Kim Ji-ah hunched deeper into her worn coat, the chill of the Seoul autumn seeping into her bones despite the thick fabric. The city, usually a vibrant tapestry of light and sound, felt muted, gray, echoing the hollowness in her own soul. She watched the Han River flow past, its surface reflecting the melancholic sky. It was a constant, indifferent presence, a silent witness to the ephemeral lives that unfolded along its banks. Like hers.
Ji-ah was an orphan. From the moment she could remember, the orphanage, a bleak, regimented place on the outskirts of the city, had been her world. There were faces, fleeting moments of kindness, harsh words, and the constant, gnawing feeling of being unwanted. She'd learned early to keep her head down, to become invisible, to survive.
Now, at twenty-five, she lived a life of quiet desperation. Her tiny studio apartment, barely larger than a closet, was situated in a decaying neighborhood. Her job at a small, family-owned convenience store was monotonous and barely paid the bills. Yet, she clung to it, a lifeline in the turbulent sea of her existence.
But it wasn't just the poverty, the loneliness, or the lack of opportunity that weighed her down. It was the emptiness, the gnawing feeling of something missing, a void in her memory that she couldn't quite grasp. It was like trying to catch smoke, a fleeting image, a half-remembered sound, always just beyond her reach.
Then, one rainy afternoon, everything changed.