Death—what a terrifying word, isn’t it?

But…
The ultimate truth of life is not just something sad—it feels strangely like a festival of endings…! 🎇

It was just before the clock struck 8 p.m.
We had finished dinner and were talking about which movie to watch the next day.
I was preparing for the IELTS, and our teacher had told us to watch English movies.
Until now, I had only seen three: “Soulmate,” “2012,” and “Where Is My Home.”
As we kept talking about all this, morning had already arrived.

Suddenly, a police siren wailed nearby…
Voices came through the radio.
I saw my friend near the door, standing still with red, tearful eyes.
I quickly stood up and asked:

“Hey, what’s wrong? Can you hear me? Why are you silent?”

I reached out to grab his shoulder and shake him—
But my hand passed right through him.
He just stared quietly toward my bed, tears falling silently.

I slowly turned my gaze in that direction, and there it was—
My own body, bruised in blue and yellow.
My wide-open, lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling—a horrifying sight.

People gathered around, and amidst the murmurs—
Voices said, “Poor thing… 😞”
And, “What do we do with the body? Who should we call?”

Though my body was still there, my consciousness had already—
Returned to that distant old house.

They say “the senses don’t disappear right after death,”
And my heart was being pulled toward my parents.

Still unaware, with cracked hands and broken nails,
They kept building dreams for me, one after another—
Like a tower moments before it collapsed in the 2015 earthquake…

I remembered my father’s face—his beard just starting to turn grey.
And my mother’s face—looking far older than 45,
Covered in spots from overwork, sleep deprivation, hunger, and constant worry for her children.

At that moment, my mother’s old phone started ringing.
She picked up the phone, bound together with a black rubber band.

“Hello…?”

I don’t know what the person on the other end said.
But the phone slipped from her hand, and she collapsed to the floor.

“Mom…!”
I screamed and tried to run to her.

But then—I heard the ticking of the wall clock.
Tick… Tick… Tick…
The time was 4:53 a.m. 🕓

And at that moment, I realized—
Night was no longer “just the time to sleep.”

It wasn’t the simple darkness I knew as a child.
Now, it had become a time to think deeply in silence,
To quietly shed tears,
To have conversations with myself,
And to speak my darkest feelings into the night’s stillness.