I stumble out of that bloodied restroom, shuffling past the piles of corpses, concrete fragments, and the shards of plastic removed from my back and scalp.

The mirror has worked again. It could deliver as much force as a cannonball, no, a missile, to anything I wished to be gone.

And I held the power of it in my hand.

Do you know what it is to go from someone utterly powerless – a North Korean girl whose parents were murdered, and hunted by agents – to someone who can will the incarnate of destruction with the swish of a thought?

It's intoxicating. It's sweet. It's like the taste of water by the bedside after your throat and mouth's been parched all night. It's like having a key that unlocks any and every door imaginable, better than any fantasy fairytale.

'Cinderella'? PAH! I read that story. I had read that story. I had imagined how amazing it would be if I too could fit into those glass shoes, how amazing it could be if someone recognized my worth. But there was no such person. The only thing allowed to me – Reza – was sweat and toil. And this reward I reaped from my sweat and toil was greater than anything anyone could bestow. If anyone dared threaten me ever again, they would meet the same fate that befell the two murderers.

And so, with my newfound power in tow, I stumble out of that restroom, out of the corridors, wiping my blooded handprints on the dusty granite walls.

Awaiting rats scurry off into the distance. The air smells petrified, stuck. Abandoned shopfronts and boarded-up glass doors eye me silently as I shuffle through the labyrinthine corridors of the underground shopping strip, my once-grey uniform now a color of deepest burgundy, my hair and face a visage of a nightmare to anyone who would cross my path.

A faint whiff of petrichor blows from somewhere. I follow it, sniffing at the air. It's not long before I turn a corner and the milky-white of the outside world falls upon my eyes. I feel them burning, almost unattuned after an eternity in that restroom of dark, hazy red.

Fresh raindrops pelt me and my silver arm as I take my first step out past the dilapidated gates of the shopping strip. Despite the initial impression, the Sun is absent outside; the sky is featureless and overcast as far as the eye can see. The steady drizzle upon the cobbled stone is punctuated by the occasional thunder from distance forlorn.

The rain from the night before must've continued to today. Or so I think, as I open my mouth towards the sky to drink. The rain is cool upon my tongue.

I lower my head again and limp towards the murky outline of Building 63 in South Seoul; called that way because it was 63-storeys tall, the tallest in the country. It seems to jut out from among the various concrete shacks and shops and dwellings lining the sides of the cobbled road upon which I tread. It is devoid of pedestrians, devoid of liveliness. Usually these inlaid-roads like these amidst shacks and slum-villages would be filled with laughing and boisterous children playing various games like Mugunghwa – Red Light, Green Light – or Ddakji – a game of flipping milk-caps over, a brief respite from the reminders of destitution. Memories of my time playing the same games in North Korea, and then in the South just a few days ago, surface to my consciousness.

I heighten my pace.

I knew I must go South to avoid the agents and the abductors, the eyes in the hidden streets waiting to pluck me back to the North for a rich bounty... I had to head South to Busan, because they had ships there headed for America, and in America, the eyes and arms of North Korea could not possibly reach. My parents would will for me to carry on, to live, although they could not in the afterlands. My heart shreds with the prospect of leaving them behind without even a goodbye.

Wait, I think to myself, feeling the rivulets of water stream down my silver left arm.

I had no reason to fear the North anymore. Neither the agents nor anyone else.

That meant I could... I could go home. See my family. Say goodbye.

But no one will hear you, Reza, a voice slithers up from my back. It is my voice, and yet not my voice; some other figure is mixed in with it.

No one will hear you say goodbye. The voice calls again.

Do you not want to live? The voice calls yet again.

"Jukgu ship-nja?" ("Do you want to die?") The voice changes, shifts. I snap around. There is no one behind me, but some way off, maybe a stone's throw away, three men in suits are holding an old man by his lapel in front of a run-down shop; it's the old man's shop, presumably.

One of the suited men is carrying a crowbar. The other, a baseball bat over his shoulder, and the third, what seems like a knuckle-duster. They all have swept-back hair of black that doesn't loosen under the rain. One look and I know they are Jopok, organized criminals that run in the South. It's a fairly common sight, especially in front of small, powerless shops like this one, but something compels me to halt in my tracks. It's none of my business, but... I spy their conversation from afar, drawn to it by a curious compulsion which I did not possess before.

"Ocheonwon-u-ro jangnan-ha-nja, yi byeongshin-saekki," ("5,000 Won? You goddamn messing with me?") Says one of the suited Jopok, slapping the old man across his face. His graying hair flies off.

"Jaebal, yi-gut-bak-e eop-seo-yoh," ("Please, this is all I have, I promise, I promise, I promise!"), pleads the old man, desperately opening his wallet, his coin pouch, his worm-ridden socks to reveal no coin, gathering and rubbing his hands as if to ask for forgiveness.

The three Jopok sneer and push the old man by the forehead. He trips on a stool and falls on the wet concrete.

