Nothing happened.
"I only wanted…"
His voice dropped.
"I wanted to bring them back."
The sentence broke.
He didn't finish it.
His hand trembled.
The pain struck him again.
He screamed.
A short scream…
suppressed…
like a wounded animal.
He put his hand over his face.
Then…
he collapsed.
His body folded in completely.
His head fell forward.
His shoulders shook.
He didn't cry.
But he shattered.
Neer finally moved.
He approached slowly.
He didn't touch him at once.
He sat beside him.
Close…
but without intrusion.
Neer said calmly,
"I don't understand what you did."
"Nor what you are."
Then he added, in a steady voice,
"But I see what it's doing to you."
Kim muttered, his voice hoarse:
"If you knew…
If this world knew who I am…"
A hand interrupted him.
It didn't grip tightly.
It didn't press.
It was placed on his shoulder.
Kim shuddered violently.
Neer said,
"It doesn't matter."
"Not here."
Kim slowly raised his head.
"Why?"
he asked, his voice completely broken.
"Why don't you run away?"
Neer looked straight into his eyes.
He said,
"Because you're in pain."
"And because you haven't hurt anyone here."
Silence.
Then he added a sentence
that struck Kim deeper than the pain itself:
"And monsters…
don't suffer like this."
Kim's eyes widened slightly.
He felt something collapse inside him.
A wall that had been holding him upright.
He said in a low voice,
"I don't deserve this."
"Nor this world."
Neer smiled a small, sad smile.
"None of us chose where we were born,"
he said.
"But we choose…
who we don't leave alone."
At that moment,
something strange happened.
The pain…
didn't disappear.
But Kim
was not alone in it.
And the next day…
when Kim stepped out of the room,
he found something he didn't expect.
Children playing near the house.
A woman waving at him.
A man placing food by the door.
No looks of fear.
No whispers.
One of the children approached.
Looked at his blackened arm.
Then said simply,
"Does it hurt?"
Kim froze.
He nodded slowly.
The child said,
"My mom says pain makes people stronger."
Kim almost laughed…
or cried.
He did neither.
And in that moment,
he understood the cruel truth:
These people…
don't fear the monster.
Because they
don't see it.