* This chapter contains depictions of child abuse and violence. Reader discretion is advised. *
When I was young, it always felt like I was standing on the surface of a vast, silent lake.
A black lake with no bottom in sight—I stood there on shaky legs, certain that if I even breathed wrong, I'd slip and be swallowed whole.
My whole body was locked in tension.The deep water beneath me stared up as if it wanted to devour me, and I kept my eyes fixed away from it, searching for anyone—someone—who might pull me out of there.
Every day I begged silently, "Please… someone save me."
But it was a scream only I could hear.
No one came.
So I shut my mouth, widened my eyes, and kept standing there, barely holding on.
Just so I wouldn't fall into that lake. Just so I wouldn't disappear.
When did that pain begin?
I know for sure it was before I was seven, long before I came to Korea.
My brother believes I don't remember anything from then, but my senses were always sharp. Once I saw something, it never left me.
My earliest memory is that wooden ceiling—a ceiling made from old, uneven planks. The wood grain looked like the rings of a tree, carved into lines. That ceiling was my whole world, because all I could do was lie there and stare at it.
Sometimes a woman would come over and push a milk bottle into my mouth. Even then, I didn't look at her. I stared up at the wooden grain while gulping down the milk to silence the ache in my empty stomach.
And whenever my eyes accidentally met hers, she would rip the bottle away and spit out Russian curses like she'd seen something filthy.
"Dirty mixed-blood brat."
Then she'd leave as if the sight of me made her sick.
I'd shove my hand into my mouth, licking whatever milk was left on my fingers, and keep staring up at that wooden ceiling.
"Dirty mixed-blood. Dirty little beast."
Those were my names before I was ever called Dongha.
But at least back then, I got milk. If I endured hunger long enough, she would eventually feed me again. That alone kept me alive.
But once I started walking—once I could crawl around and put whatever I found into my mouth, and relieve myself wherever I happened to be—
She couldn't stand the sight of me anymore.
"That hungry sow will eat you. Let's just say he died in an accident."
She said that.
She starved a huge sow for two days and threw me into the pigpen.
I must've been barely walking then. I stumbled immediately and fell face-first into the dirt. My mouth filled with earth, but the terror was worse than the pain.
The sow stormed toward me. I remember the sound of her hooves shaking the mud.
Then—She sniffed me. Hard. And then simply turned away and dug at the ground for food.
"Not hungry enough yet," the woman muttered.She left. And I stayed there.
Three days passed.The sow never touched me, even half-starved.
And so, I began living in the pigpen.
When I think of that place, I always remember the thin light seeping through the cracks of the slate walls.
As a child, I tried to grab that light—poking my tiny fingers into the cracks—but the light always slipped past them.
When the woman tossed pig feed into the pen, I ate it alongside the sow.
At night, when the cold seeped into my bones, I fell asleep pressed against her warm body.
Sometimes she would disappear for days.
During those times, the woman stopped feeding me too, and I starved with nothing but cold to keep me company.
But she always returned. And I always curled up beside her again.
Eventually she gave birth, and the pen filled with squealing piglets.
I loved those days.
The little ones would crawl over me while I hugged their small, round bodies.
But the piglets were taken away one by one.
And the sow grew weaker, lying motionless for long stretches.
Then came the winters. Endless, freezing winters in the Caucasus mountains.
Time didn't flow normally there.
It pooled and stagnated while my body grew, slowly but surely.
One day I realized the sow no longer towered over me.
I had become almost as big as she was.
Sometimes the woman would drag me out, roughly wash me, dress me in mismatched clothes, and force me to stand against the wall.
"Smile, you little beast."
I didn't know how to smile.So I pulled the corners of my mouth sideways.She cursed out loud, disgusted, but still kept taking pictures with her phone.
Then she shoved me back into the pen.
That was my life.
A small animal.Barely conscious.Barely surviving.
But seasons passed.Winters ended.Springs arrived.
The morning it happened, the air smelled of flowers—sweet and dizzying.The sun warmed the pen, and I lay there beside the sow, letting the light soak into my skin.
Then the banging started.
Men were pounding at the door of the house.
Strangers—voices I'd never heard before.
The woman opened the door and yelled at them.
Moments later, two grown men carrying rods and tools stormed into the pigpen.
The sow panicked first.Then I did.
The men chased her into the corner—into the filthy corner thick with waste.Pig manure splashed everywhere. The stench was overwhelming.
And that's when I saw it.
The electric saw in the man's hand. I recognized instinctively what it was for.
I stood in front of the sow, arms stretched wide, blocking her with my tiny body.
I couldn't speak properly, but they must've understood my terror.
"Sonya, get him out of the way."
The woman lifted me like I weighed nothing.
I bit her arm—hard.
She struck my head, my face, again and again until lights burst behind my eyes.
"You filthy brat! After all the years I fed you—this is gratitude?"
But she never fed me.
The sow did.
The men cornered the sow. One beat at her snout with a rod while the other revved the saw.
The sound—That horrible sound—tore through the air.
And then came her scream.
A sound so raw and terrible it felt like the world split open.
That was the first time
I fell into the lake completely.
A vast, black abyss.Silent.Cold.Endless.
I sank with my arms and legs spread out, unable to breathe, unable to move.
When I came to, the world smelled like blood and decay.
I lay on the floor of the pig shed, trembling uncontrollably.
The door creaked open, and the woman approached.
She muttered curses, shoveled piles of straw over me, burying me under it.
"Since the pig is gone, might as well use the straw on you."
Her voice sounded distant.
Then I heard her on the phone.
"The kid'll die soon. I can't send any more pictures."