People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can...
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The prison gate groaned open, as if the building itself resisted letting go of someone who had been part of it for nearly two decades. From the courtyard came a burst of musty concrete chill, mixed with the smell of dampness, cleaning chemicals that ran down the hallways every day, sweat, and food whose taste stays with you for life.
It was early. Too early for Seoul to be bustling with life, although in the distance, above the line of grayish hills, the milky outline of the city was already visible. The sky above Uiwang was the color of spilled paint, and the tops of the nearby hills were lost in the fog. In the pale morning light, the prison walls looked like a fragment blended into the landscape — a piece of gray that even the birds kept away from. The city in the distance was still asleep, but the hum of the highway, trucks, and occasional honks indicated that the world was slowly waking up. It didn't matter to Daeshik. He never lived at the same pace as the rest.
He walked out slowly, dragging his feet, as if every inch outside the wall was a trophy. In the pocket of his thin, worn leather jacket, he found a pack of old cigarettes — crumpled, but still his. The same ones that the guard had taken from him when he was admitted to the facility. Now they were his only reminder of "that" life. He opened the pack, took one out, and slid it between his cracked lips. The lighter trembled in his hand, but the flame lit on the first try. He took a deep drag, and the nicotine hit his lungs like a long-forgotten friend. He closed his eyes and gave a crooked smile.
The morning was chilly, but the air smelled of spring, carrying a faint resinous scent from the nearby pine trees. From the road came the distant, monotonous, indifferent hum of trucks heading toward the highway. Still, nothing in his gaze betrayed any emotion. His eyes were empty. He felt no longing. He felt no regret.
"Life..." he muttered to himself, exhaling smoke through his nose. "So much fuss for nothing."
They'd told him that once he finally got outside, he'd feel different. That the air would taste sharper, the sun would burn hotter, and his conscience would finally start to weigh on him. None of it happened. There was no spectacular change. Nothing stirred in him. No remorse. No "never again." If anything, he felt the opposite — a hot, almost physical rush at the thought of what was still to come.
When they locked him up, he was skinny as a shadow, wasted from too many drugs and too much booze. His hair was long back then, matted with sweat and smoke, and his eyes were bloodshot, always clouded by whatever he'd taken. Now he looked different. He'd put on a few pounds, his shoulders had hardened from the monotonous workouts in his cell. His hair was cropped short — they didn't allow length inside, nothing that could cover the face or serve as a noose. His eyes were clear now, free of red veins, but his skin had taken on a dull, gray cast from years without sunlight.
The change was superficial. Because inside, everything remained the same. No remorse. No regret. He never regretted his decisions — neither those that ruined other people's lives, nor those that could have ruined his own.
