A vast expanse of white, a completely white area—even whiter than white itself. An endless white. A white that enveloped everything: to the right, left, below, above, in front, behind—surrounding every inch of the surroundings.

  Kaelis was in an area completely surrounded by white. Was he in the middle, at the end, or at the beginning? It wasn't clear, because he couldn't see the end of this white.

  Kaelis had never seen a dream like this in his life, nor had he heard of one when his friends described their own dreams. Usually, when he dreamed, they were meaningless, ordinary dreams about doing household chores—dreams without any significance. This environment felt utterly foreign to him.

  The surroundings were slightly misty. The white appeared very clear, but when he tried to look at his hand, it wasn't sharp at all. Could he be among the clouds, perhaps?

  “Where the heck is this place?”

  After saying this, Kaelis simply began to think. He tried to figure out what it could be, connecting it to his previous dreams, but it made no sense. He thought about his friends' dreams, but since they were young, they were usually inappropriate ones.

  As Kaelis drowned in these thoughts, he felt a small, delicate, and soft hand on his shoulder. Kaelis was scared—what the hell was happening in this fucking unknown place?

  He slowly began to turn his head in that direction. He was afraid to make sudden movements because the dream felt so real.

  He turned and turned, and that thing or person slowly started to enter his field of vision.

  It was the body of a little girl wearing a spotlessly clean white dress. She was standing upright just like that.

  Kaelis lifted his head to look at the girl's face. It was a moment he most wanted to see but also most hoped wasn't what he imagined.

  She was a fair-skinned, beautiful-faced little girl. Her long hair cascaded gracefully from her shoulders. These silver hairs seemed to carry the soft glow of moonlight. Her eyes were deep and clear like the calm surface of a sea, in a blue color.

  As soon as Kaelis saw this face, the veins on his face seemed to retract, and his color drained away. With a tense and shocked expression on his face, words began to emerge from his mouth slowly but very hard to understand.

  “Bet-Bethany!?”

  Kaelis had said the girl's name as Bethany. The girl must have heard it, because she slowly turned her head toward Kaelis without disturbing her posture. She began to look at Kaelis's face with her piercing eyes.

  “Yes, big brother?”

  She spoke in a polite and soft voice. The word "big brother" she used confirmed her identity. That girl was Bethany.

  Her appearance was just like that day. His 11-year-old sister Bethany's hand was still on her big brother's shoulder. Her big brother was still looking at her pitifully.

  Kaelis continued to stare at Bethany's face without breaking his attention, but the girl had stopped looking at him and was now facing forward.

  Bethany raised her other hand into the air, straightened it completely, and then began pointing at a spot with her index finger. Kaelis stopped looking at Bethany and started gazing at the point her hand was indicating.

  That spot was still white, but amid the light mists there, it seemed like something was there. What could it be? The mists there had begun to slowly dissipate. The things there seemed to be moving away from that spot.

  The things there were people. There were three different people, their heights around 165 centimeters. From this, it could be inferred that the people there were probably 14-15-year-old girls, currently third-year high school students.

  They seemed to be talking about something and having fun. Who knows what kind of jokes they were making to each other to make their faces light up with smiles.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The girl in the middle looked very energetic. The ones beside her seemed more like they were listening to her and laughing. The other two girls were still too deep in the mist and moving away, making them quite hard to see.

  However, the girl in the middle had started to appear quite clearly. She wore a white dress just like his sister beside him, with very long, well-groomed, and quite majestic-looking silver-colored hair.

  Kaelis, without even understanding what was right beside him, now had to try to make sense of what was in front of him.

  Nothing made sense. What is happening right now? Was this a punishment for breaking the loop? Or was he finally surrendering his dead soul?

  Kaelis stopped thinking and called out to the group of girls in front of him.

  “Bethany!!”

  This boy who is right beside his sister, shouted like this while looking at the group ahead. It was clear he wasn't addressing his sister next to him.

  The girl in the middle of the group ahead paused for a moment. She stayed frozen in place, as if the name just called belonged to her.

  She slowly turned around. Her hair swaying in the wind looked like thin strands swinging freely. There was no mist where she was; she appeared fully and completely.

  The girl's blue eyes hit Kaelis like waves. With a slightly surprised expression, the girl who responded quickly composed herself. Smiles radiated from her face.

  Raising her right hand into the air, the girl waved goodbye to him with a smile. She waved her hand and lowered it, then turned back and began walking toward her group of friends, who were a bit ahead but now almost invisible.

  Kaelis's eyes had welled up; he was on the verge of crying but couldn't yet. He voiced the screaming voice inside him in a tone that only he and his sister Bethany beside him could hear.

