novelraw Chapter 134: Jisoo park
Chapter 134: Jisoo park
He opened the book.
The page didn’t open with color.
It was all black and white— but not the clean kind. The ink looked... uneven. Like it had been printed too many times already, lines a little rough in places, shadows a bit too heavy, like the page itself had been reused over and over again.
At the very top, there was just one line.
[November 29th.]
No fancy title. No intro. Just... yea... like that. Just like that...
Under it, the panel showed a classroom. Desks in rows, sunlight coming in from the windows, dust floating around like nothing was wrong with the world. Students were there, doing normal things— some writing, some half asleep, some just staring into space like usual. It felt peaceful.
Too peaceful.
And at the back—
There was a girl.
Dark hair falling over her face, posture slouched, one hand holding her cheek as she stared out the window. Her eyes looked... empty. Not bored. Not tired. Just... like she’d already seen everything there was to see.
A small text box sat beside her.
"I’ve lived this day 4,821 times."
The next panel looked the same.
Same classroom. Same sunlight. Same dust.
But it felt wrong.
The teacher smiled the exact same way. A girl by the window laughed at the exact same moment. Even a pencil falling off a desk— same angle, same timing, same sound you could almost hear through the page.
Everything was... too exact.
Another line appeared.
"I already know what they’re going to say."
The page flipped.
Closer now— just her eyes.
Focused.
Awake.
Not empty anymore.
"What they’ll do."
[The end of page one.]
Si Hon... just stared... and the book... he didn’t flip it right away.
For a second, his thumb just rested there— pressed lightly against the edge of the page, feeling the thin paper bend under the slightest pressure.
A quiet breath slipped out of him.
Then—
His thumb dragged.
Slow.
Deliberate.
The page peeled away with a faint, dry sound, the kind that felt louder than it actually was in the stillness around him. Ink shifted. Shadows moved. The last frame of that moment disappeared beneath his hand as the next page revealed itself inch by inch—
Like he was uncov— "okay... let not be dramatic."
He flipped the paged.
The next page didn’t ease into it.
It dropped him straight back into the classroom— again...? same angle, same light pouring through the windows, same dust drifting in the air like nothing in the world had changed. The date still sat quietly at the top, untouched.
[November 29th.]
But this time, the silence didn’t last.
The panel stretched just a little wider, holding that calm for half a second longer than it should have— and then something cut through it.
A shadow.
It passed over the windows first, fast and massive, dark enough to swallow the sunlight in a single sweep. No one reacted immediately. A few students glanced up, confused, like their brains hadn’t caught up yet—
And then—
The wall exploded inward.
Not cracked. Not broke.
Tore.
A massive claw ripped straight through the side of the building, concrete and steel peeling apart like paper as dust and debris burst into the room. The panel froze that exact moment— chunks of the wall suspended mid-air, desks flipping, glass shattering in every direction while the shape of something enormous loomed just beyond the frame.
Screams followed instantly.
Sharp. Overlapping. Real.
Students scrambled out of their seats, some falling, some pushing past each other without thinking, panic hitting all at once like a wave that didn’t give anyone time to breathe. The teacher shouted something— maybe instructions, maybe just noise— but it didn’t matter. Nothing was being heard anymore.
The next panel shifted slightly.
The source revealed itself.
A dragon.
Not fully shown— just enough. A massive head forcing its way into view, scales rough and uneven, teeth sinking into the edge of the building as it bit down, ripping through concrete with a sound that felt heavy even on the page. Its presence alone filled the space, overwhelming, wrong, like something that didn’t belong anywhere near a place like this.
Desks shattered beneath it.
The room didn’t exist anymore.
And in the back—
Park Jisoo sat exactly where she always did.
Her posture hadn’t changed. Her hand still supported her cheek, gaze fixed forward as everything around her collapsed into chaos. Dust settled in her hair, the wind from the impact tugging at her uniform slightly— but she didn’t move.
A small text box appeared beside her.
"Park Jisoo."
Then another, just beneath it—
"Age: 19."
The panel lingered on her face for a moment longer, letting the noise around her feel distant, almost muted compared to the stillness she held.
Then—
Her eyes shifted.
