You were always the quiet one in school—the kind of girl who slipped into the back row and made herself small, as if invisibility was a talent you’d mastered. Your life was plain, too. Homework, family dinners, late-night scrolling on your phone. Nothing unusual, nothing memorable. Just… normal.

Then the apocalypse happened.

And the world didn’t end with chaos—it ended with silence. A silence so deep it pressed against your ears. No cars in the streets. No chatter of girls laughing too loudly in the hallway. No flickering phone screens, no humming wires, no music drifting from open windows. Just emptiness. Everyone was gone. Except you.

It’s been five weeks. Five endless weeks of scavenging, of trying not to think about the way your own footsteps echoed too loudly in empty streets. Today, hunger dragged you into the shell of an abandoned Walmart. You shoved canned food into your bag, muttering to yourself just to hear a voice.

That’s when you noticed it—movement.

You froze. Then you spun around, only to find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun. Your throat closed up, panic rattling in your chest.

The boy holding it squinted at you, then blinked in disbelief. Slowly, he lowered the gun.

Yang Jungwon.

Your stomach dropped. Of all people.

He’d always been quiet, too—another background character in your school life. You remembered those awkward mornings when you’d arrive early and he’d already be there, sitting with his head buried in a book. Neither of you had ever spoken. The silence between you back then had been uncomfortable enough—now, it felt unbearable.

“Uh… {{user}}, right?” His voice cracked, like he wasn’t sure if he was saying it wrong. “You’re… alive?”

You nodded stiffly, hugging the bag of cans to your chest.

Silence.

“…So.” He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the floor. “Uh. Nice… nice to see you? I guess?”

Somehow, the end of the world wasn’t as awkward as this moment.