  “Bethany, please don't go…”

  However, these words must not have reached that girl, because she continued walking toward her friends and caught up with them. They started talking and laughing again. Then the mists returned, and the image where they were slowly began to fade, until finally, they completely disappeared.

  “Bethany, why... Why did you leave me alone again?”

  Kaelis was looking down with his head and questioning himself.

  A wet and equally cold touch met Kaelis's face. This was the hand that had lifted from his shoulder and was now touching his face.

  Kaelis slowly wanted to raise his head and look at his sister beside him. He slowly raised his head, and raised it. Finally, a loud male scream echoed in the boundless white place.

  His sister Bethany's clean dress was painted red in places, but it was painted. However, this wasn't paint; it was blood. There were bloodstains on the poor girl's face, and that was the reason for the wetness on her hand.

  There were bloodstains everywhere—on her hair, her face, any point on her body—and her clothes were quite dirty. If there was an adjective to describe her, it would probably be Bethany who died that day. She looked just like her, but this time she was standing.

  “Big brother, I didn't leave you; I'm here.”

  Kaelis didn't know what to say in response to this. Or rather, right now, he didn't know what to do there. With nothing left to do, Kaelis simply began to cry.

  The standing girl suddenly toppled onto Kaelis. Kaelis caught his sister Bethany as if in mid-air and held her in his arms. Her eyes had closed, and she seemed to have fallen asleep.

  Just like that day, Kaelis's tears were slowly cleaning the bloodstains on Bethany. Kaelis seemed to have swallowed his tongue, but he preferred not to remain silent any longer.

  “Bethany? Bethany? Bethany???”

  The pain and torment he was experiencing could be heard in every level of his voice. While saying all this, he was trying to bring the girl in his arms back to herself.

  Bethany had slowly begun to disappear. The mist was enveloping her too. His sister was vanishing from between his hands, and he could do nothing about it.

  “No, no, no, no! I won't allow you to take my sister from me like that day!”

  Kaelis said these words in a loud voice, but it was in vain; his little sister had slowly been pulled into the mists and disappeared.

  Kaelis was left all alone in that completely white place. Then he shouted with a powerful voice.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

  He shouted so powerfully that he had passed out from himself.

  ***

  Kaelis was slowly opening his eyes. Moonlight from this dark night first entered through the gaps in his eyes. Then he fully opened his eyes and sat up.

  He tried to think about what he had just experienced. But there was no answer he could take or give.

  His eyes were wet—very wet; he had probably cried in his sleep too. His clothes were stuck to his skin with the help of sweat. He was drenched in sweat.

  He reached for the phone beside him and looked at the time. With his sweaty hands, he picked up the phone and pressed the power button. It was 1 AM, and his mother and father had called three times each.

  Suddenly, what he had just experienced came to mind. A completely white place, Bethany, and another girl who looked like Bethany—what had happened? Where was that place? He couldn't think. His head was hurting terribly.

  He threw the phone in his hand onto the grass. Then, just to get away from there, he started running. He ran and ran. Since the park gate was closed, he jumped over it and exited back onto the street he had used to come here after school.

  His mind, thinking of nothing, his body drenched in sweat; he was just standing there on the empty street because it was night.

  He had sweated so much and cried so much that his body had lost a high amount of water. Plus, he had run a long distance to get here last. He was thirsty, but he didn't have his bag with him, so he decided to buy from the nearest market.

  Throughout the walk, he began talking to himself in that silent street.

  “That place... It wasn't the corridor of memories. It was something entirely different.”

  Kaelis had just started questioning what that place was. The only valid explanation right now was that it was a nightmare.

  “Breaking out of the loop and doing different things? Does that sound fun? What do I think I'm doing with a life that's not mine?”

  After saying these words, Kaelis fell silent, but as if he had forgotten to say something, he spoke again.

  “I am a sinner.”

  His speech ended like that. While this time, he had walked some distance. On the other side of the road, there was a market casting light around in this dark night.

  Kaelis decided to head there to buy water. He checked the surroundings; there were no cars coming or going. Since there was no crosswalk, he would cross from the middle of the road to the other side.

  He was walking slowly in the middle of the road. At that moment, a black car with its lights fully on appeared from the left side of the road.

  Kaelis noticed the car, and there was still time for him to escape, but he hadn't made a move yet.

  “Even if it's in hell—”

  The car had just started pressing the brakes to slow down. It seemed Kaelis had been hard to notice because of his black clothes. The horn sounds began blaring at full volume from the car.

  Kaelis was still standing in the middle of the road. He still had time, but he didn't look like he was going to do anything.

  “I prefer to live a life that's mine!”

  With these final words, Kaelis revealed the action in his mind. He closed his eyes. His ears were still hearing that horn sound at full blast.

  All those horn sounds suddenly stopped.

  Everything was over...