They always told me London was a city that never forgot. Its stones carried the weight of empires, its air thickened with smoke, secrets, and centuries of whispered bargains. But here I was, standing at the edge of Ashwell, at the end of everything I had known, feeling an intimacy with the city that was almost personal—as if its fog-laden alleys leaned closer, its fractured rooftops bent toward me, remembering me before I remembered myself. It wasn't déjà vu; it was as though I had stepped into a verse already written, a performance rehearsed without my consent. Every cobblestone, every coil of mist, every shadow that flickered too deliberately across my path suggested the city was not merely a backdrop—it was alive, watching, patient, and insistent.
Even as I lingered, the fog curling like fingers along the rooftops, a thought tugged at me: the world I knew—the one my parents and neighbors clung to—was a fragile veneer. Beyond it, beyond Ashwell's tidy streets, lay sparks of astonishment, tiny explosions of wonder that only a few dared pursue. It was one of our few portals to the extraordinary in this meek neighborhood, and tonight, we would ride straight into it.
It brought my mind to my father.
To the world, Dr. Hyun Min-soo was a biochemist, a name in journals that no one in Ashwell bothered to read. To me, he was simply Appa—the man who repaired broken toys at our kitchen table with too much glue, duct tape aplenty, unconcerned if the wheels refused to spin straight. He patched, he fixed, he preserved.
My mother was the counterpoint. Chaos incarnate, a canvas never survived her hands; she painted, smeared, obliterated, and created anew. Her art was living memory, half-formed, fluid, untethered. I sometimes wondered if being born between precision and chaos—Appa's meticulous order and her unrestrained artistry—was why I always hungered for something beyond Ashwell's neatly drawn streets.
Which is why I surrounded myself with the only people strange enough to make me feel ordinary.
Michael, the quiet prodigy, whose eyes catalogued numbers like constellations, folding intricate origami from chip packets, a hum of calculation threading through his fingertips.
Joan—Daja—a tempest of sound and ink, her voice twisting rhythm into rebellion, eyes sparking when she recited lyrics that bent grammar into chaos, her words a brushstroke against mundanity.
Ezra, sculpted in sharp lines and golden symmetry, hair meticulously combed, shoes gleaming as though reflecting ambition itself, sketchbook perpetually in hand, conjuring garments for brands that hadn't yet dared to exist.
Michelle, the unfinished storm—paint on her fingers, questions in her eyes, and a laugh too sharp for comfort, as though she had already seen the cracks beneath Ashwell's façade and dared us to look too.
They were in our mid-teens, and on nights like this, the world trembled at their feet. Each evening was an uncharted story, a rebellion woven into the corners of our lives, moments our parents would have forbidden.
We mounted our bikes, the familiar click and whirr of chains beneath our feet. As we pedaled past Ashwell Academy—the thief of joy, Joan's favorite insult—our wheels rattled, spokes clattering, echoes bouncing off walls like ghostly applause. Joan's rhymes sprayed into the wind, half freestyle, half chaos incarnate, spilling like ink across gray cobblestones. Michelle, our newest addition, still tethered in part to her mother's doorway, swerved into the pack, paint-stained fingers gripping the handlebars, restless eyes sparkling with anticipation, ready to be corrupted. Her laughter, high and deliberate, threaded through ours like sparks in dry grass.
"Yo, listen," Joan called over the wind, launching into a freestyle. "Ashwell's gray, but my words paint flame / breaking cages, not bound to a name. / Streets whisper secrets, fog hides the crown / we ride like kings, flip this whole town down." Her words hit sharp, almost poetic, weaving rebellion into rhythm.
Michael actually slowed his pedaling to clap. "Wow. You've come a long way from embarrassing yourself at those talent shows we were forced to attend. Part of me died that day."
"I did not!" Joan snapped, veering her bike just enough to bump his wheel, nearly sending him swerving. She cursed him in French, stringing syllables sharp as knives—words I didn't understand, but felt the sting all the same.
Michelle barked a laugh, swerving closer. "That bad, huh? Tell me everything. Joan bombing on stage is a picture I need painted."
Michael wheezed out a laugh. "Yo, Ezra, Rin—you remember that, right?"
Ezra gave a solemn nod, golden hair catching the streetlight. "Yes. We all suffered second-hand embarrassment that day." His lips twitched, betraying a smirk. "A historic moment in collective trauma."
"Rin?" Michael pressed.
But my head had drifted, clouds blurring into shapes, the city below bending like something unreal. Their voices came as echoes, distant. "Huh? What were we talking about?"
Laughter erupted, loud enough to startle a dog behind the gate. Michelle nearly toppled from her bike, wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh my God, you really spaced out mid-roast? Rin, you're useless."
Joan threw a glare at her. "Don't get comfortable, newbie. You haven't earned roast privileges yet."
Michelle only grinned wider. "Watch me."
