Maxi nodded weakly. "Good. If we’re dying... at least we’re together." She squeezed Moona’s hand faintly.
"And if there’s a next life... I want to be your sister again."
Moona’s voice trembled as tears rolled down her cheeks.
" too. But... just one wish. If we have a next life, I hope we have parents. I hope we aren’t abandoned again like we were."
Maxi felt tears welling up as well. Although they were twins, born just minutes apart, she had always acted like the older sister, shielding Moona whenever she could.
But in the end, she couldn’t protect herself from everything.
They braced themselves for the burning agony of transformation. It started slowly, then grew into a raging fire beneath their skin. They waited... and waited...
But nothing happened.
Confused, they opened their eyes and stared at their hands.... intact, human, unchanging.
Before they could process it, they looked at each other... And scread at the sa ti.
Their screams echoed so loudly that nearby zombies turned toward them. But after a brief glance, the zombies looked away again, as though dismissing them, as if they were uninteresting trash.
Moona stared in confusion. "Why are you screaming?!"
"Why are you screaming?!" Maxi shot back.
Moona pointed a trembling finger at Maxi’s face. "Your face... it’s completely black! Like you were burned. It’s... It’s disfigured!"
Maxi’s breath caught, and she shakily touched her face. Then she turned to Moona and whispered, horrified, "Moona... your face too. It’s all disfigured."
................
Silas gently supported the unconscious Ivy, who was clutching her head tightly, her lips muttering broken fragnts about how unbearably it ached.
He explained with a tense voice that, for so unknown reason, Ivy was suffering from a severe headache.
Hearing those words, Alana’s brows knitted together, and without hesitation she raised her hands, letting a soft glow of healing energy envelop Ivy in the hope that she could ease at least a fragnt of her pain.
Ivy, however, remained completely unresponsive, her body limp against Silas’s arm.
Inside her mind, she felt as though a heavy barrier was pressing down, preventing her from rembering sothing vital from her past life.
’Why does it feel like sothing is blocking my mories? I always believed I understood everything clearly... but was it all wrong? Was my past life different from what I thought?’
The unsettling thought clawed deeper.
’Am I even rembering correctly... or has soone altered my mories?’
A question she had never dared to ask began circling relentlessly in her mind.
’Why was I even reborn? Why was I given this kind of power?’
No matter how hard she tried to piece the answers together, everything dissolved into fog, as if soone was deliberately strangling the truth out of reach.
The longer she thought, the more her frustration and anxiety tightened around her.
Suddenly, a warm wave of energy flooded into her mind.
In the next mont, she felt the tight knot of tension begin to loosen, as if invisible hands were soothing away every jagged mory that wasn’t peaceful or beautiful.
Ivy took a sharp breath.
’Forget them. Do not rember until the ti cos,’ an unfamiliar whisper echoed inside her consciousness.
Ivy panicked, wanting to resist and argue, ’No, wait...those mories are important, I need to...’ but before the thought completed, the haunting fragnts dissolved into emptiness.
The next second, Ivy’s eyes snapped open and she gasped shakily for air, her heart pounding.
anwhile, both Silas and Alana stared at her with worried eyes.
Sensing their anxiety, Ivy blinked in confusion and asked gently,
"What... what happened to ?" Alana exhaled slowly and explained that she had suddenly fallen unconscious, and from what Silas said, she seed to be suffering from a severe headache.
Hearing that, Ivy frowned, pressing her fingertips against her temples, trying to massage away the lingering ache.
"Why did I even have that pain in the first place?" she murmured.
Silas hesitated, then asked carefully, "Ivy... do you rember the question I asked this morning?" Ivy paused, her brows tightening before she shook her head.
"I rember waking up... but after that, everything is blank. I can’t recall anything at all."
At her words, Silas pressed his lips together, his expression tightening. Ivy glanced at him again, trying to read his eyes.
"Did you ask sothing important?" she asked softly.
Silas imdiately shook his head, forcing a small smile.
"It was nothing serious. We were just planning sothing. I said we were going to go on a date today. That’s all. I was asking whether you have sothing to wear or if I should arrange a dress for you."
Hearing that, Ivy blinked in mild confusion before shaking her head.
"There’s no need. I’ll manage." Seeing her calm return, Silas didn’t press further.
His priority was not the question he had asked earlier but the safety of his wife.
For him, Ivy mattered more than any unanswered mystery, more than any curiosity clawing at his mind. There was nothing... absolutely nothing... that would make him risk her life.
Ivy sighed quietly, leaning her weight against Silas as he carefully lifted her into his arms.
"Let’s go ho," he murmured gently. "We should get ready."
Ivy nodded absentmindedly, still confused but trusting him completely.
At the sa ti, Alana watched the couple with a complicated expression shadowing her face.
When she had been healing Ivy, she had sensed sothing terribly strange buried within her... an unfamiliar energy that felt as though it was trying to consu her life force, even if for only a fleeting mont.
The fear had frozen her breath, but she hadn’t dared to reveal the truth to Ivy, choosing instead to speak privately with Silas later.
She could already see that Ivy had been sacrificing far too much, relentlessly supporting the base and protecting everyone, burning herself out piece by piece.
Taking a steady breath, Alana turned her attention toward another patient. A tall middle-aged man lay on the stretcher, his face pale and terrifyingly still.
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