There was blood everywhere she looked, and people in chains. She looks up, and the sun and moon are there, but this time, they’re far away from each other. She finds herself holding a white sword covered in black blood, but she doesn’t know what kind of creatures, or people, she’s been fighting.

A shout, and she finds herself clashing blades with another person. She glances at her reflection once, meeting gold eyes. She pushes her assailant away, and she swings her sword, ready to attack and defend.

Her attacker points her black sword towards her, glaring with her silver eyes. The ground shakes.

And Nayeon wakes up violently, sitting up, cold sweats dripping from her face down to her collarbones. She looks at the time. 4:58 am. And she groans, grabbing her necklace from her neck and runs her thumb on it. It’s silver, like the cold eyes she’s seen in her dream, and its shape looked like what she was holding. She shakes her head, dismissing such details as coincidence.

With me suddenly seeing ghosts, Chaeyoung of all people, and now this headache, my weird dreams. I must be getting karma after all these years of being indifferent to my family.

She lies back in bed and groans. Her headache from yesterday didn’t go away and even got worse. She contemplates whether she should go to school or not.

She remembers Chaeyoung and decides to go to school to look for her.

I just have to help her. I shouldn’t be selfish just because I don’t believe such things.

She stands up and wobbles, grabbing her head in pain. She leans at her bed’s headboard for support.

That is if I could survive the day with this headache I have.

She remembers yesterday’s events with her suddenly seeing Chaeyoung as a ghost and the flash that she saw when she looked at Chaeyoung. She also remembers snapping at a concerned Momo. She sighs.

What’s up with me, anyway?

Chaeyoung finds Jeongyeon seated at the wall beside their favourite restaurant early in the morning, sleeping. Chaeyoung glances around to see multiple posters of her missing. She looks back at Jeongyeon when she hears her yawn.

“Hyung.” Chaeyoung tries when she sees her half-sister stand up and stretch. “Hyung, please don’t torture yourself like this.” No response. “I don’t like seeing you like this.” Jeongyeon walks through her. She follows.

Jeongyeon walks through the neighbourhood to the police station with Chaeyoung following her. Before entering, she overhears a conversation.

“The Son kidnapping case is still ongoing, and hopes are not too high.”

“Yeah, we got no lead. The Yoo kid isn’t useful either, I heard she’s heavily drugged that night.”

“Whoever planned this is a genius. I don’t know, dude, but I’d like to tell Miss Wendy to just drop this and accept the fact that she might never see her sister again. Alive, that is.”

Chaeyoung’s heart constricts. They might never see me again. I might be dead by now. She snaps out of her thoughts when she sees Jeongyeon going out of the police station. No, it hasn’t been a week yet, I think. Wordlessly, Chaeyoung follows a dazed Jeongyeon. They walk in silence until Chaeyoung speaks.

“Jeongyeon-unnie, heh, haven’t called you that in a while.” Silence. “I know you can’t hear me, I wish you could, but hopes are not too high.” Chaeyoung chuckles mirthlessly. She follows her lethargic sister to their house, narrowly avoiding Jeongyeon’s shoes as the older girl throws it aimlessly when she goes through the door. She watches as her half-sister plops on the sofa with a dead look in her eyes.

“This is my fault.” Jeongyeon mumbles. “If only I could remember what happened that night. Ugh, this really .” She ruffles her blond hair hard and holds her head afterwards. “I’m so irresponsible. I wish I brought her somewhere else rather than staying at home.” Chaeyoung sees tears falling on the floor.

“Hey, this is not your fault, don’t blame yourself, please.” Chaeyoung tries to console her sister with a pat on the arm, but her hand just passes through and flickers. Damn.

“Chaeyoung must’ve hated me by now, leaving her on her own.”

“Hey, no, I don’t! Snap out of this, unnie, please.” Chaeyoung’s voice edges to desperation.

“Seungwan-unnie, too.” Jeongyeon’s broken whispers hurt Chaeyoung more and more. She sits in front of her oblivious sister, tears in her eyes.

“Don’t say this, please. Don’t do this to yourself.” She tries holding Jeongyeon again, with her hand still passing through.

The two sisters cry, one in self-blame, one in desperation.

Heavens, help me, please.

“Hey, you’re early,” Jihyo comments as she sits down beside Nayeon, who had her head on the desk. “Are you early just to sleep through trigonometry?”

“I’m not a genius in maths like you and Miss Myoui, who, by the way, always sits in front.” Nayeon answers, muffled by her arm underneath her head. “It’s pretty insulting, you know. I barely passed my maths, and here you are, a junior, having senior maths.” Jihyo snorts.

“Don’t pull that card on me, unnie. You know you’re an intelligent student. We just have our own strengths, I guess.” Jihyo carefully puts her book on their shared desk to avoid disturbing Nayeon. “Why are you early anyway?”

“Looking for somebody, but she’s not here yet.”

“Momo?” No, Chaeyoung, she wanted to say but stopped herself. She hasn’t told (nor will she ever tell) anyone about what happened yesterday. She reels back when Momo’s name was mentioned, and it gets her attention. She sits up and looks at Jihyo with raised eyebrows.

“Woah, you look worse than yesterday,” Jihyo whispers, and she glares, telling Jihyo to just drop it. “Uhm, well, when Momo was back in the gym after returning your bag, she was sulking. Your glasses are askew. Let me fix it.” Nayeon sighs as she lets Jihyo fix her specs on her face.

“We had a misunderstanding. Uhm, I wanted to talk to her this morning about it.” Lies. She didn’t even want to face Momo yet. 

“Well, good luck with that. Momo’s actually earlier than you. So, not seeing her says a lot of things.” Their teacher enters, and Jihyo looks in front, leaving a frowning Nayeon in a daze. 

Damn, she doesn’t want to see me. Nayeon’s frown deepens. I shouldn’t think about it now; Chaeyoung’s a priority.

“Open your textbooks on the previous page and answer all numbers.” And the class begins.

Nayeon opens her textbook and fiddles with her pen, absentmindedly. She looks at the board and at her classmates, who are all busy doing their classwork.

It’s the third day of Chaeyoung’s disappearance, and almost all students had nearly forgotten about it. Either because of apathy, resignation, or pretense, Nayeon will never know. Her friends never mention it, but it’s evident that they are still worried about the whole situation. Even Dahyun, who tries not to show how affected she is, laughs too much nowadays, a sign of nervousness that Nayeon had come to know about the jolly sophomore. Even Tzuyu, who she saw stumbling on track during the freshman’s gym class yesterday. Even Myoui Mina, whose desk is vacant right now.

(“There are rumours,” she heard Sana say days ago while walking towards the school gates, “some students are blaming Myoui for her disappearance.”

“That’s stupid, aren’t they listening? It’s a kidnapping case.” Jihyo quips. “Besides, Chaeyoung’s lovestruck with her and anything she does.”

“Who can blame them? It looks like she’s not affected by what’s happening anyway.” Momo comments, her eyes trail on Mina’s disappearing figure ahead of them.

“We don’t know that.” Sana defends.

Their conversation ends there.)

If they think that Mina’s not affected then, then she’s so affected now, Nayeon thinks, with Mina’s dishevelled appearance suddenly appearing by the door, her eyes still with the same nonchalant look but with bigger eye bags, and–

“Miss Myoui, you rarely get late, so I’ll let you pass. Please sit and do the classwork.” Mina bows her head slowly and trudges her way to her desk. Mina doesn’t walk like that, Nayeon thinks, and she sighs, waving it off. She goes back to her thoug