T/W - death, abandonment.

Atychiphobia (n.) - fear of failure, fear of not being good enough.

Wouldn't it be better that her daughter gets to live happily with no memory of her? This is what Soo Hyun thinks before choosing the option. Would she still be a selfish bitch or somehow, she will have the self-realization that she wasn't good enough? What can a dead mother do anyway?

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"What the hell...." Soo Hyun wakes up with a menacing headache. She tries to open her eyes only to find the sun directly shining on her. She covers her face from any more damage.

"Ugh..." she groans before standing up. Her salmon pink plaid skirt seems to have wrinkles on it and her white shirt wasn't white anymore. She looks at her heels and they weren't in a walkable condition. Looking around, she finally found her 400-dollar bag.

"Thank god!" she exclaimed as she opens it to find everything intact.

But slowly she was starting to remember.

Where was she?

She turns her back and sees the building. 'Medihelp Hospital'.

Why was she here?

She tries to remember how she fell on the pavement of this hospital. She looks for her phone but no signal. She looks around and sees a few people. It was in the middle of the day. She approaches a person.

"Excuse me, sir. Could you lend me your phone? I seem to have no signal on mine." She asks sweetly. But to her surprise, the man straight out ignores her. Not only this, but he also goes ahead without even glancing at her.

A young man just ignored a beautiful woman's request! She scoffs and curses him under her breath.

She looks around and sees another person. But before approaching him, an old man on a hideous scooter stops in front of her.

"They can't see you. Come sit. I'll take you where you want to go." The old man speaks in such a nonchalant way which kind of annoys Soo Hyun.

"Oh, so if they can't see me, how come you can?" she tries to move past him but her feet seem to not move from the place. She tries her best and then looks at the old man grinning.

"What did you do?" she tries to sound scary but all that came out was a weak voice.

"I did nothing child." He says in a calm voice, "You just can't cross the hospital's line. Now will you come or will you make me wait here for eternity?"

She looks around her. There were people, but if what this old man is saying is true, she wouldn't be able to get out of here. She thinks for a bit and then it clicks.

"What was I doing here?" she was finally asking the right questions.

"You will know once you come with me." He pats on the seat behind him.

Well, the scooter doesn't look hideous anymore. She was still contemplating but at least she would know something. She sits behind him and could feel the old man was grinning.

"Are you ready, my child?"

"I...am not sure...." But before she could finish the sentence, the scooter takes a U-turn back in the hospital.

"Wait, you can't drive inside a hospital!" Soo Hyun screams but none of the people in the hospital seemed to be fazed by it.

"Honey, they can't see us. And this isn't a normal ride." He is now accelerating up the stairs and that was the moment when Soo Hyun understood, she was somewhere else. Suddenly, some memories come back.

"Do you remember why you came here?" the old man asks. Soo Hyun couldn't help but give out a sob as an answer.

He stops the scooter in front of a ward. Soo Hyun looks up to see the familiar surroundings.

"You can meet her if you want. She won't be able to see you of course." The old man urges her to get down. She does, with her trembling legs, move ahead with precaution.

She tries to hold the door handle but couldn't touch it. Her hand went right through it.

"Oh right!" the old-man shuts his brows in realization. He focuses his energy on the door and it opens with a slight creak. Enough space for Soo Hyun to get in.

She gets in to see the doctor and nurse standing over the patient. Her 15-year-old daughter.

"It will be difficult at this stage. We somehow stabilized her breathing but it won't take long until her heart stops beating." The doctor looks at the patient with sympathy.

"Have you informed the guardian?" the doctor turns to the nurse.

"Yes, doctor. She was devastated to find out about her daughter. But she hasn't given us an answer that should we pull the plug or no. We couldn't contact her any later."

"Keep trying until the next morning. Otherwise, we have to switch off the ventilator." He looks at the nurse and goes out of the room.

"Wait! No! You can't pull the plug!" Soo Hyun screams in front of the doctor and tries to hold his arm but in vain. The nurse departs the room too, and Soo Hyun makes another feeble attempt to hold onto her, but nothing happened. She stands there for eternity until she hears a knock.

