Amavasya

She grunts in pain, feeling suffocated.

A sharp ache pierces the back of her head, her lungs refusing to fill. The air around her feels thick — heavy with rust and something sour that burns her throat. She slowly tries to open her eyes, her head dizzy, her vision blurry. Every blink feels like dragging glass across her eyelids. She feels weak — her body foreign, her limbs unresponsive — and by the time she opens her eyes, shivers run down her blood, almost making her breath uneven.

She looks around, panicking.

The space around her looks like a warehouse — the kind she’s only seen in movies. Metal drums stacked crookedly, shadows spilling between them. The scent of iron and oil stings her nose. The walls are made of tin, rusted all over, water dripping from a hole somewhere above her. The cold ground beneath her is wet and gritty, like it’s soaked in rainwater and dust.

Her hands are tied.

Her cardigan is gone.

She’s only wearing her pink frock and socks — her shoes are gone too.

She gulps, looking around desperately.

“Where—where am I?” she spoke in Riveran, gulping in fear and panic.

Her voice trembles, swallowed by the echo of emptiness. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that she is indeed kidnapped — the ropes biting into her skin say it, the darkness confirms it. Her chest pounds in shock, panic, and fear.

She was warned — not once but many times — by her teachers out of concern, and by her adoptive family out of bitterness, because they were never truly concerned about her. They told her big cities like Seorim are not as black and white as they look in the dramas she used to watch. Big cities hide darker things — shadows behind their bright lights. Going there alone could be dangerous. But what could she do? Living in that family wasn’t any safer either.

Still, she didn’t expect the darkness to pierce its claws into her skin on the very first day.

She looks around, scared and thinking how to escape, but she suddenly hears the sound of footsteps — men’s voices — approaching. Her stomach twists. Her heart jumps into her throat. She panics, quickly going back to her sleeping position, forcing her body to go still, pretending she’s unconscious.

It’s something she’s done before — a survival reflex — to act as if nothing happened, as if she’s asleep, because sometimes pretending you don’t exist is the only way to survive cruelty.

> “The boss liked this bitch,” one man spoke in Handeul.

Jemisha understood a little, though she couldn’t speak fluently yet. She’d spent years learning their language before coming.

> “So you’re telling me we’re not selling her?” another guy — slightly younger, sharper in tone — said, sounding shocked.

“Boss said there shouldn’t be a single scratch on her body.”

The older one’s voice carried authority — rough, tired.

> “I wanted to taste her so bad. She’s one hell of a beautiful little girl.”

Jemisha’s stomach twisted in disgust, but she wasn’t surprised. She expected it. She’d seen the way men’s eyes shifted when they saw someone vulnerable — how they confused cruelty for power.

> “So she’s completely off limits? Only for the boss, huh?” the younger one asked, disappointed.

“Yeah. Go untie her. If those ropes make bruises, our hands will be cut off,” the older one ordered, sounding irritated.

Their words felt unreal — like blades dipped in rot.

> “I don’t understand boss. He’s young, sure, but business is business. If we start bringing him every beautiful girl we capture, who will we sell? We’ll run out of business,” the younger one complained, approaching Jemisha.

Jemisha’s heart pounded violently in fear, but she kept her breathing shallow, acting unconscious. The smell of their sweat and cigarettes filled the air. One of them pulled out a knife — the sound of the blade scraping made her flinch inside.

> “Shut up. You just wanna touch and savor her. Don’t make useless remarks. You don’t care about the business. Boss is so rich his hundred upcoming generations would bathe in gold even if they stop running the companies,” the older man said.

> “I saw his eyes when he saw her. He’s mesmerized by her,” the younger muttered, his voice tightening.

“With a face and body like this, anyone would…”

The younger one’s knife slipped, leaving a small cut on Jemisha’s hand. She hissed softly, pain burning her wrist, but she bit her lip, forcing herself silent. She used every ounce of patience to stay still, because she knew a cruel truth — that consciousness makes monsters hungrier.

Men enjoy playing predator on the ones who look awake enough to fear them.

The older man panicked.

> “You fucker! What did you do? There’s a cut — are you crazy? Boss will kill us!” he yelled, punching the other guy.

“I— I didn’t mean to—”

“This bitch!” the younger one snapped, slapping Jemisha across the face — though she stayed limp, motionless.

> “How dare you touch her, fucker—” the older one shouted, slapping him again.

“Go get some kind of ointment or bandage, garbage. If it leaves a scar, we’re done.”

> “We can just say she got hurt by herself. You’re panicking too much,” the younger groaned, angry.

“You think Boss — the living devil — wouldn’t understand the difference between a knife cut and an accidental scratch?” the older one hissed.

The younger cursed under his breath, storming out of the warehouse to get bandages. The older man muttered, pacing.

> “The drug really had a long-lasting effect. She’s still unconscious.”

He sounded half impressed, half uneasy.

Jemisha stayed still. Every second stretched like hours. Her face stung from the slap; her wrists throbbed from the rope burns. She could hear the faint rasp of a lighter — the older man stepping outside, taking a drag from his cigarette. The smell of smoke crept in through the cracks.

Finally, she opened her eyes.

Her heart hammered against her ribs. The ropes were loose now — half-cut. The door wasn’t locked. But that meant he was standing right outside. If she moved, if the hinges creaked, if he turned — it would be over.

Her mind screamed, but her body decided.

Now or never.

She didn’t fear death — but she wanted it to arrive with dignity, not like this.

Without thinking, she pushed the door open. The metal shrieked. The man’s shadow shifted — his eyes went wide.

And Jemisha ran.

Her bare feet hit the cold ground — splashing in puddles, scraping against broken concrete. She didn’t care. The pain was nothing compared to the sound of him shouting behind her.

> “Don’t fight! I’m ordered not to hurt you, bitch!”

He grabbed her wrist. She screamed — not loud, but primal — and her fingers found a rock. She swung it with everything she had, hitting his arm. He shouted, released her.

She didn’t look back.

She ran.

The street was half-lit, cracked and uneven. The air smelled of rain and rust. The sky was trembling — thick clouds swallowing the moon. Thunder cracked, loud enough to shake her ribs.

She was terrified of thunder. Always had been. But tonight, she didn’t care. The fear of being caught outweighed every other terror.

The wind howled. Leaves whipped against her legs. Her eyes stung from the sand and rain, her vision blurring. The rough cement tore her socks apart, cutting into her feet, blood mixing with the mud.

Still, she didn’t stop.

She couldn’t.

Her heart screamed against her ribs, her breaths ragged, desperate.

“Moon…” she whispered, voice breaking, almost pleading.

Because she believed — no matter how dark the sky — the Moon was always there. Hidden maybe, but there. It had been there yesterday, watching from her airplane window.

“It can’t be gone tonight…” she thought. “Right?”

But the sky was empty.

“It is not Amavasya right?” she remembered.

Her foolish heart had believed that no one could hurt her under the Moon’s light. But tonight, there was none.

Her throat tightened, strangled by panic.

“Is this how my story ends, Moon?” she thought, half-running, half-stumbling.

“So you really didn’t exist?”

“It was all my foolish delusion?”

Her voice cracked into the storm. Thunder roared back. The rain grew heavier. Her legs trembled, her body near collapse, yet she pushed forward—

Until her head hit something solid.

Something warm.

Something human.