The End of My First Life
The tunnel felt endlessly long.
The more I gasped and ran in a frantic panic, the more my vision blurred. My arms and legs refused to obey me.
“Is anyone there? Hello? Somebody… please…”
My throat seized up painfully, cutting me off.
The air was thick with acrid smoke. Soon, I couldn’t see anything at all.
Instead of voices, all I heard were explosions—boom after boom. The flames spread faster than I’d expected.
“…This can’t be happening.”
Suddenly, tears spilled down my face without warning. I hadn’t even run that far, yet my body was already giving out.
The tunnel was horrifically vast and dark. And it stretched on forever. Could I really escape from here?
Not a single speck of light was visible.
My legs kept buckling, but I forced them forward. I struggled just to take one more step.
If I stopped, I would collapse. And if I collapsed, that would be the end.
It was the first time I’d ever felt such a raw instinct to survive.
Suddenly, I stepped on something. To my horror, it was a dead body.
“Kyaaaah!”
My heart hammered wildly.
The person, barely visible under the glow of a headlight, looked like they’d been crushed to death. Their flesh had burst open, and chunks of meat were spilling from their mouth.
Fear made my stomach churn.
I wanted to vomit. But I had to keep moving my legs.
I fought desperately against the strength draining from every limb.
Relying on the faint orange lights flickering around me, I dragged my feet forward.
How long had I been walking like that?
After stepping on that corpse, I’d only managed six more steps.
I’d given it everything I had, and that was all I could do. I couldn’t walk anymore.
And as if it had been waiting for that moment, the orange emergency lights around me began to flicker—then went out completely.
With the last traces of light gone, pure, pitch-black darkness swallowed everything.
In the end, I collapsed right where I stood.
“…Mom.”
That was when it hit me.
The phone I’d shoved into my bag suddenly came to mind. I pulled it out and tried to turn it on, but it was so dark I couldn’t even find the power button.
I started mashing buttons at random, but nothing happened.
Why?
Why won’t it turn on?
Tears streamed down my face, soaking the back of my hand.
“Mom! Dad! Huuuuh…”
Nothing was going the way I wanted. Overwhelmed by how unfair it all was, I finally broke down and wailed.
I cried from resentment, guilt, fear, and terror. My whole body shook violently and my breath kept catching. Even crying felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford right now.
My head spun violently, and drool began leaking from the corner of my mouth.
I must have inhaled too much of the toxic gas.
Just like all the other people who had already died.
It was only after I vomited once that I remembered the battery I’d taken out of the phone earlier.
With trembling hands, I reached into my bag. I fumbled around until I found the battery, shoved it back in, and pressed the power button.
The time it took for the phone to boot up felt agonizingly slow. I wondered if it would even turn on before I died.
“Hurry up…”
Finally, the screen lit up. In the total darkness, the phone was the only thing glowing.
With violently shaking hands, I saw the missed calls from Mom and tapped the call button. The line began to ring.
Ring, ring, ring.
Ring, ring, ring.
Please, pick up. Pick up! Pick up, Mom!
It was such a strange feeling.
Being trapped here like this felt less horrible than the thought of not hearing Mom’s voice right now. That felt far more cruel and unbearable.
Thick smoke poured into my nose and mouth, sliding down my throat. I couldn’t stop my body from shaking.
Ring, ring, ring. Click.
"Hello?"
“Mom!”
Yes. It felt like I’d been saved from the darkness. Just for that one moment, that was exactly how it felt.
"Aigoo, my ears! Why are you yelling like that? You did the same thing earlier! What kind of habit is that? Who taught you to hang up on your elders? Did I raise you like this?"
“Yeah, I won’t do it again. I really won’t.”
"Not ‘yeah,’ it’s ‘yes.’ What? Jini, why are you acting so strange all of a sudden?"
“Mom… I… please save me. Cough! Hic… I don’t want to die.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the sorrow finally crashed over me.
I was going to die.
Incredibly, I was going to die before my own mother.
Without ever understanding the meaning of life, after spending every day doing nothing but the studying I hated, I was going to die alone like this. So pointlessly.
"What? Why, why are you like this? What’s wrong, Jini? What happened?"
“I… Hic, huuuh…”
"Jinaaa!"
I was their only child. They’d had me late in life, so they always called me their beautiful daughter, their precious princess, their beloved Jini. Thinking of how sorry I felt toward Dad made fresh tears surge up.
The tears wouldn’t stop.
I never imagined I’d regret snapping at him so childishly whenever he called me his princess. I never thought the only things I’d remember were all the ways I’d been sorry.
My head spun faster and faster.
My breath felt like it was being strangled. I knew I had reached my limit.
My vision grew hazy.
A horrible, wet gurgling sound kept coming from my throat. It was ugly and disgusting to hear.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
"Where are you? Jina. Mom’s coming! Jina?"
“You know… I love you, right? I really… truly… haa! Haa… love you… and I’m so grateful. And… Dad… hic… don’t fight with him… Huuuh… huuuuh.”
Every word I forced out made the pain in my stomach spike. But even then, I had to keep talking.
Each time I managed to speak, tears poured out with the words.
I kept hiccupping and vomiting something up.
Whether I wanted to or not, I could no longer speak. The moment I clutched my choking throat and collapsed, I had only… just barely…
"Honey! Honey! Jini… Jini’s—!"
I heard Mom calling for Dad. But everything quickly grew distant. Still, the very last thing that brushed against my ears was Dad’s voice. At least that was a small mercy.
Dad.
The desire to call out to him never made it past my lips. It simply faded away inside me.
"What’s wrong with Jini? What the hell is going on?! Jina! Jina!"
I couldn’t answer.
The last thing I heard was Dad’s desperate voice calling my name from the phone that had fallen to the ground. Then I closed my eyes. My face was drenched in tears.
That was the end of my first life.