Chapter Text
He was first aware that he was cold. The sensation reached him distantly, through the deep, heavy layers of unconsciousness. One part of him wanted to slip further in, so that the cold might fade away, but another part was curious. Tendrils of feeling wandered outward, noting the frigidness of his fingers, of his lips, and then a frantic, pounding beat. His heart? As he focused on that beat, let it fill the spaces of his body, he became aware of a second thing.
He couldn’t breathe.
All at once, his senses were thrust into form, and he thrashed, violently. Water, his mind supplied. I’m underwater.
He flailed out with his limbs, searching for any sort of leverage, even a brush of plant or fish, and his feet connected solidly with something beneath him. The ground!
He pushed off it as best he could, reaching upwards for the sky that must be above. His eyes were still closed; he could not bring himself to open them. All energy was put into out, out, out—
His hand breached the surface. His head followed a moment later, and he drank in the sweetness of air.
Then he opened his eyes.
Water was all around him. The sheer amount of water was enough for even the slight choppiness to rock him, to send licking waves up his face and into his nose. Beyond the water was endless forest. It seemed to stretch forever on both sides of this massive river, which was pulling him along its length. He managed to spin and take in the full sights around him.
Water. Trees. Only this—
No. There… There was a house tucked between the trees. A few of them, actually.
He swam towards them. There wasn’t anything else to do.
He felt certain his strength, little that it was, would not last. He’d woken up in a river. How long had he drifted in the current, on the line between asleep and drowned?
Seconds later, minutes later, hours later, he collapsed upon a gritty, muddy beach. He might’ve been awake, but his mind was sinking rapidly into exhaustion; he couldn’t muster the energy to lift his cheek from the slick muck or drag his legs out of the lapping waves.
Surely it’s fine to sleep here. I’m on land. I don’t see anyone around to complain… It’s just a short nap…
But no. He… He had to figure out where he was. He had to get up and—and find someone. People weren’t just supposed to wake up in rivers. What happened? How on earth had he ended up in a river? And what river even was this? Where—
Where was he?
He planted his palms in the mud and shakily pushed himself upright. Abruptly, his vision dotted with black and sharp pain stabbed through his skull. Did I hit my head?
He managed to crawl the rest of the way out of the water and lean back against a mossy, damp log. What had he been thinking?
Right. His head.
He patted his head gently, searching for wounds. When he applied a soft pressure to the right side of his skull, above his ear and a little back, he winced at another surge of pain. But he prodded it again, this time he felt the ropy edge of a gash. He didn’t think it was still bleeding, though, because his fingers came away coated only in watery muck. I must’ve lost a lot of blood. Head wounds bleed a lot, I think. No wonder he felt so weak.
There’d… He’d been wondering about something else… He… What was I thinking about?
He blinked dripping water out of his eyes. He took in the forest across from him, across that wide expanse of river. He took in the forest around him, with thick, green trees and untamed undergrowth that encroached into the water. He took in the multitude of fallen trees and branches and twigs, and was somewhat astounded he hadn’t pierced himself on any of them. Then he gingerly twisted around and looked behind him, and he saw a small, dilapidated house several meters away—
I’d been trying to reach the houses!
Bracing himself against the log, he eased himself onto his feet. Again, his vision swam, flickered in-and-out of darkness, and his brain pulsed in tandem with his rapid heartbeat, but he stood. Swaying, but standing, nonetheless, and he breathed in deeply.
Just make it to the house. Knock on the door. Find…
That had been the other thing. Find out where he was. Yes, find out where he was.
He kept the house in the corner of his vision as he shuffled from tree to tree, moving slowly so he wouldn’t fall and impale himself. He stopped at the edge of a dusty, overgrown road. Weeds sprouted up in cracks of the dried mud. Grass had pulled itself towards the center in roaming, tendrilled patches.
It’s not that wide. I can make it across without falling over.
And make it he did, after steeling himself with his little energy. He half-walked, half-crawled up the sloping, rotting porch, gripping the sagging railing almost painfully. The home was in terrible condition, and he felt that there probably wasn’t any cellular connection around here. He didn’t see a car nearby anywhere, either. But they could at least help me… in some way. Probably.
