually still, and the sky was the same color it had been that night—grey, bleeding into black.
She didn't know why, but something about the silence brought the memories crashing back.
At first, just flashes.
A scream.
Glass shattering.
The smell of metal and fire.
Then—the sound of heavy boots on wooden floors, slow and deliberate.
She blinked, and suddenly, she was no longer beneath the willow.
She was five years old, hiding in a narrow space beneath the stairs, hugging a stuffed rabbit so tightly its stitching split.
Her mother's voice echoed through the walls—desperate, pleading.
"Please, don't hurt them… just take whatever you want—"
Bang.
Ae-cha jolted.
She remembered now. The sound wasn't thunder. It was a gunshot. Maybe two.
She covered her ears, but nothing could block the silence that came after.
A silence that screamed.
Through the crack in the stairwell, she saw a shadow pass. A tall figure in a black coat, face hidden. No expression. No urgency. Like they had done this before.
The front door creaked open.
Then closed.
And that was it.
Gone.
She remembered crawling out. Stepping over the warm trail of red leading to the living room. Seeing her mother's body crumpled like a discarded doll. Her father's hand still clutching the edge of the table, eyes wide open, staring at nothing.
She didn't scream. She couldn't.
She just shut down.
That night, her mind buried it deep. The police called it a robbery. No suspects. No fingerprints. Just gone—like her childhood.
The neighbors whispered about a robbery
But I remember something else—
A scream. A shadow. Blood on my mother's nightgown.
I never told anyone.
No one ever asked.
All they saw was the quiet girl with the blank stare.
The one sent to live with an aunt who didn't want her.
The one who survived.
But not really.
Now, fifteen years later, I'm standing in front of the house again—
Empty. Silent. Rotting.
I take a step inside.
The floorboards groan beneath my weight.
The air smells like dust and broken promises.
And suddenly—
I'm not twenty-one anymore.
I'm a child again, hiding under the stairs, holding my breath…
And that's when I remember—
I wasn't alone that night.
There was someone else in the room.
Someone who whispered my name—not kindly, not lovingly, but like a warning.
"Ae-cha…"
Even now, the voice echoes inside me.
It doesn't belong to my mother.
It doesn't belong to my father.
It belongs to the dark.
I shut the door behind me, sealing myself in.
The house is a tomb, and I've come back to bury whatever's left of me.
I walk past the shattered mirror in the hallway.
The same mirror where my aunt used to force me to look at myself and say, "Be grateful you're alive."
Alive.
But not whole.
Never whole.
My uncle's laughter still lingers in the walls—
Cruel. Drunken. Heavy with the stench of sweat and cheap liquor.
He was always watching.
Touching.
Taking what wasn't his.
And my aunt? She just lit another cigarette and turned the volume up on the television.
I step into my old room.
The window is still cracked from the night I tried to escape.
The stains on the floor—those aren't wine, like she said.
I remember.
I remember everything now.
I fall to my knees.
My breath stutters.
And then I whisper the words I never thought I'd say aloud:
"I didn't mean to kill them."
But I did.
The storm outside mirrored the one inside Ae-cha.
Rain slammed against the windows like fists. Thunder cracked the sky open.
In the dim kitchen, she stood barefoot, soaked from the downpour, her arms trembling—not from cold, but from what she had decided.
Her aunt sat at the table, drunk and slurring insults like lullabies. Her uncle sprawled across the couch, asleep, a bottle of soju resting on his stomach.
They didn't see the girl anymore. They never had.
Just something to use. To curse. To break.
But tonight, she was not a girl.
She was justice wrapped in skin.
Silently, Ae-cha reached for the knife in the drawer—the same one her aunt once held against her wrist, threatening her for stealing food.
No shaking. No hesitation.
She walked toward the couch first. The sound of the storm drowned out everything. Even his final gasp.
Her aunt stood too late.
"You ungrateful little—"
Ae-cha didn't let her finish.
When it was over, the rain washed the blood down the front steps like it had been waiting to cleanse the house for years.
"Into the Water"
Ae-cha stood at the edge of the river, the world quiet around her.
The wind whispered like her mother might have, if she'd still been alive.
She dropped the bloodstained knife into the current and stepped forward.
Her white dress clung to her skin. Her hair whipped across her face.
She whispered to the river, not to the gods.
"I'm sorry… I didn't want to become this."
And then she stepped in.
The cold wrapped around her like arms. She didn't fight it. She let herself sink, the weight of her choices dragging her down.
I didn't want to live.
But the river spit me back out.
An old couple found me. Saved me.
And for a while, I let myself believe I could start over.
But even now, I feel the weight of their bodies pulling me under.
That night wasn't the end.
It was the beginning.
"Warmth"
That was the first thing she felt when her eyes opened.
Then the soft murmur of unfamiliar voices, and the scent of boiled herbs.
She was in a small wooden house, wrapped in thick blankets. Her skin burned from the heat of the fire.
A wrinkled woman hovered nearby, dipping a cloth in water and pressing it to her head.
"You're awake," the man said from the corner, his voice low but kind. "We found you by the riverbank. Thought we were pulling out a ghost."
Ae-cha tried to speak, but only tears came.
The woman smiled gently. "No need for words, child. Whatever it is… you're safe now."
Ae-cha closed her eyes.
Safe.
For the first time, the word didn't feel like a lie.
But deep down, she knew the storm wasn't over.
She had survived. Again.
But this time, she carried not only scars…
She carried blood.
And she had to wear the mask of a victim perfectly now—because if the truth ever slipped out…
There'd be no river deep enough to hide in.