As the doughy old man places the small gift box on my coffee table a mug is jostled, the ceramic soon tumbling to the floor with a loud crash.
I lurch up from my strained and light sleep, the smashing of the mug against the wooden floor ripping me from a dream already fading from my mind. The footfalls quicken in pace in the living room down the hall, the soft steps soon disappearing out the window before the sound of bells begin to pull away and into the distance.
Despite the freezing temperature I leap from my bed, pulling open the draw of my bedside table as I grab out the heavy metal torch sitting within. Armed to the best of my ability and with a stream of harsh light in hand I begin to tentatively pace towards the bedroom door.
Hunched low I slowly open the door with a painfully long creak, my bleary sleep filled eyes straining to see in the darkened rooms despite the harsh stream of light pouring from the powerful torch. Creeping down the hallway I careful step into the combined living room and kitchen. The window sits up, snowflakes slowly falling in as a harsh and painfully cold breeze billows inside.
Whipping my head around I soon find my torchlight pointed towards the shattered pale green coffee mug, my attention soon turning to the coffee table on which it once sat. My eyebrow cocks in confusion as I aim the torchlight at the object sitting in the center of the old low wooden table, my eyes squinting as I stare at the stark grim coal black present.
The scent of ash and fire hangs heavily in the air, an undertone of dirt wafting up to me as I inch towards the box. I swear that in the harsh light of the torch and the striking shadows of the dim apartment around me the box appears to shift, the pristine cardboard sides bulging and almost breathing and hiss like the bestial thing is alive.
.
"What the..." I huff, rubbing at my sleep filled eyes as I peer down
at the present. I certainly hadn't left this here, though my groggy and
sleep deprived brain struggled to comprehend how it could have appeared
out of nowhere. As I reach down towards the lid it almost appears to
rumple, quivering with anticipation like a predator fixated on its pray.
Reaching down I barely even graze the lid with my finger before the whole thing pops open with a howling gale. Frigid air pricks at my skin as I'm forced to raise my arms and protect my face from the biting cold. Snapping the torch back to the box I find it filled to the brim with thick black lumps of coal, the soot covered rocks acting as a platform for the two items therein.
Resting in the center of the pile is a little blue book, the small passport sitting partially open as a single name is revealed to the torchlight. I'm forced to lean in slightly to read it, my eyes locking in on the named owner of the little passport.
"Jeong-Ja... Hyun?" I mutter, struggling with the pronunciation of the clearly foreign name. "Is that Chinese? Korean?..." I continue, my gaze turning to the the item resting as the backdrop for the little book.
A large printed image of an ultrasound sits proudly behind the passport, an image of two curled up fetuses frozen in grayscale. I furrow my brow, my gaze shifting from the passport as I try to pin just where I had seen the image before. My dreary mind does not have to search far for the answer, my sight line shifting to the date, time, and name printed in the corner.
"Maria" I muse, reaching out for the image. I had seen it before on my younger cousins Instagram. The poor young woman, having been adopted out of a rare moment of kindness from my Aunt, had seemingly followed the aging party girl's example far too closely. She had come home from college with two little buns in the oven and no clue just who the father actually was. We had rallied around her as a family, though there wasn't much to be done for a woman in her very early twenties suddenly about to enter an extreme form of single-motherhood.
As I touch the image of the ultrasound it suddenly lurches forward, the sheet of printed plastic clamping itself down on my stomach as it grinds against my shirt with a great deal of fervor. I shriek of surprise and terror escapes from my lips as I stagger back, my gaze shifting to watch as the picture of my cousin's soon-to-be-daughters worms around in an effort to snack under my top.
My yells are cut short as I find my mouth filled with some sort of plastic laminated paper, the bottom of my vision catching the sight of the passport as it crams itself into my mouth. It twist as turns, folding in on itself and tearing pages out as they glide down my throat and into my stomach.
"도대체 뭐야?" I choke out, my eyes going wide as the strange words escape from my lips.
I don't have too long to focus on the gibberish I was spouting, the feeling of cold plastic soon making itself known over my belly before a painful heat suddenly begins to rip through my abdomen. I howl in pain and discomfort as I feel my insides begin to rearrange, my stomach twisting and shifting as my skin begins to sag and distend.
I stagger back as I feel something begin to form inside me, a pressure against my abdomen that kicks and shifts with a mind of its own. Dropping the torch I quickly lose my footing, my legs coming out from under me as I suddenly plunge into darkness.
I come to with a gasp, the light streaming in from a nearby window leaving the word a painful blur around me. Pressure, pressure and aches plague my body before I can even reconcile or remember what happen the night before. soft and exceedingly feminine groan slips from my lips as I slowly take stock, my mind searching for the pain I had expected to feel at the back of my head.
Instead I feel my chest aching intensely, some sort of internal pressure causing my skin to strain and stretch in an effort to accommodate. The same can be said from my belly, the bulging and overly large mound resting against the soft mattress beneath me as I lay on my side. I feel something inside press against my bladder, the need to pee being the first sign of the internal pressure distorting my organs.
"마지막으로 무슨 일이 일어났나요?..." I weakly mutter, coughing as I find a flurry of unknown words blubbering from my lips. Gears churn in my head, neurons breaking and reforming almost painfully as something finally clicks. "What did I..." I wheeze, pausing again as I hear a sweet and pathetically meek woman speaking with a thick Korean accent in my stead.
Fighting through the dull pain of the sunlight I open my eyes, a neatly styled crop of light brown hair unfortunately doing light to help protect my aching eyes. Glancing around the blurry room I find myself looking at...
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