Trigger warnings: Suicidal ideation 

 

“Your mother?” Moonbyul had to cover so it came out as more of a whisper than the shout she wanted it to be.

 

“I’d know her voice anywhere.” Hwasa turned to Moonbyul. “We need to find María.” 

 

“You go to her and I’ll watch her,” she gestured toward the girls’ mother. “Make sure they don’t cross paths.” 

 

Hwasa nodded and ran back out the doors. One of the few perks of being a ghost was going through any obstacle in her way, including people. When she ran through people, she heard snippets of their thoughts. She’d never told María, but over the years, while María was asleep, Hwasa sometimes put her head near her sister’s so they were slightly overlapping. That way, she could dream with María. 

 

She passed through patients, ignoring their thoughts this time, until she reached her sister, who was headed back from dropping Wheein off at the gate. She nearly ran right into her. 

 

“What’s the rush?” María asked. 

 

“Oh, nothing!” Hwasa said a bit too brightly. “I just wanted to catch up with you. Is Wheein-ya coming back soon?” 

 

María stared at Hwasa for a minute. They could always tell when the other was lying. Or they always had been able to. Hwasa had been able to lie more and more since her death without María noticing. It was a blessing––it protected María––but it also made her feel so lonely. 

 

“You’re lying,” María said, and the place where Hwasa’s heart once beat jumped the same way it did when she was alive. “What’s going on?” 

 

“Nothing, really!” Hwasa insisted. “When is Wheein coming back?” 

 

María glared at her sister, but let it drop for now. 

 

“Soon. She keeps talking about when I get out of here.” 

 

They began to walk toward the hospital again. Hwasa nervously looked around for any sign of their mother. 

 

“She doesn’t get it,” María said. 

 

“No, María-ya, you don’t get it. You’re fine. You shouldn’t be here. You didn’t harm a hair on my head.” 

 

María just kept walking. Hwasa sighed and tried to get a few steps ahead of her to keep an outlook. 

 

When they made it back to María and Moonbyul’s room, she was so relieved. 

 

Moonbyul looked agitated, but tried to smooth her face out when she saw María. 

 

María looked back and forth between Moonbyul and Hwasa, suspicion in her eyes. 

 

“What’s going on with you two?” She asked. 

 

“Going on?” Moonbyul asked at the same time Hwasa said “Nothing.” 

 

“Suspicious,” María mumbled. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to care.” 

 

But before María could get in bed, a nurse appeared in their doorway and beckoned them down the hallway for group. 

 

“Ugh,” María said under her breath. 

 

Moonbyul and Hwasa exchanged a nervous glance over María’s head. Moonbyul really hoped that the girls’ mother was too new a transfer to be at group. It had taken her a while to get there, afterall. Certainly they had nothing to worry about; certainly she’d need adjustment time, and they could warn María, prepare her for––

 

They entered the room and there she was. 

 

María wasn’t looking up as she went to her usual chair, which was positioned directly across from her mother’s. Moonbyul felt both like she was going to throw up and like she wanted to punch someone. Hwasa definitely just wanted to punch someone, specifically her mother. 

 

That’s when Hwasa sensed it––death. Her mother had nearly died. How, she didn’t know. But she felt it. She quickly crouched behind María’s chair. 

 

“What are you doing?” Moonbyul whispered. 

 

Hwasa held a finger to her lips. Now wasn’t the time for their mother to see her. Not yet. 

 

Group started, and María was oblivious to their mother. Hwasa began to wonder if she’d erased the woman from her memory.

 

But then Dr. Kim asked their mother to speak. 

 

“I’ve been in many hospitals,” she began. Her voice was shakier than it had been when Hwasa last saw her. “My husband… he always moves me around as he pleases.”

 

María’s head snapped up at the sound of their mother’s voice. She gripped the edges of her chair and couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped . 

 

Dr. Kim looked at her, worry clear in her eyes.

 

“What are you doing here?” María’s voice was trembling. “Are you real? Are you a ghost too?” 

 

María jumped from her chair and ran toward her mother, but stopped short of touching her. 

 

“My María-ya…” Her mother said, tears in her eyes. “Oh, María-ya. I’m so sorry,” she reached for her daughter’s face, but María flinched away. 

 

“You’re not real!” She shouted. 

