1. You have all died.

Shin Jiho took her eyes off the laptop screen. As she stretched while sitting, a yawn escaped her. It felt like waking up from a long dream. She had finally completed the first draft of her self-introduction for her application to the game company.

“Ah… it’s finally done.”

After lightly nodding her head to stretch, she swept her short hair behind her ears. Taking a sip of her now cold coffee, Jiho began reading her self-introduction from the beginning.

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The self-introduction described who Shin Jiho was and how much she wanted to develop games. It was written in a way that made her sound more impressive than she actually was, which made Jiho feel a bit embarrassed.

Originally, Jiho’s dream wasn’t to be a game programmer. At one point, she had dreamed of becoming a short-track speed skater. There was a time when she lived solely to compete in the Olympics as a national representative and win a medal.

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When she was eight, the first Winter Olympics she ever watched was enough to captivate her. The moment she set foot on the ice rink, after begging her mother to take her there, she felt a thrill and excitement. After making a clumsy lap around the rink, Jiho thought,

‘This is fate.’

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She was certain her destiny lay here. Even though she didn’t really understand what the word “fate” meant, she repeated the phrase she had picked up from TV.

After that, Jiho began her disciplined life as an athlete. She ran when she was told to run and rested when she was told to rest. The only people in her life were her parents, her coach, and her fellow athletes.

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It was a time when she only had to keep moving forward without looking back—until she was fifteen, when she collided with another skater during the regional qualifiers and got injured.

“Ahhh! Jiho!”

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“Oh…! What happened? She fell hard!”

“Is she okay?”

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Jiho still remembered that moment as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. Her opponent had been wearing blue. The skater had attempted an inside lane overtake, and their bodies tangled before they both fell. Jiho slid across the ice and crashed into the fence.

Falling during a race was nothing unusual, but something about this time felt ominous. The moment their bodies got tangled, her posture had been off. When she tried to get up, something felt different. More than the pain, it was the chilling premonition that struck her—her back went cold, and her body felt numb.

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The doctor delivered the diagnosis with a regretful expression.

“It won’t affect your daily life. If you focus on rehabilitation, you’ll be able to walk, run—everything will be fine. But as an athlete… it’ll be difficult. If you push your body too hard, the injury will return. Even if it heals, it’ll only be a matter of time before you get hurt again. And the intervals between injuries will keep getting shorter.”

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It was essentially a death sentence. Shin Jiho’s life as an athlete ended with a knee injury.

Even so, Jiho didn’t lose hope. She thought that if she worked hard enough, she could recover—just like she always had. While she was still holding onto that belief, clinging to her aching knee and going back and forth from the hospital, her parents told her they were getting a divorce.

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“You’re fifteen now, so… you’ll be okay, right?”

At the end of the conversation about the divorce, her mother added those words.

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What was supposed to be okay? Nothing was okay. Jiho clutched her head and begged.

“I… I’m almost healed. Just until my knee recovers, can’t you wait just a little longer?”

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Her father stayed silent. He didn’t even look at her, just kept staring out the window. Her mother let out a deep sigh before speaking.

“Jiho, I’m tired too. I’ve done everything I could.”

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Shin Jiho closed her mouth. She realized then—it didn’t matter how much she pleaded, they would never change their minds because of her. She needed time to accept that.

After a long silence, Jiho finally gave in to reality and asked,

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“Then who am I going to live with?”

Her parents only shot each other cold glances.

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The realization struck her like lightning. It wasn’t just each other they couldn’t stand anymore—it seemed she was included in that as well.

At the very least, they weren’t struggling financially, so they arranged for Jiho to live in a small studio apartment. Like a burden being cast off, they pushed Jiho into that tiny space.

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“Here, the landlord’s contact info. If anything happens, call them.”

Then, the two of them left to live their own lives, leaving Jiho behind, completely alone.

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Jiho quit sports. The things that had once shone so brightly in her eyes no longer looked beautiful.

Her body wasn’t the same as before, and without sports, her daily routine crumbled. The knowledge and skills she had built up, the people she had known, her family—everything was pushed out of her world. No, to be exact, she was the one pushed out of that world.

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Classes were dull, and her classmates felt unfamiliar. She couldn’t understand a single word her teachers said. Most of the time, she just stared blankly at the blackboard or watched the clouds drift by outside the window. Sometimes, she would put her head down and sleep, but no one bothered her.

“Oh, Shin Jiho? Just leave her alone, she’s always like that.”