"Are you ready to go child?" the old man asks.

"Am I dead?" Soo Hyun asks in return.

"Yes, child. But you have something more important to do." He puts a hand on her shoulder.

"What can be more important than this? At least I get to stay with my baby in her last moments." She sniffs.

"It is. The one who is responsible for your death."

Her eyes widen. It is true! After hearing about this news, she comes out of the hospital to get some fresh air. But then something happened and she died.

"I can't remember how I died!" she clutches her head as that throbbing pain returns. Just then, her daughter whimpers and she looks back at how much pain she was in.

"But that isn't important." She sits beside her daughter. All her life, she couldn't do anything for her. She was a teenage mother, greedy for money, and left her daughter to grow up on her own. One day she gets a call from the hospital asking her to come and look at her. And Soo Hyun had been coming here for the past week. She can't describe how sorry and guilty she feels.

"It is important, my child. He may help you out of this curse." He has to use his powers on her because it was getting late.

"I am sorry, child. But he will leave as soon as the dawn breaks so...." He lifts her in the air and makes her follow him.

"Wait! WAIT! I don't want to go!" she whines but then it suddenly clicks.

"You know the person who killed me?" she asks in bewilderment as the old man starts the engine.

"I know everything that goes on in and out of this hospital. Perks of being me."

"What are you exactly?" she has been asking that in her mind for a long time but finally blurts it out.

"Just a messenger." He slows down a bit.

"When you come to hospitals, you understand everyone around you is in some kind of pain. Some may be similar to what you are feeling now or totally different, but still in pain. But we fail to understand pain makes you human. Pain is necessary to get the taste of the sweeter things in life. It helps you to brood, it helps you to...." but the old man was stopped by Soo Hyun.

"Uncle wait.... that man..." she gets off of the scooter and runs towards him. He was a tall man in a smart suit. He was walking funny though. She taps his shoulder and was shocked that she could touch him.

He turns and whispers in her ear, "Follow me."

He was drunk!

She looks back at the old man only to not find him there anymore. She had no other choice than to follow him.

He takes her to a dimly lit lab and closes the door behind her.

"So...I am Kim Taehyung. The modern-day grim reaper. And I just granted you your wish." He grins and still sways in a funny manner. "And I am in the mood to grant you another."

"What? A what?" Soo Hyun asks in a confused manner.

"Uh.... dark people who take the ones who are going to die?" he thinks before answering her.

"I mean...I know what a grim reaper is. But why me?" she is confused because she isn't the one who was dying. Her daughter was.

"Yeah, but you made a wish for the one who was dying." He pouts.

It hits Soo Hyun suddenly.

A few hours earlier...

Soo Hyun can't breathe anymore. Her long-lost daughter was dying and she couldn't do anything for her. Her heart was weak and the doctors can't do anything. She walks out of the hospital to get some fresh air.

"My poor baby... I cannot do anything for you......." She was near the crossing and bumped a man but couldn't care less. The man was Kim Taehyung.

"Hey! Watch out you lady!" but she pays no heed to his words. She was in her own world.

"If only...if only a miracle happens and I am to die instead of her...." and suddenly she feels a push on her shoulder.

The last thing she remembers was this man grinning looking at her and a truck speeding towards her.

Soo Hyun closes her eyes, accepting her fate.

Flashback Ends

"You...you killed me...!" she says, remembering everything.

"Oh, so you finally remember!" he puts his hand forward, "Nice to meet you."

But she doesn't shake his hand.

"Why me?"

"You wished for it!" he pouts again.

"But.... this means....my daughter will get to live?" she asks hopefully.

"No." he grins.

"Then why?" she was getting angry now. This drunk man here was talking bullshit.

"I will complete what you wished for." He looks straight into her soul, "You died before completing the sentence and it was annoying." He sits on the chair.

"So, I give you three options."

"Are all grim reapers drunkards?" she asks.

"Not everyone. My friends are. What's that gotta do with this?" he asks.

"Nothing. Just curious." She suppresses a smile.

