DEEPER AND DEEPER into the nothingness I sank, eyes open but not seeing, hands touching but not feeling, until I heard a voice suddenly break through the endless silence. It was faint at first, muffled like I was trapped under water, but slowly it got louder and clearer. For me, it was as if a hand was reaching down into the darkest depths of my mind.

Suddenly, it grabbed me, sending a jolt of color and light throughout my entire body.

Gasping, I stumbled backward and felt hard concrete beneath my feet. Somehow, I was now standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Overhead, the traffic lights dinged from color to color. People hurriedly passed in and out of my line of sight, their voices no more than a quiet mumble. Somewhere in the distance, a small child was crying over dropped ice cream. I could hear it all.

"Hey!" someone was saying. "Hey! Hey, you! Can you hear me?"

I turned my head and saw a young man dressed in casual clothes standing in front of me. His brown eyes bulged when they locked onto mine. "Oh, thank goodness!" he said, clutching his chest. "For a second, I thought I had really killed you." He laughed freely, his smile bright and innocent as a small child's. It seemed familiar in a way, but at the same time, it was so strangely foreign that I didn't know what to make of it.

At the moment, I didn't know what to make of anything.

"What happened?" I finally asked. Funny, even my own voice sounded weird. "Where am I? And who are you? Am I supposed to know you?"

The boy went quiet all of a sudden. "You ... You don't remember?" When I shook my head, a look of guilt spread across his face and his shoulders sank. "Oh no," he groaned. "What have I done? I'm so sorry, this is all my fault."

My eyes widened. What did he mean by that?

I could feel my voice shaking as I spoke. "D-Did something happen to me? I can't ... I can't remember anything."

He ran his hand through his messy brown hair and mumbled something under his breath. "All your memories, I must have knocked them loose when I ran into you. It was an accident, I swear! I wasn't trying to take you out or anything. Please, believe me! I didn't think anything would happen. Nothing ever did before. I just passed right through them without a problem."

My brow furrowed. All his rambling was starting to give me a headache. I couldn't keep up with anything he was saying.

He stopped in mid-sentence. "You don't understand any of this, do you? Sorry, I keep forgetting. To be honest, I don't know how any of this works. They don't exactly give you a handbook when you die. I've had to figure everything out on my own. It's all ... so strange." He'd started to rub the back of his neck, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Dead? What did he mean by that? Surely, he couldn't have meant what I thought he meant. He wasn't dead. He was standing right in front of me, and I was talking to him.

I shook my head. "You can't be dead. That's not possible."

"But I am," he said. "Right now, it's just about the only thing I know for sure. That and your current condition is all my fault. I ran into you and somehow collided with your spirit, I think. Now all your memories are gone, all because of me." He bowed deeply. "Please, forgive me. I don't know how yet, but somehow I'll fix this, I promise. Just trust me."

When he finally straightened himself, his smile was so pure that I couldn't help but say, "Okay."

His face lit up. "Really? Wow, I'm so relieved! I thought you would get mad and scream at me." He smiled bashfully. "But no, you're just as nice as I hoped you'd be. Aw, this is great! Now we can be a real team and get all your memories back!" He punched the air enthusiastically while I stood there watching him.

He has so much energy, I thought as he continued to pump himself up. To be honest, it's a little overwhelming.

The boy was so distracting, I didn't notice that I was blocking another walker's path. All of a sudden, I felt someone brush roughly against my shoulder, knocking me off balance. Then the man yelled at me, telling me not to stand in the middle of the sidewalk.

The boy reacted before I could. "Hey, that's no way to speak to a lady! Don't you have manners?" He glanced at me. "Man, he's lucky I can't lay a hand on him. Then I'd really teach him a lesson."

Much to his surprise, the man suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned toward us. The boy flinched and started to panic. "Ah, no way! Do you think he heard me?"

For a moment, I thought he was going to dive behind me and use me as a shield. Lucky for him, the man hadn't heard him after all. He had just turned around to glance at one of the street signs behind us. He was a big man, much bigger than the scrawny boy standing beside me. To put it bluntly, the boy wouldn't have stood a chance, and he knew it too. He let out a deep sigh of relief when the man casually resumed his stride and crossed the street with a small group of pedestrians.

That was when I noticed the man staring at me from the opposite street corner. Dressed fashionably in all black, he stood perfectly still, his silver hair flickering gently in the summer breeze, while dozens of people passed him by. The street light was signaling for him to walk with everyone else, but for some reason he wasn't moving. Maybe he's waiting for someone. I wanted to believe that, but there was something strange about the expression on his face — that faint smile that tugged at his lips the moment our eyes met. It seemed all too familiar, like he was seeing an old friend for the first time in years. I felt something stirring in my chest, this indescribable warm feeling.

"Man, that was close," the boy said, recapturing my attention. "I think I just saw my whole life flash before my eyes!"

I had only looked away for a moment, but when I glanced back at the street corner, the mysterious man was already gone. Honestly, I started to wonder if he was ever there at all. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. I tried not to get too worked up over it.

All the while, the boy was still talking to himself. If I'd decided to walk away, would he have even noticed? I wasn't so sure.

"Taehyung, you really need to stop putting your foot in your mouth. One of these days, it's going to get you in serious trouble."

Taehyung, huh? I thought as I watched him. So that's his name. Taehyung, what a strange guy. Can I really count on him? He seems a little ... all over the place. 

Finally, he realized I was still standing next to him. "Oh, sorry! I tend to ramble sometimes. Please, don't be afraid to just tell me to shut up. Everyone else does. Anyway, if we're going to be working together, we'll need to get better acquainted, huh? My name's Taehyung. What's yours?"

... Did he really expect me to answer that?

My expression must have said enough because he quickly corrected himself. "Oh, that's right! You have no idea who you are, do you? Sorry, sorry, it totally slipped my mind ... Whoops, that was probably an insensitive thing to say to someone with amnesia. Umm ... there must be some kind of clue around here ... something ... in your purse, maybe?" He pointed at the bag hanging on my shoulder. "A wallet or something?"

At his suggestion, I fumbled through the purse and soon found a small leather wallet with a few credit cards, paper bills, and the ID of a fair-skinned woman with black hair and deep brown eyes that I didn't recognize. Her name was Moanna, and she was twenty-two years old.

"Moanna, huh?" Taehyung beamed. "I like it. Suits you perfectly."

I stared at the picture for a while. Does it really?

Taehyung went on talking. "Well, Moanna, you can count on me. With my help, you'll have all your memories back in no time!" 

His confidence wasn't as reassuring as I'd hoped it would be.