* * *
BOOM!
“Ugh!”
The explosion wasn’t loud enough to seem nearby, but it was strong enough to shake the ground.
Even though it was an illusion, Raon could feel the impact clearly.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Raon answered Siwoo briefly and instinctively looked over the children.
Even though he knew this was a memory from the past, he couldn’t help but worry.
Just as he feared, the children were panicking and scattering in confusion.
“Hyung, w-what’s happening?”
“I don’t really know either.”
Young Siwoo tried hard to stay calm.
But when the ground started to rumble like an earthquake, fear drained all the color from his face.
“Hyung!”
“We need to get out of here first!”
“But…”
The room was already too cramped for children to be in.
With explosions and earthquakes going off, it was clearly a serious situation.
Staying in such a tight space was dangerous.
‘Why are the kids acting like this?’
Yet no one followed young Siwoo’s lead.
They all just stood there, faces pale with fear.
There wasn’t a single adult in sight at the orphanage.
It made Raon doubt if this was even a proper facility.
As Raon’s expression grew more grave, the door suddenly burst open.
“What are you all doing?! Come out, now!”
“Teacher!”
A young woman, pale as a sheet, yelled at the children.
At the sight of her, the kids instantly brightened and scrambled to their feet.
“Teacher, what’s going on?”
“There’s no time, kids. We have to get out of here now.”
Outside, several adults were already running around in a hurry.
Raon couldn’t help but question what on earth they had been doing keeping the children cooped up like that.
But for now, he was relieved the kids would be safe.
“Damn it! They said it’d be fine since it’s a remote area—this is why we came all the way out here!”
“Still, with government subsidies, we didn’t lose anything, right?”
“Whatever! Just hurry up and pack!”
A man with a harsh expression barked orders at what appeared to be the orphanage staff.
In the large yard, a black van with tinted windows stood waiting, and the staff were shoving heavy bags into it.
The man smoked nervously, glancing repeatedly toward the sky.
That had to be where the gate had appeared.
“Director, but if we load all this, what about the children…?”
“The kids? Are you kidding me, Ms. Jung?”
“What?”
“Why the hell would I take those brats with me, huh?”
“B-but…”
Ms. Jung, the teacher who had brought the children out, went pale.
The man—called the director—glared at her with contempt.
“Looks like you got pretty attached to those little shits. Then why don’t you take care of them?”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Then you figure it out. Stay here and die, or get in the damn van!”
He roared, shoving his bag into the van with an irritated grunt.
Ms. Jung swallowed hard as she watched.
“T-teacher…”
The kids sensed they were being abandoned.
Several pairs of anxious eyes turned to her.
One child reached out with trembling hands to hold hers.
Slap!
“S-sorry, kids.”
“Ah…”
Tears fell from Ms. Jung’s eyes as she slapped the child’s hand away.
She didn’t even try to wipe them as she turned and climbed into the van alone.
“Teacher!”
Some of the children rushed to the van, clinging to its doors.
But Ms. Jung coldly slammed them shut.
The engine roared to life, and the van sped off across the yard, not caring if the children got hurt.
“Teacher! Teacher!”
“Waaah!”
Leaving the children behind, the van disappeared down the road.
A few of the kids ran after it with all their might, but it was hopeless.
Raon just stared blankly.
“That insane bastard…”
Raon clenched his fists in belated fury.
He couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed.
Even if your own life is on the line, how could you abandon children like that?
If they hadn’t packed those bags, there would’ve been room to take the kids.
But no matter how angry he got, Raon couldn’t do anything.
Unlike other visions, he couldn’t intervene in this one.
The past played out like a movie—he could only watch.
“Hyung… what do we do now?”
“…!”
Raon turned to see young Siwoo and another boy.
Like the others, they looked utterly lost, shocked at having been abandoned by the adults they trusted.
“Damn it.”
Raon cursed and reached out, but his hand passed right through the crying children.
He couldn’t touch them.
The helplessness made him grit his teeth.
“We need to get out of here first.”
“Hyung…”
“Hurry!”
