Seina awoke with the feeling that she had been asleep for far too long.
There was no immediate pain, nor was there any sense of her own weight pressing against the ground. Beneath her hands, the water remained shallow and perfectly clear, stretching in every direction until it merged with a horizon that did not exist. Above her, the blue sky retained the same uniform brightness as before, without a sun, clouds, or any visible source of light.
She slowly sat up.
For a few moments, she tried to piece together her last memories.
The empty house. The door where she had expected to find Thalya. The silence that followed when she realized no one was there.
And then, an anguish so intense that her memories had become difficult to distinguish from one another.
Seina raised a hand to her forehead. Her fingers found a tender spot, though there was no wound to be seen.
"You have awakened again," a voice said.
The Arbitrary stood a few steps away, motionless upon the water. Its tall, slender figure cast no shadow. Its porcelain-like skin remained as smooth as ever, without eyes, a mouth, or any feature that might reveal an expression.
Seina lifted her head.
"Where am I?"
"The same place you were before. The difference, perhaps, lies in what you have left to remember."
She remained silent.
She did not recognize this presence, yet there was something about its voice that stirred an unsettling sense of familiarity within her, like a melody whose name she had forgotten.
The Arbitrary tilted its head slightly.
"I presume you no longer remember what happened by that door."
The water before Seina began to move.
It was not a wave. The surface rose like a transparent veil, and within it appeared a quiet street in Mokpo.
The image was as clear as something viewed through a window, even though no window existed.
Seina recognized the house, the gate, and the door she had stood before not long ago.
She saw herself standing there, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on the entrance. She saw the moment she realized Thalya was not home.
Even the figure in the memory seemed to hesitate, as though there were still some possibility that the door might open.
It did not.
The Seina in the memory covered her face with her hands. Then, in a sudden movement, she slammed her forehead against the wooden door.
The image repeated itself.
Once more.
And again.
With every blow, her body seemed to lose a little more of the strength keeping her upright. When blood finally appeared, the Seina watching the scene did not look away.
She simply stood motionless, fingers pressed against her own forehead, as though trying to understand how the person before her could possibly be herself.
The memory dissolved without a sound.
The blue sky once again filled the entire world.
Seina kept her hand against her forehead for several seconds. Her gaze eventually fell to the water, where her reflection revealed nothing but exhausted sorrow.
"Was that... me?"
"Yes."
She gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"I see."
She did not ask why she had done it. The image had already given her an answer that needed no words.
She had searched for Thalya for as long as she could. And when all she found was an empty house, she had no idea what to do with the pain that remained.
The Arbitrary said nothing more.
The presence that had once seemed to occupy the entire space gradually began to lose its shape. It did not vanish all at once. It simply became less distinct, like a figure seen through thickening mist.
Seina raised her eyes, but the entity no longer seemed interested in guiding the conversation.
"Wait," she murmured.
The Arbitrary stopped.
Seina did not know what she wanted to say. Perhaps she wanted to ask why she had been brought back to this place. Or perhaps she simply did not want to be alone again.
Neither possibility made it past her lips.
At last, the figure tilted its head in a gesture that might have been interpreted as a farewell.
"Not every door can be opened by force, Seina. Some require nothing more than the patience to remain before them. Others require the courage to walk away."
There was no reproach in its voice, nor did it offer any easy consolation.
The words were spoken with the serenity of someone who understood time in a way entirely different from the living.
Before Seina could respond, the Arbitrary withdrew.
She was left alone upon the water.
The silence did not last long.
In the distance, where there had been nothing but the blue sky reflected upon the surface, a strip of green appeared.
A field emerged without warning, as though it had always been there, hidden behind an invisible veil. The water did not recede. It continued beyond the grass, beneath a sunless sky.
Farther ahead stood a white house, resting upon the impossible landscape. A small wooden fence surrounded it, and flowers swayed gently in a breeze Seina could not feel against her skin.
Then she heard footsteps.
A little girl appeared on the other side of the fence.
She had light-colored hair, a simple dress, and dirt smudged across her hands. She walked absentmindedly, examining something between her fingers.
When she noticed Seina, she stopped.
She looked at her with the carefree curiosity of a child who had stumbled upon a stranger in a place where she had never expected to find anyone.
