It was the fourth day since I was admitted, and today, unlike yesterday, I woke up early.
Because I woke up early, I was able to have breakfast today.
After eating breakfast, I lay back down on the bed.
Just lying there quietly in bed after waking up early made the day feel incredibly long.
I wished I could fall asleep, but perhaps because I had slept too much yesterday, I couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I tried to force myself. I was too wide awake.
Even though I'm good at passing time idly, there's a clear difference in how time feels when you do it voluntarily versus when you have to do it involuntarily.
I lay there idly, and it felt like at least two hours had passed, but when I checked the clock, only ten minutes had gone by.
At times like this, I really wondered if time flowed at a different speed.
What if someone was monitoring my actions and controlling the flow of time?
For example, right now, somewhere in a secret organization:
"Director! The subject we're observing is showing signs of boredom!"
"What? Slow down the flow of time by ten times immediately!"
Such a terrifying conversation might be taking place.
Because I was so bored, I kept having these strange thoughts.
Thinking about time reminded me of the first weekend I spent at the army training camp.
It hadn't been long since we were assigned from the enlistment review area to the recruit training area, and everyone was still unfamiliar with each other. The instructor had a strangely charismatic presence, so even on the weekend, we couldn't relax.
After breakfast, we returned to the barracks and sat on our bunks in silence.
For a whole half-day.
It was one of the moments in my life when time felt like it was standing still.
Looking back, someone could have started a conversation, but among the roommates, there were many who were shy, so that's why it happened.
Anyway, after enduring that excruciatingly long time, lunchtime came, and everyone started eating. One of the roommates, who shared the same dormitory, mentioned something as if talking to himself.
He said he couldn't remember what he had for breakfast, even though he was eating lunch.
When I heard that, I realized I couldn't remember either.
And just like that, the quiet roommates all started talking loudly about what they had for breakfast.
The time had felt so long that no one could remember what they had eaten just a few hours earlier.
Once the conversation started, we talked so much that we even got scolded, but even that became a topic of conversation for us who were so bored.
Those memories from the training camp are all nostalgic now.
I don't want to go back there again, but there's a reason why men who have served in the military keep talking about their military days.
Lost in nostalgia, I looked at the clock again, but there was still a long time before lunch.
If I had someone to talk to, the time would pass quickly.
My hand unconsciously went to my phone.
The only number in my contacts was Leonor's.
It seemed too empty.
I thought I should have at least exchanged numbers with Mei, even though we were friends.
Even if I couldn't contact her now because she was at school.
After fiddling with the screen, I put the phone down again.
Naturally, there was no group chat with my training camp buddies, who I had kept in touch with after being assigned to our units, or with my school friends, with whom I used to talk nonsense when I had nothing to do.
There was no one who remembered the old me, only people who knew Scarlett Evandale.
The connections I made here were not unimportant, but I missed the people who could empathize with the stories I had experienced over more than 20 years of my life.
There was no one here who could share my memories.
The events from the military, school, and work.
All of these were stories I couldn't tell the people here, and I knew too many other things I couldn't talk about.
Stories that couldn't be shared made a person feel lonely.
.
.
.
...Judging by my state, it seemed like today would be a tough day.
Even though I wanted to think positively, sometimes, very rarely, I ended up like this.
I knew that thinking this way would make me sad, but I couldn't suppress the thoughts that came to mind.
Various words floated and disappeared in my head.
One of them seemed to fit my current situation perfectly.
It was the title of a book a buddy had lent me at the training camp.
The Stranger異邦人.
The meaning is someone from a different place.
Albert Camus is not here,
and my mother didn't pass away today or yesterday,
but still, I was a stranger.
A stranger in an unfamiliar world felt lonely.
To a stranger who felt the world was a lonely place, even the private room I was in felt too large.
A room where I couldn't feel the warmth of others besides myself.
The room was a bit cold due to the early spring weather.
I pulled the blanket up to my waist, but I still felt the chill.
I gradually pulled the blanket up until it covered my head.
For someone alone, the small space inside the blanket seemed just right, and the chill seemed to lessen a bit.
It was dark inside the blanket, and I didn't like the darkness,
but I disliked loneliness more,
so I spent the long time until lunch curled up inside the blanket.
*
In the novels I read, the protagonists knew almost everything about the characters and what would happen in the future because they had read the original works.
The original novels they read were undoubtedly ultra-long novels that could have been several hundred chapters, just explaining the settings and events.
"The Holy Swordmaster of the Academy" was a novel that concluded in less than 200 episodes.
At the time of reading, I didn't mind the novel's way of progressing, which only mentioned that something happened without providing detailed explanations of the events.
I thought the author just wanted to move the plot along quickly.
But now, I was only sad that the author wasn't more explanatory.
I wanted to save people, as I told Yun Siwoo yesterday, but I felt at a loss about how to deal with the events to come.
The gym incident was something I could influence within my reach.
But could I affect other events the same way?
If I had more detailed information, I might have tried something, but thanks to this damn author, all I knew was that terrible events would happen one after another.
Suddenly, the veil will be lifted, but I don't know why.
The seal will be broken, and the Witch of Gluttony will be resurrected, but I don't know why.
Even if I told people what I knew, it would surely sound like absurd nonsense, like Nostradamus predicting the terrifying king.
I had to stop the world's destruction without information, and no one would believe me.
If I could stop it by sacrificing parts of my body, I would gladly do so, but I felt like facing a natural disaster with just my body.
The kids from my class came to visit me again, just like yesterday, probably because school was over.
Honestly, they were kids I hardly talked to at school, but they all got angry, sad, and encouraging as if it were their own business.
According to the original story, they were the kids who would probably die in the gym.
I saved them for now, but I didn't know what would happen next.
If the events from the original story happened, would they survive?
So, I had to do something.
I wasn't sure what, but I knew that lying in bed wouldn't help.
After the kids who came to visit left, I was served congee for dinner, just like last time.
While eating, I tried to muster some energy and asked the nurse who came to collect the dishes.
"When can I be discharged?"
"Discharge? Well... you should first be examined by your attending doctor, but since your prognosis is good, you might be able to be discharged soon if you want. However, it would be better to stay a bit longer... because, you might still feel some inconvenience in your daily life. Did the hospital food not taste good enough for you to want to be discharged so quickly?"
The nurse, who had suggested I should stay for my arm, tried to deflect by asking if the food was bad, with a smile.
I slowly shook my head and replied.
"No, the food is really delicious."
Being in the hospital was definitely more comfortable for my body, but staying here wouldn't change the situation.
I knew no one would understand this feeling.
"But I don't want to stay here any longer."
I said this because I didn't want to lose anyone else.
Author's Note
The work mentioned in the text is Albert Camus's "The Stranger."
It's a well-known book with the opening line, "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."
I think it's a word that well represents the protagonist's feelings of loneliness in an unfamiliar world.
In a situation where the alarm would have been ringing loudly in the past, the protagonist felt powerless but didn't want to stay idle.
By the way, the training camp story is fiction.
Boredom drives people crazy, and crazy people never stay quiet. They always do something...
The time I spent with countless crazy people and myself, who had somehow become crazy with them, was a time to be grateful that our society, with such members, still maintained its form.
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