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Honestly,

tell me.

On a scale from 1 to 10,

how would you rate your fear of death?

For me,

I would give it a four.

On bad days,

I would rate it a three.

When I am stressed,

a two.

Can you still cope with the drop?

No? Me, neither.

Now,

it shifts between one and two.

"Why?" I remembered her asking me when I sat opposite her with tears in my eyes. My throat was scorch from crying and I did not have the words to tell her, because I simply did not know. Jumbled words left my mouth when I tried to voice out the first thing on my mind.

"Abandonment?" She sounded surprised. I wondered if it was the last thing people think about when they see me, or maybe, she thought it was unusual. I watched her lips move and I could tell she was trying to think of sweet comforting words like a normal person would do when put in that situation, but I couldn't process anything at that moment. My mind was too clogged up to believe anything. I wanted them to know my history, I wanted them to understand my thinking before they fall for misunderstandings that were prone to happen in my case.

But as time passed by, it became clearer. I was afraid of people who would throw me away once they realize I was not needed anymore. I felt forced to wear a mask all the time, being on the bright side, while my inner persona shattered into a thousand pieces and longed to become human.

I derailed and fell out of my own wonderland. I remembered the taste of concrete when I smacked the ground of reality. Cold and hard. I started to toy with my value until I was convinced that wiping off my own traces from this world was better than to get caught up in my own lies. But understand that I was too afraid to leave, yet too miserable to stay.

It felt like a trap.

Unpredictable and painful.

But gradually, I learned to cheat myself with my own lies, enduring plot twists and trying to gain a sense of self-love for my own emotions, as I tried to grasp the meaning of life. My thoughts started to lift its weight every coming morning or evening. I didn't need to fight myself anymore and at the same time, I wouldn't have to feel as if the world was crashing down on me. However, a part of me still gets drawn towards the shadows of my dreams and my grief in reality, as I lack safety and a true home to return to.

It sounded pleasant, yet ordinary. But little did I realize I was the architecture of my existence who rewrote itself into an empty persona to whom I gave a name and from whose perspective I would be telling this story.

- Aurora Nylin

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Aurora Nylin was a cheerful girl. Kind and loving by nature. Her parents wanted her to excel in school, so they sent her to America. There, she attended a prestigious all-girls boarding school for three years, until she was struck with homesick and officially moved back to South-Korea to reunite with her parents, despite their opposal.

When she'd arrived in South-Korea, she was devastated to find out how she would be sent to another boarding school. It was then that it came through that her family was not the same as she thought it was before she left for America. There was another child in the picture, one she hadn't met before. Her family had adopted another child with whom she had to share her parents' attention with. Things started to turn to worse for Aurora as she could barely see herself fitting in the picture of her f