swxtched. | jhs

TWO, so it happens.

A SLOW WEEK passes. Green taps her pencil incessantly on her desk, chewing at her inner cheek, losing her mind.

The English on the classic, dusty blackboard is tragic nonsense. It is. Cymbals over symbols. There's no doubt in her mind.

Why English? Why can't, say, Korean be the international language everyone must learn? Green finds herself drowning in her mental whining in order to detach herself from this stupid class as much as she can for as long as she can, because as long as she's here, she is forced to learn things that can deal severe damage to her brain. After all, it's already filled with family issues, medical problems, everyday inconveniences, and of course—

"What would you like your English name to be, Min Geurin?" the English teacher, Mr Choi, asks. Green jolts, pressing her left elbow hard onto her desk, eyes lifting up to him tentatively. He's quite inexpressive, so knowing what goes through his mind is like a puzzle with a thousand pieces.

"Huh?"

"Your English name."

"Oh, yeah, uh... Green, seongsaengnim."

"Green. Would you please read the first paragraph of the text?"

She casts her dead eyes down at her book, the small text with lots of English letters and words and sentences, giving her a headache. Standing up slowly, Green holds up the text to her face with one hand and clears her throat. "Have you ever heard of the Land Art?" she reads, brows furrowed in vain concentration, pronunciation practically waltzing to hell, geez, get it together— blink. Just blink, Green.

Huh. It's super blurry.

Why is her vision this blurry—

All of a sudden, Green enters this bizarre feeling of stupor, as if her surroundings don't feel real. As if her arm and her own self isn't real. As if... Green has run out of as ifs.

Green's book slips from her hands as she clutches onto the desk, yanking at her hair from the scalp. A wave of dizziness slams hard into her out of the blue. On top of the nausea? Really? She's pretty pissed. And she can't stop shaking. It's like she's about to have a panic attack— or maybe it's the air vent that's directly above her, freezing her half to death. No, that can't be it, since she wouldn't feel nauseous and dizzy, and also strangely slippery—

The world looks like a swirly blur of colours and hypnotic sensations. Like tie-dye. Like an Indian tapestry.

"Miss Green, are you all right?" she hears the teacher ask— vaguely— along with a couple of other classmates— also vaguely.

"Hello?" Green says. Or did she? She just thought that, right?

Hello?

Someone said it back. Green finds herself rattling. Who said it back?

Everything's dark. There's a static sound, like a broken TV. It's quickly driving her up the wall when this high-pitched, ear-splitting sound blasts like a mic drop.

Then everything is silent.

Submerged in water silent.

All before Green can properly scream.

For a moment, she feels like she's dead. Stuck in the dark, staring into the void with no eyes or ears dead. How could I die at school? Green would lament if she could. Or maybe she can? She can't tell if she's existing or not.

The fact that she's pondering about this must mean something, but honestly, she thinks she'd rather be dead.

"Jung Hoseok."