Fallacy • Jeonghan [1]

Prologue

She used to write letters to people.

She wrote them to everyone she knew. Her mom, her dad, her brothers, her grandparents, her friends, everyone that she was related to.

She even wrote to the dead.

Even though she did write letters, she never gave them to the receivers. She would usually write one on a page of a journal, maybe two and rip them out.

The journal kept getting thinner, as she ripped out the pages, day by day to write the letters.

She would write letters whenever she couldn't say something out loud. Her voice was stuffed deep inside her throat. It wouldn't come out, no matter how hard she tried to speak. It was as if she didn't have a voice at all. She didn't speak.

Because of this, she had trouble with her education at school. She wouldn't speak no matter how hard her teachers pushed her to. She would be bullied and backstabbed by her friends, she had no defense.

Maybe it all started because of her family conflicts. She wrote what she wanted to say on that piece of crumpled paper. It was just a letter written by a twelve year old who didn't know anything, but you could feel how painful it was.

A year after her parents divorced, she stopped writing letters.

She lost hope in everything. She couldn't write down her emotions anymore. Her heart was nothing but a jar full of emptiness, her eyes turned darker, and loneliness echoed in her head.

But she also couldn't stand hearing her mother cry herself to sleep every night through the walls. She couldn't stand the misery.

She couldn't help. She couldn't do anything.

She was lost.

On one cold night, she gathered all her strength to grab the pen and ripped out the last page of the journal.

Out of all her letters, this one that she wrote was the shortest. Her last letter, as she promised.

After ending her sincere words with a full stop, she folded the paper in half, playing with the edges of the paper, not realizing she cut her finger. Ignoring the cut, she reached out for the treasure box under her bed, where all her memories were kept ; especially the letters she wrote. Her last letter was placed neatly on top of all the other things, and she sealed the box tight, not daring to open it again.

Five years later, her happiness was taken away.

And when she opened the sealed box that was always kept under the bed,

That letter was gone.

Only that letter was gone.