“What? When the plane was crashing, I’m sure you…”
“Me? Humming?”
“......”
Seojin blinked blankly.
Mark Miller’s mind was growing increasingly more confused.
He still had vivid memories of that moment.
Screams, smoke, fire, fear, despair.
And Seojin’s humming, echoing amidst the dramatic chaos.
The memory of feeling a brief sense of relief after hearing that humming.
It was all still crystal clear in his mind.
Miller, still unsure, asked Seojin the same question again. But the response was always the same.
“To be honest, it was a horrifying situation. All I did was keep my eyes closed. There wasn’t much else I could do.”
“Are you sure you didn’t play music on an MP3 player?”
“I never did that.”
“Or maybe you saw someone around you humming?”
“Hmm...”
Seojin wore a rather serious expression, as if recalling that moment. But, as expected, Seojin shook his head.
‘Then what on earth was that humming…?’
The memory was so vivid that he had never doubted it.
So, what could it have been?
A hallucination? An auditory illusion?
Given the circumstances, his memory had become distorted.
‘Maybe this explanation makes more sense...’
It’s possible in a situation of extreme stress.
Suddenly, he remembered watching a documentary about something like this before.
Seojin, who seemed to be getting curious, asked a question instead.
“So, humming? Are you saying I was humming or singing something?”
“That’s what I definitely heard.”
“That’s pretty strange. What song was it?”
“It was definitely a familiar tune, but... well, I can’t remember.”
“But didn’t you say the memory was clear?”
“That’s exactly what’s so frustrating. It’s clear, but I can’t remember. Isn’t that some kind of paradox?”
“Hmm...”
After pondering for a while, Miller ended up sharing the flimsy conclusion he came to with Seojin.
“It’s just... I guess I was in shock at the time. Isn’t that called dissociative disorder or something like that?”
“Disso... what?”
“Dissociative disorder. It’s like a defense mechanism of the human mind. Most people want to forget frightening events, right? So, when a terrifying memory forms, the brain just erases it on its own. Sometimes, it even distorts it.”
“Hmm... that’s a bit hard to understand.”
Seojin rubbed his chin for a long time.
Miller chuckled softly and continued.
“You don’t have to understand it. I was just spouting nonsense earlier. The plane crash must’ve been a huge shock to me. Well, who wouldn’t be affected by something like that?”
A somewhat clumsy conclusion.
It was unsettling, but he could more or less accept it.
However.
Even after organizing his thoughts, Mark Miller’s headache only worsened.
It felt as if a small dwarf had entered his head and started construction. Was it hammering? It felt like he was about to lose consciousness.
At some point, his vision became so dark that he could hardly see Seojin.
He could barely make out the shape of a person.
Then he heard Seojin calling.
“@#$@#! #@$@!”
“#$^! #$@&!”
“&(#¥_!”
Ah...
Now that he thought about it, he remembered the first time he met Seojin.
Back then, it also sounded just like that. Seojin was probably speaking Korean now. Wasn’t it natural for people to revert to their native language when they’re flustered? But why was he flustered?
Miller felt an inexplicable drowsiness washing over him, and his eyes slowly closed.
Then he slipped into a deeper sleep.
* * *
A dream?
Miller instantly realized that he was in a dream.
It was because of the peculiar sense of discomfort he felt.
As he walked along the road, no one paid any attention to him. No one gave him a glance, and even if they bumped into him, they ignored him and walked away. Despite this, the haziness unique to dreams was present.
In short...
“Lucid dream?”
However, there was no way to figure out where this place was.
It was a location where a huge, “ã„·”-shaped building stood out, but he had no memory of ever being here.
Mark Miller, almost absentmindedly, walked into the “ã„·”-shaped building. Inside, he saw people bustling about.
Men and women of all ages. A truly diverse group of people gathered together.
Miller walked for quite some time, following the shimmering marble floor. There was a huge fountain, and right next to it stood a piano.
Seeing it, Mark Miller slightly frowned.
“How important is humidity control for a piano... Tsk. They don’t even know that.”
Anyway, no place ever seemed to have its facilities in proper order.
Miller took a seat on a chair at a suitable distance from the fountain. Then he stared intently at the piano.
The fact that there were so many people and the piano was at the center meant that a performance was about to begin soon. Since he was already here, Miller wanted to see that performance.
But, for some reason, no performer appeared.
“Could it be that the performance is already over?”
He worried for a moment.
Though obscured by the grand piano’s lid, he faintly saw the performer adjusting the seat with a soft creak.
And then.
As if to reassure the audience, the beautiful first note of the piano began to resonate throughout the entire first floor.
* * *
“Mister!”
“….”
“You’re finally awake? Oh! Should I get you some water first?”
“......”
Why is it that sweet dreams always get interrupted halfway through?
