It was another normal Thursday night. Bora was relaxing in the living room of her small but cozy one room apartment. She decided to take a break from all the studying she did for her finals that were coming up. She was lounging around on the couch, a bag of chips open and sitting on the small coffee table in front of her, and the remote control in her hand. She reached out for a chip as she flipped through the channels. Movies, variety shows, and documentaries all flashed by. Her lips jutted out in a pout, feeling upset that there wasn't anything good playing on the television.

Right when she jumped to the news channel, a handsome announcer dressed in a sharp suit stared seriously at the camera and said, "This just in, another victim has fallen into the hands of "The White Lily". Just earlier this afternoon, police officers found the body of Song Hyojin, a 35 year old woman who was part of the board of directors at Samsung, by the banks of the Han River. By her body was a bloodied lily, the mark of The White Lily. The White Lily is a group that has been wanted by the National Intelligence Service for years for a series of murders. Nothing more is known about them except that they target those that are wealthy and even those who have influence in business and politics. Police are still investigating the crime scene and warn everyone to stay indoors after dark. If traveling, sta—"

Bora let out a sigh as she turned the TV off, bored out of her mind. She laid down on the couch and muttered, "Ugh, why is there nothing good on TV?"

Just then, she heard the doorbell ring and she quickly sat up.

"Who is it?" She hollered from the couch.

Seeing how there was no response from the other side of the door, Bora got up from the couch and made her way to the entrance. She opened up the door and shivered at the cold December air that lingered in the hallway. She looked around and then finally looked down to see a bouquet of white lilies at her doorstep.

"What the...?"

The girl bent down and grabbed the bouquet, the white wrapping paper crinkling in her grasp. She looked around the hallway once more before slipping back into her apartment.

Bora plopped down on her couch and held the flowers up, scrutinizing them from every angle. She brought them up to her nose and took in a deep breath, taking in the subtle scent of the lilies. She noticed a white card with gold accents around the borders off to the side and she plucked it from the bouquet. She opened it and read the words that were scrawled in a neat black ink.

'Roses are red
Violets are blue
There are 12 liles in this bouquet
Just like the amount of days left before your life is due'

The girl blinked and she scanned the words again. "Roses are red, violets are blue, there are 12 lilies in this bouquet just like the amount of days left before your life is due," she read aloud.

She suddenly burst out laughing and threw the lilies onto the coffee table, the flowers falling on top of the bag of chips. "Wow, this is such a great prank. It's not even my birthday yet either! Man, I gotta call Hyeyoung to tell her I got the flowers."

Bora grabbed her phone and dialed her friend's number, constantly giggling as she waited for the girl to pick up.

"Hello?" came Hyeyoung's confused voice from the other line.

"I got the flowers you sent. Very funny, Hyeyoung. The message was really clever too," Bora chuckled as she looked at the lilies.

"Flowers? I didn't send you flowers. And what message?"

The girl stopped laughing and she frowned. "What? I thought you sent me a bouquet of lilies as an early birthday prank. There's a card that reads 'roses are red, violets are blue, there are 12 lilies in this bouquet just like the amount of days left before your life is due'. If it wasn't you, then was it Joohee?"

"If Joohee sent you flowers, I would've known. Honestly Bora, I don't know who sent you the flowers. Maybe it really was a prank from someone else. Was there a signature on the card or anything?" Hyeyoung asked, concern laced in her voice.

Bora looked at the card, flipping it from front to back and back to front to see if anyone signed it. "Nothing," she sighed.

"Well, just think of it as a delivery gone wrong. Maybe there were meant for someone else; hence the weird message."

The girl pressed her lips together into a line and Hyeyoung said, "Don't think so hard about it. The delivery boy probably messed it up. If you'll excuse me I have to keep studying. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, see you tomorrow..."

Her friends hung up and Bora stared at the bouquet intensely. She leaned closer to it, her elbows resting on her knees and her chin on the heel of her palms.

"Who could have sent these flowers to me?" She voiced to herself.

As she stared at the lilies and thought about the message, she found her mind going back to the news broadcast about The White Lily. She shook the thought from her mind and snorted. "Are you stupid, Bora? Why would The White Lily want anything to do with you? You're just a broke college student."

