Chapter 1

Floating in the gentle current of the Yellow Sea, still and cold, her heart pulsates to match the rhythm of the morning tide.

  No wind blows but that which slowly accompanies each slosh of salty foam against smoothly shaped pebbles caressed by the warmth of water atop which they peek. Undisturbed they sit unruffled and unmoved, until she topples them over and sends them tumbling down below where they disrupt sand that once firmed them solidly to the soft ground. Stringy hair hovers about, tangling with tide and firming knots around tiny stones. Bloated, she floats atop foam and froth, awaiting the stranger in the distance.

  He whistles, bounding along with leash in hand. He stumbles, pulled along by a keen friend. He rumbles, caught off guard by this dashing lead. Though he knows their destination he does fail to understand their need for speed.

He halts, ears perked, tongue flailed, nose attentive. He cannot see it yet, but he knows it is there. Senses heightened he dashes off, thought for his keeper lost in pursuit of curiosities gratified.  He hastens his pace as he comes to recognise the scent that draws him. Iron based and salty, although the salt could be just the ocean, but the iron... He is sure of what that is. His pursued subject is leaking, he can tell by the smell. He runs faster and drags his lump of flesh and bone with him. He hears protests from behind but can't be dissuaded. They are nearly there and he can tell that his haste will be rewarded. 

  He reaches the rocky shore and sniffs to get a better understanding of the whereabouts of his subject. Closer and closer he gets to the pursued party and stronger and stronger the scent becomes before it’s the only thing he can smell. It fills his nostrils and sends his mind reeling; the smell of human blood always having had that effect on him.

Trying steadily to calm the howling creature he pulls on the leash and bends down to wrap him in his embrace. He's discomforted, uncomfortable and distraught. The shivering beneath his coat of fur tells him as much. He him gently in hopes of lulling him. He himself is having difficulty, but to comfort is to be comforted and so he continues. 

  Head resting peacefully on his shoulder, he continues to his back, his eyes fixed on the rocking current and even more so, what floats upon it. His nerves are tangled in tightly wound knots and he wonders when his body will permit him to take action. He may pride himself in being a man of much experience but in this instance, in this matter, he can do naught but admit his lack thereof. He's stunned and frightened. He's stuck and in shock. He breathes heavily and runs his hand down the length of his companions back.

  His feet are soaked and his hands are wet. Splashes of water sprinkle his face and sting his eyes. They're wide, unclosing and veiled. He sees nothing beyond his thoughts; the sight of them blinds to cover the reality before him.

They ring aloud in his ears, blaring and piercing. He can only listen to them. He can only hear them as they repeat the rhythm of the Sea’s scavenging song.

 "Yet another, yet another," he hears the swishing voice, "give me yet another. Hungry, yes, I truly am, for blood and skin and bone. 

  Yet another, yet another, to quench my burning thirst. As I slowly feed on flesh so cold I wonder who'll conquer first."

He listens as the water gloats its inevitable victory, tears streaking down his face. But then a cough cuts short the song and that in all is enough to have him on his frozen feet once more. 

  "She's alive" he thinks and hauls her in his arms. He rushes now, senses renewed, he sprints to get her help. 

  Floating along a Yellow Sea shore, remainders of the cause; the rope unwound, kerchief unbound and gag no longer intrude. She's free now from the grip of the tide, her rescuer in haste, her hero steadily on the bound. 

Warm as it was in that Yellow Sea, she’s terribly glad she's free. She’s been there far too very long, and now he’s set her loose. Her mind is still, her body pale, her heart a beat amiss. A moment’s passing when it had failed but now its beats resume. Slow and steady, shallowly soft she hears it in her ears, yet cannot seem to recognise it as that which once was hers. She listens all the closer still, though it makes no alteration to facts of change that have occurred within her cognizance.

  “I am a girl. I am a girl” she finds herself thinking. 

“I know my home. I know my home.” The words she keeps repeating. While carried through glass sliding doors she knows that she is saved; from death perhaps, or it may seem, until she sees that face. Within her mind, behind her lids, all red from brightened vessels of blood beneath her eyes she sees herself and someone else. Before the worst is yet to come all images play quite stark. Before all pictures can appear beneath closed eyes they fade to dark.

