The words hit him like a drop of ice water. Next time—for what?
He read the line again. And again. Until the letters blurred into shapes and the shapes lost all meaning.
And for the this time, the thought he had been pushing aside forced its way through:
meeting the old man hadn't been an accident at all. Something's feels off, but I can't identify it now. Maybe, it's just my feelings.
He half-expected the old man not to come back at all.
After the note, he'd spent every morning on the 8:43 scanning faces until his eyes ached, searching for the grey coat in the crowd. Nothing. Days passed, and the absence grew heavier.
Until today.
The old man was already seated when he stepped onto the train. Same coat, same rigid posture, as if the missing days had been seconds to him.
Their eyes met, and something in his chest loosened—only to seize tight again. The gaze wasn't calm this time. It was sharp.
He sat opposite without a word.
The old man didn't waste time. "If you had to flee this train right now and could only take what you could hold in your mouth, what would you bring?"
"What?"
"Time's running," the man said, glancing at the doors. "Five seconds."
His mind scrambled. Keys? Wallet? Phone? All too big. Maybe a credit card. A folded bill.
"Four seconds."
A strange heat rose in his chest. "Cash."
"Too slow. You're dead."
The words landed like a blow.
The old man leaned forward. "The right answer is the smallest piece of identification you own—driver's licence, chipped transit card, a key if you can manage. Cash won't matter when the banks are gone."
"Gone? What are you—"
"Next question." His voice dropped. "If the air turns toxic and you have no mask, what do you do?"
His throat went dry. "Hold my breath?"
"You last thirty seconds. Maybe." The old man's eyes locked onto his. "The answer is cloth. Wet. Cover the mouth, breathe shallow. That buys you three minutes."
He stared at him. "This isn't just some mental exercise anymore, is it?"
For the first time, the old man smiled—a thin, humourless curve of the mouth. "It never was."
The train jolted. Lights flickered once, twice, then steadied.
The old man leaned back. "You read my note?"
He nodded.
"Good. Then you understand this much: I'm not preparing you for if. I'm preparing you for when."
He faltered then, the edge of his voice softening into something closer to confession. "Maybe I'm just all talk. Sometimes… I can't remember what I've done. And these questions—"
He pressed a hand to his temple, eyes shutting briefly. "They come at random. They chew through my sleep. They kept me alive once, I think. Or maybe they just convinced me I was. I don't know anymore."
His hand dropped back to his lap. His face was tight, despair carved into every line. "But they won't leave me. And now… they're yours."
The doors slid open at the next station, and just before stepping out, the old man turned back over his shoulder and spoke with an almost casual weight, as though the words were not meant to be heavy, though they settled like lead in Baeksan's chest.
"We've got less than a month."
The sentence hung in the air between them, but before Baeksan could ask what he meant, the old man gave a short, frustrated sigh. He muttered under his breath, "Ugh, what am I saying," and then, as if trying to erase the thought from his head, he slapped his temple a few times with the heel of his hand.
Baeksan's stomach tightened; he half-rose from his seat, worried that the man might collapse right there in the carriage. But just as quickly, the moment passed. The old man straightened, turned, and disappeared into the rain-slick crowd on the platform, leaving Baeksan sitting with his heart hammering and his questions unanswered.
Ever the first moment since meeting him, Baeksan realised he no longer wanted to wait for the next train ride, the next riddle, the next impossible question. He wanted to know now, before it was too late, what exactly was coming.
After that day, after those words—less than a month—still ringing in his head, Baeksan found he could not sit still. Every spare moment became an echo chamber of the old man's voice, each of his strange survival drills circling endlessly through his mind: arm gone, smell gone, balance gone, air gone.
Without meaning to, he began testing himself in little ways, turning his apartment into a private obstacle course. He tied one arm inside his sleeve and tried pouring water into a glass without spilling. He walked from the kitchen to the bedroom with his eyes closed, counting steps, forcing his body to feel the ground instead of seeing it.
He timed his breath in the shower, holding it until his chest ached, then gasping against the tiles with a kind of wild relief.
It was foolish. He knew that. It was obsessive, almost embarrassing. But it was also the first time in months that he had felt truly alert, awake in a way that made the ordinary world feel sharpened, as if danger might step out from any corner at any time.
That was why, when it finally happened, he didn't freeze.
It was a Tuesday evening, the sky still damp from a day of rain, the streets below glistening under the pale glow of the lamps. The train was crowded with office workers and students, the carriage noisy with conversations, the smell of wet coats thick in the air. Baeksan was halfway down the station stairs, his hand brushing the railing, when a sharp shout cut through the routine clamor.
A boy—no older than twelve—was at the top of the stairs, a skateboard tucked awkwardly under his arm. One of his sneakers slipped on the slick concrete, and in the same instant, the board shot out of his grip, clattering down the steps in a hollow rattle. The boy pitched forward, his arms flailing for balance.
The crowd gasped, voices rising in a wave. People reached, but the movement was sluggish, their hands too far away to catch him in time.
Baeksan didn't think. The old man's words were already there, echoing like a command in his ear: Three points of contact. Never less.
He dropped low without hesitation, his fingers tightening around the railing, his left foot braced sideways against the step to keep himself steady. His free arm shot forward just as the boy's weight tipped past the point of no return, and the collar of the boy's hoodie smacked into his palm.
The sudden pull nearly dragged him off balance, the boy's momentum jerking against his arm with surprising force, but his stance held. The railing kept him rooted.
Two steps further and the child would have met the stairs headfirst, his skull cracking on wet concrete. Instead, the boy landed awkwardly against him, alive, breathless, eyes wide with shock.
"You okay?" Baeksan asked, his own breathing heavy in his throat.
The boy nodded quickly, mumbling thanks before scrambling down to chase his runaway skateboard. The crowd began to move again, shaking their heads, muttering about carelessness, already slipping back into the flow of routine.
Baeksan, however, stayed crouched for a moment longer, his knuckles white against the rail, the echo of that near fall still rattling through his bones.
Three points of contact.
It was no longer just a strange bit of advice from a mysterious old man on a train. It was real, solid, a knife's edge between safety and disaster.
As he stepped finally onto the platform, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it free, thumb hovering over the screen.
Unknown number.
One new message:
Tomorrow. Same train. Bring something sharp.