Inside the room, Lamai and Suda had stepped out to bring some food for Wee.
But when they returned, they found her already awake.
Lamai rushed to her side,
her hands first checking Wee's forehead, then her face,
before pulling her into a tight embrace.
Every movement of hers screamed of worry....
a desperate, protective fear....
for Wee was not just her friend,
she was the sister she had chosen for herself.
Suda, too, came closer, asking gently about her condition.
The two of them sat beside her, unwilling to leave her alone even for a moment.
And then....
suddenly.....
the air inside the room grew heavier.
Outside, a violent crack of thunder tore through the sky,
and rain began to lash against the windows,
its pounding echo filling the silence that had already grown unnervingly deep.
Lamai's voice trembled slightly as she looked at Wee.
"Wee… what happened earlier… can you tell us something about it?"
Her eyes darted toward Suda,
as though silently asking if he, too, had understood anything.
But before he could speak, Lamai asked again, her voice more urgent now.
"Wee… do you want to say something?
Do you… remember the name you spoke a while ago?
That name...'Yim'?"
The moment Lamai spoke it aloud,
Wee's eyes widened.
Her expression shifted, betraying something she herself couldn't put into words.
It was as if the name struck a chord deep inside her soul...
a recognition born of memory,
yet a memory that should not exist.
Outside, the rain grew even heavier,
each drop pelting against the glass like a storming heartbeat.
And then.....
Wee broke her silence.
"I don't know…
But it feels as though I have known this name for a very long time.
And yet… I have never once heard it before."
The questions, the doubts, the suspicions.....
everything that had been brewing inside Lamai and Suda's minds,
now only deepened.
Their faces tightened like withering flowers,
dry, crumpled,
as though their very belief in reality had been shaken.
Because what they had just witnessed a short while ago…
was something no ordinary person could ever bring themselves to believe.