He knocked on the door. Rather, he slapped the door a few times, unable to properly form his hand into a fist.
No answer. He slapped the door again, and then cleared his throat.
“Hello?” he rasped.
Still no answer. They must not be home… He took another look around the property—rundown, peeling, rotting, exterior; a porch barely holding itself together; tall and tangled weeds in every open plain of grass…
Or it was an abandoned house. Just his luck.
He’d seen other houses, right? They must be somewhere down the road…
He coughed into his elbow. Just speaking that single word had irritated his throat.
Did he look for another house? Or try to open this one? It’s not like anyone will care, if it’s abandoned.
Still, he felt a little guilty. But a larger part of him, and a more vigorous part of him, was scared, and he wanted to get inside. He wanted to get… just inside.
The door opened with no trouble. Creaky, and seemed about to fall off its hinges. He left it ajar as he crept inside.
“Hello?” he called again, then coughed immediately. It didn’t matter, though. It was a small home, roughly square-shaped, so he could clearly see that it was empty of everything. No furniture, no things, and certainly no people. There were only a few scraps of paper on the floor, old and moldy. Newspaper clippings, he thought.
Not sure what else to do, he knelt down on the floor and picked up one of the papers. It felt incredibly thin and fragile. The letters were nearly faded away, but he could make out a few words as he squinted.
… ORK TIMES… orea, new ou… lockdown pro… res… plemented…
He frowned, an uncertainty washing over him. For some reason, he found the words strange. Why do I find them strange? He stared longer, more intently, reading the scattered visible words without much comprehension. They’re so faded away, it’s impossible to understand. Besides, it’s not even—
English. The newspaper was in English. This was striking to him. Is English not my first language? Do I even speak it? But he must’ve understood it to an extent, because he could read these words… What language was he even thinking in—?
… in Korean? Is this Korea? I’m thinking in Korean, so… But this newspaper is in English… Is that normal? I don’t think that’s right. Am I in America? The UK? Just where was he? Why didn’t he know where he was? Why hadn’t he known what language he spoke?
He sat on the floor.
He didn’t…
He didn’t know his name.
He didn’t know a single thing about himself.
The head injury, he thought. I must have a sort of memory loss.
He tried not to be scared. It has to be temporary. People don’t lose all their memories from hitting their heads. That doesn’t happen. And he could remember other stuff, like how the world was structured, how things worked, what the technology was. He just didn’t know… who he was.
No, I have to remember my name. It’s my name! It’s… My name is who I am, I have to remember it.
But as much as he strained his brain, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing was there. No name, no age, no memory of family or friends or lovers. Nothing.
I have to find someone. I… I need to find help.
He stood up. He left the house. He looked both ways on the dusty path. He went left.
There had to be someone out there looking for him. There had to be someone out there who loved him and wanted to know where he was. He could feel it—he knew there was someone out there, he knew it, there had to be. There had to be.
— — —
He didn’t know how long he walked until he came to another house. Minutes? An hour? Time was melding in on itself and he was a listless wisp within it, drifting on legs he could hardly feel, only purpose driving him onward. Find someone, his mind repeated. Find someone, find out who you are.
This next house was small, too, but looked a little less broken. And there was a car parked beside it. A very dirty, rusty car, but it was a Car parked beside a House, so perhaps there would also be a Person.
He knocked on the door—a proper knock, this time. “Hello?” he called in English.
No answer. The door was unlocked, and when he peeked inside, it was empty. This house at least had furniture. A couch, a carpet, a full kitchen, what looked to be a mattress in the far back. The temptation to lie down on that bed and fall asleep was strong, but he closed the door instead. No, he needed to find someone.
So he kept walking, and every house he came across was empty. Abandoned.
Why? Why can’t I find anyone?
Eventually he just sat down on the road. Collapsed, really. His legs refused to move any longer. It was all he could do not to completely fall upon the road like a doll with cut strings.
He was crying, he detachedly realised. There were tears carving paths through the dried mud on his cheeks and soaking the ground between his hands in little, circular droplets. His chest was heaving with effort—he was really crying. Sobbing. Yet he didn’t feel a thing. He didn’t hear a thing. He felt only the seizing of his breath and he heard only the wind through the trees. Peaceful, in a way.
