Tachycardia-induced levitation of a 1-year-old girl: a case report
Jaebeom Im, M.D., Jinyoung Park, M.D., & Jiaer Wang, M.D.
Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Jinyoung University, Seoul, South Korea
Published January 16, 2002

Summary

Science fiction has become reality with the emergence of metahumans (Homo sapiens var. superiorum) throughout the world. Although South Korea’s metahuman population growth (0.4%) lags behind other Asian countries, conventional medical intervention has been given to those who view their and their children’s newfound abilities as a handicap. We report the case of a 1-year old girl presenting with tachycardia-induced levitation (TIL) who was diagnosed with con supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) at birth….

Beep. Beep.

HR: 100 bpm

Twelve-year-old Hwang Yeji has never thought of herself as anything out of the ordinary.

She has a father who lets her play video games on the weekends, a dog that she occasionally bathes, and a mother who packs her lunches and walks her to school on the weekdays. Their walk did not have anything out of the ordinary, save for the dysfunctional traffic light at a nearby intersection. Before they part ways in front of the school gates, her mother would casually remind her of the box of mints inside her bag. Yeji doesn’t recall a day when her mother forgot. 

The sound of mints moving about has always been accompanied by the distant beeping of her pulse watch, slow and calm. When the beeping became incredibly annoying, she’d grab her mint box and pop one into , letting its bitter taste coat her tongue. In her early years, Yeji had always wondered why her friends’ mints tasted sweet. Now, she’s old enough to realize that the mints aren’t what they say they are, and that her mother intentionally empties out newly bought boxes of mints into a jar in the kitchen whenever she thinks Yeji's fast asleep.

In short, Yeji knows that she has a “condition”. She just doesn’t think much of it.

Nothing has happened in a long time anyway, despite her parents’ constant worry of her not telling them if her pulse went over 119 beats per minute. The last time it had happened was when she was eight. She vaguely remembers the rumbling in her chest, like a thousand engines revving inside her ribcage. It sounded way scarier in her father’s story, where he saw her fall from the top of the stairs, almost breaking her skull open if not only for her mother’s waiting arms. To be honest, Yeji wouldn’t even remember it if they didn’t remind her. Her memories must’ve grown wings and flew away without her knowing.

No matter what anybody may say, to Yeji, this is normal. The quick drumming of her heart is her body’s way of responding to things ever since she could remember. It’s no different than Kim Hyunjin needing to eat bread every time her stomach rumbles out loud in the middle of class, or of Ryujin needing to pet a stray cat every time she sees one. No difference between that and her actual disease that she needs actual medicine for. She’s normal. Just the right amount of normal.

Right?

Beep. Beep.

HR: 80 bpm

Right. It’s been two years, and fourteen-year-old Hwang Yeji is still the right amount of normal.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Thirteen-year-old Ryujin tells Yeji on their way back home from school, its rusting school gates and the disgusting green of the buildings disappearing from view. Among her group of friends, Ryujin has always been the most reasonable. She pats Yeji’s shoulder reassuringly. “You’ve got two clubs and you’ve been getting decent grades. Not too much that you’ll qualify for a scholarship, but not too little that you’ll stay behind and be in my class next year. You’re already graduating in three days, unnie.”

“Yeah, but one of those clubs is the metahuman research club.” The older girl sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. “That you roped me into.”

She fires a playfully stern look at Ryujin who laughs, medium length hair thrown back in glee. As expected of the eccentric club’s loyal vice president. “Yes,” she says proudly, grinning. “But isn’t our club cool? A lot of clubs like it are appearing across the district, unnie. I’ve seen a lot of news reports of a metahuman in Daegu lately. She’s a high schooler…”

…with the ability to run very quickly, like a rabbit. Or a cheetah, but even faster. Yeji recalls the story from the morning news. They said that she had been staying in a small orphanage and couldn’t move when she was a child. Stuck to a wheelchair, needing someone’s help to push her around. But there she was, on video, now running wild like a comic book superhero, wheelchair forgotten. These metahumans achieve things that feel miraculous, no crucifix or holy water needed. To Yeji, from a year of interesting discussions with her younger clubmates, there’s no doubt that metahumans exist. She just wonders if they look any different from any normal human, like her. Do they look as pixelated as they are on TV?  What do they think of the normal majority? Have they felt the need to suppress their abilities? She might hate to admit it, but these are some of the questions that keep Yeji up at night. Maybe she should stop hanging around Ryujin too much.

“Why are you worried about being weird again?”

Ryujin asks once she finishes gushing over ‘rabbit girl’, as she so affectionately calls. The two of them reach the younger girl’s bus stop in front of the only crosswalk Yeji has to walk through before she gets to her apartment complex. The older girl presses the pedestrian call button.

“Just thinking. High schoolers aren’t known to be nice,” she replies quietly.

“Why don’t you start making friends your age, then?” Ryujin asks. “Since Kim Hyunjin is going to get exiled to a boarding school and is never going to see us again.”

The sulky remark elicits a soft chuckle from Yeji. “I’ll miss her too, Ryuddaengie.”

