Emergency!!!
In the ambitious early hours of the city, the cold night was filled with nothing but the artificial glow of streetlights.
"Ugh.. damn it, did I drink too much.."
A woman, thoroughly drunk, was stumbling her way through the heart of downtown.
Unkempt, tousled hair and filthy clothes.
Her face looked like the very word 'wreck' had been given human form. Her name was Seo Harin.
"Hiccup, I should just get home and sleep.."
Having wasted yet another day at the bar, Harin limped her way home.
A dingy semi-basement beneath an old apartment, its paint peeling clean off.
"There's not a single thing about this dump I'm attached to, honestly.."
She fumbled around in her pocket for her key, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
What greeted her was a cloud of gray dust and mountains of garbage.
"Cough, cough, sheesh.. I really should clean up in here sometime."
After shoving aside an empty cup ramen container and some plastic bags, she flopped down onto the floor and surrendered herself to sleep.
"Honestly, alcohol and sleep are the only reasons I'm still alive.."
For Harin, to whom living each day was a chore, booze and sleep were truly her only rays of light.
Wake up, kill time at the bar with drinks and games,
come home when night fell and sleep — a life on endless repeat.
Anyone looking in would call it a failed life, and she should have been satisfied with it..
"..No, wait. Why bother living at all?"
But she wasn't.
It was only natural. Even by her own assessment, her life was rock bottom.
No one could be satisfied with a life squandered on cheap liquor and sleep.
"Mom's allowance is almost gone too.."
Her life was such a cesspit that she couldn't even cover living expenses without her parents sending her money.
"Life these days isn't even particularly fun, honestly.."
No goals, no pleasures, no friends, not even a lover.
For her, who possessed nothing of her own making,
"..Should I just die?"
it was, in a way, inevitable that the option of death would drift into her mind.
And then.
"Did you just say you wanted to die?"
"...?"
To Harin, who had been wallowing in self-pity with tears welling in her eyes,
"Wh-who's there.."
came a voice: "Do you know how to die?"
A white nightmare in the shape of an angel had come to visit.
-----------------------------------
Let us turn back the clock a little.
At the center of the infinite universe. It sat upon a throne swirling with chaos, the vortex of confusion itself.
The great Father, lost in slumber for untold eons.
He who was expected never to wake again..
"..Mmhh...."
after so very long, finally stirred.
'Haahhmm.. was I asleep..?'
Rising with a long, drawn-out yawn, he looked around.
'Huh? Where am I?'
And then, quickly, he realized he was not in a bed, but atop a black throne.
Unable to grasp the sudden situation, he shifted his body slightly — and
"..Uh, UAAAAAH!!!!!!"
"..?"
a strange voice rang out from somewhere nearby.
"Ahhh, the Father, the Father has awakeneeed!!!!"
Before he could even react, the voice swelled, as if announcing something to all creation.
'I've never heard that voice before.. could it be?'
He sprang up from the throne and raced toward the direction of the voice.
What drove his body was a flicker of curiosity — and anticipation.
And that anticipation was, of course,
'They might have come to be my friend..!'
the hope that he might make a friend.
True, he had always acted as though his goal were to die,
but his foremost purpose had always been making friends, naturally.
Aside from 'them,' this was someone he was meeting for the first time, so it was only natural for hope to bloom in his chest.
What was reflected in his white eyes as he came charging up, breathless,
was something small enough to hold in one hand — a white lump of some kind.
"A-ah..!! It is.. it is an honor to behold the great Father..!!!"
Moreover, it looked absolutely paralyzed with fear.
"..."
"......"
Silence stretched between the white-haired boy and the white lumps.
'Great.. so this means we can't be friends..'
'S-say something, please..? I-is, is, is he angry..!?'
Of course, beneath the surface, a storm of thoughts raged on both sides.
'Why has Father awakened now? Is it to punish us? No — wait, whose turn was it to sing the lullaby, and what were they even doing..?'
A thousand thoughts raced through the mind of the white lump standing before him.
Resentment toward his kin. The reason for the Father's awakening.
Countless questions and emotions churned through his head like a raging storm.
But what confused him most of all, right now,
'Please, Father, just say something, anything..!!'
was the largest share: the Father, who simply kept silent.
Yet there was a reason he could not bring himself to speak.
Angry? Grieving? Impossible to read, that Father of theirs was, at this very moment,
'..I really do need to figure out how to die quickly, after all..'
thinking about suicide, as always.