It was the end of a rainy spring yet it felt like an early winter for Tiffany as she lay dying inside a telephone box by the

road side of an empty street in the middle of the night. Cold wind seeped through the countless wounds on her skin and

the only warmth she could sense was from the blood streaming down her brow, covering her vision in crimson color. 

Gathering her scattered breath, she cried. “Please.”

A figure stood in front of her, kneeling down and stretching out a hand.

“Please, don’t do this.”

Ignoring the desperate plead; a hand put itself on Tiffany’s head. At the end of a rainy spring, a life came to an end; the

life of Hwang Tiffany.

**

1 – The Crash

**

It had been raining in Seoul for more than a week already and put the city in an awfully lethargic state. The capital of

South Korea was left with no energy when its residents walked with gloomy faces just like the clouds above their heads

and there was not a single happiness could be found that morning except on a face of a young girl, hidden under a white

fluffy blanket, inside a small apartment. She was smiling a little in her sleep and mumbled incoherent words between her

soft snores.

She was dreaming a cliché scene of running along a shoreline, chased by a very charming prince on a white horse. But

the dream soon collapsed when her alarm rang and she had to return to reality. With a very annoyed grunt, she pushed

herself up to put out the screaming alarm clock.

“Ugh,” she took a glance to the clock and her eyes snapped open in an instance. “Seven o’clock!?”

Jessica couldn’t believe her eyes and put the clock closer to them, hoping that she was mistaken but the needles were

clearly pointing at the number seven.

“But I set it on si-,” before Jessica could finish talking, she heard giggles from the bed side. She realized what was

happening and she turned her head to the side.

There were two little girls on the floor, laughing on their back.

“Mika! Hana!” Jessica screamed out and threw the clock at them.

“Jung Jessica the Sleepy Head! Jung Jessica the Sleepy Head!” the two girls chanted as they scattered around the room,

giggling.

“Did you two reset the alarm!? I have test in half an hour!” Jessica jumped down the bed, grabbed the towel from the chair

and ran to the door only to find it was locked. “Wha-? Where’s the key!?”

The two little girls laughed even louder. Jessica stomped her way to one of them, to the smaller one named Hana, and

grabbed her shoulders. “Where is it?!”

Hana only laughed while Jessica shook the girl violently, hoping that the key to the door would fall off the girl’s clothes. “I

don’t have it!”

Jessica threw Hana to the bed and tried to grab the other girl. “Ya, Mika! Where’s the key!”

Mika swiftly ducked away, dodging Jessica’s attack before leaping to the bed. “We don’t have it!” she said as she jumped

up and down on the bed.

Jessica was steaming with rage and she raised her fist in anger. “I am not playing! Give me the-.”

The door clicked and a beautiful young girl peeked in from outside of the room. “Mika, Hana. You locked the door from

outside, didn’t you?”

Jessica turned her body around and found her little sister holding the door open. “Krystal!” cried Jessica, “Thank God!

Give those two demons a lesson, please!”

Krystal slid to the side, “I will, Unnie, don’t worry,” she said as she let Jessica dashed out to the bathroom.

Mika and Hana froze on the bed when Krystal gave a deadly glare at them but when they were sure that Jessica had

already gone to the bathroom, they laughed their hearts out.

“Good job, guys!” Krystal gave the two little girls high fives. “Now let’s make breakfast for the late princess.”

“Go!” Mika and Hana jumped down the bed and ran to the kitchen hand in hand, giggling as they did.

**

It was amazing how a girl like Jessica can change her mood so easily. From the panic episode she had after seeing the

clock striking exactly on the number of eight, she lost her every will to go to college. She had already late anyway and

rushing off would be a fruitless effort, so she decided to take her time instead.

There she was – a half an hour later – sitting on the dining table, watching the morning news. There was a very good

smell from the kitchen where her little sister, Krystal, and the two little freeloading menaces, Mika and Hana, were making

breakfast for her. Realizing fully well that she could not even boil an egg properly, Jessica had appointed the three in

charge of cooking.

Krystal set a plate of scramble eggs and bacons in front of Jessica and sat next to her. “You’re really not going to college,

Unnie?”

Jessica shook her head, “What’s the point of running when you’re already late? I’ll catch the next class.”

“Look,” Hana said, pointed her finger to the TV.

“Earlier this morning, a female was found dead in the back of a paper factory just outside Chongamdong. She was

discovered by a security officer on his routine patrol and reported it quickly to the police. The spoke person for the police

force stated that they have not yet identified the body and a thorough investigation will be conducted shortly. He also said

that the police could not yet determine if this case is linked to the other two dead female bodies found earlier this month.

”

Jessica put her fork down and sipped some water. The news had been showing all kinds of grim stories lately and put her

appetite to rest at times. “Seoul is becoming scarier and scarier each night,” she said.

“And, look. The rain is not going to stop soon either,” Krystal commented when the news switched to the weather forecast.

After finishing her breakfast, Jessica packed her books and grabbed her umbrella before walking to the front door. After

opening the door, her face turned gloomy when she saw water was dripping heavily from the sky. She looked back to her

little sister before leaving the apartment. “Please don’t let those two rats vandalize my room, Krystal. I would really like to

go straight to bed when I got home.”

Krystal didn’t say anything. Instead, she bit her lower lip.

“What?” asked Jessica.

Krystal pointed to the door, “There.”

Jessica spun her head around to see a mailman standing behind her. “Oh, my God!” she jolted in surprise.

