"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."