“Dad?! What’s wrong?!”

“Get the doctor in here!”

Nayoung kicked and screamed when the nurses tried lifting her out of the room. She hit the ground head first after kicking someone’s grip off of her. Blinking back spots momentarily, she immediately sat up, trying to get closer to her father.

'Stupid nurses', Nayoung thought as they blocked her way again. This time, they seemed to be concerned for her health, quickly checking to see if she was fine. She was told to follow one of the nurse’s fingers for some reason she supposed she was too young to understand.

But she couldn’t care less about that now; her eyes were only on her father, who had given her a sad smile, tears running down his cheeks.

"There'll be someone to take care of you, remember that,”

She nodded, tears prickling her eyes as she finally let herself be taken out of the room.

"I love you-"

Suddenly, Nayoung’s vision went fuzzy and her ears rang out. She vaguely heard screams and sobs before she felt herself turn around. Her eyesight then returned to her as her ears  felt like water was pouring out of them; the yells became coherent.

“No! Stop! Please!”

It was at that point where Nayoung realized that she was the one that was yelling.

Her parents pressed a wire to her arm, gritting their teeth when they applied pressure, and smiling when the thin metal broke through her skin. They wrote the letters oh-so-slowly, as if they were savoring each and every moment of the torture.

Nayoung had been too weak to move quickly, so she kept waiting until they had finished writing to take action. Willing every last bit of energy she had to flow toward her legs, she kicked her mother in the stomach, pushed her step-father with little force and stumbled toward the stairs, only to be dragged back down.

“No...Please…” She uttered, vaguely noticing her step-father lifting his foot up and lining it up to her forearm. She looked away and squeezed her eyes shut; she tried searching for her father's smiling face from within that darkness.

“Somebody… Get me out of here…”

---

Sixteen year old Nayoung awoke at the feeling of one of her mother’s high heels digging into one of her thighs. Her eyes didn’t feel like opening just yet, so she forced her arms to try to pry off the stiletto. The heel just pressed into her flesh harder.

It wasn’t too painful or anything, just irritating.

Nayoung’s free foot kicked at what she had supposed was her mother’s leg when she heard a high pitched yelp, followed by a thud and a groan in response. Nayoung blinked away whatever fatigue remained in her eyes before she effortlessly stood up from the mat and cushions, the sad excuse of her bed. She sighed at the mess of limbs that was her drunk mother before she half-carried half-dragged her mother out of her room. Nayoung carelessly dropped her mother’s hand out of the way of the door before she slammed it shut.

Nayoung furrowed her eyebrows at her mother slurring several profanities. She wondered how someone could still be drunk so early in the morning before she made her way back to the mat and sat down cross-legged on it, pondering on what she had been dreaming about.

It was unusual for her to be dreaming to begin with. Normally, she’d find herself in a comfortable medium in between being in deep sleep and being awake, just so that her body would still be alert if one of her captors decided to try anything and yet still somewhat rested by the time she would wake up for school. She thought that she might have stayed up longer than usual, but it wasn’t like she would really know even if she did; her room was a plain white box with a few things here and there; no clocks or photographs or posters adorned the walls in her room.

Nayoung had just stood up when she noticed the red trickling down the side of her arm. She sighed at the messily imprinted letters on her skin as she traced each one to wipe off the fresh blood.

WORTHLESS

Nayoung thought that her parents  had been especially drunk when they thought of the whole 'writing on skin' idea, because in the midst of bottles of beer that both were practically chugging like there wouldn’t be a tomorrow, they suddenly stated that they were ‘bored of how things were now’ and that they wanted to 'change things up a bit'.

And so, nine year old Nayoung had woken up that night, face-to-face with her ‘parents’ devilish grins, and an old fire poker. If she could explain what ludicrous thoughts they were thinking, it would be that the heated fire poker was the pencil and her skin had become the paper.

She walked to one of the cardboard boxes near her desk and lifted the lid off; she took out a pair of jeans, a black, long-sleeved shirt and matching, worn out converse. She then lifted the lid off of another cardboard box and grabbed her last set of socks and undergarments. She then opened the door just enough so that she could assess the area before her; the coast was clear…strangely enough.

Nayoung stepped outside of her room and took brisk steps to the bathroom. She locked the bathroom door behind her before she took a shower. She felt her skin scream in protest as warm water beat down on her scars; some of them had become a seething red in colour as she used the soap. The scars weren’t deep at all; they just hadn’t been able to heal for long enough before some sort of vigorous movement broke the healing skin again.

