Didn’t scream.
Didn’t beg.
There was nothing left to beg for.
Just a body.
Just a face that no one could stand.
Just a name people forgot as soon as they heard it.
Minji.
A girl who once dreamed of love.
Now just another blurry face in a crowd that never made space for her.
And that crowd?
They’re probably watching something funny right now.
Probably texting someone they love.
Probably judging someone else without ever realizing...
They created her.
Minji didn’t break.
She was never allowed to be whole in the first place.
She hadn’t eaten in three days.
Not out of some protest. Not to starve herself into beauty. She just forgot.
When your stomach stops growling, that’s when you know — your body’s given up on asking.
Her jeans hung off her hips. Her hoodie sleeves swallowed her arms. The fat they once mocked, the curves they poked and laughed at — gone. She had melted into her own bones.
She stood in front of the mirror again. This time, she didn’t flinch.
There was no anger. No sadness. Not even disgust anymore.
Just... nothing.
A hollow face. Shadowed sockets. Skin like paper. And that cyst, now smaller, but crusted over and black on one edge. It looked like it was dying too.
She leaned forward. The mirror was dirty, her breath fogging up a small circle.
“Do I even look human anymore?” she whispered.
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No one answered.
She hadn’t showered in a week. The water felt like needles against her raw skin. Her scalp was sore. Her gums bled. Her tongue tasted like rust and guilt.
She walked to the kitchen. Opened the fridge.
Nothing. Just half a bottle of soy sauce, expired yogurt, and a half-eaten pack of pickled radish.
She took the radish.
Bit it. Didn’t chew.
Just let it sit on her tongue.
Outside – 7:42 PM
She walked like a ghost. Head down. Hands shoved into her sleeves. Her shadow barely followed her. The world went on, as it always had. Fast, loud, and entirely uninterested in her.
She walked past a group of girls from high school. They didn’t recognize her.
Or maybe they did, and just didn’t care anymore.
They were laughing. One of them looked at her face — the cyst, crusted and red — and snorted.
“Zombie from Busan,” she muttered to her friend.
They all laughed.
Minji didn’t react.
She didn’t even feel it.
Home – 9:15 PM
Her mother was watching TV. A drama where the ugly girl gets plastic surgery and ends up with the CEO.
She didn’t even acknowledge Minji entering the room.
Minji sat down on the floor.
“Eomma,” she said quietly.
Nothing.
“Do you remember when I used to sing for you?”
Still nothing.
“I wanted to be a singer once. You told me I had a nice voice.”
Her mother didn’t blink. Didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed on the screen.
“You lied, right?” Minji whispered.
Silence.
Bedroom – 11:03 PM
She sat with her phone in her lap. No notifications. No calls. No missed texts.
She scrolled through old photos.
One from middle school. Her cheeks were round. Her eyes a little smaller. Her smile awkward. But she was smiling.
She stared at that photo.
The comments were still there.
“Delete this before people go blind.”
“When did they start letting trolls into school?”
“Nice tumor, is it alive?”
Her fingers hovered over the delete button.
But she didn’t press it.
She put the phone down.
Laid on the floor.
Face to the wall. Knees to her chest. Still not crying.
She didn’t have the energy.
Three Days Later
No one checked on her.
Not her mom.
Not her classmates.
Not even the landlord, though the rent was three months late.
She hadn’t spoken a single word in 72 hours.
No food.
No water.
No thoughts.
She was sinking. Deeper. Slower.
It was peaceful, almost. Like being underwater, except you no longer needed to breathe.
10:57 PM – The Screen
Her phone buzzed.
She stared at it.
Unknown notification. No app logo. No vibration.
Just a soft, strange pulse of light from the screen.
She opened it.
Nothing. Just a plain black background.
Then, slowly, a sentence appeared in white letters:
“You are not invisible here.”
She blinked.
She sat up.
Her heart — for the first time in what felt like years — pounded.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
It hurt. The suddenness of it. The return of something inside her chest that she thought had rotted away with everything else.
The screen flickered.
And then — it vanished.
No app. No trace.
Nothing.
Just that one line.
She scrambled to open recent apps. Nothing.
Checked the browser. Cleared.
It was like... it was never there.
She stared at the phone.
Breathing hard now.
Hands shaking.
Not from fear.
Not from confusion.
But from the tiniest, most dangerous feeling of all.
Hope.
And then, for a moment — just one — she whispered to the empty air, to no one at all:
“…What was that?”
No answer.
Only silence.
But something in the dark had shifted.
She didn’t know it yet.
But the world was about to change.