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Someone in her class said that after glancing at Jiho slumped over her desk. Always like that. A label she had never imagined for herself had now become her identity.

After school, while the other students scattered to their cram schools or went home, Jiho wandered the city. She didn’t want to go back home, but she had nowhere else to go. The small studio apartment, where only her belongings sat in silence, felt suffocating.

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The streets were full of people walking hurriedly to their destinations.

“Where is everyone going…?”

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Everyone seemed to know exactly where they belonged—except for Jiho. She couldn’t even tell where things had gone wrong. Her thoughts kept drifting back, further and further into the past, like a salmon swimming upstream.

Then, by chance, she stepped into a PC café and played a computer game for the first time in her life. At first, the game screen felt unfamiliar, but soon, it became more and more familiar. A world where effort was rewarded with levels and strength—it was fascinating and exciting.

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During the Olympics, she didn’t even turn on the TV. Even if it wasn’t a skating event, just seeing that world was painful. The more it hurt, the deeper Jiho buried herself in games.

On the day of her high school entrance ceremony, as she was playing a game like always, a thought suddenly struck her.
‘I can’t keep living like this.’

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She enjoyed and loved gaming just as much as she once loved skating across the ice. Jiho decided—she would become someone who made games.

Starting to study at seventeen wasn’t easy. She learned for the first time that if you held a pen long enough, a callus would form on the third joint of your finger.
‘It’s not just sports that give you calluses… Studying is kind of the same.’

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Calluses formed, the skin peeled, and after failing her first college entrance exam, she pushed through another year of studying.

“Please ring this up.”

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The day she got accepted into Korea University, Shin Jiho bought a bottle of soju by herself. She poured a glass and played a video from last year’s Winter Olympics. There was no one else in the room. Watching the athletes rejoice with their medals in hand, Jiho shed a few tears.
‘I really ran like crazy….’

University classes, grades, certifications… Before she knew it, she was twenty-four, a senior preparing for job applications.

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Life felt like an endless series of mountain peaks—climbing one, descending, then climbing again, over and over.

[Through these experiences, I have learned that all hardships can eventually be overcome. Even when the answer seems impossible to find, there is always a solution.]

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That’s what she wrote in her self-introduction. But there was one thing Jiho couldn’t bring herself to write.

‘People end up covered in scars through that process. And when walking alone on a quiet night under the yellow glow of the streetlights, they revisit those wounds all over again.’

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“Sigh….”

Feeling down, Jiho let out a deep breath. She had no friends or family to confide in.

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She lifted her hands off the keyboard. She wasn’t in the mood to work on her self-introduction anymore. Shaking out her wrists, she noticed the contrast—her left hand was cold, while her right hand was so warm it almost burned. It had always been that way, a strange quirk of her body.

Jiho clenched and unclenched her right hand out of habit before grasping her left hand, warming up the cold fingers. Her tense body slowly relaxed.

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Looking around, she realized her two roommates were already gone. It was the middle of the afternoon, so they were probably at class.

“……!”

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Just as she picked up her phone, thinking of playing a quick game, the ground beneath her trembled.

The floor vibrated as if it were a living creature, like a massive snake twisting its body.

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Jiho’s chair, which had wheels, started rolling on its own. She quickly grabbed onto the desk with one hand.

“What the…?”

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It wasn’t just the floor—the entire room was shaking. One by one, the lighter objects began to fall, starting with a cereal box that had been carelessly placed on top of the bookshelf.

Jiho swiftly assessed the situation.

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“An earthquake?”

It was the first earthquake Jiho had ever experienced. Struggling to keep her balance, she quickly crawled under the desk.

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She remembered learning in safety drills that taking cover under a desk was the right thing to do, but now she wasn’t so sure. Compared to the violent shaking, the desk seemed far too flimsy.

Crash!

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A mug and an alarm clock tumbled to the floor, shattering on impact. The sharp sound pierced her ears. The glass windows cracked, the chair toppled over, and fractures spread rapidly across the walls.

Her body trembled so hard her teeth chattered. Jiho gasped for breath, but even though she was breathing, it felt like she was suffocating. Her head spun.

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Images of collapsed buildings—ones she had only seen in videos and photos—flashed through her mind. What if I die here? The thought barely had time to form before—

Rumble—!

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The shaking only grew worse. Her mind went completely blank.

‘Please, stop. Please….’

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Jiho desperately prayed.

And then, suddenly, the shaking stopped.

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“……”

Fearing aftershocks, she didn’t move from under the desk.

