Prologue
"Keuheok!"
Jeong-min opened his eyes and shot up.
It was hard to breathe.
When he tried to force a breath, he felt a throbbing pain in his chest.
Jeong-min clutched his chest and took a slow, deep breath.
'Hoo... hoo...'
As his breathing stabilized to some extent, a sense of relief washed over him.
'I... I'm alive...?'
He felt something wet on his lips and wiped it away with his hand.
It was too dark to see clearly, but he could tell that it was some kind of dark, murky liquid.
'This is... blood...? Did I throw up blood?'
Jeong-min sat up, supporting himself with his upper body, and tried to recall what had happened before.
'I definitely remember getting hit head-on by that monster... But... why did I wake up in a place like this? Did someone rescue me from the monster and move me here?'
Jeong-min looked around.
A space with all sides blocked. It should have been pitch black, but light was coming in from somewhere, enough to make out the surroundings.
Inside the roughly 5m x 5m square space, things were piled up here and there, and Jeong-min was sitting in the middle of it all.
'Why are there so many things piled up here... Is this like a warehouse...?'
Jeong-min looked around.
'I need to get out of here.'
Jeong-min tried to find a door to get out.
But no matter how much he looked around, he couldn't see a door.
'There's no door... What's going on? Is this a completely sealed space? Then how did I get in here?'
Panicked, Jeong-min rummaged through the surrounding objects, searching for a door, but he couldn't find one.
Jeong-min shouted into the empty space.
"Hello!"
Jeong-min's shout was reflected off the surrounding walls and echoed back.
"Is anyone there? Someone's trapped in here!"
He shouted desperately and pounded on the walls, but the echoing reverberations only hurt Jeong-min's ears.
Exhausted, Jeong-min slumped down.
'How could this happen...'
As he sat there, feeling lost and dazed, something familiar caught his eye on the floor.
'That's...?'
He slowly reached out and picked it up.
A small box.
He slowly opened the box, and inside was the seemingly sleeping corpse of a hamster.
'This is... Cloud...?! Why is Cloud here...?'
Jeong-min suddenly had a thought and quickly closed the box and put it down.
Then, he frantically began to examine the objects under his body.
'This comic book set... This game console and the titles... They're all mine?! The things I put away!'
Jeong-min picked up a small frame.
Inside the frame was a photo of a mother and son looking affectionate.
"Mom..."
Jeong-min stared at the photo for a moment before putting it down and examining the piles of objects next to him.
"This is... rice sacks... water bottles... even camping supplies...! All the things I put away!"
Various items that he had received from his friend Jun-ki and had occasionally managed to buy and put away.
"They're all properly stored, so why are they all here...? Were they stolen? How did they take them out and bring them here..."
Jeong-min muttered, digging through the objects, and then stopped.
A thought pierced through his mind.
"...That's not it..."
He looked around.
As expected, there was no door to exit.
"Someone didn't move my things..."
A cube-shaped space, roughly 5m in length, width, and height.
"I came into the place where I stored my things..."
Memorable items that Jeong-min had put away himself, and items prepared for survival.
"This is..."
Jeong-min slumped down and muttered.
"...Inside my inventory."
Prologue