“People always say to look on the path ahead, to the future, for their greatest accomplishments would be lying just before them; that their one achieving moment remains dormant on a path that they’re about to step on, one that would concede with definition. But if the path ahead was so chased and sought after, and if that was even true, why do so many people spend so much time looking behind them?”

“So how are we going to do this, Yuri?”

“Without tears, Jessica. I want this to be a happy end. I want to remember the two of you just as you are, just as we are together. This is a happy thing. Can we do that?”

Tiffany nodded first, then slowly… Jessica did.

“I promise.”

“Thank you, girls. I greatly appreciate that.”

“So what’s our plan for tonight? It’s your last night in Yume. You are leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” Tiffany asked.

“Yeah,” Yuri confirmed, “At ten in the morning, my transport will arrive. I can’t believe I spent two days just clearing up my stuff. It’s already Wednesday night before I even realize.”

“Then, tonight,” Jessica announced, “Tonight we shall celebrate. The place is your choice, Yuri. It’s up to you.”

“Right. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I would want to go to Uncle Jim’s.”

“Uncle Jim’s?” Jessica uttered, “That small shack? At the corner of the T-junction by the road?”

“Yeah…?”

“Why? Don’t you wanna have something fancier?”

“Nah, Jessica. Fancy food can be found almost everywhere around the world. I want something… memorable; something special to this place, something that could never be found anywhere else in the world, and the only thing that popped into my mind is Uncle Jim’s. The three of us had quite a bit of memories in that place, don’t we?”

“Okay, let’s do it,” Tiffany agreed, “Gimme a sec, just let me take a quick shower. The summer heat’s getting to me.”

Tiffany jogged up the stairs, and a few moments later, the door shut. The sound of shower being could be heard.

“Jessica?”

“Yeah. What’s the matter?”

“Are you still thinking that I’m going to be butchered and sent across the world in canned meat, labelled as spam?” Yuri narrowed her eyes mischievously.

Jessica smirked at her ridiculous-sounding statement.

“Nah, Yuri. Like you said, if it is too crazy for you to believe, it’s not possible to be true.”

Yuri smiled with a satisfied look. She leaned back on the couch and sighed.

“I’m going to miss this place. This crazy place, with this crazy weather and its crazy life. But hey, it’s my kind of crazy. And I’m sure as hell going to miss you two too.”

“You better keep in touch, girl.”

“Of course! You can count on it, no matter how busy I am!”

Jessica kept quiet, letting the silence settle in.

“Are you going to be okay without me, Jessica?”

“No,” Jessica shook her head exaggeratingly, “I’m going to go insane. I’m going to be lost. Oh dear, what is going to happen to me?!”

 Yuri took a pillow from the sofa and threw it at Jessica, hooting her head off.

“But seriously, Jessica, you’re getting much better now, aren’t you?” Yuri expressed her concern, “At least I don’t see you having blackouts for the past few days.”

“I suppose so.”

“Should I be worried about you?”

“No, Yuri. Leave the worrying part behind. I’ll be fine. Nothing’s gonna happen to me.”

“Okay, good. We’ll get through the tough times. The three of us always have.”

“That’s right, and there’s no reason to stop now.”

Yuri smiled and nodded. She pushed her long hair behind and tied it up.

“How are you feeling, Yuri?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. When I’m leaving, I get all nostalgic about… everything.”

“Nostalgic?”

“Yeah. I mean, like... we never chatted in the living room before. We didn’t even sit on this sofa for months. I… I don’t know,” Yuri shrugged, “I suppose it’s a phase for me too.”

“Yeah, usually we just barge into each other’s rooms, and you, you just slam your way in without knocking.”

Yuri laughed.

“But, it’s not like you’re doing a death sentence, Yuri.”

“No, you don’t understand, Jessica, it’s like… I have this… icy feeling jolting in my heart. This place had become my life for the past few years. Now I don’t know when is the next time I’m going to see it again.”

“I thought you hated this place. You always complained about everything, right up to the size of the tiles on the walls.”

“You see, that’s the baffling beauty of it all, isn’t it? I’m going to miss… hating the things I hate.”

“You’ll do just fine, wherever you’re going to go. I know it.”

“Thanks, Jessica. It means a lot.”

Jessica flashed an understanding smile.

“Must feel nice, doesn’t it, Yuri? Your life is about to change.”

“For the better? Or worse? Gosh, I wish I knew. Now I can’t tell whether it’s better to know your future at your fingertips, or to leave it shrouded in mystery,” Yuri sighed and closed her eyes, “I have craved for change all these years, and when I get what I wished for, I’m afraid.”

“People are funny. That’s what makes us human. We don’t know what we want.”

“You know, Jessica, my mother used to say that everyone, every single soul, is made of multiple pieces, like a puzzle,” Yuri’s eyes wondered in reminiscence, “Those pieces join together to form a picture: us. So when we move on to discover a new piece, most of the time, we have to leave an old piece behind, no matter how important. It’s mathematics.”

“Well, I would try to bring those pieces along with me.”

“Ah, of course, that’s just my mother’s perspective,” Yuri shrugged, “Everyone has their own philosophy. I think that was why my father did not get along with her any longer. She was cold and calculative; and he was impulsive and emotional. Like fire and ice, the two of them.”

“So what does that make you?”

“Someone that should never have existed in the first place.”

Footsteps approached down the stairs and Tiffany appeared, tucking in her shirt. Her hair was let down, and she looked beautiful, not overdone, but just natural.

“Shall we?” she said.

“Alright,” Jessica got to her feet and stretched her arms, yawning.

“You didn’t sleep well, Jessica?”

“No, I did, Yuri. I did. Just a little sleepy, that’s all.”

“Okay. Uh… we better get moving,” Yuri stated after looking at her watch, “It’s already nine. Everywhere gets very lonely at night. I gotta do some final packing as well.”

“Right. Tiffany, where did you put the house keys?”

“In the kitchen cupboard. The third drawer.”

“Why are the keys in the kitchen?”

“It’s the only place downstairs that has a cupboard with a secret compartment.”

“Secret compartment? What for?”

“In case, you know, somebody manages to break in again or something. The spare keys to our rooms are in the same bunch too.”

Jessica nodded and walked towards the back of the house. She passed the dining room and entered the pitch-black kitchen. She fumbled for the switch on the wall.

“It should be somewhere here…” Jessica murmured, her fingers feeling for the switch.

She ran her fingers along the square-tiled wall and touched something freezing cold. Her head twitched curiously as her fingers d that unknown item in the dark. The slender object was protruding out of the wall, as if it had smashed its way through from the other side. What was that? Her fingers ran along that object to make out its shape and size, in hopes of helping her to identify that curious entity.

Her fingers tapped the cold object, when it suddenly grabbed her with what seemingly felt like cold fingers, wrapping itself tightly on her hand.

Jessica yelped out loud and started struggling at the creepy, slimy object locking her hand in place.

“The hell?! LET ME GO! LET! ME! GO!”

Jessica used her other hand to quickly find the switch, and when she finally found it, she flipped it. The fluorescent light on the kitchen ceiling immediately flickered and .

There was nothing.

No protruding ghost hands.

No hole in the wall.

Her supposedly caught hand was dangling in the air.

“Jessica?” Yuri called from the living room, “What’s taking so long? You alright?”

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” Jessica shouted, rubbing her hand. She looked under the light and there were marks on her skin; marks of someone’s fingers around her wrist.

She shrugged it off as her own imagination. After all, they were already late. She walked to the end of the kitchen, towards the cupboard and ope