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Bzzz— A vibration rang out.

It came from the smartphone she had been gripping so tightly, as if it were a lifeline. The veins on her hand bulged from how hard she was holding it.

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Snapping back to her senses, Jiho quickly glanced at the screen.

On the black background, white text appeared.

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[One life for one life. Congratulations on obtaining a chance. You have been granted five opportunities and one choice.]

Jiho froze and reread the short message several times. She couldn’t understand it. Why had this strange message suddenly appeared on her phone? What did it even mean?

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Frowning, she tapped the screen repeatedly with anxious fingers. She didn’t have time to waste on spam messages—she needed to call 119 immediately.

The screen suddenly turned completely black. A few moments later, new text appeared.

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[Remaining chances: 5]
[Relationship with Go Pyeonghwa: Strangers / You do not know each other yet.]

Jiho’s mouth slightly parted in shock.

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‘Chances? And who the hell is Go Pyeonghwa?’

Go Pyeonghwa… It sounded like a person’s name. Definitely not a common one.

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She quickly scanned through the limited list of people she knew. For a name that unusual, she should have remembered it—but nothing came to mind.

‘Seriously, who is this? And why is their name here?’

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Jiho’s eyes darted around in confusion, but after a brief moment of calculation, she quickly reassessed her priorities. Figuring out who Go Pyeonghwa was could wait. Right now, calling 119 was more important.

She frantically swiped and pressed at her phone, searching for the call button, but nothing worked. Even the home button was unresponsive.

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“What the hell is wrong with this thing…?”

She decided to turn the phone off and back on, pressing the power button for a long time—but it didn’t shut down. The screen remained exactly as it was, as if mocking her, every single letter untouched.

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Growing anxious, Jiho irritably tugged at her ear. The sharp sting of pain did nothing to clear her head. It was as if she were trapped in a dream, stuck in the foggy daze of someone not fully awake.

『Attention, please.』

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A voice rang out from the dormitory announcement speakers—something she had completely forgotten even existed.

An evacuation notice? Jiho immediately focused on the announcement.

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『You have all died. Judgment will now begin. In a moment, the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of both the female and male dormitories will be sealed.』

Jiho couldn’t comprehend half of what she just heard. She stared blankly into space, unable to even blink. Her mind was a blank slate. This was far too elaborate to be some kind of prank.

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‘What…? Dead? Judgment? Did I hear that correctly?’

Frozen with a pale face, Jiho stood still like a statue. Like a camel seeing the ocean for the first time, like a whale stranded in a desert, she couldn’t move a single step.

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『Once again, we repeat. You have all died. Judgment will now begin. In a moment, the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of both the female and male dormitories will be sealed. Thank you.』

Jiho slowly clenched and unclenched her right hand. She repeated the motion two or three times. Only then did a bit of clarity start to return to her mind.

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Jiho looked down at the floor. Scattered books and clutter, a toppled chair, shattered mug fragments—the aftermath of the earthquake had turned the room into a mess. But Jiho’s mind was in even worse chaos.

“First… shoes. I need to find my shoes first….”

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Since the floor was a wreck, her first instinct was to put on shoes. She stuffed her smartphone into the pocket of her blouson jacket. Her limbs were shaking, and she almost stumbled, but she managed to crawl out from under the desk without falling.

Right by the door, the shoe cabinet had tipped over. Jiho set it upright, revealing a pile of spilled shoes and a lone badminton racket.

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“What the hell is going on….”

She still couldn’t believe any of this.

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Even as she slipped her feet into her sneakers, her mind was a tangled mess. Just moments ago, she had been peacefully working on her self-introduction, and now everything had changed. The strangely altered smartphone, the sudden earthquake, the cryptic announcement—all three jumbled together in her thoughts like a tangled knot.

“Hah….”

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Straightening her posture, Jiho took a deep breath to steady herself. Inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly, she gradually regained control over her erratic breathing. Clasping her left hand with her right, she focused on staying calm and composed. It felt like she was back in the mindset of preparing for an important match.

She silenced the storm in her head, organized her scattered thoughts, and set her priorities.

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Then, Jiho unclasped her hands.

The most important thing right now was the earthquake.

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‘The dorm isn’t safe. I need to get out before an aftershock hits.’

Jiho recalled the earthquake safety guidelines she had learned in class. If an earthquake occurred while indoors, she was supposed to take cover under a desk or table first, then evacuate the building via the stairs once the shaking stopped.

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