" i hear the whole 'life flashing before your eyes' thing is just your brain trying to search your memories for a way to save you. " its a little dark, but bowie looks almost delighted to share, " i always thought it was just an expression, but its rooted in truth. "
there is little reception to the boy’s glee at sharing such a morbid fact, the grin he wears something amused, as if this were in any way a laughing matter. there is nothing but sae-byeok’s hard stare, her humorless expression.
death has scraped at sae-byeok’s heels since her birth. it’s been the unworn jacket hanging in the corner of the room — she’s always wondered when the day will come for her to wear it. down the roads of her village, in her home, it has surrounded her. across borders, even into a new country it has followed her. not just followed her, but come too close for comfort; like bumping shoulders with a stranger in the hallway.
a bad night. a fight that got out of hand. a lunging slash of a knife towards her neck — the body’s instinct had been to cover the wound, blood oozing from between her fingers with every rapid beat of her heart. there had been no flash of sae-byeok’s life, no catalogue of her memories: just a woozy feeling in her head, and a sudden need to sit down, lie back ... try to register all that red on her hand. the world had been dizzying, but it had been there. until it wasn’t, and it was gone, and then back again when she awoke in a hospital bed within a small medical facility.
“what would you know about that?” she snaps, irritated. a bite in her tone that is quickly swallowed — he is young, and he doesn’t know any better. so few people do. “don’t believe everything you hear.”