*

Hues of yellowed light come dashing at full blast. They cannot be contained by man’s creation, they need to be set free; and so, tenaciously they go bolting past blinds closed against attack. Insufficiently so, one might say, as they fail to prevent the rays of sun filled light from hitting the surface of a man’s face while he lay sound asleep beside a wrinkled and paled hand.

Waking to blinding light and the sounds of the respirator as each forced breath is taken, Choi Seunghyun finds himself stricken down by a pulsating headache. He cringes at the ache in his neck and tries to rest it back over the metal-rod headrest of his uncomfortable chair.

  Little relief as it may bring, it does assist in relieving the pressure in his head

He groans. Today is a new day.

    “Mr Choi?” the voice leaks in from behind the closed hospital door. He knows it’s not a nurse as one could simply have just entered as pleased but he’s too dazed still to think who it could be. The door is brought ajar and a head of raven black hair peaks through the gap.

   “My name is Suzy from the National Knowledge and News. I happened to hear some of the Nurses gossiping about the lady you found down by the sea? I was wondering if maybe you’d be so kind as to answer a few questions for me.” Her smile is false, her gentleness forced, her request unwelcomed, but he’ll fulfil it nonetheless.

  Seunghyun releases another groan. He’s still tired, his head aches, and so does his heart- though he fails to know exactly why.

  I can give her something, but not much

Seunghyun stands from the hard chair and stretches before making his way out the door. He watches as the correspondent backs out of his way and indicates for him to sit down as though the benches outside the hospital room are chairs in the cubical she likely calls her office.  NKN, one of the biggest papers in the whole of South Korea; hell, he’s even heard tell of its renowned status up north.  He wonders what could have lead a reporter working for such a paper here- surely it couldn’t truly have been his girl.

  “There’s nothing much I can say on the matter. I was taking my brother’s dog out for a walk on the beach and that’s when we found her.” He says, not waiting for her questions. He tries to stand up after his short statement but the reporter blocks the attempt by moving forward. Her pen scratches at paper shortly before her gaze finds him again.

  “I heard you ran all the way here with her in your arms. Did you by any chance see anything that might tell you how she landed up in the water like that? Did you see any clue as to what could have caused this to happen to her, who could have done this? Do you think it was attempted murder?” she asks him. She maintains eye contact well and keeps a firm look beneath her caring one. The way she’s looking at him makes him want to hide, as if just by looking at him she can tell if he even thinks about lying to her. But he’s not lying to her, he hasn’t said what he truly thinks, only stated facts. He wishes he could hide his own thoughts from himself, not mentioning the woman in front of him. He can’t, however, so he squares himself against her firm eyes and shakes his head slightly, his brow furrowed and lip tight.

  “I’m afraid I was too focussed on getting her help to notice anything.” He says, arms folding in front of him as if to tell her to back off, which she gladly does as she reads his body language. He’s a threating man in appearance, he knows this, and as false as appearances are that so is the falseness of his strength- but she doesn’t know this.

  She gives him a quick glance before packing her notepad away in the pocket of her coat and just as Seunghyun makes his way to his feet, she slips a card into his shirt pocket.

  “I can tell you’d rather not talk now, so I’ll be patient and wait for your call.” She pats the pocket in which she slipped the card and turns to walk away into the dimness of the hallway. Daylight seems to have failed this part of the hospital. Perhaps the fact that it shines steadfastly into his girl’s room should brighten his mood some, but it doesn’t. 

  Seunghyun watches as the reporter vanishes into the elevator before turning around and heading back into the room. Upon opening the door, however, he finds a pair of big brown eyes staring at him in question. Seunghyun freezes in his step. 

  She’s finally awake. 

“Where am I?” she asks in English, a language he knows of, but cannot speak well. His only option is to respond in his native tongue and so his response comes out in Korean.

 “You’re in Hangugeo.” He says knowing very well that she isn’t likely to understand him. The confused look on her face only serves to reaffirm his assumptions and so he tries again, this time remembering that Hangugeo has a different name in English.

 “K-Korea. You’re in South Korea.” He says, still in Korean, but this time he uses the correct naming of his country to suit the situation.  The lady before him looks at him blankly, and then irritation crosses her features. This confuses him.