Despite reassuring herself, she couldn't help but think about the notorious group that went around killing rich people. A shiver ran down her spine just at the thought of being one of their targets.

Bora slapped her cheeks lightly several times and shook her head. "There's no way The White Lily is after you. Everything is just a coincidence."

She grabbed the bouquet and card and, on her way to her bedroom, threw them out in the garbage. She dusted her hands and slid into her room where she would create a cocoon with her warm blankets and slip into a deep sleep.

Bora was intensely reviewing her organic chemistry notes in the library of her university when she heard the chair next to her scrape loudly against the linoleum floor. She looked up and saw Hyeyoung sheepishly settling down, cheeks pink from embarrassment.

"Sorry," she whispered loudly.

Bora smiled and shook her head. "It's okay. What are you doing here? Didn't you have a final today?"

"I finished early and decided to drop by to see how you were doing. Coffee?"

Hyeyoung held up a white cup with a familiar green logo on it. The girl grinned and she took the cup from her friend. She took a sip of the lukewarm coffee and let out a sigh. "Ah, that hit the spot. Do you mind if I finish it? I'm gonna need the caffeine to get through the rest of my orgo notes."

"Go ahead," Hyeyoung chuckled. She then leaned closer and asked carefully, "Did you figure out who sent you the flowers? What did you do with them?"

Bora thought back to the bouquet of lilies that were hanging out in her garbage can and she shrugged. "I threw them out. I would've put them in a vase or whatever but then it would just remind me of that creepy message I got. Plus, I don't exactly have a green thumb so it'll probably die soon with or without my care."

"What was the message again?" Hyeyoung asked.

Bora set the cup of coffee on the table and recited, "Roses are red, violets are blue, there are 12 lilies in thise bouquet just like the amount of days left before your life is due. It's probably just a sick joke."

"That's true but..."

"But?"

"But what if someone really is out to get you? Didn't you say that they were lilies? What if it's...The White Lily?" Hyeyoung said in a hushed voice, eyes wide with fear.

Bora stared at the girl for a moment before bursting into laughter. There were harsh shushes and glares directed at their table and she immediately quieted down. She cleared and then said, "As if The White Lily would be after me. I don't meet the criteria that their past victims did. Rich, powerful, a politician or businessman. I'm just a brokeass college student who's praying to pass her finals. If anything it might just be some random creep."

Hyeyoung looked her skeptically and Bora rolled her eyes. "It's nothing serious. If anything does happen, I'll let you know. Now shoo, I need to study."

"If you say so."

Hyeyoung got up from her seat and wished Bora good luck before leaving.

"Finally I can study again," the girl sighed. As she read over her notes, her mind kept wandering off to the bouquet of lilies in her garbage can and The White Lily. She tried to shake it out of her head and went back to reading about properties of organic compounds. However, there was this feeling in the back of her head that gnawed at her and made her want to go back home to check things out.

She let out a groan and begrudgingly packed her things. "Stupid flowers," she muttered under her breath as she zipped her jacket up and grabbed her bag.

The moment she arrived on her floor, she noticed a familiar object laying on the floor in front of her apartment's door. She carefully approached it and bent down to take a look at it. It was another lily and this time, it had a little note tied around the stem.

'Let the countdown begin. Remember this: you can't hide from us. We have eyes everywhere.'

Bora's eyes widened at the message and she threw the flower back to the floor as if it burned her hand.

"What the hell is going on?" She asked herself.

She looked around the hallway, making sure no one was behind her or in front of her, and she quickly grabbed the flower as she slipped inside her apartment.

After kicking her boots off and dumping her bag on the couch, she made a beeline for the garbage can in the kitchen and dug out the bouquet of flowers she threw out last night. She made her way back to the living room and she placed the bouquet on the coffee table, setting it right next to the lily she had just gotten. She sat on the couch and she gathered her hands together as she stared at them, eyebrows furrowed together in great concentration.

"Lilies. Creepy messages. Death. What do these all mean?" She said to herself.

The girl grabbed the card from the bouquet and read it aloud. Then she grabbed the card from the new flower and read it aloud. "Someone's after me but who? Why would anyone want to be after me? I don't have anything they want," she reasoned, head tilted to the side and the corners of her lips curled downwards.

