Tiffany felt her legs giving up, the air seemed not to be enough for her. Beads of sweat began swarming around her face. “Did someone find out about her?” Her words were escaping her lips without control, but she received a quiet no in response.

“When is she coming back?” It was Taeyeon who was asking with trembling voice.

Heechul wasn’t answering, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to, it was because he couldn’t. Seohyun seeing that, took a step forward and gazed gently at the little girl. “To answer that, we need you to see something. Everything you need to know is there.”

“What is there to know?” Sunny, who kept quiet since the sudden revelation decided to speak.

“The truth.” Heechul’s deep voice found its way to his throat again.

“Y-You said that the four of us, does it mean that they already know what’s going on?” Yoona pointed towards her friends who weren’t showing their faces anymore.

“Yes.” After hearing that, Yoona’s eyes set on her feet with her mind clouded with all the possible outcomes.

Irene took a deep breath and guided the frozen girl to the couch, carefully placing her between her friends. With caring hands, she cupped the girl’s face. “You need to see everything until the end.” She slowly retracted and walked to Seohyun’s side.

The four of them were totally lost, the fear of anything bad happening to Jessica was unbearable. They held each other’s hands and nodded their heads, signaling them how ready they were.

Seo moved her head a little before pressing play on the remote. The once black screen began to change and in a second, Jessica’s face was invading the frame. You could only see her from her head to a little below her waist. She was wearing a white button up shirt, her favorite, with her beautiful blonde hair down. She was smiling but her eyes looked tired, in fact, she almost looked like a ghost. There was something different in her, something that wasn’t entirely right.

“Hey, girls!” She was greeting happily; her voice didn’t sound tired at all. “I’m sorry for gathering all of you this way but there’s something you need to know. By the time you see this video I’ll not be around anymore. You know, right? If it was in my hands, I would've stayed with all of you forever.” Her smile never faltered, unlike the four girl who were visibly affected by her words. They felt their souls almost leaving their bodies. What did she mean with not being there anymore? “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me and I’m sorry because I couldn’t tell you the truth face to face.” Truth? What was she talking about?

Jessica flinched for a bit before rubbing her forehead a little too rough. “I’m not an Empousa.”  Their whole world collapsed in an instant, the hell was going on? Their hold on each other’s hands suddenly tightened but none of them took notice of the pain, their blood pressure lowering was more than enough. “I’m not an Empousa but I’m not entirely human either, though I was at a certain point. We were all afraid of monsters until we grew up and became like them. It’s true, you know? That’s what I became, a monster.” She was portraying a hurtful expression and that was all they needed to give her a chance, to see and listen everything until the end. “I’ll tell you everything about me from the beginning.” She took a couple of breathes before continuing. “As you know, my real name is Sooyeon Jung but I adopted Jessica because it was my American name.” Sunny’s eyes almost bulged out. “I know that all of you must be shocked, especially you, Sunny. You investigated me but it’s okay, I was erased from any data base available. So, It’s not that I didn’t exist, it was just done for that purpose.”  What? Tiffany’s eyes were already filled with tears, she just couldn’t cope with everything. “You must be wondering why I lied to you, you must be feeling angry, disappointed, and you’re right to feel that way. It was never my intention, believe me, it never was.” Jessica swallowed and bit her inner cheek while moving her eyes to another direction. “You see, I was born in San Francisco. I lived there with my mom, my dad and my little sister. Since I was born, I had a lot of problems with my heart as it didn’t form correctly; it had many holes in it that made it hard for it to pump enough blood to my body. At that time, they couldn’t do anything as the first open heart surgery hadn’t been performed yet and I was too young to resist it. It was three years after my sister was born, that I could finally take the surgery because if I didn’t, it was only a matter of time before my heart stopped beating. I was only eight.”

