Yim's heart was racing faster than her bike.
All she prayed for....all she begged for....
was that nothing bad would happen to Talotkan.She has to be safe… she has to be alright.
The rushing wind whipped her tears away,...as if it were consoling her, as if it were telling her.... hold on just a little longer. At last, the hospital loomed before her.
Inside, in one cold, dimly lit room....
Talotkan lay on the bed.
An oxygen mask pressed against her face. Outside the door, Grandma sat with folded hands, her lips trembling with silent prayers,
pleading with the heavens.
But Talotkan…
Talotkan already knew. She knew what today would bring.
On the other side,
the doctors' faces grew darker as they studied the reports.
Her heart..... swollen. Left bundle block.
Her heart was functioning only between 15 and 20 percent. Her liver.... enlarged,
making it nearly impossible for her body to digest anything at all. And before the next set of reports could even arrive,
a nurse came rushing in, panic in her voice.
"The patient is getting critical!
We need to move her to the ICU immediately!"
At that very moment
the door burst open. Yim stumbled inside.
And her eyes fell on Talotkan....lying there, frail, motionless, like a patient already lost between life and death. Her soul shattered.
Her knees almost gave way.
And yet… Talotkan, upon seeing Yim,
tried to rise. She pushed herself.... but her body betrayed her. She collapsed onto the floor.
"No!!" Yim screamed,
rushing forward, catching her, tears blinding her vision. Her cries tore through the room...
as if her very heart refused to accept reality.
And then it happened.
The one thing no one expected. Talotkan, struggling, her lips trembling, tried to speak.
Yim leaned closer,....desperate to hear....
But before the words could form,
before the breath could carry them...
Talotkan exhaled her final breath.
Her body went limp. Her head hung lifeless.
Her eyes froze wide open...And yet… tears still streamed from them.
Yim's world ended in that instant. She died, alive. At first, she shook her, begged her, pleaded with her....
"Wake up, please…
please, say something… anything!"
But Talotkan's body remained the same. Motionless.....Lifeless.....And when the truth finally struck her,.....when the weight of it crushed her chest,.....her cries burst forth like madness.
"No… No, Talotkan!
How… how could this happen?!
Talotkan…!!"
Her screams echoed through the hospital halls,.....raw, broken, unbearable...Her sobs ripped the silence apart. ...She tried again and again to lift Talotkan,....to bring her back.But the dead never return.
At the doorway, Grandma had been watching all along. Her frail body trembled,
and she too collapsed in grief...She had endured everything in life....poverty, humiliation, even being cast out of her own home.
But nothing… nothing compared to this blow.
Today, her world ended as well....For it wasn't only Talotkan who died.
Yim… and Grandma…
they too had died inside, their souls shattered, their hearts forever broken.....The doctors rushed in,....pulling Yim away from the lifeless body....But she screamed,..her throat raw,her tears unending.
Every memory burned her like poison.
And within her ears,
Talotkan's words echoed again and again....
"Yim… do you know… death can be so beautiful."
"I will leave, because my fate has always been to disappear forever.
It's not me… it's my name that says so.
'Talotkan'..... it means 'to be lost.'
So Yim… whenever you miss me,
just look up, smile…...and I promise, from somewhere,..I'll come to see you again."
"Yim… Do you know…..in my entire life, other than Grandma,....there was no one else.
She was my whole world....But since the day I met you…...it feels as if....."
Her words ended there....Forever incomplete.