Chapter 1
PROLOGUE: The Night That Changed Everything
Part 1
The house was alive with music.
Laughter spilt from every corner — glasses clinking, voices overlapping, warmth filling the space as if nothing in the world could touch it.
For a moment, it felt endless. Like this night would never end.
Mira stood near the edge of the room, watching. She was smiling and overflowing with excitement.
Just as the right moment approached, she picked up her camera and went out. She wanted to capture the perfect moment for the most perfect couple she had ever met.
But suddenly nothing was perfect anymore.
It didn’t come slowly.
It didn’t warn.
It swallowed.
The walls trembled as sound collapsed into something unbearable. The ground rose to meet her. Glass became air. Light became heat. And the house that had been alive one breath ago opened like a wound and swallowed everything inside it.
Someone screamed.
Or maybe it was her.
Her body hit the ground, but she didn’t feel it.
She tried to move but couldn’t.
She could only feel the heat. Flames rose around her.
Through the smoke, she saw shadows moving. Not running.
Walking.
Deliberately. Unhurried. The walk of people who had planned for this.
Her vision blurred as blood slipped into her eyes.
Everything felt distant and muted. Mira tried to focus, but her vision shook.
Mira’s hand found the camera. Still in her grip. She didn’t know why she held on.
The last thing she saw before the darkness took her was the sky above the garden — entirely clear, entirely indifferent, the stars going about their business as if nothing beneath them had changed at all.
[FRAGMENT]
“Be prepared.”
Voices. Urgent. Distant.
Lights too bright.
Hands moving over her.
[FRAGMENT]
A man collapsed into a chair, clutching his head and his voice breaking in a way she had never heard it break.
Dad...
Darkness returned.
But this time, it stayed.
Soon, the same news echoed through every house of the country.
News Headlines
Business tycoon and philanthropist Mr Lee dies along with his family & his business partner, Mr Kang.
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PART TWO — Five Years Later
Five cars rolled into the empty alley beside the club, engines dying one after another.
The men inside assessed the surroundings with trained eyes, signalled each other, and quietly split up in three different directions until they found their target.
One of them loaded his gun.
“It’s one chance,” he said coldly. “If any of you are caught.....it’s best to take your own life, otherwise you’ll beg for it when they catch you.”
No one responded.
They didn’t need to.
After a while gunshots echoed through the alley.
A woman’s scream cut through the chaos. The man before her collapsed instantly as a bullet pierced his head. Another body slammed into the car with a heavy thud. Two groups of gangsters collided and within seconds, multiple men fell, one after another.
She stumbled out of the car, her body splattered with red and ran in opposite direction.
By morning, the city would learn that something had shifted in its underworld — that a line had been crossed that could not be uncrossed, and that whatever came next would require a different kind of response.
A new hunt.
The wait of five years would finally be over.
Everything was about to change.
Again.
6 Months Later
Spain
The tulips looked brighter in the evening light.
I turned them slowly in my hand, imagining where they would sit in our living room — beside the window, where sunlight stayed the longest. My mother loved them. She never said why, but I had seen the way her eyes softened whenever she looked at them.
Like she was remembering something she wouldn’t share.
It wasn’t hard to guess whose memory it was.
My parents had been separated for five years. However, they still hold each other in high regard.
No fights. No complains. Just a distance.
I used to wonder what that meant. If they love and respect each other, then why aren’t they together?
What could be the circumstances that forced them to be apart, even though the love is still there.
Whenever I think about them, various questions arise in my mind.
I often wonder, what if they would have never met? Or, what if they did come across each other but never chose each other? Every time I am walking on the streets, watching other people, I always wonder. What if this or what if that?
Among billions of individuals, how do we discover the ones who will make a significant impact on our lives?
Fate?
You might have already crossed paths with a person multiple times, but you never would have guessed that they would change your life in the next few years.
It’s somewhat fascinating, don’t you think?
The feeling of ‘I think I saw you before’.
I love meeting new people and contemplating whether it’s a meaningless coincidence or a destined connection.
Now, you must be wondering something about me.
Why am I focussing on these things? Right? Like, what’s she getting out of torturing her brain about these silly things?
This might be odd for an average 20-year-old, but it’s very meaningful to me.
Even though I’ve spent 2 decades in this world, my brain remembers only the last 5 years of it.
Everything before that exists in fragments —noise, darkness. Something that refuses to become whole.
Hence, I can’t stop myself from pondering, how did I live during those years? Will I meet those people again whom I met in my early years?
So, I like to hold onto the belief that ′If there indeed is something called fate, I know I’ll definitely meet them.′
Mysterious...... but intriguing.
Back to the present time. I take some selfies with the flowers & share them in my family chat group. After 3 tough years of rehab, it took a lot of courage for me & my family too, to enjoy life again.
So, here I am, on a solo trip in Spain.
My phone vibrated as replies poured one after another.
The country has a very vibrant atmosphere, filled with dance, music, and spice. Ihad been here for four days. I was trying, genuinely, to be present.
Suddenly, an aromatic scent of food finds its way into my nose and my stomach starts growling. The food street boasts a variety of traditional snacks, continental food and even Chinese. I spot a cute little Chinese stall and order noodles instead of tasting the country’s special. It may seem laughable, but what to do? Sometimes, you just want your favourite. No matter where you are.
I ordered and found a spot at one of the small tables and ate in the way I had learned to eat when I was alone, which was to say slowly, and with my back not entirely to the street.
I had picked up habits in the last five years that I could not fully account for. Sitting with my back to walls. Noting exits. The way my eyes moved through a crowd before the rest of me had registered it was doing so.
I didn’t examine these habits too closely. Some things were better understood as facts than as questions.
I had just taken my second bite when someone sat across from me.
“Sorry,” he said. “No empty seats.”
I looked up.
He didn’t wait for permission. Just sat down, placing his shoulder bag beside the table.
Korean. Slightly younger than me, though he carried himself with the easy confidence of someone who had not yet learned that the world was not always manageable. His eyes were moving across the crowd behind me in a way that I recognised — scanning, assessing, looking for something specific.
He wasn’t looking at the view.
I looked back at my noodles.
“Noodles, please,” he told the vendor. Then, to me, with the determined friendliness of someone who needed me to talk to him: “Sorry, are you from Korea?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Cool!! Me too, but you look a little different.”
“I’ve lived abroad for a long time.”
He nodded, glancing at his phone in a way that was not actually about his phone. I watched his eyes move and felt his posture shift — barely, just a fraction of tension arriving in his shoulders.
He appeared to be in trouble.
I considered this for a moment, then returned to my food.
✨Ending Quote✨
“Some nights don’t end... they echo through the rest of your life.”
