Rested.
My achievement, won by enduring nearly ten years.
O time of hardship, spent being ground down beneath filthy coworkers and selfish bosses.
Fortunately, I had been lucky enough to save the minimum amount needed to FIRE.
As of today, I had laid everything down and finally become a free man.
Even the pitch-black night sky I used to see on my way home from work didn’t darken my mood today.
The stars embedded in that night sky were party particles celebrating my FIRE.
On such a joyous day, how could I not raise a toast?
An American chuck eye roll and two cans of beer, bought with great resolve to celebrate my liberation.
“You f***ing held out well! Kim Cheolmin!”
My steps quickened in anticipation of getting home.
Had my footsteps ever felt this light when I was working at the company?
There was my home.
All I had to do was cross this traffic light.
The light turned green, and I took one step.
Baaang—!
A fierce light came toward me, and soon covered my entire vision.
….
…….
“What? Am I… fine?”
That light had definitely been a huge truck.
And yet my body was fine.
I bent my arms, lifted my legs, and turned my neck and waist.
I was clean, without a single injury.
“Ha! That scared the crap out of me. Whew.”
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, and only after I came back to my senses did other things enter my sight.
“Where… is this?”
An unknown, pure-white space.
It wasn’t simply white. My body was floating alone in a wide-open space where I couldn’t tell where the walls were or where the ceiling was.
The moment I recognized that, it became difficult to stand on my two feet.
As if I had fallen into deep water, my body began to drift through the air.
And far below my feet, a man and a woman were having a conversation.
“Excuse me! Please help me! I don’t know how to get down from here, how are you standing upright? Excuse me?”
Even when I asked for help, the two people below either couldn’t hear me or ignored me and continued their conversation.
To get even a little closer, I swam toward them as if I were swimming.
“Excuse me, can’t you hear me?”
But even when I waved my hand nearby and made big movements, I didn’t appear in their eyes.
“Huh? This person?”
The face of the man among the two conversing looked familiar.
While I was thinking that, the conversation ended, and the man suddenly disappeared.
“Where did he go? What is this? Is this a dream? Hey, can’t you see me? Let me out too!”
As if the woman who had been talking to the vanished man would know anything.
I vigorously tried to promote myself in front of the woman, but it was no use.
And then I lost consciousness.
###
Chirp….
Chirp chirp….
“Mmm….”
What time is it?
I had a strange dream.
Still, quitting really was nice.
It was just yesterday that I had forced myself up for work before the sun had even risen.
And today, I could wake up to birdsong, bathed in the sunlight elegantly streaming through the gap in the window.
No.
I could even sleep more without getting up.
I curled up, turning my back to the direction of the sunlight.
“Blanket, where’s the blanket?”
Had I left the window open all night? A chilly wind tickled my skin.
Rustle—.
“….”
Rustle, rustle—.
A sound that should not have come from a bed rang out.
“F***, you scared me!”
I thought I had been enjoying a comfortable sleep in the corner of my room, but when I opened my eyes, I was in a forest.
Huh?
“Did I drink yesterday and climb the mountain behind my place? Did I black out? After drinking just two cans of beer?”
Strange.
When I got home, I usually changed clothes first, but I was still in my suit.
Strange.
For some reason, this didn’t feel like the kind of forest one would see in Korea.
“This is absolutely not the mountain behind my place.”
I sprang up from where I was sitting.
“Excuse me~! Is anyone there~! There’s someone here!!!”
I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted loudly.
Here….
ere….
re….
Only the echo of my own voice returned.
“Is this a dream too?”
Slap—.
I hit my cheek hard.
It hurt.
It hurt a lot.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
“Nope. Not a dream.”
Where had it gone wrong?
Was my desire to FIRE impure?
“Damn it! Am I not allowed to enjoy a comfortable life too!!!”
Life too….
Too….
Even when I shouted, only the echo came back.
“Ah, don’t tell me!”
