Bora opened her eyes.

“What?” she whispered to herself, looking up at the clear blue sky above her. This couldn’t be right. She was – or might as well be – dead. The last thing she could remember was the feeling of her body turning to stone and then everything became black. She’d felt nothing. She’d seen nothing. She’d heard nothing. Everything was just…….empty. void of everything except for herself.

For the first time in a very long time, Bora had been afraid.

And yet now, she was looking up at the sky. She could feel blades of grass against her skin. She could smell the scent of smoke from a camp fire in the air, mixed with the scent of meat being cooked. She could hear the sounds of children playing and adults conversing with one another.

“Bora?” she heard Suji call out. Turning her head to the left, she found herself staring at Suji’s face. Turning her head to the right, she found Jiwook. When she raised herself up on her elbows, she found Shin laying on Jiwook’s other side.

“Where are we?” Shin asked, raising himself so that he was sitting.

“A dream?” Jiwook guessed, doing the same so he could look around.

“No,” Bora breathed, looking at the village only a few feet away, “we’re home.”

Slowly, the four got to their feet. They all looked around recognizing their surroundings and knowing that – dream or not – they were indeed home.

“What now?” Jiwook asked, looking down at himself to find that his modern day clothing had been replaced with something that fit this setting much better.

“We go back to the beginning, I guess,” Bora shrugged before starting to walk to the hut they had once called home.

“It’s so strange,” Shin remarked as they walked, “everything is exactly as I remember it.”

“Even down to the smallest detail,” Jiwook agreed, looking around as if searching for something out of place.

Bora started looking around as well, trying her best to find anything out of place. Try as she might, everything was exactly the same as it had been twelve thousand years ago. Even their cloths and hair had returned to how they were back then. Bora found herself running her fingers over her braided hair, done the exact same why her mother had done it every morning.

After she’d become a vampire, her mother had stopped doing that for her. She’d tried a few times after that to do it herself, but it hadn’t been the same. After Mihyun started trying to kill the four, Bora had stopped braiding her hair completely, unable – or unwilling – to deal with the emotional memories the act brought.

That was always her way; avoid the things she didn’t want to deal with simply because dealing with it was hard.

“Here we are,” Suji tried to smile as they came to a stop in front of the hut belonging to their family.

“I’ll go first,” Bora said when she noticed how reluctant her siblings were to open the door. She was just as unwilling to face whatever was waiting for them on the other side, but as the oldest she had to be the one to step up.

Opening the door, Bora was hesitant to step inside. Like a scared deer, she glanced around the room, looking for danger, every time she took a step until she was finally standing in the middle of the room. turning to face the door, she waved for the other three to come in.

“Hello, my children.” Everyone froze before turning to the fireplace. There stood their mother, Song Mihyun. For a moment, Bora couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen the woman there before, but then remembered the old witch could use magic to hide herself from view. It was an unfair, dirty trick and Bora felt foolish for falling for it.

“What do you want?” Bora hissed, moving to stand in front of her younger siblings, “we’re already dead. What reason could you have for showing up like this?”

“You aren’t dead,” Mihyun smiled slightly, “and this isn’t the other side. We’re close, but this is only purgatory.”

“So you’re going to finish us off?” Shin growled.

“No,” Mihyun’s smile grew sad, “and I regret my attempts to kill you. I’m so proud of you for sealing yourselves away. You did it to spare innocent lives and I’m so proud about that.” Shin was tempted to say that he hadn’t sealed himself away willingly, but he kept his mouth shut so as to not ruin the moment.

“You were right,” Bora didn’t bother to keep the hint of bitterness from her voice, “we really are horrible, retched, monsters who hurt everyone around us.”

“Bora,” Mihyun started to say something to her eldest daughter, but Bora turned away and smiled at her siblings.

“Since we’re going to be here for a long time, why don’t we explore a little bit,” Bora suggested.

“Alright,” Jiwook nodded, a thought echoed by Suji and Shin. They all knew Bora had only suggested they explore so they could get away from their mother, but they had no problem with that. They wanted to get away from the woman just as much as she did.

Mihyun watched as her children ran off, laughing about all the things they could do.

“Was I wrong?” Mihyun asked the empty air around her, “did I judge my children unfairly? Have I been doing that all these years?”

Mihyun turned away from the door and walked over to the water basin that sat in the back of the hut. Mihyun waved her hand over the water in the dish, chanting a few words so that it would show her what she wanted to see. The world of the living.

For ages she’d been using the basin to keep watch over her children, focusing her attention on the mistakes they had made. Had she been making a huge mistake all these years? Was there good in her children? Good that she had been to blind to see?

The water started to ripple and bubble, signaling it was ready. Leaning her face over the water, Mihyun thought about what she wanted to see.

The water cleared and Mihyun could see into the living room of her children’s home. She watched silently as N sobbed her heart out, falling to his knees before stone-Bora. Her heart hurt for the poor boy, knowing exactly how he felt as she too had lost the one she loved; her husband.

As she continued to watch N cry, Mihyun began to wonder if maybe her children’s act of sealing themselves away had done more damage than good.

A/N: you didn’t really think Bora, Shin, Jiwook, and Suji were gone until the others brought them back, did you?