After recovering all 285 souls from the runway accident,the Retrieval Team finally closed out their last mission of the day.

  A beat later, Marco’s voice crackled through the earpiece—sharp, clipped, pure command.

  He answered with a tired sigh.

  “Copy that. But seriously, Chief… You speak perfect Korean. Why the English orders? And why only to us?”

  Marco didn’t bother replying.

  “Jichung, special ops ends here.Wrap up and head back. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The words barely left his mouth beforeKim Beom-woo’s body lit up and lifted from the ground.A soft glow rose from Yoon Jichung as well.

  Inside the drifting smoke,their outlines thinned, faded—

  Whoosh.

  Both vanished in the same instant.

  What remained was scorched metaland silence.No wind.No sound.The runway froze in place, empty and breathless.

  Then something shifted.

  A tremor brushed the air.Ash that had been hanging motionless began to shiver.The gray particles—frozen midair like dust trapped in ice—started to fall.

  Slowly.Painfully slowly.As if a long-buried snowbank had finally tipped.

  Then the hardened streams of water suspended above themlost their shape.

  Drip.Drip.

  Gravity remembered itself.

  A sheet of water collapsed downward all at once.

  Fwoooosh—!

  The fire hose burst back to life.Flames snapped awake.Muted sirens found their voices and screamed across the runway.

  “Secure the danger zone! Move back!”

  A firefighter—stiff as stone seconds ago—lurched into motion and sprinted forward.Warning lights blinked back into rhythm.Glass shards caught the light again as they fell.

  The world, paused mid-breath,clicked into motion like gears locking together—quiet, but certain.

  Less than a minute had passed.In the afterlife, barely a blink.But to the living,it stretched like a strange, hollow eternitythey’d never be able to explain.

  Meanwhile,Reapers Inc. — Earth Branch, Central Operations —was a mess.

  The instant Retrieval Team 2 transmitted all 285 souls at once,every monitor in the room flared redand alarms shrieked across the floor.

  “What—What is this number?!Who sends that many souls in one batch?!The Midrealm’s already overflowing!”

  Marco snapped in frustration.A calm voice answered from the rear consoles.

  “Relax. It’s HQ’s Special Audit Division.Just process it.”

  The Earth Operations Director.His fingers flew across the keys,linking the displays to the Earth Field Real-Time Data feed.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Earth Ops was the brain of Reapers Inc.Human lives were archived here every sixty days,and every field assignment in the mortal realmwas tracked and commanded from this room.

  It also doubled as the complaint desk of the living.Prayers, pleas, resentment—human emotion poured in nonstop,scrolling like an endless comment section.Billions of spikes of hope, irritation, fear, longingstacked into pure data.

  And the top keywords never changed:hatred, jealousy, desire, rage, discrimination, pride, despair.

  Earth was always drowning in complaints.

  “Don’t push me!”“I’m not dead! Bring my son here!”“I woke up in the hospital and suddenly I’m here?!”

  The room echoed with confusion and panic.

  This was the Midrealm—a holding zone for souls awaiting judgment,managed by Reapers Inc., Earth Branch.A waiting room for the seven ritesof the Forty-Nine Day Passage.

  Inside the colossal dome, souls were packed tight,as if someone had poured them in until the place overflowed.The gray expanse was cold as ice and suffocatingly silent,yet heavy—dense with fear and uncertainty.No space left for even one more.

  This was neither the realm of the living nor the dead.A gray zone.A place outside mortal timeand unbound by the rules of the afterlife.Here, souls floated in a moment that did not move,carrying every memory they’d left behind,waiting for their final verdict.

  Some cried.Some insisted they were still alive.Some reached into empty air,groping for a door that wasn’t there.

  “Where… where am I? My family—please, someone tell me!”

  A desperate voice cracked in the distance.A soul beside it snapped:

  “Shut up! None of us know!I opened my eyes and—I was already here!”

  Panic. Fear. Anger. Denial.Hundreds of emotions collided,sending a tremor through the stagnant air.

  No one knew the truth.How they had arrived,why this moment,or what waited for themwhen the next door opened—or closed.

  Only one thing was certain:

  There was no way back.

  ---

  “Are you the guardian of Mr. Tak Junho?”

  The phone buzzed violently across the breakfast table.Im Hyo-jung froze with her chopsticks halfway to her lips.She glanced at the screen—an unfamiliar number.

  After a hesitant breath, she picked up.

  “This is the Incheon International Airport Police Department.”A thin pause, sharp enough to cut the morning air.“Have you heard about yesterday’s plane crash?”

  Her fingertips went cold.

  “We’re calling to request identification of your husband.Please come to Hanmaeum Hospital today.The admissions desk will assist you.”

  Click—The caller hung up first.

  The wallpaper returned, calm as ever,but her world did not.

  Her grip loosened.The phone slipped from her hands and struck the floor with a dull thud.The sound felt like something collapsing inside her chest.Moments later, tears began to fall—soft, steady drops tapping against the tile.

  She whispered to her son, “I’ll be out for a bit,”and headed straight for the hospital.

  She needed to see it.She couldn’t believe it.Years of fear, resentment, and wounds that never healed—some part of her sensed that all of itmight vanish in a single moment.

  Her feet walked forward.Her heart did not.

  When she pushed open the morgue door,harsh fluorescent lights rained down on cold metal.An attendant slid open a refrigerated compartmentand gently pulled out a small figure beneath a white sheet.

  “Please confirm.”

  He lifted a corner of the cloth.Her gaze stopped at the ankle.

  There—her husband’s familiar wart.

  Her breath halted.A sob burst out of her like something breaking free.

  “Y-Yes… it’s my husband.”

  As the words slipped out,a chain she’d carried for yearssnapped somewhere deep inside her—a faint, metallic breakshe could almost hear.

  The death threats.The violence toward their son.The years of fear.None of it could hold her anymore.

  What remained was the hollow space left behindwhen terror finally dissolves—a strange, fragile breath of freedom.

  Through blurred tears,she saw the last of him.

  His upper body was gone to the flames.Only the charred lower half remained,lying alone on the cold steel table.

  No more words.No more sighs.No anger left to spill.This was the final image of the man he had become.

  A few days later,she and her son sat together before a quiet, empty funeral altar.No condolences.No forced strength.Not even enough tears left to cry.

  They held a small urnand boarded the bus home.

  Outside, scenery drifted past in slow motion.A chill wind pressed through the window frame.

  Then—as if muffling all the noise of the world—the low, steady thrum of a temple moktakspread across the gray sky like ripples.

  She couldn’t tellwhether the sound was comforting themor announcing another goodbye.

  All she could dowas hold the urn close to her chest—gentle, careful, with slow trembling breaths—as if trying to believethere was still a trace of warmth inside.