Prologue: The Day Everything Ended

June 22, 2025

Today changed everything.

「Are you going to be late again today?」 Mom's voice drifted from the kitchen, her eyes fixed on the frying pan.

「I don't know」 I mumbled, sliding into my jacket. 「Depends if our math teacher feels like torturing us again.」

「Ren, you should show more respect to your teachers,」 came Dad's voice from behind the newspaper — the one he insisted on reading every morning, like it was still 1998. Maybe that was his way of feeling important.

I swung my backpack over one shoulder and grabbed the half-burnt toast from the plate. Still warm, but the butter hadn't even melted properly. Typical Mom.

「I'm heading out.」

「Make sure to eat something real at school!」 she called after me. 「And stop isolating yourself all the time」 Dad added.

I acted like I didn't hear. The front door clicked shut behind me.

The walk to the station was always the same. Same streets. Same people. Same hushed morning silence.

I didn't know today would be different. No one ever does.

The sun hadn't risen. My breath billowed in pale clouds against the freezing air. I liked winter—honest, distant, cruelly beautiful. Unlike people.

The platform was nearly empty. An old woman, a businessman, and me. My phone lay dead in my pocket. Typical.

「Train approaching—please stand back」 the speaker crackled.

First came the rumble. Steel grinding on steel. Headlights pierced the fog like twin blades of light.

Habit made me step back. Then—a shove.

Hard.

It wasn't a stumble.

It was a shove.

My feet left the edge.

My body tilted forward.

「What...?」

In the instant I began falling, I heard it.

Footsteps. Running. Away.

Someone shoved me.

Why? Who?

But none of that mattered anymore.

Mom..? Dad...

Pls...

...

Everything should've ended right there. But it didn't.

The sound of metal crashing into flesh, bones snapping like brittle sticks—it echoed in a way that felt eternal.

I was aware. Too aware.

The moment of impact slowed time itself. My body hit the train. My ribs shattered. My left arm twisted backward. I felt everything.

The heat of blood exploding from my chest. The cold shock of pain when my spine broke. My skull hit steel, and stars burst in my vision—but I didn't lose consciousness.

No. I was still here.

Still alive—just enough to feel every scream my body couldn't release.

I wanted to scream. But my lungs—collapsed. Air wouldn't come. Blood filled my throat. I choked on my own life.

I couldn't move. Couldn't cry. Only think.

Why...? Why me...?

My body was a broken mess beneath the train's wheels, and yet... my mind refused to die.

Every nerve screamed. Every part of me burned, twisted, froze. Like time itself wanted me to feel it all.

Seconds passed. Or was it minutes? Hours?

I didn't know. I didn't care. There was only pain. And the growing silence of my own fading existence.

Mom... Dad...

I'm sorry.

My vision dimmed. Black crept in from the corners of my eyes. My thoughts grew slower. Duller.

Then...

Nothing.

Only the emptiness but—

heat.

A glimmer of white at the edge of my sight.

And then the world went bright.