After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams.

In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her.

Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit.

While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me.

I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again.

This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace.

Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch.

Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs.

While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again.

Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip.

Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot.

While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave.

Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep.

What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead.

The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

It felt like my heart had been bound by a thousand ropes attached to a block of lead. The crushing weight yanked me out of sleep, and my eyes snapped open.

I stared around at the all-too-familiar bedroom, and the realization slammed into me—I'd come back to life.

I picked up my phone and the screen lit up, showing it was 4:00 am.

A faint gray line had already appeared along the horizon outside the window.

Thinking about how I'd been rushed into the ICU in my previous life, I immediately called my sister, Claire Dawson.

"Claire! Stop whatever you're doing right now!"

Her reply came through between ragged breaths and the edge of a sob.

"I can't, Maeve! Mom showed up in my dream! She said if I don't reach the top of Mount Mistwood before sunrise, those evil spirits will tear her apart!

"I know you're worried about me, but I can't just sit here and do nothing while Mom's being pushed around! Anyway, I have to go. The sun's coming up in less than an hour. If I don't make it by then, it'll be too late!"

The call cut off, leaving only the cold beep in my ear.

Then, my perfectly healthy heart twisted sharply, as if someone had grabbed it and wrung it out. Pain rolled through me until I doubled over.

I clutched at my chest, and my mind was racing.

My mom, Margaret Hale, had always been deeply spiritual. Claire grew up with her and ended up believing in spirits just as firmly.

When Claire told me Mom had appeared in her dream, I thought it was just her missing Mom too much.

Besides, Claire was perfectly healthy and had never shown any sign of heart issues.

So, even as I was being taken into the hospital, it never occurred to me that what was happening to me might have anything to do with Claire climbing the mountain.

The idea that her injuries could somehow transfer onto me was ridiculous.

I told myself it was just the shock of losing my mother so suddenly. I thought that my body had simply given out under the grief.

But as things kept happening, it became obvious that I was paying the price for everything Claire did to herself.

My gaze dropped to my arm, and a crazy idea flashed through my mind.

I squeezed my eyes shut, braced myself, and slammed my forearm down on the sharp edge of the wooden desk with all my strength.

A sharp, clean crack rang in my ears. My heart seized hard in my chest, as if it were giving one final warning.

The double hit of pain was too much. My vision blurred, and I blacked out.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Claire's eyelids. They were swollen like walnuts and shadowed with dark circles she couldn't hide.

"Maeve! You're finally awake! You have no idea how terrified I was when Kamila called me. I've already lost Mom! I can't lose you too!"

She threw herself into my arms and sobbed like a child.

The doctor, who'd just walked in, couldn't help but say, "You two seem really close. Ms. Dawson, when you were sent to the ICU last night, your sister waited outside the entire night."

Hearing this, Claire pulled away from my arms. Her cheeks flushed. She wiped her tears and gave a sheepish smile.

I noticed that her arms were perfectly fine, while my right one was in a cast.

My heart sank. So, it wasn't some kind of mutual damage. Only her injuries would transfer to me.

By the door, Claire was already peppering the doctor with questions about how to take care of me.

With how worried she looked, anyone passing by would've assumed she cared for me deeply.

I hesitated for a second, then called her over. "Claire, go home and get some rest. If you get sick too, then I'll really have no one to look after me. The nurses and Kamila can take care of me here. Just listen to me, okay?"

When I saw the protest in her eyes, my voice grew stern.

She finally gave in and told me to call her right away if anything happened.

After Claire left, I asked the doctor to run a full workup on me, especially my heart. But the results weren't what I'd hoped for.

The report said I was perfectly healthy. My heart, in particular, looked flawless on every scan.

I checked the date. I had only three days left before the day I'd fall and break my ribs, according to my past life.

First, I ordered the security team to keep a close watch on Claire. Without my permission, she wasn't allowed to step outside the house.

Then, I took a red-eye flight overseas to consult the most renowned cardiologist I could find, but he still couldn't find a single thing wrong with me.

On the way back, I detoured through Havenria to consult the most renowned occult expert in the city, hoping he could explain what was happening to me.