Out of curiosity, Bora dug her phone out from the pocket of her jacket and looked up the meaning behind lilies.

"As the flowers most often associated with funerals, lilies symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death," she read aloud.

Her phone fell out of her grasp as she finished reading the sentence, too shocked to have a proper grip around it. It fell to the floor with a dull thud but the girl could care less. She had finally figured out the meaning behind the flora that have mysteriously showed up in front of her door and her mind was swirling with thoughts.

"I can't believe someone actually wants me dead," Bora said, a blank look on her face.

The first card came to mind and she grabbed it from the tabletop. She skimmed the message and then gasped. "Do I actually only have 12 days left to live?"

Finally snapping out of her daze, she picked her phone up from the floor and opened up the calendar app. She counted the amount of days left until her death and her face fell. "December 24th is when I die. I can't believe I'm going to die on my birthday."

Instead of wallowing around about her impending death, she grabbed the flowers from the table and decided to deal with the problem straight on.

A bored police officer looked up from his desk and lazily blinked. "How can I help you?" He drawled.

Bora placed the flowers on top of his desk, catching him offguard, and she pointed to them. "Someone's out to get me. Just read the messages on the cards!"

The officer stared at the lilies, some of them a bit beat up from having been in the garbage can. He looked up at the girl and said, "These are very nice flowers."

She rolled her eyes and personally dug out the cards for the man. She them in front of his face and looked at him straight in the eye. "Read. Them."

He let out a sigh and took the cards. He muttered the words under his breath as he read them. He then looked up at her with a cocked eyebrow. "What's the big deal about them? Aren't they just a friendly prank?"

"That's what I thought but after getting this one today," she pointed to the second card, "I don't think it's a prank. I think it's from The White Lily."

The officer stared at her before laughing loudly, his hand clutching his stomach as his whole body shook. Bora stared at him in disbelief and yelled, "It's not funny! It's The White Lily, I swear!"

"Oh man, that's a good one," the officer said, wiping the tears from laughing too hard from his eyes. He leaned on the desk and gave her a look. "Look, there's no way that The White Lily is after you. There's nothing about you that screams 'I'm going to be the next victim of The White Lily'. The flowers are just a prank from one of your friends or whatever. Now run along missy, I have a lot of work to do."

Bora huffed and angrily grabbed the flowers from his desk. "If anything happens to me, just know that this is on your head," she shouted, finger pointed at him as she walked out of the station.

As the girl stomped down the street and back to her apartment building, there was a deep scowl imbedded on her face.

"That police officer laughed at me as if I was a joke!" She grumbled.

She stopped in her tracks and looked down at the flowers in her hands. She had to admit they were really beautiful. She rubbed a petal between her fingers and muttered, "What a shame these are the flower of death."

Bora looked around and noticed a garbage can just a few feet away. She walked over and held the flowers above the basket. She looked at them one last time and then dropped them in.

"It's a prank, Bora. Just a stupid prank. The White Lily isn't out to get you. Besides, there's nothing you have that they want," she reassured herself as she straightened her back. She nodded to herself and continued her walk back to her apartment.

Unbeknownst to the girl, a man entirely dressed in black came out from the shadows and approached the garbage can. He looked down at the discarded flowers and picked up one of the lilies that were snapped in half from the impact. His lips slowly curled into a smirk and he dropped the flower back into the garbage can.

"11 days left, Yong Bora," he said, eyes fixated on the girl's figure as she walked down the street.

Surprise! Here's the first chapter to The Flower of Death 2.0! I have to say I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. Well, not that happy because there could've been better ways of describing things but as long as it gets the message across, I'm happy with it.

It's pretty obvious I changed Bora's reaction but I also changed the date of her birthday because I wanted the first part of the story to take place during finals week. I don't know about you guys but my finals week is going to be from December 14-19 so I just went by that timeline.

I really hope you guys enjoyed reading this! Let me know what you think of the changes. Do you like it? Do you prefer the original version? Let me hear your opinions because they will greatly affect the story.

I will also apologize beforehand because I'm not sure when I'll update again. You've all heard the 'I'm going to college blah blah blah' thing from me a thousand times already so I'll spare you of it this time. I'll try to update when I have time but until then!