The hill rose ahead, a slope cutting through the heart of the city. As we climbed, our bikes groaned, tires grating against worn asphalt, but the effort only amplified the exhilaration. The wind whipped our hair, clawed at our faces, and carried the scent of smoke and wet stone. Below, Ashwell sprawled like a living puzzle—a jumbled collage of rooftops, spires, and factories belching into the bruised sky. Every twist of the handlebars, every shift in posture, made the city dance beneath us, and I felt like I was moving inside a story that had been paused just for this ride.
At the crest, we spilled onto the grass, unwrapping snacks as Joan's tinny speaker hummed low, hypnotic rhythms that seemed to synchronize with our heartbeats. Conversation unfolded like origami, twisting from trivial to profound.
"What about you, Michelle?" I asked, brushing crumbs from my knees. "What's your big plan? Don't say 'normal.'"
She rolled her eyes, smearing peanut butter across her fingers with a deliberate flourish. "Fine. An artist. Real art. Not charity doodles. Something that lingers. Makes people uncomfortable. Forces them to reconsider everything they've accepted without thought."
Joan leaned back, hands clasped behind her head, eyes glinting with mischief. "So you want to haunt people's dreams with paints and brushes. Excellent. I approve. That's rebellious enough for me."
Michael, still folding a chip packet into a delicate crane, murmured without looking up, "We're all haunted. Some with art, some with science, some with memories we leave behind. There's comfort in knowing your mark will persist, even after you're gone."
Michelle pointed at him with her peanut-butter finger. "Then maybe haunting is the point. Not comfort—discomfort. If people forget me easily, I've failed."
I tilted my head. "Mark? Like memories? Even the small ones? A song hummed years later?"
Michael nodded faintly. "Exactly. That lingering echo. Something you can't unhear or unsee, etched into the invisible fabric of the world."
Ezra, balancing his sketchbook, added with a smirk, "Then my mission is clear. Fashion isn't just clothing; it's an imprint. Every fold, every stitch a memory before it's worn. That first glance should linger, impossible to forget."
Joan barked a laugh. "And you, Rin? Always brooding in that lazy, philosophical way. What's your trace going to be, lying here in the grass all nonchalantly, arms crossed and all?"
I chewed a chip thoughtfully. "Freedom, I guess. Or at least the illusion of it. I'd rather make people taste the air than be trapped under fluorescent lights or buried in spreadsheets. Let them taste life before it's chewed into monotony."
Michelle smirked, wagging a finger. "You're dramatic. But I like it. May your freedom infect everyone. If not, I'll paint it into their walls myself."
I grinned, flicking a pebble down the slope. "Infectious freedom. I could get used to that."
The wind shifted, brushing the hair from Ezra's face. His gold-caught eyes met mine. "Don't worry. At least we always have time."
Michelle leaned forward, voice sharper, less convinced. "You say that like time isn't the first thing that betrays us."
The group went quiet a beat too long, her words landing heavier than expected. Then Joan laughed it off, tossing a pretzel at her. "Okay, Plato, chill."
But Ezra didn't look away from the horizon. His sketchbook lay forgotten. The air grew heavier, the wind's hum softening as if the night itself paused, holding its breath. Behind him, faintly, a sparkle of undefined brilliance shimmered—a light too ordinary to note, yet impossible to ignore, like a heartbeat in the quiet, a prelude to the extraordinary.
And then, in a single breath, the sky split.
A streak, sharp and brilliant, tore across the stars. Another followed, then another—hundreds, no, thousands—golden comets igniting the night. The air hummed, thick and almost tactile, vibrating inside our bones. Shadows stretched and twitched, whispering our names with voices only we could hear.
The ground trembled beneath our bikes. Joan dropped her speaker; music fractured into static. Michael's origami bird unfolded midair, delicate wings tearing like ghost paper. Michelle gripped my arm, knuckles white, her laugh finally gone.
"It's—" I couldn't speak.
The comets didn't fall. They breathed. Trails shimmered unnaturally long, refusing to fade. A sound resonated inside our skulls—not a roar, but a bell, endless and echoing, threading through marrow and memory alike.
The largest fragment tore across the horizon, slamming into the valley. Golden brilliance cascaded over us, illuminating the hill with a light that was impossible, alive, observing.
We kicked our bikes into motion, skidding downhill, wind shredding our laughter into shards of sound. Shadows lagged, time fractured between heartbeats, breaths felt borrowed. Every turn of the pedals carried us deeper into a story being written on the land beneath us, and the city behind us blurred into a tapestry of light and shadow, wind and dust.
At the crater's edge, silence swallowed us whole.
The earth had been hollowed like clay. At its center churned a pool of molten-gold light, liquid memory itself, undulating and aware. Ripples bent toward us, hinting at knowledge we had not yet earned, histories that had not yet happened.
I felt it in my chest, in my teeth, in my bones: something had seen us, marked us, remembered us.
Ezra whispered, pointing at the fractured horizon, calm despite trembling hands, "The sky... fell."
And none of us knew, yet, that Ashwell would never again know ordinary.