Flowers and Broken Hearts

Nightmare

Kim Chin An, 25, Present day

The sudden twists of the hallways, the turns, the signs, were all familiar. Chin's feet found themselves walking down corridors without the need to ask for directions, without the need to look back; it was an old routine, pushed at the back of her mind. After all, she had spent six years in and out of here. She practically lived there. And yet, five years had passed since she'd last come in and nothing changed one bit.

The blinding lights above her were familiar too. Even the white and sterile atmosphere.

Familiar.

They were all too familiar.

Click, clack. Click clack. Went her heels as they scampered towards where Jinhee stayed. Her heels were a contrast to those white shoes she passed. Click, clack. Click, clack. She was running. There was no time to waste.

I'm at home. Jinhee had said. I am fucking home.

The sentence triggered a memory before she could stop it, and it brought tears to her eyes. She brushed the them away, but they continued to cascade.

"Will you ever miss this place?" Chin had asked Jinhee. "I mean, you'd been here since you were like two or something."

Jinhee zipped the bag. "Three. I've been here since I was three," she corrected. "I guess I'll miss this place. It has been kind of my home in some ways. You know, like a second home."

"Yeah, but you said you hated it."

"The way they experimented on me. That's what I hate. But the doctors? Those nurses? Never. It'll always be my home once. All they did was cure me using their bests, and they succeeded. I may hate the way that treated me, but hey, it all paid off, didn't it?"