Then the dream I had today suddenly came to mind.
The intense light enveloping me, the man and woman conversing in that strange space.
The man who had suddenly disappeared.
“What if I lost consciousness right then, and that wasn’t a dream?”
Goosebumps rose on my skin.
“I died, or ended up in a situation close to death, and this is the afterlife?”
Or else.
“Another world?”
A hollow laugh burst out.
“Hahaha. That’s ridiculous…. There’s no way.”
Just then, a squirrel(?) appeared in front of me.
“See? There’s even a squirrel like the ones I saw in the mountain behind my place!”
“Kieeeeeeeek!!!”
“Hyak!”
When the mouth of the squirrel-like something suddenly split diagonally and it let out a monstrous scream, I fell backward.
“F***….”
Looks like this is another world.
###
How long had I been walking?
My mouth was drying out, my stomach was growing hungry, and this damn forest showed no sign of ending.
“Ugh! Let me rest for a bit!”
Unable to walk any farther, I plopped down.
I didn’t know what time it had been when I woke up, but I had walked for a long while, and now the sun was about to set.
As it gradually grew darker, the atmosphere began to turn more and more eerie.
Strange insect sounds.
The bizarre cries of beasts.
I didn’t think I could go any farther from where I was now.
If I moved carelessly, “Kim Cheolmin” would undoubtedly become “Kim/Cheol/Min.”
“I need to at least start a fire.”
The moment I pondered that and started searching for materials, the sun set.
“I’m screwed.”
I couldn’t see an inch ahead.
There wasn’t even a large rock or a small cave where I could hide.
If only I had smoked, I would have had a lighter.
At this moment, I deeply hated my past self for not having been a smoker.
“Awooooooooooo~!”
A wild howl like that of a wolf rang out.
“What do I do? What do I do? Work, brain!”
I clutched at my hair, but only to the point where it wouldn’t get pulled out.
What did I have to do to safely get through the night?
I couldn’t start a fire.
In truth, the only way I knew to start a fire was to rub wood very, very, extremely hard.
It was too late to gather materials, and I didn’t have the time to go through trial and error to start one.
It wasn’t like turning on a lighter, where it just clicked and lit.
Then I needed to find somewhere to hide.
“There aren’t any rocks or caves nearby, though? I’d have to climb somewhere high and look… somewhere high? A tree!”
Fortunately, this place was full of tall trees.
First, I’d climb a tree and spend the night up there.
I hurriedly took off my suit jacket.
I rolled it up so it wouldn’t tear.
I wrapped the jacket around the trunk of a suitable tree and grabbed each end with one hand.
“Heave-ho!”
Using the jacket as support, I climbed the tree.
I should have exercised a bit.
It was so hard my guts were about to fall out.
“Haa… huff… I should be safe here.”
Sweat poured down like rain.
If I fell, there would be no point in having climbed all the way up here for safety, so I used the jacket to firmly tie at least my legs to a tree branch.
The next morning.
I used up too much strength getting down from the tree.
Somehow, I had managed to endure a day while starving, but now I was at my limit.
What happened to my beef and beer?
A deep sigh burst out.
My head was filled with the fragrant smell of the Maillard reaction.
But reality was a gutter.
“Ahh. Beef… Pour a swirl of cooking oil onto a scorching-hot frying pan, put the meat on it… Sizzle….”
I felt like I could hear the meat cooking.
“The scallion salad I seasoned the day before. And the canned beer I had put in the freezer for a bit while getting everything ready.”
Saliva pooled in my mouth.
“Beef should only be flipped once. That is a creed that cannot be traded for anything. Pop the canned beer open with a ‘tssht,’ cut the meat into bite-sized pieces, place it on a plate… and munch it together with the scallion salad!”
Was it an optical illusion?
I could taste it.
“Yes! This is it. And then, if I down an ice-cold beer!”
My body trembled.
“Kyaaa~!!!”
