"It's a quarter after one,

I'm all alone 

And I need you now." 

"Look, Res. Look at me, straight at me," he says, with his voice like steel and ice, with his eyes that I sometimes believe glow like the devil's drilling into me. I want to tell him that I'm not Res, that I'm not, but I keep silent. So I swallow the salty blood in my mouth, gagging but I can get it down, and I raise my eyes to his eyes, the color of a pure gold bar in the sun. 

They don't glow now, but they are faintly sparkling, as the late afternoon sun streams in and hits the sharp angles on his pale face; his prominent cheekbones, arched eyebrows, golden, golden eyes. Dark gold, to be exact, but in this light they look bright enough to blind my weak eyes. My weak eyes that have forgotten the meaning of a bright light, because it was too long ago and my mind is too clogged up with images now that I would never want to see to remember those kinds of things. But I do remember the brightness of flame. It was recent enough, a week and a day ago. I can still feel my wrist scorching, burning to crisp, flaming, and I remember looking down to see the triumphant fire dancing across my wrist, in a haunting, memorizing, powerful dance.

This is the 5th day, of the 6th week. I have been here, in this room, in his chair, in this certain, painful kind of pain for 47 days, to be exact. I would be more exact, becuase I remember I woke here in the early morning and I was kidnapped late night, and I know it is almost the end of the afternoon, but the searing cuts slicing into the roof of my mouth, dripping blood and making it hard to breathe, hard to speak, make it hard to think in exacts. So Instead I sit, and I breathe through my nose, and I raise my tired eyes to his drilling golden eyes. 

"Good, Res," the man says, and he spins his knife, a single time, between his thin, pale fingers with perfectly rounded nails and bony, grusome grasps. And then he leans down, from his chair with a dark, black leather cushion and back, so different from my own. It clearly says, without a sound, who is in charge in this pathetic, lonely little room. But I know, and he knows. If it for reminding me, maybe, but I have been here 47 days- I don't need reminding anymore.

And then he reaches up, and traces my lips with his knife point, and I get the message, and I open my mouth. He turns the knife so the flat of the blade is in line with my nose, forcing my mouth widen and widder. Tomorrow, when another comes to take out their anger and self-hate on me, they will not be happy, for after this, I will not be able to speak for a couple days. But this man likes these kind of things, invisible until I, say, open my mouth. 

He turns the knife again and lightly pricks the roof of my mouth, and I wince, but I try to cover it quickly. But he must have known, he must've heard it or seen it in my face, because I have not yet learned to keep the pain inside even when the cause of the pain is outside of me, my physical me, the vulnerable me, the weak me.

He pricks it again, and I thank whoever, something, anything, that he is not pricking one of my open cuts. He pricks again, and I feel a drop of red-hot blood fall onto my tongue. I keep silent, and then he suddenly, with a jerk and a twist, drives the knife in. It's jsut barely an 1/8th of a centimeter, I know, but the pain is amazing. Light, brighter than this man's eyes in the sunlight, explodes behind my eyes, and I don't know why this so hurts so, so, so much. But it does, it's pain, it's something I have gotten used to in 47 days and yet still I'm not used to this, this pain that is so sharp and quick and piercing, a hot needle to my skin, except it is my mouth and my skin and things that make me me. 

I do all I can. I close my eyes, to block out his mocking twist of his thin lips and the steadiness of his golden eyes, and I feel a tremor in my stomach, and I feel the pain is on my face, written large and looping. But sometimes, I have learned, it is better to give them what they want. It is better to show them pain than hide it, because then they will feel there is not enough pain and they will decide that I need more pain to make them happy.

And when the knife withdraws, and the pain cools to roaring lava, I crack open my eyes and he is already gone, already gone, but it has been so quick and so long and I am alone and I am so, so, so relieved. And as I sit here, the afternoon sun just hitting me, the pain in my mouth making me unable to swallow the pouring blood, but I do because even now, I don't want to die, I don't want to die.

And now, I am safe. I am alone, my mind is sound, as I know it to be, and my pain is cooling, bit by bit. Bit by bit. Bit by bit.

Now, I am safe. This is what safe is in this horrible, demanding, painful life, and now I am safe.

I am safe, I tell myself, I repeat the words over and over in my mind that is slowly shadowing, falling into an endless hole. I am safe, I repeat, and I feel the blood drip into my mouth and I feel the tears drip down my face and I feel the emptiness of the room and I am safe. 

Safe.

Safe.

Safe, I remember. I remember. I remember that safe, the safe of the vanishing pain, the feeling of being alone for those precious hours when I was alone. I remember as the days and the weeks and the months when past, I remember when the demons started to take over, started win, and I remember when the hours where I was alone but I was not really alone were many, more, growing until all I had. 

What is safe? Safe is a feeling. Safe is what you feel when you feel not in danger, when you can't be harmed. So I couldn't be harmed in those hours. So that was safe. 

Safe.

But why do I feel like that isn't safe, that that isn't the true meaning of the word? I can't remember.... I can't...

I remember. I do.

"Mireu!" My eomma calls to me, and I crawl on my little, chubby hands and knees. I feel a smile, not foreign, but normal and big and me, appear on my face, and I see my eomma in front of me and I want to go to her, because I have this connection with her, a feeling, and I am happy when I am with her and I am fed and I am warm. I feel safe when I am with my eomma, so I crawl in the dry, green grass and she's so far away but she's getting closer, closer, and now I feel her big, warm hands lift me up, swing me around, and I giggle, smiling even bigger in her warmth and light, and she smiles back, she sits down, in the grass, but she doesn't let go of me and I don't want her to because she makes me feel so safe.

So safe.

So warm, so happy, so safe.

And she leans down, and kisses my forehead, and I grin and she grins and we're happy, now, with the light and the sun and the warmth coming down and the grass under our feet and smiles, real smiles on our faces. 

Safe.

Safe. And I'm crying now, and I want to feel that way again. I want to feel safe and warm and protected. But my eomma passed away, three years ago, and her light has died with her and with my lost memories, and I want to hold onto this one because I need it, I need it right now so much, I need comfort so much. I just need to be loved so much now.

I need it right now, because I am remembering my eomma in this one captured memory and I just want to feel this way again. I haven't felt safe in a long time, truly safe and I need to, I need to.

And now I'm standing, and I'm so alone and I need someone now, and I'm running. Running, running, though this house and these doors and no one, no one's here. 

And there is someone. Seungho. He is in the kitchen, reading something, but as he hears my frantic footsteps, he turns and when he sees me he starts toward me, but I get there first because I need him, I need a human being who I believe cares about me, who I know cares about me in a pure way. 

And I crash into him, and I can still he's suprised, but I can feel the tears drip down and after a milli-second, I feel his arms come to encircle me, and hold me tight, because I miss her so much and I wish I hadn't failed her, I wish I hadn't forgotten her, and I need to remember this memory, this flashback of my eomma. And I feel his strongness and I wish I was as strong as him, but for now it will have to be that I will borrow his strongness just now. And I can feel the rocking, I can feel his strength, and I feel safe. 

Safe, for once. Safe, truly safe, for the first time in more than four months. 

Safe.