"Are you lost, Auntie?"
Seina did not answer immediately.
The girl approached a few steps without showing the slightest hint of fear. Her eyes traveled over Seina's face, then her clothes, and finally the water surrounding the field.
"Did you come from over there?" she asked, pointing vaguely at nothing in particular. "Because there's no path on this side."
Seina studied the girl more closely.
Her face was smaller, rounder. Her features still held the softness of childhood, and her eyes possessed a liveliness Seina knew all too well.
She was not exactly the Thalya Seina had been searching for.
This was a much younger version of her, from years ago, before the worries, the absences, and everything life would eventually place upon her shoulders.
The realization left Seina speechless.
"Auntie?"
The girl tilted her head, waiting for an answer.
"I don't know," Seina finally replied.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
There was no suspicion in the question, only the genuine bewilderment of someone who found the answer rather unsatisfactory.
The girl glanced at the expanse of water again, as though searching for an explanation there. Then, apparently losing interest in the matter, she opened her hand and showed Seina a small yellow flower, its petals slightly crushed.
"Look what I found! It was growing near the fence, but hardly anyone ever sees it because it's hidden."
Seina looked at the flower.
"It's beautiful."
The girl smiled, pleased with the approval, and returned to examining it. She tried to tuck the flower behind her ear, but her small fingers couldn't get the stem to stay in place.
After two failed attempts, she gave up and slipped it into the pocket of her dress, leaving a little patch of yellow sticking out.
"There! Now I won't lose it."
She wandered a few steps into the field before stopping to pluck a long blade of grass. Using it, she poked one of the larger flowers.
When the flower bent and sprang back into place, the girl giggled as though she had discovered the most extraordinary game in the world.
Seina watched her in silence.
At first, the scene had seemed too strange to evoke anything beyond confusion. But now, something about the girl's carefree distractions, the seriousness with which she treated her little discoveries, made Seina's chest tighten in a different way.
It was not quite happiness.
It was the painful reminder that Thalya had once been like this, too. That there had been a time when the world had not yet demanded so much of her.
The girl suddenly turned around.
"Will you come with me?"
Seina raised her eyes.
"Where?"
"Home. My mom is there."
The girl was already approaching, extending her hand with the natural ease of someone who could not imagine why anyone would refuse such a simple invitation.
Seina looked at the small hand before her.
For a brief moment, she thought of all the times she had longed to find Thalya, and how, even when they were finally together, something always seemed to threaten to tear them apart.
The hand before her did not belong to the woman she loved.
And yet, there was a familiarity in it that Seina could not bring herself to turn away from.
She took it.
The girl's fingers closed around hers, and she began leading Seina across the field, chattering about the flowers growing near the fence and a stone that, according to her, looked like a rabbit when viewed from the right angle.
Seina listened without interrupting.
She did not understand every explanation, but she did not need to.
As they passed through the gate, the girl suddenly remembered something and hurried a few steps ahead without letting go of Seina's hand.
Her sudden movement nearly caused her to trip over her own skirt. She managed to regain her balance, glanced back with a proud smile, and continued walking as though nothing had happened.
That was when Seina smiled.
It was a small, involuntary smile that appeared before she could stop it.
It did not erase the sadness from her face, nor did it make the memory of the empty house in Mokpo any less painful.
It simply allowed her, for one brief moment, to look at Thalya without seeing only everything she had lost.
The girl did not notice the significance of that moment. She was far too busy trying to open the front door with one hand while keeping the other firmly intertwined with Seina's.
"Mom!" she called as soon as they stepped inside. "I brought a visitor!"
The house had the familiar appearance of a lived-in home: shoes beside the entrance, a small basket resting on a cabinet, and a towel haphazardly folded over the back of a chair.
Through the window, Seina could see the same sunless sky and, beyond the garden, the water that had no business existing so close to a house.
And yet, the interior felt welcoming, filled with a quiet warmth that did not depend on any particular sound.
A woman emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands with a cloth.
Seina stopped.
She recognized the face before she could remember where she had seen it.
The woman's hair, features, and gaze matched those of the woman in a photograph Seina had seen in another time, in another place.
The resemblance was not vague or imagined.
It was exact enough to make Seina forget, for a moment, that she was still holding the child's hand.
