EXORDIUM

Since she was a child, Han Eun-soo had always dreamed the same dream—every day in her life.

In her dream, she was enveloped in an infinite darkness from where there was no escape. The feeling of emptiness and fear was real, and she had never felt any feelings that as intense in her life. Never. Tears would flow down her face, notwithstanding how many times had she experienced the same strange dream. Prayers would fly out between her lips for the darkness to go away.

There was something about the atmosphere that distressed her, as if someone else's suffering was placed upon her—an intense empathy of sorts. The feelings were never hers, but they felt so real. This confusion only added more to her agony. The line of what was real and what was not was blurred, and reality and illusion became evil twins.

Then, someone held her hand. A bright light washed all the darkness from her eyes. In its place was an image of a boy, flashing a warm, angular grin. An ominous shade framed his glistening eyes. He opened out his mouth to say something, but Eun-soo couldn't hear him. In fact, even after a decade of reliving the same dream over and over she had never heard his voice. However, some things did change. The boy in the dream grew up as she did. In her first dream, he appeared as a frightened, insecure little boy, but with time she had watched him growing up as a confident young man and his image in her dreams was getting clearer and clearer.

Unfortunately, her strange dream never lasted longer as she wished. She wished to know more about him, the man haunting her every dream, but when she woke up the sense of loss would haunt her. She would end up with tears staining her face, trembling hands and a name:

Baekhyun.