Miller forced himself to sit up and accepted the water bottle Seojin handed him. It was made from a leftover coconut shell—a surprisingly useful item.
Miller gulped down the water while Seojin filled him in on the situation.
“Mister, do you know you’ve been unconscious for five whole days?”
“Five days? Has it really been that long?”
“Felt like only a few hours passed.”
“It’s exactly five days. Five. And do you know how scared I was when you suddenly collapsed while we were talking? I had to carry you all the way home. You know how hard that was?”
“You? Carried me?”
“Of course! What, do you think a turtle came by and just carried you home?”
“......”
“And I had no idea how heavy an unconscious person could be. Wow. I felt like I was moving a statue!”
He chattered on endlessly.
Yet despite him being unconscious for so long, Seojin didn’t seem down at all.
The last time he passed out while looking for an acoustic guitar case, Seojin cried so hard his eyes were all swollen.
And now, he had even carried me. That couldn’t have been an easy task.
Miller stared intently at Seojin, who had clearly grown up—and was still growing.
‘I had only ever thought of him as a child until now.’
That wouldn’t do anymore.
“I knew you’d wake up, eventually. You told me once, didn’t you? That people don’t die so easily.”
“Yeah.”
For some reason, Miller even felt a sense of reassurance.
Miller ate the meal that Seojin had prepared for him.
Grilled dried fish and clam soup. The seasoning was just right, and it was fairly edible.
Though there was a brief incident, they returned to their daily routine.
Every day, we engaged in activities for survival.
For a bit of enjoyment, one of them would teach while the other learned.
And now, they had one more task added.
In addition to passively waiting for a rescue team, they started actively trying to escape this place.
They began building a boat out of wood.
* * *
Two years had passed since then.
Time flew by so quickly.
Counting from the plane crash, it had been more than three years.
There was no sign of a rescue team. They didn’t even see a single fishing boat. No yachts, container ships—no vessel of any kind passed by this place.
They had to endure an unbearably long time on this deserted island.
‘But it won’t be much longer now.’
Miller started looking for tools in the house. He’d left them somewhere around here. But they weren’t easy to spot. Then, his eyes landed on Seojin’s makeshift piano that he used for practice. It looked polished from how much he had been playing it.
After searching the house for a while, Miller finally found a wooden plank. He immediately headed toward the workspace where the boat was being built.
There were felled trees scattered all over the island. The countless tree stumps seemed to tell the tale of time that had passed.
In the beginning, it used to take them several days just to chop down a single tree like that.
Processing trees with just stone knives on a deserted island was an incredibly difficult and grueling task.
“Well... In the end, everything worked itself out over time.”
As Miller walked, lost in thought, he began to hear the sound of a guitar from somewhere. The further he moved, the louder the sound grew.
“Another new melody, huh?”
Lately, the variety of songs had increased noticeably. From original compositions to famous existing songs. At this point, even well-known composers probably wouldn’t hold a candle to him.
When Miller arrived, there was a small boat, just big enough to fit two or three grown men. It was a wooden boat with a hollowed-out shape.
It looked pretty decent, considering it was crafted without any nails, put together using only wood joints.
Miller shouted loudly in that direction.
“Who’s slacking off over there?”
After a moment, a response came from inside the boat.
“Well, that’s because the person who went to get the tools disappeared. What am I supposed to do? Do I have a saw? Do I have a chainsaw? So, I was just taking a little break.”
“Why is your response so sly?”
“Who do you think I learned that from?”
“....”
“By the way, the population of this island is two. One of them is me.”
“....”
He really had become a smooth talker.
At that moment, a young teenager jumped out from inside the boat. He leaned his elbows on the boat’s railing and looked at Miller.
Fifteen years old. If he were in the outside world, he would have already entered high school by now.
He was Seojin, who had grown up a lot.
“When you were younger, at least you were kind of cute.”
“I’m still young enough, you know? I’m 16 in Korean age, 15 in international age. Still a kid. A kid.”
“For the record, when you were 12, you cried saying you missed your mom and dad. That’s what I was talking about. Don’t you remember?”
“......”
“‘Waaah, Mom~’ Don’t you remember that? Thanks to you, the first Korean word I learned was ‘mom.’”
“......”
“Waaaah.”
“......”
Miller started imitating Seojin in a clumsy way.
As soon as Seojin saw that, he immediately started glaring at Miller.
‘He’s really lost all his cuteness, I swear.’
Seojin seemed to be in a hurry to change the subject.
“Ahem. So, did you bring the wooden ruler?”
“Yeah. Here you go.”
Mark Miller flung the long wooden ruler over. Seojin caught it swiftly.
The boat was nearly finished. They had even tested it in the water a few times, checking for leaks.
What they were doing now was just reinforcement work.
At this rate, they would be able to set sail by the end of the week.
The journey into the real world.
That day was finally just around the corner.