The woman looked at her as well, though her expression showed no surprise. There was a calm, almost maternal attentiveness in her eyes, one that demanded no immediate explanation.
"Well now, sweetheart," she said, looking at the girl. "And who is your new friend?"
"She was lost, so I brought her here."
"That was very kind of you. But you shouldn't go bringing home every person you meet along the way."
"But she was all alone."
The woman looked at Seina again. Whatever reprimand she might have intended to give her daughter lost its force in the face of that simple response.
"In that case, I suppose we'll have to give her a proper welcome."
The girl released Seina's hand and dashed into the kitchen, already interested in something she had left on the table.
The woman waited until her daughter had moved away before turning her attention back to their visitor.
"Please don't take it the wrong way. She has a habit of making decisions before consulting anyone."
Seina took a moment to respond.
"It's all right."
"Still, I'm glad she found you some company." The woman smiled faintly. "It's rare for her to bring anyone home."
There was something almost unbearably natural about the conversation.
Seina did not know how to behave around this woman, nor could she understand why simply looking at her stirred such an indescribable feeling within her.
Part of her wanted to believe that this woman might be able to explain what was happening.
Another part feared that if she asked the wrong question, this fragile tranquility would disappear.
The woman seemed to notice her hesitation.
"You don't have to stand by the door. Please, come in."
Seina obeyed.
The woman led her into the living room, where a modest sofa stood beside a low table.
The girl soon reappeared, carrying a glass of water. She placed it in front of Seina with a solemnity entirely disproportionate to the task.
"You must be thirsty."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Satisfied, the girl sat down on the floor and returned to the flower she had tucked into her pocket.
She was trying to separate its petals without tearing them, concentrating so intently that she failed to notice one had already become caught in the hem of her dress.
The woman watched her daughter.
For a moment, her expression grew so tender that Seina felt her chest tighten once more.
"She tends to grow attached to people she likes rather quickly," the woman remarked. "And once she decides someone is interesting, it's difficult to change her mind."
Seina looked at the child.
"She is like that."
The woman turned back to her, her attention sharpening slightly at the response.
"Do you know her?"
Seina felt her throat tighten.
She could have answered yes, but the truth was far more complicated and, at the same time, impossible to explain.
She knew the girl before her, yet she did not.
She knew how the girl would grow up, what would make her smile, the silences she would learn to hide, and the way her eyes would change when she was on the verge of tears.
She also knew the emptiness her absence would leave behind.
"I know someone very much like her," Seina answered.
The woman did not press the matter.
She sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa and settled the cloth across her lap.
"I imagine you've come from far away. You don't seem to know exactly where you are."
Seina glanced out the window.
The field ended where the water began, and beyond it, the sky stretched endlessly without any sign of an outside world.
The house seemed to rest in a place cut off from everything, preserved from a reality that could no longer reach it.
"I came from the world outside."
The woman followed her gaze toward the window.
For a moment, the serenity of her expression gave way to something distant.
It was neither fear nor surprise.
She looked like someone who had just heard an ancient word spoken by a voice she had believed she would never hear again.
"Outside..." she repeated softly. "I don't exist..."
Seina turned to look at her.
The woman continued gazing at the landscape. The light without a source touched her profile, yet cast no shadow behind her.
"What do you mean?" Seina asked quietly.
The woman took a while to respond. When she finally looked at Seina, the smile she offered was delicate, though it did little to conceal the sadness that had surfaced.
"Some things become difficult to explain when we no longer entirely belong to them."
Seina thought of the photograph, the face she had recognized, and the familiarity she could not explain.
Suddenly, the question forming in her mind seemed far less absurd than it should have.
"Do you know that you're dead?"
The woman lowered her gaze to her hands.
"I do."
She did not attempt to soften the answer, nor did she seem offended by the question.
She simply stated what she knew, with the calmness of someone who had been given plenty of time to accept a truth she could not change.
Seina remained silent.
The woman took a deep breath, a gesture that made her seem even more human, even more real.
There was nothing monstrous about her. No hidden threat lurked beneath her words.
Only a sadness that seemed to have finally found somewhere to rest.
"My name is Alyna Everhart," she said at last.
The name echoed through Seina's mind.