By the time she had finished, the entire floor was a pool of watered down blood. She didn’t panic, she didn’t even move. Nayoung merely watched the crimson red liquid as it went down the drain in silence, as if she was entranced by the bold colour.  

The sudden blast of cold Nayoung felt on her back made her shiver as the remaining warmth of the warm water had gone away. She pulled the shower curtains open and wrapped a towel around herself while stepping out of the shower as quickly as she could without slipping. Nayoung had only realized that she had forgotten her toothbrush in her own room after she had dried herself off and had put her underwear on. Not wanting to take any chances, as she still didn’t know where her mother was, she opened one of the drawers underneath the hand basin and opened one of the spare toothbrushes.

As if she was on a time limit, which she felt she was, Nayoung briskly brushed her teeth and used her free hand to grab a few bandages and a tiny bottle of antiseptic from the cabinet underneath the handbasin before she pushed it shut. She set the toothbrush back in its plastic casing before she uncapped the glass bottle and drenched the bandages in antiseptic.

Every scar that looked like they would open again, Nayoung would cover with a bandage; she wasn’t any doctor and there was no way she could possibly find one that wouldn’t either charge her money or freak out at her marred skin, so this was the only way she felt like she could keep them hidden without having any infected wounds. So far, her tactic was clearly working; she hadn’t been sick in a while, and more and more scars were becoming ugly slug-like forms on her dark skin.

Nayoung didn’t look back once as she hurried back into her room and locked the door. She opened the window near her bed, grabbed her packed bag and carefully balanced herself on the windowsill with her feet. She huffed out a sigh as she shut the window behind her and jumped down, stumbling slightly when she landed on the overgrown lawn.

She checked the time on her iPod; she’d be able to get to roll call on time if she ran all the way. Nayoung shrugged to herself instead and set off down the sidewalk, savoring the quality alone-time spent between her home and school, the two places where she was despised greatly by everyone. 

---

How Nayoung remembered to bring her timetable, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t looking forward to her first class that she was late for; Math.

Nayoung wished that she had been in Eleventh grade a year before, so she didn’t have to take Math as a compulsory class. She didn’t see why learning about the different ways that numbers could with her mind would help her in the future. Sure, she didn’t know what her future would be like, nor did she have a particular interest in a job of a certain field, but she knew for a fact that mathematics wouldn’t be taking up the brunt of her career.

She was pretty bad at it compared to the students in her class, too. She understood the concepts, but her brain always would turn into a pile of mush at the sight of a test paper.

Oh yeah, and the teacher didn’t like her either.

By the time she made it to the classroom, she’d missed about half of the period. Still, she casually strolled in, not looking at anyone as she made her way to the back of the classroom.

 “Where were you?”

“…” Nayoung took out her math book and began writing the questions on the board down.

“You are late and you have already missed half of what I was teaching. Even an apology would suffice.”

“Sorry.” Nayoung mumbled, her eyes fixated on the board before they glared into her book.

Her teacher had given Nayoung enough peace to be able to get most of the questions written down and answered when a manicured hand slammed down on her book. Nayoung felt the whole class looked at the two of them, whispering amongst each other.

“You dare to show me such insolent behaviour after YOU were the one that was late to my class?!” Nayoung stops trying to decode equations momentarily to tug her math book out from under the teacher’s hand.

Um…Did I not apologize before?

Nayoung didn’t feel like speaking up; she was too quiet anyway.

Okay, whatever. I’m late, I will go to the principal’s office or whatever, so please just leave me alone.

The woman’s teeth were gritted as Nayoung held her book out toward the former. Nayoung didn’t even flinch when the teacher sent her a seething glare and snatched the book. She simply slid her workbook back into her bag when the teacher deliberately smacked it back down on her desk.

Just as Nayoung was about to leave for her next class, she felt a hand grip her wrist and immediately turned back to the teacher and stared at her. She unaware of what sort of expression she was making, but then figured it hadn’t been her usual resting face when she noticed her teacher struggling to lace words together.

“Let go…” Nayoung eyed the hand on her wrist, “Please.” She added as an afterthought. Almost instantly, her teacher let go, a tinge of fear in her eyes. Nayoung uttered a ‘thank you’ before she walked out of the classroom.

The halls were almost empty by the time Nayoung turned the corner into the main hallway, save for the few people most likely in year above her who had free periods. She noted that there would be enough time for her to still make it to her next class if she continued walking when a seemingly frustrated yell pierced her eardrums. Nayoung stopped, her eyebrows furrowed.

Since when did a voice in this school sound so…alive?

Stay tuned for chapters

- RKP_Yoshi