“That’s why yesterday,
you tried to kill me.”
The boy’s words
echoed over and over
inside my head.
“I did...?”
The boy nodded.
I looked at the clock on the platform.
12:40 a.m.
Two minutes remained
until the first scheduled death.
“Why
did I try to kill you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You remember
what happened yesterday, don’t you?”
“Not all of it.”
The boy pressed a hand
against his head.
“I only remember
fragments.”
“I remember you trying
to push me onto the tracks.”
“And I remember
what you said to me.”
A terrible feeling came over me.
“What did I say?”
The boy looked at me.
“If you die,
everyone else will survive.”
The platform
fell silent.
Everyone’s eyes
turned toward me.
“That can’t...”
I started to speak,
then stopped.
Without any memory
of yesterday,
I couldn’t deny it.
Then
a warning tone sounded.
12:41 a.m.
ONE MINUTE REMAINING
The man scheduled
to die first
grabbed my arm.
“That’s enough.”
“Choose me.”
“There might still
be another way.”
“There isn’t!”
the man shouted.
“Only one person can be saved, right?”
“Then save me!
I’m the first one to die!”
The man in the suit
stepped between us.
“You don’t get
to decide that yourself.”
“If he saves you,
what happens to the rest of us?”
“Then what the hell
am I supposed to do?!”
Their voices overlapped.
The old man
and the woman
stared at the clock
with terrified expressions.
Thirty seconds left.
I looked at the station attendant.
“If I don’t choose anyone,
he really will die?”
The attendant answered.
“The schedule
will be carried out.”
“Schedule?”
That word
caught my attention.
Not death.
Scheduled death.
If it was only a schedule,
couldn’t it be changed?
Was that why
one person’s death could be canceled?
“How do I choose?”
The station attendant
pulled five tickets
from his pocket.
Each one
had a time printed on it.
00:42
03:18
07:05
11:31
16:44
But
one was missing.
The departure board
had originally shown
six times.
The last one,
22:09,
wasn’t there.
“Where’s the sixth ticket?”
The station attendant’s expression
shifted slightly.
Ten seconds left.
“Answer me!”
The man shouted.
“Hurry!”
I reached
for the 00:42 ticket.
The boy screamed.
“Don’t take it!”
My hand stopped.
12:42 a.m.
Every light
went out.
In the darkness,
all I could hear
was someone breathing.
Then
a train arrived.
Without a sound.
Without any lights.
A pitch-black train
glided into the platform.
The doors opened.
No one moved.
A voice came
from inside the dark carriage.
“00:42.”
“It is the scheduled time.”
The first man
suddenly began to suffer.
He clutched his chest
and collapsed.
“Hey!”
I rushed toward him.
His eyes were open.
But
he wasn’t breathing.
“Call an ambulance!”
I pulled out my phone.
No signal.
I put my hand
over his heart.
Nothing.
“You’ve got to be kidding...”
Only seconds ago,
he had been alive.
No one
could speak.
The train doors
slowly closed.
At that moment,
the man’s body disappeared.
“What...?”
His clothes.
His shoes.
Everything was gone.
As if
he had never been here
in the first place.
The train disappeared
into the darkness.
The lights came back on.
I looked at the departure board.
00:42
was gone.
Five times remained.
03:18
07:05
11:31
16:44
22:09
Then
another message appeared beneath them.
“SCHEDULED TO DIE:
3 REMAINING”
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Three?”
One person had died.
If there had originally been
four people scheduled to die,
then three remaining
made sense.
But
there were still five of us
on the platform,
including me.
The old man.
The woman.
The man in the suit.
The boy.
And me.
Three were scheduled to die.
I wasn’t a passenger.
The boy was the intruder.
Then
the numbers added up.
“So you really are
the intruder.”
I looked at the boy.
He shook his head.
“No.”
“You said so yourself
just a minute ago.”
“Yesterday,
I thought I was.”
“But now
I remember.”
The boy looked
across the tracks.
“I didn’t come
to this station on my own.”
“Someone
brought me here.”
“Who?”
The boy’s face
turned pale.
“You did.”
I was speechless.
“Yesterday’s me?”
“No.”
The boy answered
without hesitation.
“Earlier than that.”
Pain shot
through the back of my head.
For a split second,
I saw a memory
I didn’t recognize.
A station
in broad daylight.
The boy
in his school uniform.
And me
walking behind him.
It wasn’t this station.
It was
an ordinary station.
I was handing
something to the boy.
A ticket.
Then
the vision vanished.
“What was that...?”
The boy looked
at my hand.
“That.”
Somehow,
a ticket
was now in my right hand.
It wasn’t one
the station attendant had shown me.
It was old
and stained.
On the front
were the words:
“ADMISSION TICKET”
I turned it over.
On the back,
a single sentence
was written
in my own handwriting.
“NEVER CHOOSE
THE SIXTH PERSON.”
I looked at the departure board.
The final time.
22:09.
The time
that hadn’t appeared
on any of the five tickets
held by the station attendant.
“Who is
the sixth person?”
At that moment,
the station attendant
raised his voice
for the first time.
“Throw that ticket away.”
I looked at him.
The man
who had remained expressionless
through everything that had happened
was clearly terrified.
“Why?”
The station attendant
didn’t answer.
I tightened my grip
on the ticket.
“Who dies
at 22:09?”
Silence.
Finally,
the station attendant spoke.
“That time...”
He paused.
“is not
the scheduled time
of a passenger’s death.”
A chill ran
down my spine.
“Then
what time is it?”
The station attendant
looked directly at me.
“It is the time
this station dies.”