The Stolen Memory
“Whoa, Seol Jihyo, what the hell? Who've you been texting? Don't tell me it's a boyfriend?”
The scream was followed by a voice that didn't belong to Jihyo.
Zzt─
The entire screen shook violently. The focus wavered, unsteady, darting in and out without ever quite settling. Even through the footage came faint sensory afterimages — the brush of breath, the thud of a heartbeat.
What Jiwoo was watching hadn't been filmed with a camera.
It was a fragment of memory, copied out by Soyoung — unstable data scraped together from the sensations and impressions left behind inside a human brain. Perhaps that was why the memory was torn in places, ragged gaps swallowing whole stretches of time.
Jiwoo narrowed her eyes and studied the screen more closely.
…Where is this? It doesn't look like the school.
At a glance, it resembled a cavern. The walls fell away in layered strata like rock collapsed eons ago, weeping dark, viscous moisture from every seam. Thick fog pooled at their feet, writhing faintly, like something alive.
A landscape sinister and gloomy — one she had never seen, never once experienced firsthand. And yet Jiwoo knew instinctively where it was.
Inside the Abyss.
One of Korea's three great Abysses, and the one managed by the National Gaon Special Academy. She'd heard that students were periodically dispatched into its depths, or near them, for practical training.
On the screen, a girl reached out a hand, her face stricken with distress.
“G-give it here. Please.”
A girl with Jiwoo's exact face. Black hair, blue eyes.
Her twin sister, Seol Jihyo.
“Nope. Let me have a look first. Ooh, it's all scratched up.”
“She really milks that pharmaceutical-company-heiress thing, huh.”
“What, only her grandpa gets to be rich? My dad's rich too.”
At the snickering voices, the light drained visibly from Jihyo's face.
“That's mine. Give it back. Okay?”
From the look of it, the kids had forcibly taken Jihyo's phone. And yet—
“None of your business.”
“Acting all high and mighty over one lousy phone.”
Watching, Jiwoo's expression hardened by degrees. Unfortunately, the faces of everyone but Jihyo were beyond the screen's reach. Judging from the conversation, though, they were classmates from the same practical training group.
The problem was how they treated her. This went beyond teasing or pranks. This was something closer to bullying—
“Oh, found an Infected over there.”
“Where? Where?”
The angle swung around naturally. Through the patchy, flickering footage, a shadow came into view — shambling slow and grotesque, like a zombie.
Amid all the buzzing static, one thing alone stood out with terrible clarity: skin faded and cracked like old parchment. Eyes staring at nothing. Claws long and sharp as sawteeth.
The monster that dwelled within the Abyss.
An Infected.
“Looks like five or six of them.”
“Doesn't seem like a higher-grade one. What do we do? It'd count for points, but the whole group rushing it at once sounds like a pain.”
“Let's just ignore it and head back up. We already collected the magic stones. No need for bonus points.”
“Then what do we do about her?”
As they traded remarks, someone seemed to hit on an idea, and their voice lifted.
“Oh, right. Seol Jihyo. You go.”
“M-me…?”
“Don't you want your phone back?”
Jihyo's bewildered face filled the frame. There was no refusal, no haggling.
“Try keeping up, why don't you?”
Someone shoved hard against Jihyo's back. For an instant, the face of the child who pushed her flashed across the screen—
but faster than that, the angle swung away, and Jihyo came tumbling toward the direction teeming with Infected.
“Kyaaah!!”
Her scream seemed to rouse them. The Infected began walking toward her.
“Hey, run!”
“Oh god, that's terrifying.”
Fwiiiish!
The ones who'd tossed the phone away started running without a moment's hesitation.
“Gu-guys…!”
Terrified, Jihyo reached out toward them — but the Infected were faster.
“Grrragh!”
They crashed over her like a wave.
“Aaagh!”
Zzt, zzZT─
The screen clouded over, red ink bleeding across it until nothing was clear. Jihyo's figure was gone.
Only sounds remained, coming through the speaker with horrible clarity — something tearing, something slamming, something bursting.
“H-hey… is she okay? Isn't she dying?”
“Dying? Please. That's Seol Jihyo's Regeneration Core. Just watch how long she holds out, then rescue her half-heartedly. Done.”
“Hilarious. We're all running away and she's supposed to be saved? Yeah, right.”
Snickering laughter layered itself over Jihyo's screams.
Thud… thud…
Then came the sound of something breaking.
Not from the video.
It came from the darkened room around her — from Jiwoo herself, who sat staring at the screen with a face carved from ice.
“…….”
As though answering the tremor in her emotions, the whole room began to shudder slowly, like an earthquake had struck. And even through it all, the video did not stop.
“Hey, but still… what if the teacher finds out?”
“She's a total coward, that Seol Jihyo. She won't say a word.”
“Agreed. If she had it in her to snitch, she'd have done it back in middle school.”