"So, where were we? Uh yeah, three options. Listen carefully...

a) You want your daughter to live. But you die instead of her, giving her your heart. She remembers nothing about you, nothing about what she has been through. All your wealth and property will be transferred to her and she will have a better family. She will live a healthy lifestyle, marry, and have a family and die peacefully.

b) You want your daughter to live. But you want to live too and mend your ways so you can see her grow up well. You will come back to life and the doctors will find a cure for her condition. But when she wakes up, she will hate you for life and you will have to bear through it. She will lead a normal lifestyle, marry, and have a family. She will die in pain knowing that her parent wasn't good enough.

c) You don't want to change anything now. Your daughter dies and you both stay here in this hospital for eternity.

"That's it! Now choose." He puts out three papers with a, b, and c written on them.

"How can you even have the third option?" She was sad.

"Some choose it." He shrugs his shoulders, "Now please a little faster. I have to be back before dawn and you have taken up a lot of my time."

Soo Hyun thinks.

Wouldn't it be better that her daughter gets to live happily with no memory of her?

"I choose...option one." She takes the first paper.

Taehyung was shocked. "I thought you would go for the 2nd one."

Soo Hyun looks at him with a confused expression.

"I saw your whole life when I pushed you. You have had a tough life. You didn't even know about what your daughter has been through about a week ago giving that you had abandoned her when she was barely 10. I just thought a selfish bitch like you would like to be alive to see your daughter alive and grow up." He puts it so straight forward that it hurt Soo Hyun. Not that he was wrong. She was a selfish bitch after all.

"Yes. I am selfish. But this is the least I could do for my daughter. If I am not with her, my heart will be there. She wouldn't have any of my memories but they would be deep inside her heart. She gets to have the money which I earned to have a lavish lifestyle. She will remain healthy throughout her life; have the family she wants and die peacefully. I can't live my life knowing that I could have given her my heart but leaned on the doctors. That wouldn't be fair."

"She wouldn't have any memory of the person who sacrificed her life for her. How is that fair?" Taehyung asks in confusion.

"Why would I want to let her have those painful memories? She was abused by me for those 10 years. At least she will get a good family this time." She sadly says.

"But you will mend your ways if you are alive." He tries to pursue her, "Or are you just too weak to handle her hate?"

"I can handle whatever she would throw at me. Hate, curses, abuses anything. But I can't let her die in pain. I know I wasn't enough. I am a failure. I would never be a good parent to her even if I try to mend my ways. If it were to happen, it would have happened a long time ago."

"Oh!" he says in realization, "You fear that you wouldn't be good enough for her?"

She nods silently. He takes a deep sigh.

"Look. Great story and all but I can only grant you one wish. Are you definitely sure?" he asks her one last time even though he was a bit proud of her to take this decision.

"Yes." She says back with determination.

"Okay then. Close your eyes." She closes them and feels her heart being ripped out. She had composed herself for this. The pain was less as she could only feel the happiness coming in. She felt no guilt anymore.

Slowly opening her eyes, she is back in her daughter's room with the doctors surrounding her.

"It really is a miracle. Your heart is completely fine!" the doctor exclaims.

Soo Hyun smiles looking at the face of her daughter. It was glowing.

"Where is my ma?" she asks. Soo Hyun's heart skips a beat hearing that and she walks ahead but only to find another woman walking right past through her.

She forgot that she was dead!

"I am here, my daughter!" the woman exclaims and holds her hand lovingly, "I am so glad you are okay!"

Soo Hyun gets out of the room, with just one tear falling from her eye. She felt peaceful.

"Did it feel good?" Taehyung asks her from behind.

"Yes. It did. Thank you." She smiles through her tears.

"I felt good too. For the first time in 500 years." He walks ahead of her.

Her eyes widen, "Wait, what? You have been doing this for the past 500 years?"

He smiles and nods. Soo Hyun catches up to his speed.

"And you wouldn't believe the people I had to deal with. One time, this old man died on his scooter and then......"

The End

My readers rn~

Damm, what hurt me, huh?

Life did :)

Tbh, I think I should have done better with this story, I am sorry :(

Please share, vote and comment xD