 

Dr. Kim gently moved María back toward her chair. 

 

“She’s real, María-shi. I didn’t know…” Her voice trailed off as she looked between the two of them. Before she could announce the group was ending early today, María’s mother began to wail. 

 

“I should never have let him do it, María-ya,” she said between her cries. “I lost both my daughters…” She reached toward María again, and this time María broke free of Dr. Kim’s grasp and ran toward her mother. 

 

She knocked her from her chair and had her pinned to the ground, but she didn’t know what to do from there. She never thought she’d see her mother again. She hated the part of her that wanted to bury her face in her mother’s hair and cry. She hated the part of her that wanted to be comforted by her mother. 

 

A nurse pulled María off of her mother. Dr. Kim was starting to help the woman up when she screamed. 

 

“What is it?” Dr. Kim asked. “Does something hurt?” 

 

“My daughter!” She pointed at María. 

 

“Yes…” Dr. Kim said slowly. “We can talk more soon. We need to leave now. She is your daughter, yes.” 

 

“No! Hwasa-ya! HWSA-YA!” She screamed. 

 

Hwasa had stepped out from behind the chair and was standing behind her sister. 

 

“Oma, how could you?” She walked closer and closer to her mother, towering over her as her mother quivered in fear. “Your daughter has been here for three years, in pain, thinking she committed a horrible crime, while he’s run free this entire time. Have you no shame?”

 

“Stop!” Their mother screamed. “You’re dead!” 

 

Dr. Kim and the nurses were lost in confusion, only María and Moonbyul aware of what was going on, but too shocked that Hwasa was visible to her mother to do a single thing. 

 

“And me… I’ve been dead for three years. Here with María, trying to keep her from joining me. She wants to die too, Oma.” She leaned over, her face a few centimeters from her mother’s. “Could you live with watching both your daughters die?” 

 

“STOP! STOP!” Their mother screamed. 

 

She tried to cover her face, but the nurses were now picking her up and trying to get her back in her wheelchair so they could rush her off somewhere, probably somewhere to sedate her, Hwasa thought.  

 

Hwasa laughed as their mother was wheeled from the room. She was so caught up in the pure pleasure of torturing their mother, that she hadn’t noticed María. 

 

Moonbyul had María in her arms. She was crying on her shoulder, and suddenly all Hwasa felt was guilt. Instead of doing that to their mother, she should have been helping María. She was hurting María instead of helping her. She’d been selfish. 

 

Without thinking, she went to hug her sister, but fell right through her, but not before she caught some of her thoughts. 

 

It’d be better if I was with Hwasa––really with Hwasa.

 

“Moonbyul!” Hwasa said, panic overtaking every part of her. “She’s thinking of––”

 

Before Hwasa could warn Moonbyul, they were all being herded out of the group room. The nurses were pointing the patients in various directions, and wanted to take María somewhere private, but she refused to let go of Moonyul’s arm. 

 

“I can stay with her,” Moonbyul tried saying to the nurses. 

 

“Dr. Kim thinks we should let her rest,” the nurse said. 

 

“Will someone stay with her? Please!” Hwasa yelled. She’d never been more frustrated to have everyone ignoring her––even her sister. Marís was too far gone to hear Hwasa, and Moonbyul was too busy arguing with the nurses. 

 

“The sirens,” María said. “The sirens, the sirens, the sirens.” She looked up at Moonbyul with tears swimming in her eyes. “Unnie, the sirens won’t stop.” 

 

Moonbyul suddenly jumped away from María, looking at her as if the other girl had just spit in her face. She ran off down the hall, leaving María crumbling to the floor, caught at the last moment by a nurse. 

 

“Unnie!” María called after Moonbyul. “Unnie, no, please!” She covered her ears. “They’re coming, the sirens!” 

 

Hwasa watched helplessly as the nurses gently guided her sister down the hall. She floated beside her as they tried to lay her in a bed in the infirmary. She refused to go down, instead bringing her knees under her chin, rocking back and forth, crying. 

 

Hwasa wanted to go find Moonbyul, to ask what in the world possessed her to leave María at such a critical moment, but she couldn’t leave María––especially not after making her this way. 

 

“Dr. Kim will be here in a moment,” one of the nurses said. 

 

“María-ya,” Hwasa said. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” 

 

But María was too lost to the sirens to hear her.