Just slightly.
Not toward the dragon.
Toward someone else.
The next panel followed her gaze.
Midway through the classroom, a boy had tripped trying to run. His leg caught on a fallen chair, body hitting the ground hard as others rushed past him, not stopping, not even noticing. His hands scrambled against the floor, trying to push himself up, panic clear in every movement as the shadow of the dragon loomed closer.
His mouth opened—
Calling for help.
The panel held him there for a second.
Small.
Helpless.
Then—
Cut!
Back to Jisoo.
Same posture.
Same calm.
Watching.
Another text box appeared.
"Attempt 12."
Flip.
The boy’s hand reached out again, fingers trembling— "I tried to save him."
Flip.
A quick flash— her hand grabbing his wrist, fingers locking tight as she pulled with everything she had, feet sliding against the floor from the force. For a split second, it worked... his body lifted, hope snapping into place too fast, too fragile.
And then—
Something moved.
Not slow enough to see. Not clear enough to follow. Just a sudden shift— a shadow crashing into the edge of the panel like the world itself skipped a frame.
Before the motion could even settle—
The boy was gone.
No struggle. No drag. No transition from one moment to the next.
One second he was there— weight in her grip, breath still there—
The next—
Nothing.
The force tore through her hold so abruptly her arm jerked back, fingers still clenched around what they had managed to keep.
Silence didn’t come.
The chaos was still there— screams, debris, the dragon tearing through what remained of the room.
But for Jisoo, it all dulled.
Because in her hand—
Something remained.
His wrist.
Separated too cleanly, like the rest of him had simply been taken away without permission. Warmth still lingered against her palm, weight settling into her grip in a way that shouldn’t have been possible, her fingers tightening without meaning to as her body froze mid-motion.
Her eyes widened.
Not slowly.
All at once.
Like her mind refused to process it piece by piece and instead forced everything in at the same time.
And then—
She screamed.
Raw. Uncontrolled. Breaking straight through the noise around her, louder than it had any right to be— like the sound had been waiting inside her this whole time, just for this moment.
"Attempt 38."
"Attempt 56."
"Attempt 57."
"Attempt 58."
"Attempt 64."
"Attempt 71."
"Attempt 83."
"Attempt 99."
Flip.
Her dragging him toward the door—
The dragon’s shadow falling over both of them.
"He dies anyway."
The next panel returned to the present.
No movement from her.
No attempt.
No hesitation.
The boy screamed.
The sound stretched across the panel, messy and uneven, cutting through everything— and then—
It stopped.
Abruptly.
The dragon’s head shifted slightly out of frame.
Nothing else needed to be shown.
Silence hit just as hard as the chaos before it.
Back to Jisoo.
Unmoving.
Unshaken.
A faint line appeared near her.
"It doesn’t change."
The panel zoomed in just a little more, her expression clearer now— not emotionless... but settled. Like she had already made peace with something she couldn’t fix.
Another line followed.
"Heh... So I stopped trying."
The next panel didn’t linger.
It moved.
Jisoo stood up.
Calmly.
Dust falling from her uniform as if nothing around her demanded urgency. Her chair scraped lightly against the floor, almost too quiet compared to everything else, and without looking back— not at the dragon, not at the bodies, not at the destruction—
She stepped forward.
Walking.
Like she had somewhere to be.
Like this wasn’t the end of anything.
The page shifted.
And for a moment—
There was no panel.
Just a thin line of text at the bottom.
Slightly uneven.
Like it had been written without caring how it looked.
"This time... I won’t waste steps."
Si Hon’s eyes stayed on the page.
For a second.
Then another.
The quiet around him— the shelves, everything— felt a little further away now, like the comic had pulled his attention in deeper than he expected.
"Huh."
The sound left him low, almost thoughtful, but his expression didn’t change much.
He flipped the page slightly with his thumb, then stopped halfway, gaze drifting back to the last panel again— to the part she didn’t move.
Didn’t help.
Didn’t even try.
His eyes narrowed just a fraction.
"Yeah."
A small pause.
Then, under his breath—
"This girl’s insane. Or sane? I don’t know."
But he didn’t close the book.