  “I know where I am!” she snaps in full Korean, leaving Seunghyun confounded and shocked. He would have never guessed.

  “I’m just confused as to what I’m doing here.” She completes indicating the hospital room and at the very moment she opens to ask another question, the door flies open to reveal a tall slim man, dressed in a brown leather coat and with hair shining in black strands, wet from the drizzle outside.

  “Minho!” Seunghyun breathes a sigh of relief. He’s sorry to admit it, but he has never been so happy to see his younger brother as he is now. He watches as his brother dashes toward him and tries to feel some form of warmth from the hug he receives. It seems despite the sunlight, the rain continues to leave them cold.

  “It’s a bleak day today Brother. I’m glad to see that you’re well.” Seunghyun smiles at his younger brother’s way of greeting.

  But I’m not all that well, Minho.

Minho redirects his gaze, his time to shine over- now to get to the matter at hand.

  “So you found her down at Daecheon beach? Has she said anything to you?” Minho asks him, he would laugh at his brother’s blatant ignorance at that moment if he wasn’t looking at the girl’s insulted expression.

  “Minho…” he tries to alert him of the situation at hand subtly, but subtlety was never his strong point and so Minho continues.

  “I’m surprised she’s awake. I wonder what she’s doing here” he’s speaking to himself more that he is to him, Seunghyun knows this, and he is surprised when the girls remains silent. He glances from his brother to her; she has a firm look on her face. He can’t lie to himself and say that he doesn’t find her intimidating. She looked much friendlier in her sleep. Now that she has awoken though, all signs of fragility seem lost in her deep frown as Minho approaches her bedside at last. She crosses her arms about herself threateningly and it seems as if Minho knows better that to approach any further.

  “I was just asking your brother why I’m here.” She says, resolutely, no fear trembles her voice, she seems absolutely fearless and fierce, but if she is that fierce then how did she land up floating along with the tide? Minho is taken aback. He knew it was coming but feels bad for him nonetheless. His dumbfounded expression must surely match the one Seunghyun probably had on just seconds before Minho came bursting into the hospital room.

  “She seems to know the language.” Seunghyun explains; his half a minute more of experience with the woman evening out with that of his brother as Minho gathers himself enough to continue his speech. 

  “You don’t know what happened to you?” Minho is back together again.

“I wouldn’t be you asking questions if I did.”

  “And you’re being a hundred present honest?”

“What happened to me?” Seunghyun can tell from her tense expression that she is getting impatient. The minutes he’d spent before falling prey to sleep were spent examining her battered face and it’s every feature. She has soft and delicate curves to her face that caused him to assume that she was quite feminine. The last thing he expected was the brusqueness on display.

  “So you don’t remember how you ended up in the Yellow sea off the cost of Daecheon, half dead and from what we saw at the scene, gagged and tied up?”

  “What? N-No” the drop in her defences is evident on her face. Is she telling the truth? “I don’t remember.” 

When talking about his investigation Minho says “we” but what he really means is “I”. Despite near a day having already passed since Seunghyun found the girl, Minho still insists on keeping this quiet for as long as he needs to interview the girl. He hasn’t yet alerted anyone of this because he wanted to check things alone before the place is flooded with law enforcers and he might have nothing to work with but Seunghyun’s statement

 Minho sits by her bedside, afraid that his height may intimidate her while he finds out as much as he possibly can about the girl before him. He know from what Seunghyun told him on the phone that she must have experienced a lot of trauma and so he treads carefully when trying to extract information from her.

“Is there nothing you can tell us that can give us a clue as to what happened to you?” he asks. His reference to “us” leaving Seunghyun wondering who else might be looking into this.

  “I t-told you. I don’t remember anything. All I know is that I’m South African. I know that, but I- I…” she stutters, the realisation of her lack of knowledge finally dawning on her. Seunghyun reaches for her shoulder and pulls her into his embrace. Tears have formed at her lids now and he cannot stand the sight of a crying woman, he knows this to be one of his most dangerous weaknesses, but he just simply can’t.

  Minho watches his brother soothe the unknown woman back into a state of somewhat peacefulness; her body still shivering with the vibrations from what he supposes is fear of the unknown. He pities her. If what she says is true and she can’t remember anything save the name of her home land, then he really, really pities her.

***