“…!”
Snapping out of it, young Siwoo urged the crying children to move.
Slowly, they began to follow him down the hill.
“Phew…”
As the kids started making their way down the narrow slope, Raon finally felt a bit of relief.
He didn’t know exactly where they were, but if they kept going, they’d eventually reach a main road and find someone to help them.
Just as he prepared to follow them—
Someone grabbed his arm.
“No need to go, hyung.”
“What?”
It was Siwoo.
The present-day Siwoo, watching everything with a dark expression.
“It’s over now. There’s no need to see more.”
“But…”
Still, Raon couldn’t tear his eyes away.
The children were moving slowly enough that he could still see them in the distance.
His heart pounded.
He had a bad feeling—like this wasn’t over yet.
Siwoo’s eyes, though he tried to hide it, trembled with unease.
RUMBLE.
“Eek!”
“Waaaah!”
The ground shook even harder than before.
The gate was expanding.
Ten years ago, things were far less stable.
Once the government realized that gates appeared based on population density, they tried to reorganize residential zones and relocate people.
But it was still a chaotic time.
Nowadays, every zone had watchtowers monitoring for gates.
But back then, there was no system.
The military was overwhelmed just trying to contain the gates.
Civilians fled however they could.
Back then, it was common for a gate to suddenly swell without warning.
“No!”
Raon shouted without thinking and yanked his arm free from Siwoo.
He sprinted toward the kids as the ground beneath them collapsed.
“Hyung!”
“Junwoo!”
Around young Siwoo and the boy, the air turned blue.
A Blue Gate—classified as the second-highest danger level.
In an instant, blue light swallowed the child.
“Ugh…”
“Hyung, are you okay?”
Raon shut his eyes.
He couldn’t bear to watch.
He couldn’t watch the children fall into the gate.
He couldn’t forgive the adults who abandoned them.
After a while, everything went quiet—like nothing had happened.
With a hollow voice, Raon asked:
“…What happened to you after that?”
Siwoo didn’t answer for a moment.
The gate that had swallowed the children seemed calm now.
“…I awakened inside that gate. Then the military came and rescued me.”
“And the other kids?”
Unlike Raon’s trembling voice, Siwoo’s tone remained calm. He still answered flatly.
“They’re all dead.”
“…Damn it.”
It was horrifying.
Truly, unbearably horrifying.
Raon stumbled forward, barely aware of the surrounding darkness that had fallen.
“What are we going to do? The kids are already…”
“How can I just stand by? I can’t do that.”
“Hyung, it’s already over.”
“Ugh.”
His stomach churned.
Raon felt bile rise and quickly covered his mouth with his hand.
Truthfully, incidents like this must’ve happened countless times in this place.
But for Raon—who had only possessed this body three years ago—it was something he’d never experienced firsthand.
The fact that Siwoo had lived through something so horrific as a child made Raon feel all the more conflicted.
Watching Siwoo remain so composed—dismissing it all as something in the past—was unbearable.
“Hyung, are you okay?”
“No… I’m not okay.”
“Let’s rest a bit and try to find a way out of here.”
Siwoo acted as if he had already forgotten the vision they’d just seen.
Raon gritted his teeth, still feeling like he might vomit.
“You’re really fine?”
“About what?”
“What we just saw…”
“It’s all in the past.”
Siwoo kept repeating the same thing, without even a trace of bitterness.
That hurt Raon even more.
Maybe it was the surge of emotion, but sharper words escaped his lips.
“No, there’s no way you’re fine. That happened. The kids we lived with… went through something that awful.”
“Even if we grieve now, it changes nothing.”
Unlike the shaken Raon, Siwoo was disturbingly composed.
As if he had no grief left to feel.
Raon had always wondered—why was Siwoo so mature for his age?
Was it just his nature, being cold and blunt?
But no—it was because he’d endured countless tragedies, smothering his emotions over and over again.
Because he wouldn’t have survived otherwise.
“Hyung, do you pity me?”
“…”
Raon couldn’t answer for a moment.
* * *
