Chapter 9:When the Dead Speak
524 Words
The cafeteria was loud.
Not noisy—
alive.
The kind of alive that only exists when a scandal has teeth.
Eun Rin sat in the center of it all, chewing slowly, posture perfect, eyes distant. Around her, whispers slithered across tables. Phones hovered. Names were chosen. Sides were taken.
She did not look at any of them.
Behind her—
Jihan stood too close, like warmth he didn’t know how to withdraw.
Rael stood closer, like danger that refused to step back.
Two boys.
Two shadows.
One silence they both obeyed.
Someone laughed nervously.
Someone whispered, “She’s scary pretty.”
Someone else whispered, “I want to be her.”
Eun Rin thought that was funny.
Not enough to smile.
---
Narrator (Eun Rin):
> They think being wanted is a blessing.
They think jealousy means you’ve won.
---
Jihan leaned forward slightly.
“Eat slower,” he murmured. “Your hands are shaking.”
They weren’t.
Rael noticed too.
His jaw tightened—not in worry, but in possession.
Eun Rin stabbed another piece of food and lifted her eyes just enough to silence them both.
“I’m fine.”
Three words.
A command.
They stepped back.
The gossip queens tried to breathe again.
---
Then—
The cafeteria doors burst open.
A junior from the nurse’s office ran in, breathless, face pale, voice breaking as it echoed across the room.
“She—she woke up.”
Silence fell like a dropped glass.
The girl swallowed hard.
“Yena… Yena’s awake.”
Murmurs exploded.
“She’s talking—” “They said she remembered—” “She kept asking for someone—”
The girl looked straight at Eun Rin.
“And she said a name.”
The room held its breath.
---
“She said—
‘Mi Rae.’”
---
The sound hit harder than a slap.
Jihan froze.
Rael’s smile disappeared.
Every head turned.
Eun Rin’s fork paused mid-air.
For the first time, something flickered behind her eyes.
Not fear.
Recognition.
---
Narrator (Eun Rin):
> My biology teacher once said that when people enter a coma,
they’re like the dead.
I suppose the dead remember.
And sometimes—
they talk.
Eun Rin placed her fork down neatly.
Slowly.
Carefully.
As if nothing in the world had changed.
But beneath the golden desk, beneath the perfect calm—
Something ancient stirred.
And it was smiling.
Every eye turned to me.
The good boy’s name for me.
The one I buried.
The one I erased.
“Mi Rae.”
The sound of it hit the room like glass shattering.
Jihan stiffened.
Rael’s jaw tightened.
I finished chewing.
Slowly.
Then I stood.
Because when the dead say your name—
It means the past has decided to wake up too.
........
> I guess God gets bored sometimes.
So He plays with my luck.
Fate keeps pulling tricks,
dragging the past back to the surface
just when I think it’s drowned.
My biology teacher once saidpeople in comas are like the dead.
I guess she was wrong.
The dead can wake up.
And they remember everything.
........ Dorkylunastories 💜...
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