In the icy winter, wind howled through the empty streets.
People ran toward the motionless body lying on the road, blood pooling around him.
His body burned with unbearable pain. He wanted to scream, to cry, but the agony stole all control. His lips trembled; he tried to speak, yet no sound came. The world blurred, voices faded as though they had never existed. Each breath grew heavier, smaller, a struggle against the inevitable.
"Hah…"
A weak breath escaped his lips.
'Am I… dying? '
The thought whispered through him as if they were vanishing—slowly, mercilessly. Light, noise, and pain dissolved one by one. The fire consuming him disappeared.
It didn't hurt anymore.
He should have felt relief, but instead, fear gripped him.
'Am I really going to disappear? Just like that?'
His thoughts drifted.
'What happens when I'm gone? Will anyone cry? Will anyone even notice? Or will the world keep moving as if I was never here? '
His mind searched desperately for something—a reason, a regret, anything worth clinging to. But there was nothing. Only emptiness. His heart had known that all along.
And yet—
"Whi…te…"
A faint voice pierced his heart. His eyes widened. He knew who was calling him.
"Ahh…"
'Why now?'
'I had already accepted death.'
'I was ready to disappear. '
'So why, at this moment, I suddenly want to live?'
Fragments of memory flashed before him like shattered film reels:
Small hands clutching his.
A girl beneath an umbrella.
His grandmother's warm smile.
And at last—
"Mo…ther?"
His fingers twitched, grasping at empty air.
'If only I could live…'
A desperate wish ignited inside him.
'I want to live. I want to create new memories.'
'I want to find a reason to hold on.'
His breathing slowed, heavier, fainter. Darkness swallowed everything. Panic surged.
'Please. Please. Please—'
'I don't want to die. '
At the edge of oblivion, his final thought echoed through the void.
'Can someone… save me?'
His chest stilled. His body grew cold, heavy, yet strangely peaceful.
Just as his consciousness began to fade completely—
A voice called out.
Soft. Gentle. Familiar.
"Whi…te."
Warmth spread through his frozen body. Instinctively, he reached toward it—
And then, light.
---
He opened his eyes to an endless white expanse. No sky, no ground, no horizon—only infinity.
He took a step. Then another. Nothing changed.
"Where am I?" he whispered, confusion etched across his face.
Mist gathered before him, slowly shaping into a figure.
A girl.
She was wrapped in a pale silver glow, her form almost unreal. Long white hair drifted weightlessly, untouched by gravity. Violet eyes locked onto his—beautiful, yet unsettling. They didn't blink. It was as though they saw through him, peeling apart every layer of his existence.
She wore a flowing gown that shimmered like moonlight on water. For a moment, White forgot how to breathe. She wasn't merely beautiful—she was something beyond beauty, something that did not belong to the living world.
"Who… are you?" His voice was barely a whisper.
'An Angel'
Her lips curved into a faint, lonely smile.
"I wish I were one of them."
White frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Before she could answer, the world trembled. Cracks splintered across the endless white. The sound was deafening, like reality itself breaking apart.
White stumbled, struggling to keep his balance, yet she remained perfectly still.
"It seems there is no time for us," she said softly. Her voice echoed strangely, as if spoken by countless versions of herself at once.
"Your time has come to wake up."
His chest tightened. "Wait. What are you talking about?"
The ground shattered beneath him. He fell into darkness. Instinctively, he reached toward her.
"Wait!"
But she did not move to save him. She only watched. And just before she vanished from sight, her lips moved.
---
White jolted upright. His hands shot forward. His breath came in sharp, frantic gasps.
"A dream?"
Fluorescent light stung his eyes. A sterile scent filled the air. A hospital room.
He stared at his trembling hands.
'No… I had died. I knew I had.'
'So why am still alive?'
The door opened. A woman stepped inside carrying a bag of fruit.
"Miss Elsa…?"
She froze. The bag slipped from her hands, fruit scattering across the floor.
"White!"
She rushed to his bedside, pulling him into a crushing embrace.
"You're awake…" Her voice broke. "I thought… I thought I lost you."
Up close, he saw the exhaustion etched across her face—the dark circles beneath her eyes, the trembling in her hands. She hadn't been sleeping. Guilt stabbed at him. After his grandmother passed, she had become the closest thing he had to family. And he had forgotten that.
When she calmed, her expression hardened.
"Why did you do it?"
He blinked. "Do what?"
Her voice trembled. "Why did you jump in front of that truck?"
His stomach dropped. "What?"
"They said it looked intentional."
The words hit him like ice.
"No."
Memory crashed into him—the crosswalk, the red light, the girl, the truck speeding toward her.
"I didn't jump on purpose," he said sharply. "There was a girl. I pushed her out of the way."
Elsa's face paled. "…White."
"What happened to her?"
Her silence made his chest tighten.
"There was no girl."
He stared at her. "What?"
Without a word, she handed him her phone. Security footage played.
He watched once.
Twice.
Three times.
His blood ran cold.
There was no girl. Only him, throwing himself into the truck's path.
"No…" His hands shook. "That's impossible."
"White—"
"There was someone there!" His voice cracked. "I saw her!"
The heart monitor shrieked. His pulse spiked. Panic clawed through him.
And then—
A flash.
The girl turning toward him. Moonlit white hair. Violet eyes.
The same eyes from the dream.
"…You."
Pain exploded through his skull. Everything went black.
---
A week later, White stepped out of the apartment building. The winter air brushed against his face.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Elsa asked from the doorway. "You should rest longer."
He forced a smile. "I'm fine. I've already missed enough school."
She looked unconvinced but nodded.
As he walked away, his thoughts drifted back to that day. To the girl. To the dream. To those impossible violet eyes.
He tried to convince himself it was trauma, a hallucination born from near death. Something his broken mind had created.
But deep down—he knew.
She was real.
That was the day White's ordinary life began to unravel.
The day he unknowingly stepped into a reality far stranger than death itself.