Chap 15 : The Messages That Would Not Stop Screaming.
The device—silent and harmless moments before—had suddenly erupted into life like a possessed artifact. The screen lit up, flooding my vision with an alarming number of notifications, each accompanied by a cheerful chime that felt aggressively unnecessary.
Ping. Ping ping ping. Ping ping ping ping ping.
It was not a sound.
It was an attack.
Names I did not recognize flashed across the surface. Words I could not immediately interpret. A cascade of information that made my celestial mind—already under considerable strain from existing in this deeply questionable mortal body—threaten to shut down entirely.
“This,” I said faintly, “is how civilizations collapse.”
“That,” Mina said, leaning over my shoulder like a hovering menace, “is your friends.”
I turned slowly.
“My what?”
“Your friends,” she repeated, as if this clarified anything. “They’ve been texting you for days. Jiyoung and Haejin. You know. Your best friends since middle school.”
“I do not know them.”
“You will,” she said dismissively. “They’re basically your other sisters. They’re annoying, loud, and they love you more than is probably healthy.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is,” she said cheerfully, already tapping on the screen. “See? They’ve been sending you stuff all week. Memes. Voice messages. That one video of the cat falling off the couch that you’ve watched forty times.”
I frowned.
“Why would anyone watch a cat fall off a couch forty times?”
“Because it’s funny.”
“The cat is harmed?”
“No.”
“It suffers?”
“No.”
“It lands safely?”
“Yes.”
I stared at her.
“Then why is it funny if nothing bad happens?”
Mina opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
“…I don’t know how to explain humor to someone with brain damage.”
“I do not have brain damage.”
“You absolutely do.”
“My humor is refined.”
“Your humor is calling people peasants and asking random men in hospitals if they’re the Grim Reaper.”
“That was a reasonable assumption given the circumstances.”
“It was the funniest thing I’ve seen in years.”
We argued about this for approximately twenty more minutes.
At one point, I accused her of having a fundamentally flawed understanding of entertainment.
At another, she accused me of being a walking disaster.
Neither of us was wrong.
Eventually, Mum called from downstairs that dinner was ready.
Mina shoved the device back into my hands like it was my problem again.
“Just read the messages,” she said. “Don’t reply to anything. I do not trust you not to accidentally start a war.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“You tried to declare judgment on a delivery driver yesterday.”
“He was suspicious.”
“He brought noodles.”
“Exactly.”
She left.
I was alone.
With the demon.
I looked down at the glowing screen.
Then—
I read.
[Jiyoung💛]:
Seraaaaa when are you coming back we miss youuuu
[Haejin🍓]:
Jiyoung stop spamming
[Jiyoung💛]:
Haejin ate your yogurt from the fridge I told her you’d be mad but she said you owe her from last time
[Haejin🍓]:
I AM NOT SORRY YOU OWE ME FIRST
[Jiyoung💛]:
We heard you got hurt are you okay??? Mina said you hit your head and are being weird
[Haejin🍓]:
Weirder than usual she said
[Jiyoung💛]:
She said you called your mum a peasant which is honestly the funniest thing I’ve ever heard
[Haejin🍓]:
ICONIC BEHAVIOUR
[Jiyoung💛]:
Sera please reply we are worried
[Jiyoung💛]:
Sera I will come to your house if you don’t reply
[Jiyoung💛]:
Sera I am in the car
[Jiyoung💛]:
Sera I am at your front door
[Haejin🍓]:
don’t go in you’ll get killed by her mum
[Jiyoung💛]:
Sera your mum says you’re sleeping and to leave you alone but I know you’re just ignoring us
[Jiyoung💛]:
Fine be that way I hope you’re happy with your new life
[Haejin🍓]:
ok drama queen
[Haejin🍓]:
also sorry about the yogurt
[Haejin🍓]:
actually no I’m not sorry you owe me from last time
[Jiyoung💛]:
Come back soon okay we miss you
I read each message once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
The words themselves were simple.
Messy. Loud. Chaotic.
Filled with references to yogurt theft, door invasions, and emotional instability.
But something about them—
Something about the way they spoke as if I would be there… as if I had always been there—
Made something in my chest tighten.
These were not formal communications.
There were no titles. No restraint. No careful weighing of words.
No distance.
They assumed closeness.
They assumed presence.
They assumed—
Me.
The human Sera had been loved.
By her parents.
By her sister.
And by these two deeply unhinged individuals who threatened home invasion over yogurt disputes.
I did not know what to do with that information.
Then—
At the bottom of the messages—
There was another one.
No name.
Just a number.
[Unknown Number]:
I heard you got hurt badly. Hope you’re better. I look forward to you giving me an answer.
I stared at it.
An answer.
To what?
I read the message again.
Then again.
The words were simple.
But they were not like the others.
They carried weight.
Expectation.
Waiting.
Someone, somewhere in this world, was holding their breath for a reply.
For something the human Sera had promised.
I did not know what the question was.
I did not know who had asked it.
I did not know what answer she had intended to give.
But the message remained.
Waiting.
Quiet.
Heavy.
Like a stone dropped into still water—
The ripples spreading outward into a life that was no longer hers.
I set the handphone down.
Very carefully.
As one might handle an unstable artifact.
And that night—
I did not sleep.
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