Tiffany couldn’t comprehend, she slowly turned her head towards Tae, who was looking straight at the screen; she had a serious face, her eyes showing that she was paying attention. It wasn’t long before she caught Yuri giving her a painful look, as if asking for forgiveness. It was the first time she had seen the girl’s face since the picture, she had been crying and probably not sleeping as the dark bags under her eyes were proof of that. She stared for a little bit before Jessi’s voice called her attention.

“The surgery was scheduled to be in Korea, in Bundang Jesaeng Hospital.” Tiffany furrowed her eyebrows. “I think it was fate. The surgery had been successful and I had a heart transplant. It took me a while to get used to my new heart but my mom and dad would always come to visit me.” Jessica let out a snicker. “Oh my mom, she would stay until early morning with me while my dad had to stay with my sister because she was too small to let her in. I had to stay for at least 6 months there until I was permitted to leave the place, but in there I met someone that changed my life.” She smiled warmly at the memory. “During those months I had to stay in a room with 4 other kids. A beautiful woman would always come and visit us, she loved to read us books, sometimes she would tell us amazing tales of things that we had never heard before. I was always a quiet girl, it was hard for me to make friends because I looked cold and that frightened the other kids, so I was always alone. That woman had a beautiful smile, I remember that every time she smiled her eyes would smile along; it was a rare but beautiful sight to me. Although, she was always loud. God, I hated it every time she walked inside and her loud voice would wake me up from my nap. I always glared at her but it had no effect.”

Tiffany remembered the book that Jessi gave her before.

“She began to talk to me, she would always talk nonstop about her baby. It was a little girl, she was her life and everything in this world for her. She also talked a lot about her husband, often complaining about his hard head self. She wanted me to meet her little daughter but we could never cross paths, either I was on check ups or asleep because of my treatments. There were times that the pain became too unbearable and she would take my mom’s place at night, it always amazed me how lively she was even though she was suffering as well. Time passed and I got to know that the lucky one to meet her daughter was my sister, and that my dad and her husband became close friends as well.”

Tae and Sunny were perplexed, their minds were already working on every single word.

“It was fun whenever she came and ranted about her husband not appreciating the beautiful name that she had given to their daughter, she looked like a little kid pouting and telling me how her princess was always complaining about it. I could only laugh at it and she would laugh along.” Jessica began to play with her fingers. “She always loved to learn about the uncommon things, saying that the unusual was the best; it could enlighten our simple minds in a very amazing way. She always brought a book around  with her and showed it to me, it was about the Greek Mythology but this was different, it had rare creatures in it. Nonetheless, she never lost sight of it, it was such a rare gem because it had her favorite creatures, The Empousas.

The months passed and I got to leave, the sad thing was that she had to stay behind. She was waiting for a donor but it was taking time, she wasn’t the only one of the list.” Her voice became a little quiet, like a whisper.

Fany sat up straight and her mind began to play tricks on her. “Before I left, I talked to her, she gave me the book so I would never forget about her, and she also made me promise her to take care of her daughter or else she would haunt me until we saw each other again. Do you know who her daughter was?” Jessica smiled and opened slightly before taking out a picture and showing it to the camera. “She is my sister, her name was Krystal and her Korean name’s Soojung.” In the photo was a smiling girl, she was cute and beautiful but she froze the four girls in front of the screen.

“F-Fany, isn’t she the girl who’s with you in the picture that’s in your room?” Sunny asked without taking her eyes off the frame.

“It’s true, she looks like the little girl who played with you while your mom was in the hospital…Didn’t you say that she was there because someone she loved was hospitalized too?” Tae kept on mumbling with her thumb scratching her chin.

“Is she the same girl?” Yoona’s words trailed off. But Tiffany couldn’t find her voice, the memories came flooding up her mind.

