// Flashback

      They are looking at me with their posh expressions and clothing. I am trying to avoid them but they have me cornered here. It's the usual place: in a dumpster area behind the school where no one goes and it's always around four or five o'clock. It's like a daily schedule for me, and I don't know how I survive it every time.

      From the group of about six girls, a high pitched voice began calling out to me, "Yah, you're pathetic."

      I stay here, biting my lip, hoping the torture will end quickly.

      "We do this everyday and yet you haven't gotten the point."

      I can't say anything. I tried to before, and I just got beat to the ground.

      "Why don't we go the whole nine yards this time?" her smirked stretched itself farther to the right of her face, "Follow me."

      The girls around her are begging her to "Stop," when they were the ones who helped to corner me. I don't know where she's taking me, but if those girls are telling her to turn around, I know I will be scarred for the rest of my life.

      The more we walk into alleyways, the more I find that there are no sign of people to be seen. Even in the windows of the run down houses, there aren't any souls visible. I feel a little bit protected because of the way the girls are crowding around me but I'm still scared. What's going to happen when we stop in our tracks?

      "We're here."

      Her cold voice just matches the damp area around us. It's dark and full of cobwebs that the autumn rain hasn't taken care of yet. The broken glass pieces are scattered every were and I can hear the crunch every time I set my foot down. I don't know where we are but I am terrified.

      With just the snap of her fingers, a few guys came out of the dark. Their faces are scared from what seemed like cat scratches, or from someone who tried to get away and failed. From head to toe, they are dressed in all black and staring at me hungrily. I know what comes next but I don't know what to do. No one is here. I turn to look at the feminine eyes all around me but they are torn away from shame and guilt as their ears are witness to what is happening;

      "You know what you have to do," she dragged me by my hair and threw me down before them, "Graduation is tomorrow, but if you come, HaNeul, I'll go as far as to make sure you're handi-capped."

      Swallowing I let tears fall out of my eyes, "M-MinAh! Please, please!"

      The girls bite their bottom-lips as they walk away with MinAh. Their back figures resemble their frontal: crouching in guilt and running away to not get in trouble. I turn around but only to face the three men who were coming closer and closer to my weak body. The sun had set further into the the horizon and I am left with the light of the moon.

      "Please don't do this..." I jump away as one tries to grab me, "Help!"

      As I am running through this endless maze of dark alleyways, I am screaming for help but no one comes. Not even the demons of the night tried to save me and the men are getting closer.

      "You don't have to do this!" I plead as I am searching the dumpsters for some type of weapon, "Y-You can just walk away!"

      "Oh but we can't," the voice trails into my sensitive ears and I freeze as it plants itself in my memory. I had never heard such a rough and low voice. A hand finds its way to my waist and it tries to pull me closer and I see the other two men closer in;

      "P-Please..."

      With no sign of someone trying to help me, I reach farther into a dumpster and grab the first thing that my hand finds: a thick piece of broken glass. Like a mad man, I kick at the man until his hands come off of me and I lunge forward with my only hope;

      "Y-You crazy ..."

      His voice only makes me more terrified and therefore, I pull out of the glass from his stomach and fling it straight into his neck, making sure to cut away at the esophagus. I now have blood dripping down my face and hands but I need to save myself. Turning to face the other two men, I see that their faces are full of fear—The same kind of fear I had just earlier.

      "Ey, ey, we get it," one spoke, "We'll leave!"

      "You didn't listen to me," I ran towards them with the glass piece stuck in my own hands, "Why should I?"

      "NO-!"

      Taking one down first, I stab at him for about a good minute and after he is no longer breathing, I turn to find the other man. With him no where to be found, I pull the weapon from within my palms and throw it into a drain. I finally look at the two dead men before me and I scream into the dark night. What just happened? Why? Why-?

      "HaNeul," a sweet voice came, "Wake up."

      I opened my eyes slowly as a bright light invaded the red film in my inner-eye layer. Before checking to see who spoke to me, I brought my own hands to my face and examined the scars on my palms. I realized that those scars were definitely battle scars of my past but that didn't make me feel any better. I had killed two men in my whole life and I only just remembered through a dream.

      "HaNeul?"

      I didn't take my eyes off of my own hands and spoke in a cracked tone, "Am I a killer?"

      "What?"

      "Am I a killer?" I repeated as tears ran down my face, "Is that what I truly am?"

      Familiar hands wrapped themselves around my cold ones and I was suddenly looking into the eyes of KyungSoo, "Why would you say that?"

