The classroom was ordinary. The kind of afternoon where time moved like syrup. Chalk dust clung to the board, the ceiling fan buzzed unevenly, and half the class had their heads bent over notebooks while the other half daydreamed out the window.
I was copying formulas, my pen scratching fast before the teacher wiped them away. The bell hadn't rung yet, but the day was already heavy with routine. Nothing unusual. Nothing worth remembering.
Until the sound.
It was sharp, heavy, final. Something had fallen.
At first no one reacted. A few heads turned lazily. Maybe someone had dropped a chair, maybe a book. But then came the silence—the kind that presses into your ears and makes your stomach drop. Chairs scraped. Someone by the window gasped, then shouted.
I turned, confused, and followed their gaze.
Down in the courtyard, a crowd was already forming. At the center of it, a shape lay sprawled on the pale concrete. A skirt. Dark hair. A smear of crimson that looked too vivid, too wrong.
My pen slipped from my hand. My throat closed.
No.
I shoved past desks, nearly toppling a chair, and sprinted into the hall. The teacher shouted something behind me, but I didn't hear. My legs moved without thought, carrying me down the stairs two, three steps at a time. The voices outside grew louder, frantic.
By the time I broke through the circle of students, my lungs burned.
And then I saw her.
Jisoo.
Her body was twisted in a way it never should be. Blood pooled beneath her, seeping into the cracks of the courtyard floor. Her eyes were half-open, glassy, darting without focus.
For a moment the world tilted.
Then I was at her side, falling to my knees, pushing away the hands that tried to hold me back.
"Jisoo!" My voice cracked as I lifted her into my arms. Her uniform was damp, sticky with warmth that should never have left her. "Stay with me, you hear? Stay with me!"
Her lips trembled. A sound escaped, broken and weak, not even a word. I pressed my ear close. Nothing.
"Somebody call an ambulance!" My throat was raw. "Don't just stand there! Call them now!"
A boy fumbled with his phone, his hands shaking. A girl sobbed. Around us, the crowd froze in useless panic, phones raised to record, eyes wide with fear.
I pressed my hand against the wound, desperate, as if pressure alone could keep her here. Her hand twitched against mine. Her eyes flickered—once, twice—and then dimmed.
"No, no, no…" My own breath came in short, jagged bursts. "Stay. Please stay."
But she was slipping.
By the time the paramedics arrived, her body was limp. They lifted her onto the stretcher with professional efficiency, their voices calm, practiced. I tried to climb in after them, but a teacher's hand caught my shoulder.
"You can't," he muttered, his tone strangely flat. "Wait here."
I tore free, but the doors slammed shut before I could reach them. Sirens wailed as the ambulance sped away. I stood rooted in the rain, my hands sticky with blood that wouldn't come off.
Minutes later, I found myself in the hospital waiting room. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The smell of antiseptic filled my lungs.
A doctor entered. His face was expressionless, his words rehearsed.
"Time of death: 2:37 p.m."
Just like that. A number. A fact. As if my sister had been a statistic, nothing more.
The room spun. I didn't cry. I couldn't. My mind replayed the fall again and again—the sound, the silence, the sight of her body. Over and over until the memory blurred with reality.
News spread quickly. By evening, the school had already issued a statement: tragic suicide. The headmaster's voice on television shook with practiced sorrow. Classmates sent messages that ranged from shocked to shallow. Some posted photos of her smiling face online with captions like Rest in peace, angel.
But I remembered her smile just yesterday, forced and brittle. I remembered the bruises on her wrist she said were from "bumping into a desk." I remembered the whispers in the corridor that stopped when I walked past.
I remembered her.
Park Minah.
Daughter of the city's Governor. Second year. Untouchable. Her smile was sharp as glass, her presence magnetic, the orbit of the school revolving around her whims. She didn't need to lift a finger. Her laughter was enough to direct cruelty like a command.
And Jisoo had been her latest target.
I didn't need proof. I had seen the way Jisoo flinched when Minah walked into a room, the way her hands trembled when she folded her books.
But the world didn't want proof.
The police arrived at our apartment the next morning. Their words were clinical: "no signs of foul play." Case closed.
My parents refused to accept it. They demanded an inquiry, stood outside the school with hand-painted placards, shouting Jisoo's name until their voices cracked. They wrote letters to newspapers, begged for someone—anyone—to listen.
People nodded, murmured sympathy, and kept walking.
Two weeks later, my parents were dead.
An accident, they called it. A truck swerving at night. Driver fatigue. Another line in a report. Another coincidence.
Three funerals in a month.
Neighbors brought food, then stopped visiting. Teachers sent messages of support, then stopped replying. Friends avoided my eyes in the hallway, afraid grief might be contagious.
And Minah?
She smiled. She walked the halls as if nothing had happened, her friends orbiting her, their laughter echoing through the corridors. Her father gave speeches about reform and family values, his voice booming across the city. Cameras adored him. Headlines praised him.
It was as if my sister had never existed.
I sat in Jisoo's room that night, the silence suffocating. Her posters still clung to the walls, bright colors against the gray. Her desk was neat, her handwriting still frozen in her notebooks. On the corner lay a scrap of paper she had once doodled on—a strange little drawing she called her "freedom mark."
I picked it up. The lines were shaky, unfinished, but I could see her in it. Her hope. Her belief that one day things would be different.
I crushed it in my fist.
"Things will be different," I whispered. My voice was hoarse, my throat raw. "I'll make sure of it."
It wasn't justice I wanted. Justice was a word for people who still believed the system worked.
No. I wanted something else.
I wanted them to feel it.
The helplessness. The silence. The way the world looked away.
I wanted them to learn what it meant to lose everything and still have the world pretend it was nothing.
The school bell would ring tomorrow. Classes would resume. Minah would smile. The Governor would shake hands in front of cameras.
But for me, the world had already ended.
And in the ruins of that ending, something else was born.
Not grief. Not despair.
A vow.
A promise I would carve into their perfect world, no matter how long it took.