“Caw, caw…”
At the sound of the wild, my delusion shattered as if the Little Match Girl’s match flame had gone out.
“Fuuuck….”
A heavy rain advisory was issued around my eyes.
“Squeak, squeak?”
“Oh, meat.”
Who was it that said humans were creatures of adaptation?
I, Kim Cheolmin, once a civilized man, would be reborn today as a man of nature.
“Uaaaaah! Stand right there!!!”
Some rabbit-looking thing was extremely fast on its feet.
If it had just been an ordinary rabbit like the ones I knew, could I have caught it?
Pushing the useless hypothetical to one corner of my mind, I threw myself after it.
“Khaaak. Stop already!”
“Squeak squeak squeak!”
I felt like that little rat was saying, “For a frail civilized man whose muscles have melted away, you sure are trying.”
“You laughing?”
In anger, I picked up a nearby stone and hurled it with all my might.
Thwack—.
But the rabbit’s cousin used its sturdy hind legs and hopped right away.
“Ha… shit.”
I’d only wasted more stamina. What the hell was I doing?
“Damn it.”
Taking out my anger on the tree where I had just thrown the stone, I kicked it.
Thud!
Plop!
“Huh?”
Then a fruit fell from the sky.
A red fruit that looked like a peach.
When I looked up at the tree the fruit had fallen from, it was laden with fruit.
“Wow… With this, I won’t starve!”
But was it safe to just eat it?
What if it was poisonous?
“….”
First, I took a big bite of the fruit.
Then, without swallowing, I rubbed it on the soft skin in the crook of my elbow.
If it was poisonous, abnormal symptoms would show up.
“Would about 30 minutes be enough?”
30 minutes later.
I was fine.
Still, just in case, I chewed it as thoroughly as possible before eating.
“It’s sweet….”
It was an utterly fantastic taste.
Was it because I had been hungry?
After that, I diligently beat the tree and filled my stomach with this fruit.
It wasn’t a satisfying fullness, but I felt like I could survive now.
Now that I had filled my stomach, it was time to prepare a place to sleep.
If I prepared after the sun started setting like yesterday, it would be too late.
It was also a good idea to climb up a tree while there was still sunlight and look over the entire forest.
Because I had done it the day before, climbing the tree was somewhat easier this time.
“It’s packed dense….”
The forest was just a forest.
From that end to this end.
All of it was dense jungle.
I couldn’t see any large rocks or anything, and there wasn’t a single landmark to use as a feature.
“Even if I move farther from here for no reason, nothing will change.”
It seemed right to just start a fire where I was standing and sleep with my back against a tree.
I pulled up weeds to make a place to light the fire.
With the branches I had prepared.
I rubbed like f***.
Time passed.
“Uaaaaaaaah!”
I still couldn’t light the fire.
The sun was almost down.
It was so exhausting.
“Uaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
As I kept rubbing.
“Huh? Huh! There’s smoke! Smoke!”
I came to understand how humanity felt when it first discovered fire.
“Uwaaaaaah! It worked!!!! Ah! Firewood! It can’t go out!!!”
“Awoooooooooo!”
Even the wolves were congratulating me on my success!
###
“Hm? Mr. Carter, look over there.”
“What is it, Walter? Did a spirit appear?”
“No. Smoke over there.”
“Huh… Smoke in the middle of this ‘Deep Forest.’ To think there are other madmen besides us who would enter this forest….”
“We can’t help it, can we? If we want to meet the delivery deadline, we have to hurry even more.”
“Well, that’s true. I just hope the lord of the forest doesn’t notice us.”
“But Mr. Carter. Isn’t that side off the path? What kind of person would leave the path and go into the forest?”
“Who knows. They can’t be an ordinary person. Even this path is so dangerous no one travels it, yet they went somewhere even more dangerous than here.”
“Surely it isn’t someone who got lost, right?”
“Surely not.”
“Right?”
““Hahahaha!””