Alyna Everhart.
She had seen that name associated with this woman before, although she could not reconstruct the memory in its entirety.
The photograph surfaced in her mind for a brief moment, but when she tried to grasp it, the image dissolved.
All that remained was the certainty that the name mattered.
"I've seen a photograph of you," Seina said.
Alyna seemed surprised, but she did not ask where.
Her gaze lingered on the young woman's face, as though she were trying to recognize something that lay beneath the surface.
"Then, in some way, I've still left traces of myself behind."
Before Seina could respond, the girl got up from the floor and approached her mother, holding the crumpled yellow flower.
"Mom, can I put it in water?"
"Of course, sweetheart. Just find a glass that isn't being used."
The girl ran into the kitchen.
Alyna watched her until she disappeared down the hallway. Only then did she turn her attention back to Seina.
"You seem to be carrying a great deal of sorrow."
Seina lowered her eyes.
There was little she could say about it.
Any explanation would require her to speak of the empty house, her attempts to find Thalya, and the despair that had driven her to hurt herself.
Even so, she could not find a way to describe her feelings without making them sound small in comparison to what she was experiencing.
"I'm looking for someone," she said.
"Someone you miss."
Seina nodded.
Alyna did not ask for the person's name.
Perhaps she had guessed. Perhaps she simply understood that there were questions one should not ask before someone was ready to answer them.
"And this place?" Seina asked, glancing toward the window again. "Why does this house exist here?"
Alyna remained silent for a few moments.
From the hallway came the faint sounds of the girl rummaging through the kitchen utensils, punctuated by little exclamations of satisfaction.
"Because I wanted to stay," Alyna answered.
Seina looked back at her.
"With her?"
"Exactly."
There was no hesitation in Alyna's reply. She spoke as though nothing in the world could be simpler or truer.
"I knew I wouldn't be able to stay with her forever," she continued. "No mother can promise that. But there are things we desire so deeply that, even when we understand they are impossible, we cannot bring ourselves to abandon them completely."
Seina listened without interrupting.
"I wanted to watch her grow up. I wanted to be there when she discovered what she loved, when she fell in love, when the world disappointed her and she needed someone to tell her that there were still things worth holding on for."
Alyna paused briefly.
"I wanted to see her grow old. I wanted the chance to say goodbye to her the way people usually do, rather than the way I was allowed to."
Her fingers gently tightened around the cloth resting on her lap.
"That future was never granted to me. And yet, I wanted it all the same. And what was born from that desire..." She glanced toward the impossible sky. "It isn't exactly the life I would have lived. It's simply what remains of my wish not to leave."
Seina looked at the water beyond the window.
She was beginning to understand that this place was neither an ordinary refuge nor a dream she could simply wake up from.
There was something profoundly sorrowful about the house, the field, and the woman who continued to exist there because she had been unable to stop longing for a life that had been denied to her.
"You wanted to stay with her," Seina murmured.
"Yes."
Alyna smiled, and this time, a little more warmth returned to her face.
"Although I've discovered that even here, it's impossible to keep her still for more than a few minutes."
As though she had heard herself being mentioned, the girl appeared in the hallway with a glass in her hands.
Inside it, the yellow flower floated sideways, pressed against the rim.
"Look, Mom! It's crooked."
"Perhaps it doesn't like swimming."
"Flowers can't swim."
"Then I suppose we've found the problem."
The girl seemed to consider the answer seriously. Then she carried the cup over to the table and began searching for a spot where she could set it down without risking someone knocking it over.
Seina watched her in silence.
"You look at her as though you're afraid of losing her," Alyna remarked.
Seina's smile slowly faded. She lowered her gaze, lacing her fingers together in her lap.
"I am..." she murmured. Her voice faltered before she could continue. "I made her a promise. I told her I would save her from death."
Alyna adjusted her glasses, studying her for a moment.
"Then I take it you haven't been able to keep that promise yet."
Seina's shoulders slumped as she looked away. She made no attempt to defend herself. The guilt already weighed heavily enough without having to put it into words.
Alyna didn't press her any further.
"It's all right, dear." Her gaze shifted back to her daughter, who was still occupied with the flower. "I'm glad to know that, out there, my daughter has someone who wants to protect her."