The day after the online revelation went by in a dizzy haze of white noise, the ordinary routines of life seeming curiously disconnected and unreal. Seo-yeon went through the motions of showering, getting dressed, and making herself presentable for the day with a mechanical automatism, her thoughts still stunned by the grainy pictures and the bone-chilling words ringing in her head.
She showered without really sensing the heat of the water against her skin, got dressed without noticing the color or feel of her clothes, and emerged from the relative safety of her apartment into a world that was slightly, unnervingly askew—like a carefully constructed stage set where everything was minutely out of place, casting uncanny shadows.
The sky over Seoul was innocently bright, a dazzling sea of spring light that seemed to taunt the troubled turmoil raging within her, the colorful vibrancy of the waking city in such contrast to the dull grayscale of her own world.
