I don't remember the exact moment I died.
One moment I was alive, the next, I woke up here. The classroom looked familiar, yet the air was wrong—thicker, heavier, as if the world outside had been erased.
The windows reflected gray nothingness, pressing against the glass like a silent judgment.
Voices broke the stillness.
"Where… are we?" a girl whispered, her hands trembling on the desk.
"This isn't school," a boy muttered, eyes darting toward the ceiling. "It can't be."
I stayed silent, watching them. The fear in their faces, the uncertainty in their posture—it was raw, and yet, I felt something else: clarity.
A figure at the front of the classroom moved, and suddenly, the room grew still.
"Welcome," said a calm, deep voice. Every head turned.
"Mr. Kiyomizu?" someone stammered.
The man smiled, slow and deliberate, and shook his head. "I am not who you remember. Names, faces… they are meaningless here. I am the one who gave you a second chance, who placed you in this room after your end. But this is no gift. This is a test."
A shiver ran through the students.
"A test? What do you mean?" a girl cried out.
The man's gaze swept across the room, steady, unyielding.
"You seek your lives back. Your world as it was. But nothing comes without risk. To return, you must play—and not just play, but think, decide, betray, love, and endure. Only those who understand themselves… and each other… will reach the Book of Life."
I heard the tension in the room, the questions unspoken, the panic waiting to erupt. And in that silence, I spoke to myself quietly:
"A classroom as a battlefield. A game without rules. And yet, the choices are ours… if we dare to see them clearly."
Another student's voice broke the moment, shaky but defiant: "And if we fail?"
The man's eyes glimmered. "Then you remain. Forever. Lost between what was, and what could have been. The choice… is yours."
I leaned back slightly, studying the faces around me. Fear, curiosity, anger, hope—they were all there, raw and unguarded. And I realized something.
This wasn't about strength or luck. It was about awareness, about understanding the weight of every word, every glance, every decision.
The orchestrator's gaze lingered on each of us once more. "The game begins soon. Remember, not everyone will reach the Book of Life. Only those who understand… themselves… and the others… will survive."
I exhaled slowly. I was alive again, but the stakes were beyond anything I had known.
And as the first tremors of fear and ambition rippled through the room, I felt my mind sharpen. I was already moving my first piece.