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˚₊‧ ꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
IN THE HEART OF SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA STOOD A MAGNIFICENT, REFLECTIVE SKYSCRAPER—it was an astoundingly tall, grandiose building, South Korea's message to the West: we are just as advanced—if not better—than you; we are coming for you. The big, bold letters on the top right of the skyscraper said one word and one word only: Graexus. There had been countless articles in the media, whispers among business executives, and even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the meaning of such a Western name in the beacon of the East. But really, it was simple. Graecus. The Latin word for Greeks—the innovators, the technological pioneers of the future—the contemporary rivals of the Romans. How hypocritical—or perhaps, tasteful—it was to select the word for the Greeks in the language of their rivals (or perhaps it simply sounded better).
Such a beautiful building, a representation of advancement and technology and a new age, and yet it was haunted by the ghosts of their founders: the Lim family. The curses and malice and evil intent seeped into the walls—turning them black and blue and rotten from within—threatening to crumble like sandcastles overnight. It was a delicate sort of equilibrium that the Lim family was possessed by: an immaculate public image of prestige and power, but a tortured, true self that was rampant with decomposition and decay and the destroyed fragments of a family.
Althea Lim had next to no experience with such an impressive dynasty. She had been born next in line to the next in line of the throne (not that she knew), left the country forever at the age of four, and spent the rest of her life (as far as it had come) as a regular student at Gilmore High, a run-down high school in the middle of Manhattan, daughter of a single mother. There were vague images—some that had formed simply from her mother's vivid recountings of her past life—of a family, a home, and a life back in South Korea: a wrinkly-faced old man, marble countertops, the likes. But that was a long, long time ago and things were different now. She was the prodigal daughter of a prodigal daughter—a disappointment, a runaway, a curse—it was passed down hereditarily, embedded in her DNA, ruining her genes and rotting the biology of Althea: it tore her inside out. Try as her mother might, Althea could not escape her destiny.
Graexus Co., Ltd. was a manufacturing company that specialized in the production of advanced technology, things that supplied the South Korean military with its state-of-the-art technology and advanced weapons. It was filled to the brim with corruption and disease of the mind and betrayal; Hanbyeol Lim had taken her daughter and gotten out while she could. There had been an intimidating, sunken-in old man who had scared Althea as a child, leaving a stray mark on her mind, soiling her innocence with his cutthroat tactics and brutal view of the world: he ripped apart his opponents with his bare teeth and a raw, primal desire for monetary gain. He was her grandfather, that Althea knew, but nothing beyond that. He had stayed in South Korea, head of Graexus, the very man Hanbyeol had moved countries to evade. Simply remembering his face sent shivers down Althea's spine.