All of them saw Jessica stare at her sister’s picture with longingness. “You already know, right Tiffany? We were destined to meet each other since long ago but it was the same fate that decided that it was the wrong time back then. The woman that I met at the hospital, the woman who used to nag at me with her husband and her love for her daughter was your mother. You were her treasure Tiff, you were her life, there wasn’t a day that you weren’t the most important thing for her. She loved you with all her heart back then, and she loves you even more now. You know, you told me once that you didn’t like your name but when I asked her why she chose it, she said:

‘Oh, the name? It means eternal, because I want my baby to have eternal happiness. This child was made out of pure love, you see, that’s why I know that my love’s life will be amazing and full of kindness.’

Fany’s tears began to fall, she couldn’t believe that the name that she hated for so long meant so much. Her mother loved to that extent, there wouldn’t be enough time for her to thank her and to ask for her forgiveness. Her name, the name her mother chose so dearly for her, she’ll cherish it until her very last breath.

“So, you better love your name and protect that book with your life. I'm sorry that I couldn't find you earlier but it was hard, I like to think that at the end I protected you the best I could.” Jessi’s eyes were full of love. “Well, I got out of the hospital and lived for a while in Korea and as a result, I met Seohyun. We were at a party hosted by my mom’s favorite teacher, he was like a father to her and like a grandpa to us, I wondered off and I met this girl who was being bullied, I couldn’t leave just like that but you know the rest of the story.” She smiled and shook her head a little. “That was my life before everything came crashing down. Remember all the things I told you about me? About my past? They weren’t lies at all. I thought that everything was fine but it wasn’t. Soon after we returned to San Francisco, my sister became ill. She began having simple fevers, nosebleeds and fatigue. My parents thought that it was something like a cold until she started to lose weight so fast that it wasn’t normal. They took her to a doctor, only to be informed that my sister had a rare type of cancer, it was leukemia. Something related to genetics, I never understood what that meant.” Jessica let out a deep sigh, her breath was shaking and the pain came back. “After that, our world took an entire turn. My sister was getting worse, my mom would always stay at the hospital with her as it was said that she was going to be transferred to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. My father was barely home because he had to take another job to be able to pay off the hospital bills; he had a trading business but it wasn’t enough. I had to see my sister suffer because of the pain, she needed an expensive chemotherapy but we couldn’t afford it yet, so she had to endure it for a little longer. She kept on fighting for a year and a half until her body couldn’t resist anymore. She left us when she turned 5.” She let out a weak laugh. “She was brave and strong, she had fought all this time just for us.” All of the people inside that house were sniffing and crying silently. “I always wished that someone would’ve come and help us, that God somehow heard our prayers but it was useless. It was such a death blow to the three of us but my father took it the worst, we didn’t know but to be able to pay off for my sister's expenses he did something horrible. After that, it was hard to keep on living, I just wanted to go and reunite with her and at moments I could see that my mom was thinking the same thing as well but she never showed it to me. In fact, she never cried in front me, she always smiled and told me how much she loved me; she was being strong enough for the two of us. My father almost never came back home and when he did, he would always be drunk. His eyes showed so much sadness and hatred, my mom tried a lot of times but he always pushed her aside and to me, it was as if I didn’t exist.” She was hurting, her eyes showed it.

“It was just my mom and I who were trying to keep on going, we started to heal somehow but my sister was always in our minds. Sad but true, it didn’t last as my heart began to fail once more. If I got too excited an unbearable pain would engulf my chest, it was too painful to withstand. My mom was mentally drained  again because she had to keep up with everything as my dad was nowhere in sight. She had to take a job during the day and stay at night with me. Sometimes she would skip her dinner just to save that money for the bills, she was doing everything she could to help me but hell was barely arriving at the front door.” Jessica covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath again. “I was in the hospital room when I began to feel nauseous and then I started bleeding from my nose nonstop. It was just the beginning, after that, I always felt weak and had a lot of pain in my bones. It was frustrating because it never went away, my mom tried with all her heart to keep me from suffering but I noticed the fear in her eyes. We both recognized those symptoms, they were the same as my sister’s and how right we were. After some studies, I was diagnosed with a rare type of Leukemia; it destroyed the remaining white cells in my body and was affecting the bone ma