TWO YEARS LATER.
2038.
Somewhere in Korea.
The old world had not returned.
Perhaps it never would.
Cities that had once illuminated the night remained broken.
Roads ended where roads were never supposed to end.
Buildings stood without people.
Others had disappeared entirely.
Nature had begun growing through places humanity once believed belonged to it.
And yet...
people remained.
Humanity had become remarkably good at surviving the consequences of its own decisions.
Small communities formed wherever life was still possible.
Old buildings became shelters.
Anything that still worked became valuable.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Medicine.
Clean water.
Food.
Electricity.
Information.
People no longer asked when the world would return to normal.
The children being born now...
would never know what normal had been.
And on one cold day in 2038...
another child entered this world.
A boy.
His first cry filled a small room somewhere in Korea.
His mother held him close.
Outside...
the remains of the old world stretched into the distance.
But near the shelter stood something strangely ordinary.
A tree.
It had survived.
Its branches were damaged.
Part of its trunk carried scars.
Some branches would never grow again.
But it was alive.
A plum tree.
His mother looked through the damaged window.
Then down at the child in her arms.
"Lee."
A simple name.
But an old one.
A name connected to the plum tree.
The boy knew none of this.
He knew nothing about the world before his birth.
Nothing about the nations that had once competed for power.
Nothing about the decisions that had turned cities into ruins.
Nothing about the weapons that had changed the sky.
Nothing about WARAN.
Nothing about what had happened in 2036.
Nothing about what was still coming.
He was simply...
Lee.
A newborn boy.
Born into the remains of a civilization that had once believed itself too advanced to collapse.
Outside...
the wind moved through the plum tree.
One damaged branch shook.
Then another.
A single plum blossom remained attached to it.
Surrounded by destruction...
something was still growing.
His mother looked at her son.
Lee opened his eyes.
For the first time...
he looked at a world that had nearly ended before he was even born.
He did not cry.
He simply stared.
Quietly.
Outside the window...
the wind moved through the plum tree again.
One damaged branch shook.
Then another.
The single plum blossom remained.
His mother smiled.
And then...
THUMP.
Her smile disappeared.
THUMP.
The room became silent.
THUMP.
Someone slowly looked toward the newborn child.
THUMP.
Lee's tiny chest rose.
THUMP.
Again.
The same impossible sound.
A heartbeat far too deep for the body producing it.
THUMP.
THUMP.
THUMP.
And somewhere else in this broken world...
another child had once begun the same way.
WARAN.
2036.
LEE.
2038.
Two children.
Two births.
Two heartbeats.
And neither of them knew...
what had begun beating with them.
THUMP.
THUMP.
THUMP.
LEE.