The mailman was just as surprised, scared even. He was looking at Jessica in a very strange expression; a mix of

confusion and fear. “Who are you talking to, Miss?” he peeked over Jessica’s shoulder to the empty apartment behind

her.

“Um…,” Jessica made an awkward smile, “no one.”

The mailman passed the letter he was holding to Jessica and retreated slowly. “O-kay.... Well, then, good day to you,

Miss,” he said before walking away.

Jessica looked at Krystal behind her and smiled. “I should be careful next time,” she said as she gave the letter to her little

sister. “I’m off.”

“Be careful,” said Krystal.

**

It was a gift and a curse for Jessica. Since she was five years old, Jessica could see things that normal people couldn’t. At

her grandfather funeral, when everyone was crying over the buried casket, Jessica was laughing because the ghost of

her dead grandpa was making weird faces next to his grave the whole time. And when her parents died in a car accident,

she did not shed a single tear because both of them were telling her that they would be with her at all times the next day.

They soon went away though and also most of the ghosts she met. No one ever stuck around long enough for her to

familiarize with. The one that stayed with her for a long period was her dead sister, Krystal. The girl died of asthma when

she was seventeen and her spirit had been living in her apartment ever since. The other would be two little girls that

accidentally lost their way and made Jessica’s apartment their home.

The down side of having such ability was probably the fact that she saw three times as much crowd as normal people

would see. When she goes to a mall or supermarket, she would found the place packed with ghosts flying around here

and there, going through walls and ceilings. Some of them sometimes talk in a very loud voice – screaming even – and

since no one can’t hear them beside Jessica; she was the only one deafened by the voices. At times, Jessica found it

difficult to pick out the living among the dead.

That morning on the bus on her way to her college was one of those inconvenient times for her. The huge vehicle was

almost empty with only five passengers on board and one of them was clearly not human. It was a woman with white dress

and an awfully long hair. She was crying like a kitten at the back seat of the bus.

Jessica ignored the ghost at first but then the crying got louder and louder. The ghost was clearly trying to catch her

attention, knowing that she could hear and see her. The more she tried to ignore the ghost, the louder it cried and finally,

she had enough.

She stood up from her seat and was about to ask the ghost what did it want but someone beat her to it. A shorter girl –

undoubtedly human – stood up from her own seat and tumbled on the moving bus to sit next to the crying ghost.

Could the girl see the ghost too?

Jessica stood next to her seat, half standing with eyes locked on to the back seat. The short girl had a long black hair,

combed neatly and let it dangled down to her shoulders. With a gentle gesture, she put one hand on the crying ghost’s

lap, muting the crying sound off of it.

“What’s wrong?” asked the short girl in a whisper.

“You’re…,” said the ghost between her sobs. “You’re too late.”

The ghost raised her finger and pointed straight to the road ahead. At the corner, another bus came in a full speed. It

derailed out of its lane and headed straight to their direction. The driver tried to work his way out of collision course but

the crash was inevitable. The bus from the other direction hit Jessica’s bus, tearing it in half and pushing her down to the

floor. The impact threw her out of consciousness but before everything went dark, she could see that the short girl was

levitating in mid air, arms wide open and eyes were narrowed by concentration. Then, Jessica succumbed to the

darkness.

**

Jessica woke up inside an ambulance alone. It felt like a dream at first but then the pain proved that everything was real.

There were bruises and scratches wound on her left arm while a bandage was neatly placed on her forehead. She

pushed herself up into a sitting position. Outside the ambulance, a lot of police officers and medical staff were gathering

around in the middle of the road under the heavy rain, right next to two destroyed buses.

The girl stepped down the ambulance and a medical staff in a rain coat hurriedly walked up to her. “Miss,” she said, “you

should be lying down.”

“I’m – I’m fine,” said Jessica. “What happened?”

“A bus was derailed off its course because the road is slippery by the rain and hit your bus, Miss. You hit your head quite

hard. You should lie down a little more.”

“I’m okay,” Jessica said. “I’m just going to sit here.”

Her eyes then scanned the whole area. The bus she was riding was crushed in half by another bus. Jessica could see a

body of the driver pinned between the steering wheel and his ghost standing next to it, looking at his lifeless vessel in

sorrow. Another victim was lying inside a body bag on a rolling bed. It was a girl and the ghost of her crying on top of her

own body. A little further behind her, stood the ghost Jessica saw in the bus, looking at her with tears in her eyes.

“I was too late,” said a voice and Jessica turned her head to the side. Standing just outside her ambulance was the short

girl with black hair. 

The girl turned her head and looked at Jessica. She was devastated, but no tears, only sorrow in her eyes. “She was

trying to warn her little sister but she couldn’t hear her…. I was too late, Jessica.”

Jessica was stunned by how beautiful the girl was. Her eyes were sparkling like pearls and her skin was white, pale white.

“I couldn’t stop the crash in time,” she said.

Jessica did not know what to say. She could only look at the girl in the eye, frozen with no words in mind. Then, the girl

turned around, walked away from the ambulance under the rain.

Wait a minute, Jessica said to herself. How did she know my name?

Then, Jessica raised her hand and shouted, “Taeyeon! Wait!”

The shorter girl stopped and then she looked at Jessica. The latter girl was confused and surprised. “Ho – how did…. How

did you know- how did I know…, your name?”

Taeyeon stared at Jessica for a long time. “Because...,” she paused and then she smiled a little, a sad one, before

turning on her heels and left without any explanation. She blended with the crowd at the side of the street, leaving Jessica

with thousands of questions in her head. Questions with answers that would be so weird even for someone as abnormal

as her.

--