“Even if she does snitch, so what? Adults don't care what we do anyway. They're too busy lining their own pockets.”
As long as no one actually dies, what's the problem? A burst of laughter — and the video cut off.
Silence settled over the darkened room. The screen had gone black, but Jihyo's vivid screams — the sound of her skin being torn open by the Infected — still seemed to ring in Jiwoo's ears.
She couldn't help but understand now.
The 'accident' Jihyo had suffered at school — this was unmistakably it.
“…You deranged bastards.”
Crash!
The empty water glass sitting on the desk shattered all at once. That was the trigger. The faint tremors swelled violently, instantly.
Kuguugu…!
Dirt and dust began sifting down from a ceiling that seemed ready to cave in.
“My lady!”
The door burst open. It was Soyoung.
“My lady, my lady! Please calm down. Breathe — deep breaths!”
“Soyoung-unnie….”
The moment Soyoung appeared, the sharpened air that had been closing in around the room slackened all at once. The tremors, too. But Jiwoo's expression remained frozen. She pointed at the reader with the memory card still inserted.
“Unnie. Take that and go.”
“I'm sorry — go where…?”
“Anywhere. A newspaper, a broadcaster — take it and release it. That precious Gaon of theirs, and this is what's happening there…! People have to know—!”
Jiwoo's breath was quickening.
“My lady, please calm down. Deep breaths first.”
Soyoung took hold of her and spoke in the calmest voice she could manage.
“You already know, my lady. A memory card copied through my ability is single-use.”
Jiwoo flinched. She'd been so agitated that she'd forgotten. She turned slowly toward the reader — and just as Soyoung said, the memory card she had so clearly slotted into it was gone, vanished like smoke.
“The Chairman still doesn't know that I secretly approached Lady Jihyo during her transport and copied her memories. This was something I did on my own initiative.”
Which meant that if the Chairman — Jiwoo's grandfather — ever learned of it, Soyoung would face disciplinary action. Perhaps, depending on the circumstance, even her life would be in danger.
That was the kind of man he was. Everything that happened within this household had to rest in the palm of his hand, and he forgave nothing that occurred beyond his knowledge — whatever its intent.
“My lady.”
After a brief hesitation, Soyoung called to her in a low voice.
“Even if I had taken the memory card and exposed this somewhere, it would never have come to light in the end.”
“…What?”
Jiwoo lifted her head, as if to say that made no sense.
“Why not?”
“Because that's what Gaon wants — and it's what the Chairman wants, too.”
Grandfather does?
Jiwoo's eyes wavered.
Jihyo ended up like this… and he'd want it hidden?
Gaon, fine. She could believe that of Gaon. But not Grandfather. He shouldn't. They were family.
“My lady. Won't you have a seat for now?”
Soyoung hurried her into a nearby chair.
“This is hardly the moment, but the reason I came is that the Chairman asked me to deliver a message.”
“…A message?”
“Lady Jihyo's treatment will take longer than expected. Winter break already ended last week. If things go on like this, she could face expulsion.”
Article 1, Clause 1 of the Awakened Special Act of Korea.
There were no exceptions. An Awakened who failed to complete the mandated education could not register with the Association — worse, they would be branded a 'potential criminal,' someone liable to abuse their Core.
That was this country's damned law. If Jihyo were expelled as things stood, then she—
“And so, the Chairman has ordered you to attend the school in her place.”
…What? Her head came up of its own accord.
“I don't know how long Lady Jihyo's recovery will take, but until then, he asked that you see to it her attendance rate and overall grades don't suffer.”
“What on earth….”
She couldn't make sense of it. A grandfather who, from the time she was five until this very day, had never once permitted her so much as an outing — issuing that order?
Is his only granddaughter's future really that precious to him?
And if so, why keep this incident buried? From Jiwoo's standpoint, nothing added up.
“…Never mind. I'll speak with the Chairman myself and tell him no.”
At the sight of Jiwoo's rigid face, Soyoung began gathering her bag. Even to Jiwoo herself, this must have seemed wrong — that had to be it.
Under any other circumstance, Jiwoo would have scoffed. She had absolutely no intention of listening to a word her grandfather said.
And yet….
In the darkened room, the only thing still giving off light was the monitor, awash in static.
Zzt─
The hazy screen. And on it… the lingering afterimage of a twin sister who was already gone.
“Wait. Unnie.”
By the time she realized it, Jiwoo was gripping the wrist of Soyoung, who'd been on her way out the door.
“I'll go.”
“…I'm sorry?”
Wide, startled eyes. In the depths of Soyoung's dilated pupils, a girl with an unshakably resolute face was reflected.
“The school. I'll go in her place.”
Eyes blue as a mountain lake.
The face of Seol Jiwoo — identical, astonishingly, to Seol Jihyo's own.