The cell door slammed shut behind her with a finality that reflected in Ji Gun's chest. The sound reverberated through the cold, sanitary room, the heavy metal clanging against the caved walls.
She was in juvenile detention now. The air was stale but the smell of bleach and the scent of regret. It felt different here—no angry yelling from her father, not getting raped by her father, no pleading from her mother, just silence, broken only by the few shuffle of a guard’s footsteps or the distant mutter of other kids who had been sent here for their own reasons.
Ji Gun sat on the edge of her bed, staring down at her hands. The blood was gone, scrubbed away by hours of water and soap. But the weight of what she had done still clung to her skin, her bones, her thoughts. It was all she could feel now, the heaviness of her actions, the lack of any relief she had hoped to find in them.
It wasn’t like she had expected anything to change. She had always known that she was a broken thing, a girl too full of confusion and too deep in her mind to escape the darkness that followed her every step. Her life had been full of moments she didn’t understand, of feelings that didn’t make sense, of hatred and love tangled together in a violent, suffocating knot.
And now it was over.
Juvenile detention was cold and sanitary, but it was a place that made her feel almost normal, like she belonged with the other lost kids here. Others wore the same sunken look, others who had been broken by their circumstances, who had done things they couldn’t undo. Some of them cried at night, others lashed out in fits of anger, but Ji Gun? She stayed silent. She couldn’t find the words to express what she was feeling.
She couldn’t even feel anymore.
Her mind was a blur of strange, intense thoughts that would flare up every so often, throwing her off balance, making her nervous and restless. At times, she would feel paranoid, like the walls were closing in on her, or that someone was watching her, waiting for her to snap. But then, it would fade again, and the numbness would settle in, deep and all-encompassing.
Her therapist had told her once that her schizophrenia was just part of her reality. That her thoughts, as disjointed as they might seem, were a symptom, not who she was.
But Ji Gun didn’t know if she could separate the two anymore. Who was she really? The girl who had killed her father, or the girl who couldn’t even remember the details of how it all happened? The girl with the strange ideas, the girl who had felt both nothing and everything at the same time?
Days passed in a blur, and time seemed to slip through her fingers. The days at Juve were long and boring. Wake up, eat, therapy, group sessions, and then silence again. No more screaming. No more fighting. Just reality.
One day, during a therapy session, Ji Gun sat across from the counselor, her eyes glazed over as the woman spoke gently about coping mechanisms and how she could begin to process her emotions.
“Ji Gun,” the counselor said softly, “you need to start talking. You need to let yourself feel.”
Ji Gun looked at her, her eyes empty. “I don’t know how to feel anymore.”
The counselor waited for her to clarify, but Ji Gun didn’t respond. She couldn’t. There were no words for it. How could she explain what was happening in her head, when even she didn’t understand it?
She felt herself withdrawing even more, shutting the world out, the way she always had. It was easier this way. It had to be.
But then, one night, after lights out, when the world was still and quiet, Ji Gun stood by the window of her small cell. The moonlight bathed the floor in a faint, pale glow, and for a moment, she didn’t feel anything. No guilt. No shame. Nothing.
And yet, somewhere deep inside her, a glimmer of something rushed. A tiny seed of doubt. Was this really the end?
She closed her eyes, her breath steady, and then slowly, quietly, she whispered to the night, “I didn’t mean to.”
But the words didn’t comfort her.
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