Light.
It stabbed into him. Too sharp, too hot, too merciless. He tried to shield his eyes, but his arms refused him. They twitched weakly, jerking without strength, as though they belonged to someone else.
Sound struck next.
The world roared into his ears—voices, loud and strange, speaking in a language he could not understand. Harsh syllables, foreign tones. He strained to catch meaning, but the sounds slipped away, nonsense tumbling into his head.
He tried to answer. To say Where am I? What's happening? But only a thin, broken wail tore from his throat.
A baby's cry.
Haneul froze—or would have, if his body obeyed. His tongue felt clumsy, his mouth too small, his voice shrill and raw.
No… no, that's not me…
But the sound came again, spilling out uncontrollably. He screamed, not from choice, but because his tiny lungs demanded it. His chest rose and fell in panicked gasps, and the cries echoed in the air, pitiful and weak.
Hands lifted him. Enormous, rough hands, warm and terrifying. His head lolled to the side, too heavy for his neck to hold. His vision blurred—faces loomed above him, shadows outlined by firelight.
One face leaned closer. A woman? Her features were strange, unfamiliar, framed by long dark hair. Her mouth moved, shaping words he could not grasp. Her voice was soft, but to his ears it was only noise, sound without meaning.
Another face appeared—an older man, his voice deeper, firmer. He said something, and the woman laughed gently, rocking Haneul in her arms.
The motion made him dizzy. His stomach twisted, his limbs flailed weakly, fists no bigger than walnuts.
Terror clawed at him.
He had no strength. No voice. No control.
His life, once gray and suffocating, had at least been his. Now, he couldn't even wipe the tears from his own eyes.
He screamed again, and the sound tore at his heart. It wasn't the cry of a man. It wasn't even the cry of himself.
It was the helpless wail of a newborn.
And in that sound, Kim Haneul understood a truth more crushing than death.
He was starting over.
Darkness pressed against him.
It was not the deep sleep of his old life, where alarms eventually dragged him awake. This was different. A suffocating black, endless and absolute. His tiny chest ached with need. His stomach cramped, twisting like a fist of fire inside him.
He tried to reach out—to grab, to claw, to demand—but his arms only flailed weakly, brushing against nothing. The effort exhausted him, and his breath came out in shallow gasps.
Then warmth.
Arms gathered him up, wrapping him in cloth and skin. A heartbeat thudded close to his ear—steady, stronger than his own fragile rhythm. The sound soothed something deep inside him, even as his hunger burned hotter.
He opened his mouth instinctively, not knowing why. Something soft pressed against his lips, warm liquid filling his throat. Sweet, heavy, life-giving. His body drank before his mind understood, and the fire in his belly slowly faded.
But with the relief came shame.
I am drinking like a child… because I am one.
Tears welled in his eyes, unbidden. His own sobs muffled against the woman's chest, pathetic noises he could not swallow down.
Time blurred.
There was no clock here, no schedule, no morning train. Only cycles of light and dark, warmth and cold, fullness and hunger.
Sometimes he was left in a cradle of straw and cloth, shadows flickering from the fire nearby. The voices of the man and woman would rise and fall, too complex to hold meaning, too fast to grasp. He listened until the sounds became rhythms, music without lyrics.
Other times, silence swallowed everything. The fire dimmed, the room chilled, and he lay alone. His tiny body stiffened, fear clawing up his throat. His mind screamed, but his mouth could only form a thin whimper. No one came. The darkness stretched too long, and he began to shake—not from cold, but from the terror of being forgotten.
Once, in that endless black, he remembered the office. The gray walls, the humming lights, the endless spreadsheets. But the memory flickered and snapped away, like a candle smothered by wind. His new mind could not hold it.
He cried again, and the sound seemed smaller than the silence that answered.
And yet—just before despair crushed him, warmth always returned. The woman's arms, the fire's glow, the gentle sound of her humming.
Each time he was saved, but never by himself.
That truth sank into him with every heartbeat.
He was powerless. Entirely, utterly powerless.
Light.
Too bright. His eyelids burned. He tried to close them tighter, but they fluttered, weak, trembling. The world above him was all blur and motion—shadows that bent and leaned, faces he could not hold.
A sound came. Soft, rising and falling. A lullaby? Perhaps. To his ears, it was nothing but tones, but something deep inside recognized the shape of comfort.
He wanted to answer, to speak, to ask—Why am I here? What am I?
But his throat betrayed him again. Only a small whimper slipped out, high and thin.
The arms held him closer. Warmth. A beating heart. A rhythm steady and endless.
And beneath it all…
Gray.
A flatness that had once been his entire life. The memory of fluorescent light on tired eyes, of gray cubicles and gray skies outside tinted windows. That gray had followed him here, into this soft prison. It pressed against the corners of his mind like fog.
It whispered: You are nothing. You were nothing. You will be nothing here as well.
His tiny fists clenched, fingernails scratching against his palms. The motion cost him more than it gave. His body shook with the effort, and in moments, he was exhausted again.
Time fractured.
Sometimes, there was food. Sometimes, there was silence. Sometimes, the woman's soft voice; sometimes, only emptiness and the weight of his own heartbeat.
He drifted.
Hunger gnawed. Darkness pressed.
His cries ripped out without thought, shame mixing with terror. Each sound was weaker than the last, as if even his body doubted his right to be heard.
He remembered, dimly, the feeling of being overlooked in life—his manager's eyes sliding past him, colleagues speaking over him. That same invisibility now cloaked him in the cradle. You were unseen before. You are unseen again.
Tears wet his face, cooling against the air.
At last, the warmth returned, lifting him. He drank, not by choice, but by instinct. He hated the dependence, but his body demanded it. Sweet liquid filled him, and the fire in his belly dimmed.
And as he fed, his eyes half-closed, he thought—
Even here, I do not belong to myself.
The grayness swelled, and for a moment, he almost wished he had stayed in the void.