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CHAPTER ONE CHIN UP, EYES STRAIGHT AHEAD
( cw: racism, microaggressions )
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TO SAY SORIM HAN IS USEDto the whispers would be a complete understatement.
For most of her life, Sorim has had to deal with unwanted stares and apprehending remarks as she goes about her daily life; she has some inkling that it's because of how she looks, how she's different from the other residents of small-town Hawkins, but that's only the half of it. It's something consistent that her family has had to deal with, and albeit the fact it isn't anything new to Sorim, it doesn't make it any less bearable.
Despite this, Sorim would try her best to ignore the whispers and stares as she walks along the streets of their close-knit town, and the hallways of her school. Even though most of the students (and frankly, the townspeople) wanted to tear her down, make her feel small and lesser than, she wouldn't give them that satisfaction. She's not the same girl she was, crying to everyone and all who could see on the playground, with nothing but the soft murmur of the wind to comfort her.
But back home, where she was away from all the stares, she would let the tears that she'd been holding back for so long finally fall, muffling her sobs into the comfort of her pillowcase. She would cry and cry and cry and cry until she was certain that there couldn't be any more tears left to shed.
And then...she'd appear.
It's not like Sorim didn't give the residents of Hawkins something to whisper about — ever since she was a baby, she's been...different. Weird. And it wasn't the typical type of weird, the shadow of awkward adolescence that everyone experiences at least once in their life. It was the bad type of weird, seeing and hearing things that aren't there, murmuring to unsuspecting shadows hidden in plain sight. For as long as she can remember, Sorim has always been able to see glimpses of them, hear their strangled whispers carry up in the wind, sharp and insistent. But, out of them all, there was one specific cry, one specific murmur, that caught her attention. And since then, it's followed her, taken on a corporal form — something so real, something so human, that it wasn't until Sorim was in the sixth grade that she realized that this person could only be seen by her.
Sorim had thought her to be a friend, some sort of guardian angel. Except Sunny was anything but that. She was always there — Sorim could feel her hanging around, clinging to her, like an itch beneath the skin that you can't quite scratch, but she would only make herself truly known when she knew it'd affect Sorim the most.
"Just skip today," Sunny drawls as Sorim packs her bag. "It's not like you want to go, anyway."
Sorim says nothing, but she can feel her brow crease in the beginnings of a scowl. She glances over, and out of the corner of her eye, she spots Sunny lying on her bed. When their eyes lock, Sunny's pretty smile twists into something wicked.
