Epik High  (에픽하이)- Owls. Shadows. Tears  - Instrumental  

“So much is invisible.” 
-Morag Joss, Among the missing 

13th January 2011 

It had only been a month since Huang Zi Tao first stepped into the company. A few weeks since they told him he would be joining EXO, making his debut sometime in December. When Huang Zi Tao first met the other trainees, he expected to be welcomed, liked or atleast not hated. However, every day and every night had turned into a trial for him. 

That night, the rain fell with a sombre aftertaste. The sky, burdened with clouds, looked as if an apocalypse was nearing. In front of him, Tao could see nothing but a dense fog. The hair on his head stood as the cold overtook him, but still, he didn’t stop running. In his silence and in the noise of the rain, Tao remembered his home, his land. It felt to him that time had frozen then. Amongst the barks of old oak trees and mahogany benches, amongst the hues of sundown; painted in shades of tea rose and cerise and luminous stars that drew along the night a subtle splendor. Time had grown inexistent. Instead existed the spirits of his past. A young boy with hair as dark and splendid as India ink, a crooked nose, his voice reeking of newly found manhood, his hand entangled with that of a girl whose chest had swelled before her age, failing curls of hair flowing down her back in a river of agony. He had sung to her songs that his parents had taught him and she giggled in response. He remained trapped in the words of the senile old man who sat the steps of the old wishing fountain, a fine siamese cat by his feet, shouting in sharp Mandarin as the couple neared. In his youth, he told them, girls and boys never stood so close. They snickered at his thoughts. Then one day, without warning, the girl died in her sleep. They washed her fair body and soaked her ashes in water from the river. They weeped and cried to the Lord to give peace to her soul. But soon, the days began to pass and people forgot. They forgot the little girl who had died in her sleep but he refused. He lived on the brink of her love and dreamed of success. He dreamed to reach so high, to allow the world to see him, so somewhere in the heavens, the little girl could giggle at him as he sung. To shape a beautiful present he had reinvented his past and now as he saw life crumble before his eyes, he too broke, bit by bit. Tears streamed down his face disguised by the rain and he continued to run. He could not hold up any longer, his legs gave in under him and he allowed himself to fall to the ground in a thud. His eyes dropped from weariness but he could feel them near. To fall in the trap of ones past; a past that was housed in reality and not fabrication, was a dread he carried in the heart that he had strung on to his sleeve. He did not have time for such spare thoughts, he thought, he did not have time for such dread. He looked over his shoulder to find them coming. They were beautiful in appearance, much more so than himself. Their hair fell perfectly over their foreheads and their eyes sparkled. In this foreign land there were many people of great beauty. These men were so beautiful that even their evil intentions fell to no avail against their lean postures and perfectly sculpted faces. To Huang Zi Tao though, they were simply shadows that held matter. They were short of breath as they caught him and yet they screamed in his face, “Dare you run from us? You bastard.” Their fists fell on his with such force that he could not help but gasp. He did not fight back, he had lost the energy. Their punches fell across his face, his body and he felt his blood freeze in his throat. He felt the bones in his nose weaken as they bled and his stomach churned. With his eyes closed, he endured. It was cold. With each shove and kick a little hope in him, somewhere, withered and died. Yet he let them hit him, he let the roses of hope inside him wade away with the wind of their kicks. For he had long since decided, half broken things were the worst. He was too far broken to be fixed, so he let himself die and wither with his hopes. For he had long since decided, half broken things were the worst.

It was still nighttime when he awoke. He felt something nudge his shoulder so he turned to look. A strange girl stood beside him, waddled in layers of clothing, a camera slung across her neck. Tao struggled to hold his eyes open as he stared at her. The wind stung new formed wounds on his body. His torn, wet clothes, clung to him and he shivered. At least the rain had stopped. The girl beside him didn’t speak but stared at his desolate state. Her eyes shone like two pools of dark brown against skin the color of dust. Her hair was tied behind her in a pony tail. She could not be more than fourteen years of age. “Who are you?” he asked her, he could sense the odor of his own breath but she didn’t seem to flinch. “Fan.” Then suddenly, in a fury of blurred movements, she ripped the cover of her camera and began to snap pictures of his face. He was held in such shock that he couldn’t react. “What the hell!” he gasped as he plunged forward to protect himself. Suddenly, she stood up and began to run, leaving him there, looking like a desolate pile of rubbish. It began then.