"Jinanbuhnhae-do gateun-mal haet-ja-nah," ("You said the same thing last time, you fuckin' geezer,") says one of the Jopok, grabbing the old man's lapel again and then pulling him up. The Jopok with the crowbar struts to the side to smash up the lights, the counter, the few pieces of run-down furniture remaining in the run-down shop with empty shelves.

I feel sick. I have no desire to watch more, so I turn away to carry on elsewhere.

"Jinjjah eh-yeuh," ("Please, it's the truth,") I hear the old man imploring as I walk away without notice. He is speaking in honorifics to the Jopok. Honorifics are usually spoken to those of venerated status or those of senior age. Honorifics are spoken to those with respect.

Yet he is being forced to use these honorifics for these gangsters.

"Ah-si, ni-ddal ahn-wonhana-bonae," ("Fuck, you really mustn't want your daughter back,") says the Jopok with the baseball bat.

The word 'ddal' – daughter – seizes up my legs. My neck creaks as I turn.

"Yeoh-gi bo-yiji?" ("You see this, old man?") Sneers what seems to be the leader of the three. He holds out his two hands, and extends his fingers. He begins counting them one-by-one.

"Yil – yi – sam – sa – oh – ryuk – chil – pal...uh-rah?" ("One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, hmm?") He pauses.

"Aigu, uh-ttukhae, ni-ddal son-garak yedeolp-gae bak-gae uhp-nae. Mahnyi appa-haetsuh. Appa miwuh handae." ("Man, a shame, I forgot – your daughter only has eight fingers now! She cried and screamed a lot yesterday. She said she hates papa.")

Like a bowstring tightened beyond its reach, my heart snaps.

I remember this feeling. I remember it well. I remember it as the feeling I had when a baby was smothered by fellow passengers in our passage across the Amnok River, because the baby's cries were about to give our position away to the guards by the riverbank. I remember it as the feeling I had when the baby's mother could not weep or cry or wail to save the other passengers upon that shoddy raft, so upon landing on the other side of the river, she hugged a dagger into her own stomach while cradling her baby in her arms.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I remember it.

I remember it all.

The cruelty of it, the irony of existence, that luck and misfortune doesn't come and go in turns; that misfortune always comes faster, arrives faster, stays longest, leaves latest; and driving its wheels, driving its arrival, always other human beings. Those in power. Those with wealth. Those with weapons and those with law. Dictators. Tyrants. Human scum. And now, it was unfolding before my very eyes, the same caliber of misfortune, the same scum of the Earth that deserved death; I see in the place of my old man my father, my innocent father, who died of a crime that he did not commit.

I find myself in front of the old man. My hand seizes the arm of the Jopok leader mid-swing of his baseball bat.

They are taken off-guard.

"Shibal-nyeon, nuhn-moyah?" ("Bitch, who the fuck are you?")

He tries to brush off my grip, but find my hand tight, squeezing his forearm, crinkling his sleeves.

"Yi-geoh an-nwa?" ("You fuckin' dare?") He swears. I stand my ground. I see his distorted reflection in my silver left arm, and headbutt it with all my intention and purpose.

Nothing happens.

The Jopok man kicks me in my belly full force, tumbling me away. All my wind is knocked clean; I wretch, gasping for air.

The three Jopok men advance on me with their weapons. The man whose arm I held viciously swings down his baseball bat, landing squarely on my rib.

I hear a hideous crack before the strike registers. I shriek in pain. I cannot breathe.

The old man throws himself on top of me to shield me from the blows.

In our tumble, the descending end of a crowbar from a Jopok lands on the old man's calves, hacking away his flesh.

"Bi-kyeoh, yi byeongshin-a," ("Get the hell outta my way,") says the Jopok with the knuckleduster, pounding the old man on the back with his brassed fists. The old man still hugs me, shields me.

The crowbar Jopok rips the old man from top of me and throws him into a wall, the other two kicking me, smashing me with the bat, breaking my bones.

I desperately punch the reflections of the suited men in my silver mirrored-arm to no avail. Nothing happens. No whiff, no destruction, even with my desperate will for life-and-death carried in each strike. The tide was to my disadvantage before the fight had even begun. The mirror had betrayed me.

"Ju-guh, Ju-guh," the crowbar Jopok yells, driving his weapon deep into my flesh over and over.

I was going to die.

I reach my right arm out to shield me from what is to be a fatal strike to my head. The descending crowbar catches my right fist and mars it, exposing the flesh and bone underneath. He raises the crowbar again.

Instinct takes over. Time seems to slow.

I make a wild swing one last time, at the reflection of the crowbar Jopok.

My bloodied right fist meets his image. Blood splatters across the mirror.

It comes.

It starts from the right side of his waist.

The force drives his waist inwards – as if a spear, or a swinging tree trunk, has caught him on his side – and he is rocketed across the shop and into the concrete wall headfirst, perishing instantly.

