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Gasp…!

Gasping for breath, Gam Yigeon forced himself to sit up. His entire body was drenched in a cold sweat. His heart pounded violently, as if he had just plummeted from an endless cliff, and a throbbing headache made it impossible to even open his eyes properly. He fumbled for the nightstand beside him. Grabbing a random pill bottle, he shook it out into his palm, and five or six pills tumbled out. Gam Yigeon swallowed them all without water.

“……”

As the headache began to subside, he took a slow, deep breath and opened his eyes.

The unlit bedroom was desolate. It contained nothing more than a small bedside table and a bed; there wasn’t even a potted plant. It was the same scene he had looked at before falling asleep.

And yet, it felt unfamiliar.

Did I always live in a house like this?

Something was missing.

A sense of dissonance, and a sense of loss.

This was his chronic affliction.

The feeling that he had forgotten something incredibly important.

The sensation that he had eternally lost something he must never, ever forget.

It was the reason he sometimes woke up shaking, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

This profound sense of loss had dominated his thoughts since he was a child.

He had tried various methods to overcome it, but all had failed.

His hand trembled. Gam Yigeon stared down at his empty palm.

It feels like I was holding something in this hand, but I can’t remember what it was.

What could it be? Who could you be? Why was I born with this unbearable sense of loss carved into my very soul?

That thing he couldn’t even remember always dragged Gam Yigeon down, sinking him endlessly into an abyss filled with nothing but hollow loss.