He insisted there was nothing supernatural attached to me at all and told me to just go home and get some rest. The chest pain was probably just grief from losing my mom. He said that if it got worse, I should see a doctor.

Neither science nor the supernatural could explain what was happening to me. So, I boarded my flight home with worry weighing me down.

The whole way back, I replayed everything from my previous life, trying not to miss a single detail.

Even as I stepped out of the cabin, I was still wondering how that phenomenon, which neither science nor superstition could explain, had happened.

Just then, my phone rang, cutting off my thoughts.

On the other end, a panicked, trembling voice came through. "Maeve, Claire is gone!"

I stopped walking on the jet bridge.

In the next second, my foot missed the edge of the step and I went down hard.

Once again, I ended up bruised from head to toe, with five fractured ribs.

I ended up back in the hospital. And this time, it clearly scared Claire half to death.

She cried so hard, and she was apologizing over and over. "I'm so sorry, Maeve. This is all my fault. If I hadn't insisted on fulfilling Mom's last wish, this never would've happened to you. I'm so sorry..."

In my previous life, right up until the day I died, she never once slipped up about the injury-transfer phenomenon. It always left me wondering whether she truly knew about it.

She was my only living family member. I didn't want to think the worst of her.

But she just wouldn't stop crying. Her voice seemed to drill into my skull. Between that and the ridiculous way I kept getting hurt, my patience snapped.

"Enough! Why did you have to go skydiving? Didn't I tell you to stay home?

"Mom's dead! Are her last words really that important to you? Important enough to make you throw your life away?

"I had bodyguards guarding the house around the clock. How did you even get out?"

It wasn't just bodyguards watching her. From the day I came back, I'd had cameras installed in every corner of the house. And yet, not a single camera caught how she slipped out of that house.

Claire suddenly went quiet, and her sobbing stopped. Tears hung from her lashes as she stared at my bandaged face in stunned silence.

"Maeve, what are you saying? That's our mom! How can you... say something like that?"

The last few words were barely a whisper. It was as if she might break if I pushed any further.

"And how did you even know I went skydiving? Were you spying on me?"

Guilt flickered in my eyes, but I kept my voice firm. "You only need to know that I had your best interests in mind. Now, answer me! How did you get out of the house?"

A flicker of hurt passed over her face. When she spoke again, her voice sounded low and defeated. "I used the dog hole we dug when we were kids. I crawled out through it."

Hearing this, I was stunned.

Our parents had divorced. Claire went with Mom, and I stayed with Dad.

It wasn't until Dad suddenly went bankrupt and Mom fought for custody that I moved in with them, and we started living under the same roof.

Back then, when they first brought me home, I was moody and volatile. I was only willing to play with stray dogs in the yard. But Mom had a strict no-pets rule.

When Claire caught me sneaking food out to a puppy, she didn't tell on me. We dug that hole along the fence. It was one of the few peaceful memories we ever shared.

I'd had the bodyguards watching her so closely because I'd wanted proof she wasn't the one doing this. I wanted to clear her in my own mind.

But now, everything was pointing straight at the answer I least wanted to see.

Lying in my hospital bed, I called out her name. "Claire Dawson."

She straightened up at once. Her spine snapped rigid, and her eyes were wide with alarm.

"If you still think of me as your sister, then from today on, you'll stay home. You won't go anywhere."

"W... Why?" she asked.

I shot her a look, and she immediately shrank back, nodding like a kid who got scolded.

"If Mom shows up in your dreams again, tell me first. I'll handle it."

To keep an eye on her myself, I signed my own discharge papers and went home to recover, ignoring the doctor's objections.

The moment I got back home, I took away her ID card and her passport. I also called the airport and put a travel flag on her name so she couldn't leave the country.

I even called a friend who worked with cruise lines and warned him not to let Claire board a ship. If they saw her, they were to send her straight back.

My friend laughed and said I was the most overprotective sister he'd ever heard of.

He had no idea this was the only way I knew how to stay alive.

Just when I finally managed to fall asleep, I woke up from a cold that felt like it was freezing me from the inside out.