「"Umma, you're going to be a hundred soon, aren't you?"」
The little boy sat on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling, barely reaching the halfway point of the mattress.
He was gripping a worn-out stuffed rabbit by its ears, his eyes wide and shimmering with a precocious, heavy realization.
The woman sitting beside him paused her folding of the laundry.
She looked at him with a soft, tired smile, pushing a stray lock of dark hair behind his ear.
「"A hundred? That's a very long time from now, my little moon. Why are you thinking about that?"」
「"Because Halmeoni said that when people reach a hundred, they have to go away,"」
The boy whispered, his voice trembling.
「"She said they go to a place where they don't come back. If you reach a hundred, you'll die and leave me. You'll leave me all alone, and I don't want that. Please don't go to a hundred, Umma."」
The mother felt a sharp pang in her chest.
She reached out and pulled him into her lap, wrapping her arms around his small, fragile frame.
「"Oh, my sweet boy. Even if that time comes, I won't truly be gone. I'll be with the gods, way up high in the stars. I'll be sitting on the brightest one, looking down at you every single night until you're a big, strong grown-up. I'll be the light that shows you the way when it gets too dark."」
The boy buried his face in her shoulder, and the first sob broke through.
His small hands gripped her shirt, bunching the fabric.
「"I don't want a star! I want you! Growing up without you sounds scary. Who will hold my hand when the thunder comes? Who will tell me the stories about the mountains?"」
「"I will visit you in your dreams,"」
She murmured, kissing the top of his head, her own eyes misting over.
「"Every time you close your eyes and go to sleep, I'll be there. We can walk through fields of flowers that never wilt, and I'll tell you all the stories you want to hear. Dreams are special like that."」
「"But dreams aren't real!"」
The boy wailed, pulling back to look at her, his face flushed and wet with tears.
「"When I wake up, the bed will be cold. When I go to the kitchen, you won't be there making the soup. If you die... if you leave... I'll be left with just Appa."」
He wiped his nose with his sleeve, his grief turning into a desperate, childish anger.
「"We'll have to cook without you. We'll have to sit at the table and see your empty chair. We'll eat the food and it won't taste like yours, and Appa will be sad, and I'll be sad. I will never forgive you for leaving, Umma! I'll stay mad forever and ever!"」
The mother didn't scold him for the outburst. She simply rocked him back and forth, her heart breaking for the version of him that didn't yet understand the cruelty of the world.
She squeezed him tighter, as if she could fuse his soul to hers and protect him from the inevitable march of time.
「"You can stay mad as long as you need to,"」
She whispered into his ear, her voice thick with emotion.
「"But even if you're mad, and even if you never forgive me, I will still be loving you from the stars. I will never stop being your Umma."」
She pulled back just enough to cup his face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes, which were filled with an infinite, heartbreaking tenderness.
「"Kang Min."」
The warmth of the memory vanished, replaced instantly by the searing, suffocating heat of reality.
The air was no longer filled with the scent of fresh laundry and home-cooked soup.
It reeked of sulfur, charred concrete, and the metallic tang of blood.
The child, now a teenager, stood amidst the ruins of what used to be a hallway.
His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps that burned his throat.
He was hunched over, his hands trembling so violently that he had to press them against his knees to keep from collapsing.
Tears tracked lines through the soot and ash on his face, but he couldn't even bring himself to wipe them away.
He didn't want to look down.
He couldn't look down.
From the corners of his peripheral vision, the world was a blur of trauma.
To his left and right, the floor was stained a deep, dark crimson.
He could make out the shapes of two grown adults lying perfectly still...broken and discarded like dolls thrown aside by a cruel child.
The sight was a jagged blade twisted in his chest, a finality that his younger self had predicted but could never have truly prepared for.
Directly in front of him, blocking the path to the shattered remains of the living room, stood another figure.
This person was a few years older than him, his back turned toward Min.
His clothes were shredded, soaked through with sweat and something much darker.
He stood with his legs braced wide, his shoulders heaving with exhaustion.
In his right hand, he gripped the very kitchen knife they had used to cut vegetables just hours before.
The blade was chipped, reflecting the dancing orange light of the fires that consumed the building.
Beyond the man, through a gaping hole where the front wall had been blasted inward, the nightmare was visible.
Monsters twisted, multi-limbed abominations with skin like wet obsidian and eyes that glowed with a feral, red malice crawled over the rubble.
They hissed, their claws scraping against the shattered tiles, sensing the feast of fear that lay just a few feet away.
His gaze drifted upward, past the monsters and the smoke.
High above the residential district, the sky was no longer blue...it was a swirling, bruised canvas of violet and charcoal.
Hovering directly over the city, like a festering wound in the fabric of the universe, was a massive black-red gate.