"ONE FINAL CHOICE REMAINING."
I stared silently
at the words on the departure board.
Next to my name
was 22:09.
It was the time I was supposed to die,
the price for bringing back
the boy who had died a year ago.
"Please don't choose."
The boy grabbed my sleeve.
"I'm already dead."
"I'll just be going back."
"Don't call it going back."
My voice came out
harsher than I intended.
The boy let go of my sleeve.
"I couldn't save you a year ago."
"That's why I called you
to this station."
"But..."
Just as the boy tried to speak,
the station attendant interrupted.
"You still haven't remembered."
"Remembered what?"
"The first night."
I looked at him.
"Don't you mean yesterday?"
The station attendant
shook his head.
"The yesterday you remember
was the second night."
I didn't understand.
"Then what is tonight?"
"The third."
The boy gasped.
The departure board flashed.
RETRY COUNT
THIRD ATTEMPT
"Wait."
"In Chapter 2,
wasn't it the second attempt?"
"Correct."
The station attendant
answered calmly.
"After seeing the result
of the first attempt,
you chose to retry."
"The same thing happened
after the second."
I did?
"I don't remember any of that."
"When a retry begins,
the passengers' memories
are erased."
"But not completely."
The boy whispered,
"That's why
I remembered a little..."
The station attendant nodded.
I gripped the admission ticket.
"What happened
on the first night?"
The station attendant
looked up at the platform clock.
"See for yourself."
The lights went out.
The next instant,
I was standing on the platform.
No.
The person in front of me
was my past self.
The first night.
Five people scheduled to die.
And the boy.
Everything was exactly
as it was now.
My past self was shouting.
"Please save this boy!"
The station attendant answered.
"I cannot."
"He is already dead."
"Then let me die instead!"
I held my breath.
From the very beginning,
I had made the same choice.
The station attendant
spoke to my past self.
"It is possible
for you to take his death."
"But there is one condition."
"What is it?"
"If you die,
the boy will return
to the living."
"However,
you will lose the right
to save any of the five people
scheduled to die."
My past self fell silent.
He looked at the five people.
If he saved the boy,
all five would die
as scheduled.
If he saved
one of the five,
the boy would return
to death.
My past self
couldn't choose.
And time ran out.
One by one,
the five disappeared.
The boy disappeared last.
Only my past self remained.
I collapsed to the ground.
"One more time."
The station attendant
looked at me.
"What did you say?"
"Let me do it again."
"Next time,
I'll save everyone."
The station attendant
shook his head.
"That option does not exist."
"Then create it."
"I'll do this
as many times as it takes."
"Until I find a way
to save everyone."
The vision cut out.
The second night began.
I had lost my memories.
But I could still sense
that something was wrong,
and I began to suspect the boy.
I realized
he was the intruder.
I tried to push him
onto the tracks.
But this time,
I heard a voice.
The voice
of my past self.
"If you die,
everyone can be saved."
Those were the words
the boy remembered
in Chapter 3.
But there was more.
"So stop me."
The boy looked shocked.
My past self
placed something in his hand.
The admission ticket.
"Give this to the next me."
"Never choose the sixth person."
I held my breath.
The message on that ticket
had been written
by the second me.
He hadn't been trying
to kill the boy.
He had been trying
to leave information
for the next night.
Immediately after that,
00:42.
The first person
scheduled to die disappeared.
My past self
refused to choose
until the very end.
Everyone died again.
And the second me
said the same thing
to the station attendant.
"One more time."
The vision disappeared.
I returned
to the present platform.
"I..."
"I was the one
who kept repeating this?"
The station attendant nodded.
"This is the final attempt."
"Why?"
He pointed
at the departure board.
22:09
A new message appeared
beneath the numbers.
RETRIES BEFORE STATION DELETION
1 REMAINING
"The contradiction
has reached its limit."
"There will be
no next retry."
The boy looked at me.
"Then if we fail this time..."
"Everyone disappears?"
The station attendant
didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
I looked at the five tickets.
00:42 was already gone.
Three people
scheduled to die remained.
And then there was the boy.
And me.
At last,
I understood
what my first self
had meant.
Save everyone.
That option
had never existed.
That was why
I kept trying again.
To find an option
that didn't exist.
But the second me
had discovered something.
That was why
he had written
never to choose
the sixth person.
"Mr. Station Attendant."
"The sixth person
isn't the boy,
is it?"
The station attendant's
expression changed.
The boy looked at me.
"What are you talking about?"
I remembered the first day.
There had been six people
on the platform.
Five were scheduled to die.
I had no scheduled
time of death.
So I assumed
the other five
were the ones scheduled to die.
But I was wrong.
The boy was already dead.
That meant
he couldn't be scheduled to die.
Three scheduled deaths
remained now.
One person
had already died.
That made four.
Not the boy.
Not me.
And yet,
the first departure board
had shown six times.
00:42
03:18
07:05
11:31
16:44
22:09
The final time,
22:09,
was when the station itself
would die.
Then who did
16:44 belong to?
I looked around the platform.
The old man.
The woman.
The man in the suit.
The boy.
The station attendant.
And me.
Finally,
I realized.
There was one person
I had never counted.
I looked
at the station attendant.
"It's you."
He said nothing.
"You're the one
who dies at 16:44,
aren't you?"
The boy turned
toward the station attendant.
The departure board
flashed violently.
16:44
For the first time,
a name appeared beside it.
STATION ATTENDANT
The old man whispered,
"The station attendant
is a passenger too...?"
The station attendant
slowly removed his cap.
"Not exactly."
"I was the first death
this station ever canceled."
I was speechless.
"How many years ago?"
He answered.
"Thirty-seven years ago."
"Just like you,
I tried to save someone."
At that moment,
everything connected.
Someone before me
had done the same thing.
And in the end,
the station attendant
had made a choice.
"Who did you save?"
The station attendant
smiled faintly.
"If you survive
until the next scheduled time,
I'll tell you."
The departure board changed.
NEXT SCHEDULED DEATH
03:18
TIME REMAINING
2 HOURS 36 MINUTES
Then words
I had never seen before
appeared underneath.
"FINAL SERVICE COMMENCING."
In the distance,
I heard the sound
of an approaching train.
The station attendant
put his cap back on.
Then he looked at me.
"The next one is the last."
"You will not be choosing
one person."
"You will choose
whether to end
this station itself."