I was breathing harder.

The air I inhaled became colder.

My clothes were soaked in water.

I was so going to be sick.

I ran like crazy after the little girl. No matter how many times I told her to stop or at least to slow down, she kept going faster and faster. Sometimes, I lost sight of her as the heavy rain restrained my vision; or she disappeared completely. I had to concentrate a lot in order to feel her spirit. My head was exploding the moment our surroundings became familiar. Trees normally look all the same – not for me. I could clearly picture the memories she showed me prior to the chase. We were approaching the exact spot the little girl hid from the storm; the same storm I was stuck under. Could the heavens have a gloomier sense of humor than that? If I could get an extra year to my lifespan every time some reaper had done something stupid, I’d be immortal by now. I wondered how much time I did have. With a mental note to later ask Jung Min, I collapsed on the muddy ground as I couldn’t take it anymore.

Talk about being out of shape.

I had stained my clothes, my skin, everything. There was absolutely no corner that I hadn’t filled with dirt. Shaking, I crawled until I reached the girl standing under a tree. I leaned against its trunk and watched as drops washed my face. If the girl was exactly where I was resting, there’s no way she would have gotten out without a serious chill in her bones. Strong winds came back and forth. The branches above me swayed violently to their commands.

The girl looked at me as I worriedly watched her every move. She smiled and extended her hand to me. I took it as a whirlpool of lights pushed us back into her memories. The fragments were cleaner than before and slower paced. All of the girl’s pain, all of her fear – she had none. The only thing she kept calling after was her mother, as she tightened the doll to her chest. One of its ribbons flew away.

Her voice made me tear-up. Really, I was about to cry my lungs out. How could somebody be that cruel? Where was her mother anyway? Images fast-forwarded; the girl collapsed from fatigue. There was nobody else in the park. She slept to her death, slowly being forgotten.

Things became fuzzier around that time. I could see linear colors picking her up. I could hear mixed voices and white halls.

Hospital! That’s it, we were in a hospital. And those were doctors; a loud heartbeat. It pulsated with such force – she wanted to live; she had to live. Then, for a second, I wasn’t sure anymore. Had the girl really separated from her body because of death? Or was she stuck in comatose?

My head really, really, really hurt; like the veins crossing my brain were about to burst.

I closed my eyes and pressed my hands on my ears. All of the energy I had from the other days vanished in a second due to the girl’s strong presence.

 I silently screamed – nothingness, emptiness, loneliness.

It has been a while since I experience such strong emotions flowing through my system in an attempt to crash it and take control over my own spirit.

The girl wanted to live so badly, she almost did.

I opened my eyes; the same storm, same park, under the same tree with the bare branches. I pulled my knees to my chest.

“Where’s your mother?” I asked as the girl wouldn’t take her light blue eyes away from my face. It was becoming difficult to ignore her. She bended forward and whispered.

I froze.

There, on the path, a woman, loosely dressed and with a black umbrella in her hand, approached me. She had strong make-up on – bloody lipstick, dark blue eye shadow and prominent cheek bones. Her black hair freely fell off her shoulders. I figured she wasn’t a ghost or a demon the moment she lowered the umbrella and the rain contoured her body as well. Water went through ghosts and demons – they were, after all, not meant to be in this world and were not influenced by its laws.

“Are you alright?” she asked in a soft-spoken tone.

I knew her. I couldn’t stop the ideas seeded in my head – she was bad, very bad. She hit her child, I knew it. She abused her. She pushed her away, she threw her out of the house while she had men as her personal guests. She told her not to come back until she said so.

I glared at the woman as I shakily stood up from the ground.

I was angry.

I was extremely angry.

“You...”

“Sorry?”

She didn’t understand. Of course she didn’t. Even after her daughter died, she carried on like nothing happened.

“You don’t deserve to be a mother!” I snapped with rage. “What kind of person are you?! She died because of you, ONLY BECAUSE OF YOU!”

“I don’t... understand.” She took a few steps back.

“Do you know what children want the most?! Do you?! Their parents' love! That’s what they want! You let her rot like a dog!” I snorted “What dog? Even dogs die better.”

“I’m sorry lady, but I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she yelled and held onto her umbrella. I was certain she would flee or attack me. Either way, I couldn’t stop.

“I’m talking about the girl you were supposed to take care of!”

“Stop.” Jung Min’s voice tensed my muscles until I could no longer move. “Control yourself, breathe.”

