The name landed in the courtyard like a stone through glass.
Not loud.
Just final.
Min-jung stood with her bound wrists pressing into the small of her back and her blindfold still in place and the name 'Min-jung' hanging in the warm red-tinted air spoken in her mother's voice and she did what any person did when their entire understanding of the last six months rearranged itself in one second.
She went completely silent.
Then:
"What," she said.
Not a question. Not yet. Just the word, stripped of everything, holding the place where a question would eventually stand once her brain finished the reboot it had just initiated.
"What is my mother—" She stopped. Started again. "Why is she — what is she doing here?"
Nobody answered.
