Chapter Text
A Door to Eternity
In 6 months, the world would end. Everything would be perished, leaving nothing inside but an empty land. There was no hope for mankind to survive. All they could do was wait for the end. Slowly the plants began to wither easily, more frequent earthquakes happened, and lots of buildings were crumbling. Not only humans, even animals struggling to survive as their habitat was destroyed. People were often relying on canned food as their stock in survival. Alas, getting the canned food itself was also a struggle. They often put their lives into it and had no choice but to kill each other. More or less, the apocalypse had been haunting all creatures for 5 years. Less than 6.000 people in Seoul survive mostly because of the natural disaster. There was no escape, and there was no solution. They just needed to accept what would come to them.
Amidst the hill, there was a small house but it was big enough for the place that used to be called an orphanage. Currently the small house was abandoned, leaving no one but a young man who lived solely while waiting for the end. This young man decided to use this place as a shelter. Never would he expect that he’d come back to this place once again when he used to feel enthusiastic and eager to get out from this place along with his future adoptive parents back when he was still a young boy. Some of the photo frames were broken because of the frequent earthquake, lots of colorful and hand drawn paper still neatly intacted on the wall. When the sky turned golden, the young man often touched the drawing and reminisced about the past while closing his eyes.
“I want to be a policeman so I can help everybody!”
“I want to be a pilot so I can touch the sky!”
“I also want to be a pilot!”
“I pick it first, find something else!”
Chuckling softly, the young man opened his eyes once again. How nostalgic it was, the pang inside his heart sometimes ached. How he missed the past when he was just ten years old. If only he had some kind of superpower and let him go inside the photograph just to enjoy the moment he used to have, yes, that would be amazing.
The young man's name was Yoo Joonghyuk, one of the civilians of Seoul who was somehow still alive while most of his friends were gone. For once, he almost forgot about this place until someone mentioned an orphanage inside the hill. For once, his sense of longing for meeting everyone grew bigger once he heard it.
Maybe they are still there. He hopefully said.
Thus, without further ado he quickly went to the place where he used to call ‘home’. Luckily he still remembered the place with every trail he used to walk as the path. By the time he arrived, he tried to knock on the door slowly 3 times yet no one answered. By the time he tried to open the door, it was unlocked.
“Hello?” Yoo Joonghyuk called, hoping someone would respond to his voice.
Sadly there was no source of light, leaving him only with the moonlight. He braced himself by letting himself in. As expected, no one was here, only dust and cracks filled the house in emptiness. In the end, Yoo Joonghyuk was always alone.
He had been using this place for almost 5 days. For that, he almost cleaned most of the place by himself. Hoping to lighten his mood even if it was just a little. And in 24 more hours, Yoo Joonghyuk would turn 28 years old. In the house there were 5 rooms, and the place that was usable was only one, located in the corner of the house. Which coincidentally was also his room back then. Slowly Yoo Joonghyuk rubbed around the door frame, he still remembered that he drew some weird looking star, an UFO, milkyway, and other planets. He remembered back when the others wanted to be someone who could be reliable to others, Yoo Joonghyuk was different.
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Joonghyuk-ah?” The sister asked happily towards Yoo Joonghyuk who busily drew the UFO around the doorframe.
“I want to be an Astronaut!”
“Oh my, you’re going to be on a long journey if you want to be an astronaut. Why would you want to be an astronaut by the way?”
“Hmm… I dunno, but one thing for sure. I want to find a place where we can also be happy on another planet if earth someday disappears!” Yoo Joonghyuk innocently grinned widely.
“But what if there’s no one on another planet?” The sister sadly asked.
“Then I’ll just ask the stars to make me a friend! A friend that could accompany me for the rest of my life!”
Stopped by the sound of the gusting wind, Yoo Joonghyuk startled and went back to reality while hands still tracing to his old drawing.
“You know, that’s pretty impossible isn’t it, my younger self?”
Tbc