May 6th 2008 – 23:00 

He fired a warning shot – and a signal. The men that surrounded him instinctively ducked their heads down. He rushed out of the ship, men in black monotonous suits hot on his tail after they recovered from the confusion. He kept his head level – he had done similar in practice and he could apply the same drill on this supposedly stake-out. A part of him felt proud as finally, he might be able to get some action – part of his job description. Luckily, he found the exit and leaped up until he was on the deck, panting slightly. Gripping his 6mm revolver tight, he s his way through the many corridors and skidded to a stop. His eyes widened in a welcomed surprise.

She gasped, startled at the sound of a resonating gunshot. The item in her hands fell limp to the ground as she rushed toward the source – one of the cargo ships nestled at the dock of Incheon Harbor. Frowning, as she knew there shouldn’t have been any active ships, she followed her terrible gut feeling and ascended into the vessel. Her hands trembled as she used the cold metal railing to drag her up. Some rustling made by more than one pair of footsteps made her look over the railing. And she jumped in shock when a second shot echoed in the night. A young man was shot and she watched in horror as he fell – to his untimely death. Her reflex took control over her and before she could stop herself, she yelled.

“NO!”

And made herself the new target. Wasting not a second, she rushed away and went down the same corridor the fallen man ran through, hoping to find a place to hide as she fumbled with jeans to call for aid. But the men caught up with her and roughly snagged her hair and as she turned to defend herself, she was slapped across the face and pushed to the ground. Her head slammed angrily against one of the ship’s heavy load as she tumbled.

And that was when her entire world was nothing but a blanket of darkness.

~~*~~

May 4th 2013 – 14:23

“This one,” the senior nurse handed a small tube containing clear liquid to her pupil, “inject it into her IV once every 4-hour interval.” 

“Check the monitor and record her vitals. Make no mistake.”

“This, give it to her every 2. Get it?”

“Yes, seonbaenim,” the new assistant quickly did as she was instructed. She glanced at the limp body lying on the bed, oxygen mask secured over her nose and mouth. 

“Seonbaenim…” the younger nurse called out as she worked. The older only hummed a short acknowledgement. 

“What?”

“How long has she been here?” 

The older one turned to her assistant and hung the patient’s board back on the bed’s foot. She looked over the ‘sleeping’ young woman wistfully. 

“Almost 5 years now. Been in coma since. She’s going to turn 28 soon,” she sighed.

“Poor her,” the younger muttered sympathetically. “Such a beautiful face. Her youth is wasted.” 

The senior nurse ushered her assistant to hurry up and chastised her to keep her thoughts to herself.

~~*~~

That night, when the young nurse went in to give the patient’s prescription, she got a shock of her life when the one rumoured to never wake up was staring up at her in the darkness of her assigned hospital room.

Byun Baekyeon was finally awake.

~~*~~

“Her brain scan shows nothing out of the normal. Her vitals are all good and she’s recovered fully,” the neurologist muttered in awe as he compared the MRI brain scan of the recovering 5-year coma patient. 

~~*~~

 “I ask you once again, Inspector Byun. On the night of May 6th 2008, 23:00 hours, at Cheongdeomhwa, Incheon Harbor, what were you doing there?”

Her eyes were vacant as she stared at the naturally uneven lines on the interrogation desk. Her eyebrows twitched as her pupils darted unseeingly - as if she was trying to grasp something in her mind but she couldn’t reach it no matter how much she dug around.

“…I don’t know.”

The interrogator punched the desk in his frustration. His partner only sighed and looked at Byun Baekyeon in disappointment. 

~~*~~

“You were found unconscious and within a 10-metre radius, a dead body of one of the police officers on a stake-out that night was found. Tell me what you were doing there, Inspector Byun Baekyeon!”

“I don’t know,” she replied in the same aloof tone she had answered in with the previous interrogators. She really didn’t know. “I don’t remember anything from that night. Some of my memories are still lost to me.”

One of them handed her a picture. “Do you know who this is?”

She couldn’t brush off the hopefulness in his voice. Why would he be so? 

She looked at the photo, now in her hand, and something tugged at her mind as her dainty fingers rested lightly on the face of a smiling handsome young man. She was thinking hard. But no matter how hard she tried, she still felt as if she barely broke into the surface of the water in which she had been submerged against her will. That was how she felt.

“Is this the officer that died?” she asked instead after a stretch of silence. 

And as soon as the words were out of , she could feel the familiar suffocation of disappointment hanging in the air.

Once again, she failed them. And in some ways, she felt…

…she had failed herself.