It was 11:57 p.m.
Three minutes remained before my twenty-fifth birthday.
I sat alone on the sofa of my rented apartment, the lights dim, the room quiet except for the ticking clock on the wall. In front of me, on a small table, rested a half-kilogram vanilla cake. Plain. Cheap. Enough.
Beside it stood a framed photograph.
My parents smiled in it, holding a much younger version of me between them.
They had died in a car accident when I was still a child.
I didn't remember their faces moving. I didn't remember the sound of their voices in everyday life. But there was one memory that never faded—one moment burned so deeply into my mind that time couldn't touch it.
"My sweet little child… you must live well."
My chest tightened.
"We know we couldn't give you a proper family. We're sorry."
My parents had been orphans themselves. Maybe that was why they worried so much about what would happen to me after they were gone.
"Even so… live well. Live happily. For our sake."
I lowered my gaze and exhaled slowly.
"Don't worry, Mom," I murmured to the empty room.
"No matter how hard life gets… I'll live."
The clock ticked.
11:58 p.m.
Outside, faint popping sounds echoed through the city. Firecrackers. Somewhere, people were celebrating the coming new year. Laughter drifted through the walls, distant and unfamiliar.
I opened the cake box and placed the knife beside it.
Since I was waiting anyway, I turned on the television. YouTube autoplayed a random video. Normally, I would've ignored it—but something about the thumbnail caught my attention.
A man stared into the camera, eyes wide, hair unkempt.
Curious, I clicked.
He spoke rapidly, laughing at strange moments, words spilling out in a way that made him sound unstable. I barely listened—until one sentence made my hand pause.
"Since the year 2000," he said, "people who turn twenty-five have been disappearing."
I frowned.
He claimed that every year, exactly ten people vanished on their twenty-fifth birthday. Five men. Five women. Governments denied it. The public mocked it. The pattern was dismissed as coincidence.
"This year marks the two hundred and fiftieth disappearance," he laughed.
"And when the clock hits midnight tonight, another ten will vanish to welcome 2026!"
"…Yeah, right."
Aliens. Experiments. Nonsense piled on nonsense. I switched the video.
Soft bells filled the room as Carol of the Bells began to play—one of my favorites. Calm. Familiar.
I glanced at the clock.
11:59 p.m.
Ten seconds remained.
I picked up the knife and held it over the cake.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Midnight.
I sliced into the cake.
At that exact moment, the floor beneath my feet began to glow.
A circular pattern of pale light spread silently across the ground, symbols forming at its edges. My breath caught.
"What the—"
I stepped back, panic flaring, but the light surged upward like liquid glass. My legs froze. My body refused to move.
The world tilted.
The knife slipped from my fingers.
The cake fell from my hand.
The apartment vanished.
And everything went dark.
Far away, a video continued playing on an abandoned screen.
And somewhere in the city, a man once dismissed as a lunatic began running toward a police station—laughing and crying at the same time.
Because this time, someone had disappeared.
And it was me.
I lost consciousness the moment I arrived.
Later, I would come to a simple conclusion—whatever dragged me here, my body hadn't been able to handle it. Time, space, distance… something had gone wrong, and I paid the price by blacking out instantly.
How long I remained unconscious, I had no way of knowing.
There was no phone.
No watch.
No sense of time at all.
When I finally opened my eyes, light flooded my vision.
Warm. Gentle.
I blinked several times before realizing—
"…The sun?"
Yes. The sun.
Golden light filtered down from above, real and unmistakable. I was lying on something impossibly soft. Tall grass cushioned my back, cool and springy, swaying faintly with the breeze.
For a brief moment, everything felt peaceful.
Then my mind caught up.
I sat up abruptly.
An open plain stretched endlessly around me, covered in thick grass that reached past my calves. Far in the distance—several kilometers away—stood a forest unlike anything I'd ever seen. Trees towered so high they seemed to pierce the sky itself, their crowns disappearing into drifting mist.
The scale alone made my chest tighten.
Then I noticed something else.
I looked down.
I was naked.
Completely naked.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
A cold breeze swept across the field, and I shivered violently. Goosebumps rose across my skin as reality settled in.
After a moment of stunned silence, I stood up and shouted.
"HEY! Whoever brought me here—are you insane?! At least give me some clothes!"
My voice echoed briefly.
Then vanished.
No response.
Only the wind brushing through the grass.
I sank back down and sat there.
Seconds passed.
Then minutes.
And suddenly, the fear I'd been holding back broke through.
Tears spilled down my face uncontrollably. I cried like a child, shoulders shaking as I tried—and failed—to stop myself.
"Damn it…" I choked.
"Where am I…?"
It took time before the storm passed.
When it did, something else took its place.
Hunger.
A deep, gnawing emptiness twisted in my stomach. Whatever strength I had left was draining fast.
"I need food…" I muttered.
I stood up unsteadily and looked toward the forest.
It was the only option.
I started walking.
The grass was thick—far denser than it looked. Every step swallowed my feet, making movement awkward and draining. Within minutes, my breathing grew ragged, chest burning as exhaustion piled on faster than it should have.
But what unsettled me most wasn't the fatigue.
It was the silence.
There were no insects.
No birds.
No distant animal cries.
No mosquitoes. No crickets.
Nothing.
Just wind.
And grass.
And me.
Fear crept back into my chest, slow and cold.
When I finally reached the forest's edge, I stopped.
Inside, the light dimmed drastically. Massive trunks rose like pillars, packed so tightly that sunlight barely reached the ground. Shadows pooled between roots and undergrowth, deep and unreadable.
For a ridiculous moment, a thought crossed my mind.
…Eat grass?
I shook my head hard.
"What am I even thinking?"
I stepped inside.
The air immediately grew cooler. Damp. Old.
I looked up.
Fruits hung from some of the trees—round, red, and disturbingly familiar.
My stomach twisted.
What if they're poisonous?
I clenched my fists.
I wasn't brave.
I wasn't trained.
I wasn't prepared.
I was starving.
"…Sorry, Mom," I whispered.
I picked up a stone and threw it at the nearest tree.
Miss.
Again.
Miss.
My arms felt heavy, vision blurring slightly. Just as frustration peaked, one throw struck true.
A fruit fell.
It hit the ground with a dull thud.
I stared at it for several seconds before picking it up.
It looked like an apple.
"…If it looks like one," I muttered weakly,
"maybe it tastes like one."
I bit into it.
Sweetness flooded my mouth.
Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly gave out. I devoured the fruit greedily, swallowing every bit.
Then—
Something changed.
A subtle sensation spread through my body, like a ripple moving beneath my skin. My heartbeat steadied. My breathing shifted, deeper, heavier.
Not painful.
Not pleasant.
Just… different.
I froze.
"…What did I just eat?"
The forest didn't answer.
But somehow, I knew.
This place had noticed me.