“What girl!” the woman said as her voice cracked “What are you talking about! What mother, what daughter, what child? I don’t have children, you crazy woman! I was trying to see if you were alright since it’s pouring and you seemed like you needed help!”

“But...” I was so sure of it. I was so...

It’s only then that I saw the ghostly girl again. Her blond hair tied with ribbons, her pink dress and her symmetrical body. That’s when, I realized, the girl in front of me, hadn’t been human.

Jung Min grabbed my shoulder. Only I knew he was there.

That freaking stench.

“Calm down,” he told me as the girl smiled “she’s just a doll.”

And the woman in front of me was the girl from the memories, the girl in the rain.

“Hey...” I spoke as a numb feeling crept through me “Did you have a doll when you were little? With ponytails, red ribbons... pink dress?”

The woman probably thought I was crazy. Well, she did call me crazy. I could see on her the same expression Daesung gave me.

Where was that kid?

“Yeah...” she answered after hesitating “But I lost it after...” she stopped and looked away “Never mind, do you need help or not?”

“No,” I slowly turned around “but I do need something.” My back faced her by now. I couldn’t let anyone see my forming tears. I had been such a fool. “Stop living in the past,” I inhaled “and stop blaming your mother for dumping you that fateful evening.”

Jung Min disappeared as fast as he had appeared.

I couldn’t see the woman’s reaction, nor could I see if the doll moved on or continued to be tied to her former owner.

Huh, memory fragments stuck inside a toy. Who knew?

Nevertheless, it was time to go home.

---

I left a wet trail behind me as I finally reached my floor.

“Grandmaaaa!!!” Daesung was standing by the entrance door, just as soaked and dirty as me. His hair looked like a mini-tornado ravished its surface. He had dried tears on his cheeks. I saw them as he got up from the floor and embraced me.

I forgot all about it. Daesung didn't have my apartment's keys.

I kept silent as he rambled on and on about how mean those shopkeepers were, about how hungry he was, about how he had to hide where he could until he fully dressed back and how he waited and waited, fearing something happened to me. And all I could utter was “Want some hot chocolate?”

---

After I met Jung Min, things went smoother between me and Mistress Yuri. Jung Min visited me and only me once every thirty days. I was almost nine years old when that happened. For eight springs, Mistress Yuri taught me everything about being a priestess.

Apparently, there were several categories of them. There were black, white and red priests. Mistress Yuri explained to me that our powers, that to see spirits, came after we were chosen by said spirits. Only a few special spirits could do that. So, not every ghost can just stroll through a human one day and “poof!”, now they are special as us.

Black priestesses were the lower category. They are young people that suffered a lot through their life – so much, that one of those higher classified ghosts gave them the ability to feel used. They gave them another chance at life. But they were also weaker since they couldn’t talk with the spirits at all. They also can only see a faint image of what they look like. So, a black priest is just a human with stronger empathy towards nature, I guess. Mistress Yuri didn’t seem very fond of them.

White priestesses were the complete opposite – they could see and feel everything. Their spiritual power far surpassed any other human and was sometimes stronger than a reaper.  My Mistress assured me those were very rare and she only heard rumors about them. Even demons feared them. It truly brought a shiver down my spine.

The middle ground, a red priestess like me and Mistress Yuri, can both see and hear the spirits, perceive their true form if we concentrate enough and our abilities are part of us, kind of like a second heart. With a lot of training, we could become better and better. That’s when I realized why Mistress Yuri insisted on my education. I had to gain experience in order to fully be able to appreciate what I had been gifted.

It made me wonder, again, what kind of spirit that boy was, for me to become his offspring.

We traveled a lot. I had seen so many different places, it’s impossible for me to detail everything. Let’s just say I know how both hot sand and freezing snow feel like. I had seen both oceans and vast green lands, the high and lows, the weird and plain.

The world I was born into came to me as beautiful, breathtaking, spectacular and most of all, worth living and exploring. And no matter where I went, Jung Min always came exactly after thirty days, at exactly the same hour and with the same grin. Each time he had another story, about another reaper or another secret he could only share with me. And each time I had to cover my nose because he smelled awful. We joked about that a lot.

Everything was perfect.

That’s why I couldn’t understand why Mistress Yuri suddenly told me to pack as we were returning to my hometown.

I was seventeen back then.

It took us two years.

On that day, when I stepped inside the place that welcomed me to this world, my dreams crashed.

I was nineteen and an orphan.

My mother died.