Soulmates - The Last Line

The Aftermath

After talking to the police, Hyejin made them drop the charges, telling them her friend had ... issues, and "thought" she was a psychic. She had a "hunch" about what would happen and she felt the moral obligation to stop it. She pleaded "reckless endangerment" and "temporary insanity" and managed to help Yong get away with a fine. The police officers who arrested her weren't happy about it, but at the same time, she did save a lot of people, by destroying public property. Furthermore, they had bigger problems at the moment, so Yong wasn't that important to them in the big scheme of things. They didn't force her to go to the police station either, because she was still quite shaken, sitting at the back of an ambulance. Hwasa went there by herself and took care of everything. After the police cleared their exit, Wheein had to talk to the paramedics, to see if her friend would be allowed to go home. They insisted on Yong accompanying them to the hospital, but she refused. The ER - respiratory disease department didn't sound like a place she wanted to be at the moment. They warned her they'd have to let her go on her own accord. And she gladly signed the documents. The police escorted them to the end of the alley, and they had the chance to look at all the damage that was above ground. The tunnel had collapsed only on a part of the first car underground, but above the surface, there was a big chunk of the street that was missing. Yong didn't even wanna imagine how many people lost their lives that day. She couldn't save them. She just wanted to go home.

An hour later she walked into the apartment in a trance, followed closely by her friends. She left her bag and stood still for a few moments looking at the distance.

The TV was still on.

"Here is all the information we have on the incident of the metro station that collapsed today in the city center. According to the police reports, the victim numbers keep on rising as people are being pulled out of the rubble. The paramedics are doing everything in their power to get all the injured to the nearby hospital. If you know anyone who might have been in the incident the police are keeping a list of all known victims/injured. At the top of the list is the daughter of-

Yongsun clicked the off button and squeezed the remote until her fingers turned white.

" Unnie..."- Hwasa started but there was no answer. "..Yong..." - that seemed to get her friend's attention. "We're not going anywhere. We'll be here if you need anything..."

Yong just nodded and kept staring at nothing in particular. Wheein went to her and gave her a quick hug. That seemed to get her moving again for a few moments. She whispered something about going to her room, then disappeared quietly. Her friends just looked at each other and Hwasa opened her arms inviting the other girl to hug. Wheein quickly wrapped her arms around her girlfriend.

"What do we do..." - she whispered.

"I have no idea. But she's going to need time. Lots of it..."

Yong was lying on her side looking through the window again. Fate. What a stupid word. You're born, because someone has decided that you will be born, and then you will go through a certain path in life, meeting people, and getting experiences, and then you will die...for what? So, can you do it again? It sounded so ridiculous. If you ask her, she didn't even believe in any of this a few weeks ago. It was insane to think a whole month had already passed. She should have let her nightmares be nightmares. She shouldn't have tried to find out more or go to therapy sessions.

The room was so quiet. She realized she had been waking up to her brother's horrible music taste for the past three weeks, and she suddenly missed it. Her eyes got blurry before she knew it. Jaewon. Her weird, funny, brother, who was in love with his best friend. Will he know she's gone? Will he notice the difference, or in his timeline, she will be the same and act the same and he wouldn't know she wasn't really there? Maybe that quantum mortality thing was real, and he'd see her tomorrow and everything will be okay? Would it ever be okay? ... Was that line even real? Or did she really make it up out of despair? It was such a bittersweet feeling to know that she lost him again. She remembered one of the last deep conversations they had had, the week before.