“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!” 9. 8. 7. The man shouted. “Hurry!” 6. 5. I reached for the 00:42 ticket. 4. 3. The boy screamed. “Don’t take it!” 2. My hand stopped. 1. 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.”