Ara sighed as another customer called for her, but nonetheless she hurried over to the table. Today's shift was tiring, but not because of many customers, but rather because … there was an uncomfortable feeling spreading inside her. Almost feeling ominous, but at the same time not really. It was … something she couldn’t exactly define. Just as the thought crossed her mind she could feel her cellphone vibrate in her pocket. Upon that, the girl frowned. Who could be calling her right now? Putting away the plates, she took out her cellphone. Her frown continued to occupy the area between her eyebrows, as she looked at the unknown number. 

“Hello?” She reluctantly asked.

“Ms. Park Ara? Park Yoonhee's daughter?” An unfamiliar voice said. The weird feeling inside the girl became stronger.

Ara shifted nervously and replied, “Yes.”

What came next made the girl stiffen. “You should come to the East Hospital. Your mother collapsed…” There was no need to say more as Ara already understood and immediately began to run. A feeling – so much more terrible than the one from before – spread inside her body, making her feel as if thousands of pounds laid on her shoulder. The weight painfully pushed her down. A lump formed inside and the girl had trouble breathing as she called for a taxi once she was standing at the edge of the sidewalk. Inside the cab, she didn’t even notice that her hands were clenched into fists, and could only panicky tell the taxi driver to hurry up.

Once she arrived at the East Hospital, she simply threw a few banknotes to the driver and immediately got off the cab. Her legs were running and running while her mind still tried to subdue the chaos inside it, her nails painfully digging into her palms. Ara didn’t even realize the pain because for a moment reality felt so far away; the situation felt like a dream – a nightmare.

The girl didn’t even know what she'd been telling the receptionist, didn’t even realize when she was already standing before the door of her mother's room; her sanity seemed to be so far away, so unreachable. Her fingers trembled terribly as she wrapped them around the doorknob, weakly pushing it down. Her breathing was becoming more and more irregular, but surprisingly her eyes remained dry.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Park,” a man in his forties – dressed in white – said, gaze downcast, once Ara stepped inside the room, eyes wide. What he said was barely audible for the girl, as all her attention was on the figure lying in the bed, completely covered by a thin cloth. She reluctantly put out her trembling hands and tugged at the cloth, immediately regretting it afterward. She wanted to throw up seeing her mother's pale face with an expression that looked like she was simply sleeping. Suddenly all sounds around her became more and more quiet, until they were completely gone; and her perception was subsiding to the extent in which she was barely standing in reality anymore. All she could hear was the loud throbbing of her heart, and all she could see was the figure on the bed – her mother.

Ara didn’t know for how long she'd just been standing there and looking at the dead body of her mother; she didn’t know anything as her mind was completely white, unable to think, unable to realize, unable to stomach anything. She flinched as she suddenly felt a pressure on her shoulder. “She collapsed during work and as she didn’t wake up, her boss called the ambulance. The nurses assumed it was simply circulation problems, but then they saw blood on her clothes and hands. She must've been coughing much blood.” She faintly heard the doctor say. “'They called me, and I ran some tests. Your mother has pulmonary embolism. It leads to death if not immediately properly treated, and by the time she got here she was in a critical state. We couldn't do much because the blood clot had been there for quite long already… we kept her alive with our machines for twenty minutes… We've tried our best, I'm sorry.'”

Although the doctor was standing right next to Ara, what he said didn’t reach the girl's ears. In her mind, everything was blank, and the words she heard the doctor say were slipping through her mind like water through human hands. Nothing stayed; the girl couldn’t grasp a single thought.

For several minutes Ara just stood there, irregularly breathing as she stared at her mother's face. The nurses in the room felt bad for the girl and one of them patted Ara's back. “We're really sorry,” she whispered, but once again, those words didn’t reach Ara.

More and more time passed, and the girl didn’t move an inch. However, her nails were cutting her skin more and more, as they dug stronger into her palms. But even that pain remained unnoticed by Ara – just like everything else at the moment.

Ara couldn’t remember coming to the playground. In fact, she couldn’t even distinguish between what she knew and what not, couldn’t differentiate between reality and surreality. What happened? Why was she here? Hadn't she just been working? It was already dark; she needed to go back home to Hyejin and mom.

Still, she wasn’t realizing it.

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