“But do you know who’s a friend your age? Choi Jisu.”

The remark makes Yeji turn to Ryujin a little too quickly. She then looks at where the younger girl has been looking—a familiar figure not too far away from them, in the same uniform as theirs, donning a pair of headphones. It’s been a year since she moved here, but Choi Jisu will always be the new kid to many. There was an aura to her that screamed privilege—from her dainty hands to her expensive-looking running shoes—that set her apart from the middle-class majority. She stood out while Yeji had always blended in, too far in the background to get noticed. Yeji had always preferred it that way.

“Isn’t she going to your high school, unnie?” The sound of Ryujin’s voice stops Yeji from entertaining her thoughts any further.

“Y-yeah, I heard too.” Yeji whispers, as if Choi Jisu would hear her with her headphones on from three meters away. “Don’t know if we’ll be in the same class, though.”

Ryujin turns to her with both eyebrows raised. The devilish smile on her lips is even more worrying, however. Yeji gulps.

“Why don’t you ask her and find out?”

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

As if on cue, Choi Jisu spares them a glance. Turns out, three meters is not enough distance for Yeji to not make out the beautiful details of her face. Stupid good eyesight. Yeji immediately turns back to the road in front of her, like nothing happened. She wants to be invisible right now. Like one of those metahumans that stole a truckload of idol merchandise from a warehouse last December.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Bee—

“Woah, woah, slow down, unnie,” Ryujin takes Yeji’s wrist and looks at the digital readout, a smile still on her lips.

110 bpm

Yeji has known Ryujin ever since she got that pulse watch of hers. With countless play dates and tteokbokki dates with Hyunjin after school under their belt, they’ve shared almost everything there is to know about each other. Like how Yeji’s only ever incredibly shy when their homeroom teacher asks her to solve a math problem. Or how Yeji tends to be really shy to initiate small talk with people she barely talks to in the classroom.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t talked to her before?”

Well, not exactly. Yeji winces.

Ryujin gapes in disbelief at Yeji’s silence before she chortles, doubling over. “I only have choir with Jisu unnie and I talk to her,” she wheezes. “You have three classes with her. Three!” Yeji squirms in place as her inability to be social is being exposed to the few students passing by. She covers her face with her hands to save the last of her remaining dignity. “You even got to—ahaha—to sit right beside her for half a year!” Ryujin manages to say through her tears. “Half a ye—!”

“I get it, I get it!” The older girl turns to Ryujin again and puts an arm over her shoulder, loose hug bordering on a chokehold. “It’s just I haven’t had the reason to! She’s always surrounded by her friends.”

Yeji has the guts to look at Choi Jisu this time, who is luckily looking at anywhere but her. Nice.

“She isn’t surrounded by any of them now.” Ryujin whines, looking up at the older girl with a frown. “Come on, unnie. You have to woman up and talk to her.”

“There’s still three years of high school left to talk to her, Ryuddaeng.” Yeji shrugs. She sighs in relief as she feels her heart return to its normal pace, the beeping becoming slow and steady.

HR: 80 bpm

The wait for Ryujin’s bus feels like forever at this point. Unsurprisingly, her eyes remain on Choi Jisu’s side profile. Ryujin wiggles out of her grasp to take a phone call (“Why is this traitor calling all of a sudden? Shout if the bus comes by, unnie”, she says as she storms off to talk to Hyunjin) as Yeji remains frozen in place. In her defense, she’s had conversations with Jisu before. Simple greetings addressed to Yeji have rolled off Jisu’s tongue in those six months when they were seatmates. Granted, Yeji could only reply with a grin or a hum or something that did not even qualify as a word.

But that’s what crushes do to people. Yeji’s just unlucky to have a heart disease that prevents her from enjoying the feeling of her heart going wild. What came after that feeling scared her.

As she sees Jisu start moving towards the empty pedestrian crossing, Yeji’s mind stops. The pedestrian light might’ve turned green when Yeji wasn’t looking, but the stoplight above them is gleaming green. A bus—Ryujin’s bus, to be exact—is quickly coming towards the pedestrian crossing that had an oblivious, headphone-wearing Jisu.

HR: 118 bpm

Yeji had to act quickly. Ignoring the incessant beeping from her wrist, she leaps towards the crossing as swiftly as she could, finding herself feeling as light as ever. In no time, she pulls Jisu towards her side, their bodies colliding softly. A clammy hand is holding a delicate one, cold like the frigid winter air around them. When Jisu finally turns back to look at Yeji, the latter’s heart starts revving like a rusty engine being for the first time. Her crush is looking at her with wide, surprised eyes, pupils fully blown in their deep brown irises. Something about seeing Jisu up close like this feels magical. Like flying.

HR: 140 bpm

As the bus comes to a quick stop a few meters away from them, Jisu smiles. Yeji starts hearing the incessant beeping again as she smiles back. She senses her heart beating at the same pace, and then suddenly, nothingness. Yeji feels her grip on Jisu’s hand loosen, feels herself falling backwards, her eyelids going heavy.

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