ghosts in the park
@advhyuna
It was very cold. In fact, it was snowing gently as Hyejin hobbled up one of the winding pathways that led to the top of one of Bukhansan’s main peaks. It was difficult to imagine the bright-haired woman as an experienced hiker when she playfully jumped from one rock to the next with her arms held straight out and wobbling with every precarious step she took. To the normal bystander, she was a child fooling around in an adult’s body, and only the astute would realize that scampering around the trails like Hyejin did took agility and accumulated memories.
Not that there were many wandering around the national park in the dead of winter, if there was even anyone else at all. Even Hyejin questioned her motives for crawling up the mountain, but it was almost calming to watch her breath come out in dissipating clouds and wince at the cold nipping at her cheeks. The sharp wind and fresh air was like a constant reminder that yes, she was living, and her body was tangible and if she expanded her lungs enough perhaps the oxygen would cleanse her of all her worries and anxieties. The powers above knew she could use as much cleansing as she could get.
She found an especially-nice collection of boulders to jump onto, and she summoned as much strength as she could and leapt. It wasn’t an impressive jump, but it was enough to fool the woman into believing she was floating for the briefest of moments before finally landing onto the lowest rock. Despite it being a trivial feat, Hyejin found herself sitting down cross-legged for a break before falling back and staring at the grey sky.
She lay there for an unknown period of time with her legs still crossed and her back pressed against uncomfortable bumps and jagged edges of the rock, but simultaneously strangely comfortable. Hyejin let her thoughts drift away to a million things until she was inundated with too much thinking for her tiny cranium to compute, so she released a loud yell and rolled over the edge onto the ground.
And startled someone in the very process.















