"I-I love you too, Jisoo."

That was the last thing she remembered hearing. Muffled voices and distant cries filled her memory like background static, but she couldn't remember much other than that.

She remembered the stinging pain and uncomfortable sensation, the weight of the handle of the blade embedded in her chest making it difficult to breathe, difficult to move. The draining feeling as blood pumped through arteries and veins into steel, flowing out of her body at an alarming rate, even with the blade still within her.

She felt cold. Mostly due to blood loss and the winter atmosphere. She remembered her head throbbing, as she tried to breathe normally, a wave of anxiety and confusion eventually washed over her as her vision blurred and faded.

"Did I die?"​​​​

It was an odd sensation​, as if she was as free as a bird, able to move anywhere, whenever she wanted, yet also confined at the same time, frozen in space at a point in time that seemed to stretch for an eternity.

She felt herself raise her hands to look at them, and she did see them, yet she did not either. It was the same sensation you experience when you're half asleep, thinking you got up to check your phone, yet you didn't move at all.

Her environment was dark, as if she was at the ocean floor, only wavy glimpses of light filtering through from somewhere so far away it seemed impossible to reach. There were voices. Sounds. She could barely make them out. Muffled. Seemingly infinitely far away yet right by her ear at the same time.

Her own thoughts felt deafeningly silent.

"Is this what it feels like to be dead?"

Time seemed to last forever, like an endless dream in the void.

"I can't die."

And why not? You've suffered so much. You've made your best friend suffer through a lot during the past year as well. There's no reason to be alive. It's time to move on. You need to rest.

"I've rested enough. Besides, I promised Jennie I won't leave her again."

Then live. The decision may be yours to make, but only time will tell whether your decision gets through. I admire your perseverance, even in the face of death in a lonely void. You cling on to your loved one to make it through.

Your parents believed the same way.

They promised they'd be back, didn't they?

But it's not their fault that they broke their promise.

It was their time to go.

"You can't be dead."

Jennie quietly sat beside Jisoo, holding onto her hand. It had been days? Maybe a week?

She's been laying in bed for so long.

Her condition was stable, but she had suffered a collapsed lung due to physical trauma. If it weren't for the blade, she might have died, and thankfully, Sun-jin managed to call for medical assistance in time.

"Hey, I'll be headed home now, don't tire yourself, alright?" Sun-jin said, gently draping his coat over Jennie's shoulders as she nodded, not wanting to look away from Jisoo.

"I won't, Mophead," she replied, sparing him a glance and a smile.

"You might think you're teasing me, but jokes on you, I like that nickname," Sun-jin replied, a mischievous, childish grin on his lips as he left the two of them.

Jennie had spent nearly every waking hour by Jisoo's side, telling her stories about her past year, despite knowing very well she might not be able to hear her. She told her about Yeon-sal, her boyfriend, and not Sun-jin, the serial killer.

She heard from Mophead Sun-jin about Killer Sun-jin's motives, about his drive to kill.

He had no soulmate. Not even a blanked-out wrist, he was white-wristed.

Killer Sun-jin had a crush on Mophead's soulmate before they had gotten together, before the three of them had their tattoos. He believed wholeheartedly that she was his soulmate. So to see her t