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CHAPTER I "I still wonder who I would be if I was never traumatized"
Seoul, South Korea , 10:16pm , 15th march , 2024.
THE SMELL OF spilt booze hung heavy in the air, mingling with the metallic flavor of blood. Broken dinnerware strewn the floor like lost warriors from a long-forgotten war.
Amid the confusion, in the dark kitchen, stood Kim Eun-seok and Kim Seo-yun, the flickering light of a single candle illuminating Seo-yun's tear-streaked face.
The young girl Kim Y/N was upstairs, in her room's sanctuary, snuggled against the door, her heart racing in time with the mayhem below.
With desperation, she witnessed her father's fists striking her mother's frail body, with each hit resounding across the small space like lightning in a storm.
His inebriated, poisonous comments tore at the already frayed fabric of their broken family, slicing through the air like shards of glass.
"Please, Eun-seok, stop!" her mother's voice pleaded, the desperation laced with a rawness that tore at Y/N's soul.
But her father's response was a guttural growl, filled with rage and bitterness. "You think you can control me, Seo-yun? You think you can just push me around?"
Y/N's breath hitched, the tension in the air intensified with every word. She battled the need to run downstairs and step in, her nails cutting into her palms as she balled her fists.
The sound of shattering glass reverberated through the house, followed by a strangled cry of pain. And then, silence.
For a moment, Y/N held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest. And then, like a dam bursting, the silence shattered, replaced by the anguished wails of her mother and the guttural curses of her father.
As the tumult raged downstairs, the tranquil world within the aquarium was shattered in an instant. The glass container, once a haven of serenity, now became a battlefield of chaos and destruction.
Many different colored fish floated inside its boundaries, their elegant movements moving across the water like poetry in motion.
A school of neon tetras rushed among them with joyous abandon, their iridescent scales sparkling blue and green in the low light.
With its flowing red and indigo fins, a royal betta fish gracefully moved through the water, silently observing the world beyond its glass enclosure.
For a fleeting moment, the fish were suspended in a surreal dance of chaos, their once serene world transformed into a maelstrom of fear and confusion.