      I shook my head from side to side and breathed heavily. Just last night I felt happy with Tao and SeHun but after a flashback like that, I was back to my old self. I suddenly wanted to run away from everything and hide back in my old apartment. I didn't like remembering all these strange memories.

      He gently laid my hands back down by my sides and brought a bowl of porridge towards my face;

      "You need to eat."

      "Please," I said as I remembered the smell of thick copper and the faces of the two dead men, "I can't eat."

      "HaNeul," he sighed as he put the bowl down, "Did something happen last night?"

      "What?"

      "With Tao and SeHun? Did they say something wrong? Why are you acting like this?"

      "It wasn't them," I avoided his eyes and looked up at the sky from my bed, "It's all internal."

      "HaNeul-"

      "It's a fight with myself," I explained, "Please.. let me do it alone this time."

      I watched him with my teary eyes as he left the room silently. I had wanted help at first but this was going to be an internal fight. I had killed not one but two people in my past. Did I go through shock? Is that why I couldn't remember things? Feeling scared for my own future, I pressed the button that would call my doctor.

      "SuHo," I looked at him dead in the eye, "Can you do a brain scan on me?"

      "What-?"

      "Please!" I dropped to the ground and bowed, "I need you to see if I've had any type of brain damage."

      He gave me a worried look but eventually gave in. There was no way that I was going to leave that hospital without having one. Without anyone but SuHo knowing, I was taken to the room where they would scan my brain and and tell me what was wrong with it. I needed to know if my past was messed up by awful dreams or if that was really me. After some hours of waiting, SuHo turned to me with his clipboard again and pointed to my x-rays that were clipped onto a light board. I was scared of what he would say but I needed to hear it.

      "It's a good thing you asked for the scan," he flipped through some papers, "We found that you did have some damaging in the front and back area of your brain."

      "Do you think that's why I can't remember things properly?"

      "I believe that is the reason," he sighed, "Also, do you want me to keep this a secret?"

      "Please. I'm not ready to tell KyungSoo yet.." I bit my bottom lip, "I need to figure something out for myself."

      "I understand."

      I didn't know if I would find my answers anywhere but all I could do was try. I was discharged right away and once I reached home, I ran out of SuHo's car and into my room where my belongings were. I searched and searched for the yearbook of my senior year.

      "There," I pointed to the familiar face from my dream, "Bang MinAh."

      "What about her?" KyungSoo questioned as he came into my room while brushing his teeth.

      "I need to meet her."

      He hesitated and then rinsed his mouth out in my bathroom, "Why?"

      "I need answers," I looked at him with sincerity, "I need to know why I'm like this."

      Pulling me into a hug, KyungSoo wrapped his arms tightly around my shoulders, "You can't."

      "Why not?"

      "HaNeul, I don't want you to relive any of that!"

      "You don't know anything-"

      "No, you're the one who doesn't know," he pulled us apart and looked into my eyes, "Trust me, you don't know anything."

      "KyungSoo..?"

      "I know why you're doing this and I was afraid you'd remember one day."

      "What are you talking about?"

      He looked around for any souls and when he found none, he brought his lips close to my ears, "You came to me one night.. and told me you killed two men."

      I didn't want to believe it but if it came out of KyungSoo's mouth, it must be true. I backtracked myself and sat on my bed to keep from collapsing.

      "If you knew, why did you find me?"

      "You weren't guilty in any way," he knelt down before me, "Though you told me that MinAh told you not to go to graduation, you did. After that, you disappeared and so, I thought something bad happened to you. For three years, I searched for you... while searching, I found that... No."

      "Tell me," I brought my small hands to his face, "Please."

      "MinAh hired more of those men to kill you but instead your family was killed. The neighbors said that you moved out afterwards because you couldn't take the pain. They didn't know where you were, they didn't know if you were still alive or not."

      "I-"

      "Finding MinAh will be pointless because she is in jail!" he rose his voice at her for the firs time, "Seeing her will only make you hurt more."

      "I moved around in loneliness," I cried into his arms, "I lived without remembering that I ever had a family.."

      "HaNeul," he my long hair, "With the ten of us, you'll be able to regain your memory, but in a non-painful way."

      "Ten?"

      "Yes, there are only ten of us."

      HaNeul's brain began thumping in pain and caused her let out a cry, "I-I saw a picture the other day... there were twelve of you."

      Though I came out and asked him, he looked unsure of how to answer. While I waited in suspense, KyungSoo swallowed the knot in his throat and looked away from my curious face, "We were twelve two years ago."

      "What happened?"

      "It was over something stupid but it turned into this big thing," he sighed, "But, that's for another time."