I am stuck inside hollow walls that can’t be broken, stuck inside a living corpse that isn’t actually living. Stuck between heaven and hell, love and loss.

I am stuck and that’s all I’ll ever be.  

I looked over at Wheein, the cigarette still dancing between her lips, her eyes pink and filled with tears that wouldn’t come out. She stared at the road, disappearing behind a trail of smoke. The darker the night got the less I felt, the number I got. I was back at being fully dead and even though a part of me tried to convince me that Moonbyul had just given up, looking at Wheein I knew that that wasn’t the case. The lost girl I had met three years ago had reappeared, numb and emotionless, barely breathing the air around her, the sound of her heart so weak I couldn’t hear it vibrating inside the car, making it seem like we were two dead ghosts running an imaginary car through the darkness.

My jaw clenched and as impossible as it seemed I could feel something tickling my back, making my wings hurt and turning the edge of each feather as sharp as a knife. Uncontrollably my right hand got wrapped around her neck, my thumb pressing hard on her pulse point, making her choke for air. I felt my neck burn, the feeling of almost being alive wrapping up around me.

I pushed her angrily against the window and I felt my spine hurt, a whimper making its way into my throat which I luckily caught and didn’t let to slip out. Wheein didn’t fight, though. The tighter my grip got the calmer her body was. I could feel how heavy her breaths were, how impossible it was for her to keep breathing. She smiled gently towards me, and coughed for air.

“C’mon Wheein,” I said through gritted teeth, feathers getting even sharper, surrounding her seat and her small frame. “Show me you’re alive.”

She took one heavy breath and coughed again. My neck started hurting and I could feel my rotted lungs burning. I released her from my grip and she fell on the seat, the cigarette still wrapped up around her slim tender fingers. She kept coughing, looking at me in pain, her eyes holding a strange emotion I couldn't understand.

“We should find a place for you to rest,” I mumbled as I checked the time in the bright numbers of the radio. 2:37 AM. She looked at her phone for a while, scrolling through the map.

“There’s a motel not far from here.” She said in a small whisper, touching which i assumed was still burning and unwrapping a lollypop.

“Why’d you say you fell in love with me?” I asked, irritation growing in my voice again as I felt a strong pain between my shoulder blades and my wings.

“Because I did, Yongsun,” she said while putting her hat back on, my name rolling off of her lips naturally, making me miss the scared girl I had met when I was still a human. “Why did you save me?” she asked, her puppy red eyes locking with my empty ones.

“I wasn’t one to obey my dad and his ways of doing things,” I mumbled lazily, my fingers looking for another cigarette. She sighed and looked at her hands, the lollypop moving around . I had promised myself that I wouldn’t ever tell Wheein the true reason why I saved her. I wouldn’t mention anything about the way the younger girl had made me feel when I saw