Life is cruel.
It was a truth I had been made painfully aware of over the past several years. The winding road of life was filled with all manner of thorns and blades, and when you walked it, the time inevitably came when you had to offer up flesh and blood.
I was no exception.
Countless nights, I had fallen asleep cursing God, only to wake choking on old nightmares. Just how much had I paid along the way?
Shouldn’t I be getting used to it by now?
I had asked myself that countless times as well. Yet with every passing day, fresh pus would seep from wounds long since scabbed over, soaking damply into my heart.
Especially on days when old memories resurfaced and dug into my scars.
Days exactly like today.
Black hair. Golden eyes. A being who resembled me too closely to deny it. Of course she did. The blood flowing through our bodies shared the same roots.
I resented that fact to the point of madness.
As much as I resented the bloodstains on the girl’s familiar dress.
“What’s wrong, Oppa?”
Her faint voice sounded so fragile it might scatter into wisps of white breath at any moment. The girl’s behavior toward me resembled that of a small child.
An infant, a blank page that knew nothing.
Before…