The river was unforgiving.
I remember the moment my foot slipped on the slick stone, the sharp gasp escaping me as the cold water slammed into my chest. My lungs screamed, my arms flailed, and the current dragged me under like it had claimed me long before I could fight back. The river roared in my ears, relentless and merciless. For a few endless seconds, I was certain it would swallow me forever.
Then… nothing.
I woke to white light stabbing my eyes. My lungs burned with every inhale, my chest heaving as if it had forgotten how to breathe. The room smelled of antiseptic, sterile and sharp, and somewhere nearby, a faint beeping cut through the silence.
I tried to sit up, panic rising, only to feel a soft hand steadying me.
"Tawan! You're awake!"
The voice broke through my haze. I turned my head, blinking against the brightness, and found Niran's worried eyes staring at me. Beside him, Ploy's hands clutched his arm, her face pale but relief shining in her wide eyes.
"You scared us half to death!" she said, voice trembling. "We… we thought we lost you!"
"I… I'm fine," I croaked, though my throat felt raw. My chest burned with the memory of the river, the suffocating weight of water that had pressed against me, threatening to drag me into oblivion. My hands shook as I tried to push myself upright.
"You nearly drowned," Niran said softly, voice tight. "The doctors… we weren't sure…"
I swallowed hard, trying to steady my breathing. The river. The cold. The panic. It had all felt so real. I fell… I almost… My mind stumbled over itself, grasping for what happened.
Then Ploy leaned closer, her expression shifting from panic to sudden curiosity.
"Tawan… wait." She hesitated, pointing toward my chest. "What is… that?"
I froze, eyes following the line of her finger, and then… I saw it.
A strange mark, curling across my chest like it had grown there overnight. I jerked back instinctively, heart hammering. "What the… what the hell is this?"
Ploy's eyes widened. "I… I don't know! It's… beautiful… actually, wow… hot," she admitted, a blush creeping up her cheeks as her words hung in the air.
I stared at my own hands, pressed against the mark, trying to rub it off. Nothing happened. It wasn't ink, wasn't blood. Nothing I recognized. My stomach twisted with confusion.
"How… how did this get here?" I whispered, voice barely steady. My pulse raced faster than it had in the river. I had no memory of anyone touching me, no clue how it had appeared while I was unconscious.
Niran shook his head, a hand resting on my shoulder. "We stayed with you the whole time. Nobody touched you. You woke up like this. We… we don't know, Tawan. We're as confused as you are."
I swallowed hard, pressing my palms to the strange, curling pattern. The warmth from it seeped into my fingers, but beyond that, there was… nothing I could explain. Panic clawed at me, sharp and raw. I wanted to scream, to rip the gown off and run, to run anywhere far away from this confusion, but my body refused to cooperate.
"You okay?" Ploy asked softly, though the playful smirk was still there, teasing. "I mean… besides almost dying and suddenly… looking like this?"
"Okay?" I repeated, voice hollow. "No. Not okay. What the hell is this? How—why—" My hands shook as I traced the strange lines. I couldn't think. I couldn't process. I just stared, dumbstruck, at my own body, feeling like I had woken in someone else's skin.
Niran exchanged a glance with Ploy, sighing. "Just… try to calm down. Breathe. You're alive. That's what matters right now."
I shook my head, still frozen. Alive… yes. But… different. Something had changed. Something I didn't understand. And for the first time since the river, I realized how fragile everything was—my life, my ordinary existence, everything I had ever known.
The mark… it was still there. Alive. Curling. Shining faintly, as if it had a heartbeat of its own. I pressed my fingers to it again, trying to will it away, but it didn't respond.
"Whatever it is," Ploy said, her tone teasing again, "it definitely suits you. Seriously… hot."
I blinked at her, confusion, panic, and disbelief battling inside me. "Hot? Are you kidding me? I— I don't even know what it is!"
Her grin only widened. Niran shook his head, a mixture of worry and exasperation. "You'll figure it out. Right now… just breathe."
I leaned back against the hospital pillows, staring at the mark, my mind spinning. Orphaned. Working at the flower shop in the mornings, the café in the evenings, scraping by just to pay rent. My life had been ordinary, simple… predictable.
Until now.
Until I woke up to find my chest adorned with something I couldn't explain, my best friends hovering in panic and teasing, and a world that suddenly felt enormous, strange, and dangerous.
I had no answers. No clue what had happened. Only the certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.