He thought he was going to pass out.
Why? Why? Why? It repeated over and over inside him. Why? Why is this happening to me? What did I do for this to happen? People didn’t just wake up in rivers with no memories, they didn’t—
Someone was there.
As a small figure in the distance, a Person was standing there. Unmoving. Just… standing.
He didn’t have the energy to stand, but he cleared his throat and called out, “Hello? Can—“ He coughed, wiped at his eyes. “Hello?”
The person didn’t respond, but they started walking towards him. Oh, good, he thought, relieved. Help was coming. He would be okay.
“Thank you,” he choked out. “Thank you…”
He kept his eyes on the approaching person. They were moving awfully slowly, and them not responding at all was a little strange, but he tried not to fault them. Finding some man lying half-alive in the middle of the road, in the apparent middle of nowhere, was probably concerning.
“Do you… Where are we? Is this, um, America? Or England?”
Still no answer, and he felt a small trickle of uncertainty. He squinted, trying to make out more details.
Dark clothes of varied shade. Long hair, somewhere between ginger and brown. Tall, but slouching. An awkward gait—a limp, maybe? Maybe they need help, too. But not to respond? Maybe they’re deaf.
He lifted one hand in a wave. Yet still, they did not answer. That trickle of uncertainty shifted sharply to fear. Are… they alright in the head?
He should stand up.
But his legs didn’t want to cooperate. The best he could manage was on his hands and knees with flickering vision, muscles screaming. The person kept coming closer, steadily, shuffling.
He threw his hands up—hoping, a universal gesture of STOP. They didn’t stop, though, and now they were close enough for him to see their face, and he flinched, hard.
Their teeth, barred at him, were bloody and rotting; they had sagging skin, peeling at the creases around their snarling maw, weathered and greyed from exposure; their eyes bulged from their skull with a thick ring of red around their irises.
What the fuck—?
He suddenly realised their dark clothes were stained clothes—stained with a dark, chunky substance. The same substance, he assumed, that was staining their blonde hair to the red of long-dried blood.
“Are—are you okay?” he stammered. Had they gotten into a car accident? Been attacked by a wild animal?
His gaze was drawn downwards, to the source of their limp, and nausea surged in his stomach. Their right foot was utterly broken, stuck at a ninety-degree angle with a jagged shard of bone stabbing the earth with each step forward, heaving weight onto the inner side of their mangled foot. How are they not reacting to that? Shock? He’d heard… somewhere, that shock could make you forget pain.
He scrambled backwards as they got closer. “Please, stop,” he begged. “Please, just stop. You have a broken foot!”
They didn’t stop. His heart was in his throat, pounding wildly, a frantic, frightened heat that was almost choking. He needed to get away from them. If they reached him, something terrible would happen; he could sense it.
By some unnatural strength he hauled himself to his feet. He stumbled back, legs almost giving out, but stayed upright through his sheer and complete terror.
Then he ran. He ran and ran, until he couldn’t hear that terrible sound of bone scraping the earth, all the way to where he woke and further still, until all he could hear was himself.
— — —
Someone is leading you by the hand. Their grasp is tight, but gentle.
His hand. A boy… a man. His figure eclipses the sun before you, blinding you to his visage.
He is taking you somewhere. You have an idea of where this place is. A place you both know, by the shore, at the time of sunset—a place and time to remember that day you two met.
Why, though, you wonder. Why now? Had you forgotten something special about today?
You call his name, softly—
— — —
The name was on his tongue as he jolted from sleep. He blinked in the dark, for a moment not knowing where he was. A wooden ceiling… browned mattress… shelf thrown down in front of the door…
A house, which he’d crawled into half-unconscious, only able to block the door with the largest piece of furniture inside before collapsing, in case that person somehow followed him all the way here.
But all that concern was pushed away, now, because he had remembered something.
Someone.
He repeated the name aloud. He let it roll off his lips, feeling the shape of the syllables, the sounds, the precious meaning.
Seonghwa.
“Are you still out there, Seonghwa?” he whispered to the darkness. “Are you waiting for me somewhere?”
Despite everything, he smiled.