The eyes of the other two Jopok bulge in utter shock, cursing, swearing, their eyes darting back and forth.

I roll and crawl away towards an escape.

"Yi – Yi - Yissaekki, mo-yah? Nuh mo-yah?" ("Wha – Wha – What did you do? What the fuck did you do?"), yells the baseball bat Jopok, eyeing my desperate crawl, advancing on me. I see his reflection in my mirrored arm, just a meter away, ready to swing down his bat on top of my back –

I punch his torso in his reflection, and a cannon-shot sounds through the roof, the walls, and the surrounding air. A gaping hole the size of a manhole is blown clean from the baseball Jopok's torso. His eyes roll to the back of his head; he crumples to his knees, and smashes face first onto the tiled floor, dead.

The last Jopok – the knuckleduster Jopok – stammers, stutters, hollers in abject terror, and backs away, breaking into a sprint out of the shop. I see his receding reflection in my mirrored arm; on top of it, splatters of my own blood drawn from my right hand.

And that's when it clicks. Blood. My blood activates it.

I reach for his running reflection with my right hand, grasping his image like one would grasp a handful of straw.

The man is lifted by an invisible force, suspended into the air. I feel the mass and warmth of his body in my right hand. There is resistance, furious shaking of the man trying to get loose of this eldritch horror that has him in its grip, like a mouse in the coils of a snake. I squeeze my fist – I squeeze, squeeze, and squeeze. And like a balloon popping, or a sausage casing bursting at its seams, the man explodes into the streets, throwing sinews of organs and blood into the cobblestone, mixing with the gunk of the rain.

...

......

...........

I cough and cough into the hard concrete floor. Specks of blood issue from my every hack. Having been beaten like that with bats and crowbars, it's a miracle for me to even be alive. All of my bones should be broken.

Wait, how am I even alive? I imagine. But my queries are cut short by the pain that skewers and burns my body. I am bruised and blooded everywhere, and even my right hand is –

My right hand is whole.

I do a double take, blink a few times. My right hand and fist are whole. I swear I remember the crowbar's vicious hook flipped my flesh off the bone.

But it's whole.

I fumble and pat my other wounds, under my uniform shirt, on my thighs, my scalp.

There are no wounds. There is blood, yes, but... it's as if they'd never been there in the first place. For sure, I would be convinced I was not hurt at all, except the pain unequivocally existed. I could still feel the battering of the bat and the hacks of the crowbar hook. Yet I am alive.

A short, shuddering puff issue from my right. I painfully turn my head to see the old man drawing erratic breaths. The questions that would have plagued me are banished in light of the scarcity of time.

I crawl, half-handedly, shuffling across the floor. I shake the old man awake. I try to.

"Ahjeossi, ahjeossi!" ("Mister, hey mister!") I shake the old man over and over. Numerous bruises are splotched across his arms and legs, his torso and head.

He opens his eyes groggily, with much pain. He eyes me, widens momentarily in shock, astonishment, surprise, as if he's seeing a ghost. His gaze wanders slowly over to his run-down shop, laying on the bodies of the Jopok men – one dead on the wall, another on the floor amidst a pool of blood, and the other, inconsequential, somewhere else; at least not here.

The old man breaks into a thin, relieved smile.

"Sal....aht....suh....?" ("You're..... alive?")

"Ahjeossi, yil-yil-goo! yil-yil-goo boolyeoyahdweh!" ("Mister! 119! We have to call you 119!")

I have to call him an ambulance. I wasn't going to let him die. But the old man makes no reply to my question.

Only a thin sentence escapes his lips.

"Nae-ddal..." ("My daughter...")

"Neh?" ("Come again?") I pleadingly ask.

"Nae-ddal... appa-ga...." ("My daughter, papa is...")

"Ahjeossi, ahni, ahni, ahn-dueh!" ("Mister, no-no-no – stay with me!")

"......Nae-ddal," ("...My daughter"), he makes a pained, parched gulp, "nae-ddal... appagah mi-ahn –" ("My daughter..., papa's so sorr–")

The old man's syllables are arrested abruptly as his chest seizes, his mouth agape.

His eyes are still open – now, the light and sparkle of thought removed, just blank, staring into space. Empty except for droplets of hot tears.

He's gone.

......

........

I close his eyes, and as I gather his hands to his chest, I find a frayed sepia photograph of two figures – this man when he was younger, and a young girl making a victory sign next to him at an amusement park, who must be his daughter.

I lower my head in somber silence.

If I hadn't jumped in like a wild fool, would he still be... alive?

The thought races at me, haunts me.

In the mire of my guilt, I barely notice a slip of paper hanging out the trouser pockets of the Jopok with the manhole-sized cavity sprawled across the floor. There's some smudged writing on it.

I drag myself over, and pull the tip of the paper out of his pockets.

"Seoh-go, 1st street," it says, with a rough scribble of 1 million Won.

I crumple the piece of paper in my hand.

...

......

Seoh-go, 1st street.

I now had a destination.