I Think She Is Starting to Suspect Something

When I was born, I was nothing. I had no face and no voice, no parents, no witness to my creation. I was not born in a hospital, nor a home. It was in a nothing place where nothing had lived for a long time, and when I finally grew a mouth to appease my hunger, the memories that still lingered there all tasted like dust.

When I was born, I possessed only a Yearning. I did not yet know for what. I longed for something that I had never known before–there was no before, not for me–but I knew at my very core that it existed. Deep, deep in the fibers that would one day become sinew and bone, organ and blood, your pulse throbbed against mine and I knew had to find you. Know you. Learn you. Possess you. Inhabit you. Consume you. Become you.

When my mouth could not find you on its own, I grew eyes with which to see and ears so that I could hear my unresolved form thump against the cracked concrete and knew with certainty that I, too, existed. Not just my Yearning and you. 

I left that nothing place before I could walk, crawling and squirming across broken glass and jagged plastic until I reached the world of dirt and sun. Wet grass dragged against my bleeding belly as I dug nostrils into what was becoming my face so I could inhale the sweet bite of spilled gasoline and rainwater. By the time I reached the road, I had hands and teeth. They ached from the exertion of becoming.

I crawled along that road until I could walk, but my feet did not carry me with any grace. How can anyone walk with grace when they are filled with such Yearning?

My face was not yet yours when my nascent eyes found you. I was not the mirror I longed to be, so I spied from afar as you stared out into the night and then slammed your fist against the steering wheel. When you left your car, I entered in your place, basking in the heat you left behind, practicing slamming my own fist into the worn wheel, over and over again. I wanted to feel your anger and make it my own, but it lit me up with a burning more like ecstasy than rage. 

My body and voice not yet a reflection of yours, but ever so close, I pulled myself up the stairs of your building and entered the apartment above your own. It was not difficult, not with the strength of my Yearning. I pressed my ear to the floor so I could hear you arguing with her, the one you loved and hated. I wanted to hear every word, every syllable, every breath between outbursts. The small girl who lived there saw me, wetting her red polka dot pajama shorts at the sight. I knew then that my face still wasn’t right yet. It didn’t matter–I had already slipped out the window.

I found my way inside your walls. I resided there during our days and walked more freely during our nights, mimicking your footsteps, calling your companion’s name with a larynx and tongue that could not yet quite produce a human sound. Was there enough of you in me that I could free myself from this cocoon? No. Not yet. 

On the second night, she cried and you told her it was nothing. That I was nothing. Perhaps I was. I was born in a nothing place, after all, and had no name but yours.

It was the fourth night when she finally mistook me for you. Elation coursed through my so-nearly accurate body when she said your name. It was not even a question. In that moment, however brief, I was you.

But the next night—I will always remember the way you looked at me. When I am nothing but rot and ash, I will still remember it. Your face, illuminated only by cold streetlight, contorted by a scream stopped by my teeth, each one a perfect match to one of yours, but not always in the right place.

Are you comfortable now in these walls? Is it warm enough in this space I carved for you? I know not much remains of you that is outside of me, but what there is, I want to cherish. 

There is something I wanted to tell you. I met another like me, floating along in the wake of its Yearning, while the one you loved and I walked to your favorite bar. We acknowledged each other but did not exchange words. Are more of us out there, all prisoners to our Yearning, hopeless and helpless against its power? The one you loved noticed and asked what was wrong with them. Nothing, I told her. Nothing that wouldn’t be remedied in time, as it was for me.

I catch her staring at me when she thinks I am sleeping. She does not understand yet that I do not sleep. I think she is starting to suspect something. I can smell it in her sweat and hear it in the way she says your name.

Anna. Anna. What a perfect name. And now it is mine. All mine.

© 2025 Yeonsoo Julian Kim

Yeonsoo Julian Kim is a writer, game designer, and horror enthusiast based in Austin, Texas. Some of their most recent projects include the map-drawing haunted house roleplaying game Home, and their second interactive novel for Choice of Games, Undying Fortress. You can find them on both Bluesky and Substack as @yeonsoonerorlater.