“Having such life is worse than death. It’s better to just die and be forgotten.”

~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~

Strong wind was hitting against the window of a dark room. Snow was falling so hard that it may be impossible to see anything outdoor. The loud noise that had been caused by the wind outside had made a girl, who was just sleeping peacefully in her bed woke up. For a moment, the annoying noise finally stopped, but restarted again in a short time.

Unable to sleep anymore, the girl who was wide awake and stood up. She began to walk slowly toward the shaking window ahead of her. For a while, she just stood there, completely lost in thoughts. The noise from outside had woken up her past memories that she hadn’t even thought of in 10 years.

*Flashback*

“Who are you?” A young girl’s voice arose in the middle of a dark and quiet room. “Where are you taking me to?”

In front of her, stood a tall man with a hood covering his head along with a mask covering half of his face. He laughed a little and replied with a deep and scary voice, “Kid, you don’t need to be afraid. I’m taking you to a safe place where you can live. I owed your father a favor, so this may be the last thing that I can do for him now…”

“My father! Where is he? What had happened to him?” The young girl continued asking and tried to reach for the man, but it was not possible at all. He was just in front of her, but the more she tried to reach for him, the harder it became for her to hold her hand out.

“Poor child...” The man continued, “I can’t tell you anything now, but you will finally understand once you grow up.”

“What are you taking about? Please tell me right now! Everything that you know!” The girl demanded, but suddenly burst into tears.

“Mirae-ahh…” That was probably the girl’s name, “We’re almost there already and we won’t be able to meet each other ever again …” The man took a deep breath then continued, “I’m going to tell you some of the things that you must remember forever in your whole life… You have to listen carefully, alright?”

The girl – Mirae, went quiet. Probably, she really wanted to know what the things that the man wanted to tell her. Could it be so important that she had to remember for that long? Could it have something to do with her being separated from her beloved father, who was the most precious person in her life?

“First of all, you must remember that you can’t ever return back to your home. It is no longer your home now. The place that we are heading to now will be your home forever from now on. Secondly, as soon as you reach eighteen, please find a box, which is buried inside an abandoned temple. It is very important to you and by that time, you will finally understand what actually happened. The location of the temple is a secret, but once the time comes, the clues will be revealed slowly by itself. And the last thing… If you ever see a man – a very tall man, wearing a dark cloak, covered with stars and dusk who disappeared from place to place, time to time, please remember that he was the one who caused this horrible nightmare of yours. Now I shall say goodbye to you for now… Please forget who you are if possible… Please live in peace right there and don’t worry about your father… He will look after you… from far away… from above the sky…”

*End of flashback*

“My eighteenth birthday is in three months.” The girl known as Kim Mirae from the flashback, said to herself. “And I would finally be able to find out how I ended up in this place.”

At that point, she suddenly laughed on her own, “But does this even matter to me now?” She closed her eyes and sighed, “I just want to disappear and not to be seen ever again forever, but I need to find the truth. I have to hold in the pain that I have had for nearly ten years…”

The window in front of her was still shaking due to the strong wind outside and at the same time, Mirae’s eyes were full of tears. The memories she tried to forget could never be forgotten. She just wanted a quiet and ordinary life, but everything seemed to be a big mess that could never be cleared forever.

Mirae had always been an outcast no matter where she went to. She felt like a monster – a strange creature that would always be left out and would never fit into society. She didn’t know many people and she didn’t have any friends, either. She had been living such a lonely life for years and nothing had changed until now. Every single day, she would go out at night and wonder how she would continue her meaningless life that had been abandoned to be alone since childhood. She didn’t remember much of her childhood, though. One of the few things she knew was that her birth place was somewhere far away from where she was currently living at. She had no idea of her true identity as she had to continue living with a different name in order to hide from whatever she was afraid of – something that she didn’t even know. She was no longer the young Kim Mirae, who had lived happily with her family, but a girl with a cold heart and personality named Choi Sojin. She was quite unsure of how she got that name, but she heard that she had been adopted by an old man who had later died due to a strange disease three months after he had adopted Mirae – who had become Choi Sojin during his adoption. She had to live alone by herself since then although she was just around seven years old at that time.

She never cared much about what was around her. She went to school like any other kids did, but those kids usually picked on her and called her a weird girl or things like that. Some of her neighbors during her childhood, who knew some of her story, were kind enough to give her some food and money for her to live and go to school, but there was not a time she properly thanked them, so as time went by, they eventually became mean to her. She didn’t care about them, either. As soon as she had reached fifteen, she suddenly disappeared from her old house without a trace and moved to an abandoned house, which had been her own home since then. It was far away from the city and knowing how to get there was quite impossible for others except for Sojin herself. No one else ever knew where she lived. Aside from that, she always transferred from a school to another one every year because she never actually gotten along well with anyone at all. Everyone thought she was strange and creepy so they never stayed close to her and some of them would eventually try to bully her. Sometimes, her temper would be out of control, so she hurt them a little and then the kids’ parents would spread rumors that she was a bully. There wasn’t a time that she could live normally for once since there was no way anyone would like her cold personality.

It wasn’t like she didn’t want to have friends, though. She also wanted to be like everyone else, but there was no one who was loyal enough to stay with her for long. Soon her personality, which had already been cold, became even worse and no one around her liked her at all. She was a lonely child, who needed more love from others, but there wasn’t a single person who was able to understand how hurt she felt every moment when people said they hated her.

“Do I even belong here?” was the question she would ask herself every day. There was definitely no answer to her question at all.

Sojin was somehow allergic to the sunlight as she wasn’t able to stand under the sun at all. Every single day, she had to carry an umbrella around in order to protect herself from being hurt. When people knew that, they would spread numerous rumors about her. Because of those mean things she received from people, it was one of the reasons why she didn’t like to be around other people. Besides going to school, she just stayed at home and did nothing else except sleeping or sitting on her bed thinking of many things that came into her mind.

Where did she get the money to afford her study and living? That would be the first question everyone would start wondering.

She actually worked part-time at night at a restaurant as a waiter. She knew herself that being a waiter would be a stupid thing of her to do since it didn’t suit her cold personality at all, but she still had to do it anyway. She only tried to be friendly enough, though it seemed as if she forced herself to do something she didn’t want to do so that it wouldn’t cause much suspicions in other people’s eyes.

Once in a while, she would ask herself why she couldn’t stand under the sunlight like any other normal people do, but she had no idea, either. It was somehow strange and mysterious to her because she knew that no one on earth had such allergy like her. She really wanted to get rid of that allergy and live like any other people do for at least once in her lifetime, but it was quite an impossible thing for her.

Back to her current life, she was transferring to a new high school that year, but she wasn’t looking forward to it at all. She expected the same old thing, like any other years.

“People would hate me at first sight, then they would start ignoring or avoiding me again.” Sojin thought in mind.

Fortunately for her though, that was her last year until her graduation from high school. When that time came, she wouldn’t have to be afraid to have too many people around her anymore. On top of that, she wouldn’t need to walk under the sunlight every morning to school anymore and would just continue working at night time and spend the rest of her life that way. The first day of school would be the following day and she wanted to come faster than ever. She seriously couldn’t wait to graduate.

“For the first time ever that I finally had the same idea as normal people do. The graduation day shall be the best day of my life. Not because it would be full of memories, but certainly because I wouldn’t have to suffer anymore…” She thought in mind.

A moment later, the darkness covered her vision as she fell asleep, standing…

Click Subscribe to catch the next chapter, His Life ~ Coming soon ~