Soojung ran towards her bedroom, a huge grin evident on her face. She giggled in excitement as she jumped on her bed, her eyes glued to her phone screen; the brightness turned all the way up as if the texts would disappear if the screen was any darker. “I can’t believe it!” She laughed, exiting her messages as she opens up her “contacts” app hastily, as if there were no more time left in the world. She dials the familiar number, wasting no time as she starts hollering to her best friend in excitement.

“Jieun! Guess what?!” She almost screams, and she could almost imagine her best friend on the other line wincing away from her phone from how loud she was being.

“Uh, are you pregnant?” Jieun sarcastically replies. “Because if you are, I’m not helping you raise the baby.”

Soojung’s smile dropped fairly quickly. “I hate you.”

“Okay, okay fine! If you pay me, then I’ll consider babysitting.” Jieun says in fake exasperation.

“Jieun, I’m being serious!” Soojung whines. “You’ll never guess what just happened to me.”

“Well then tell me, you crazy lady.” Jieun snaps jokingly.

“Well…” Soojung’s smile slowly appears again. “Taeyong asked me out!”

“No way! The hottie from calculus?” Jieun gushes. “You are so lucky. He’s so handsome!”

“I know! He just texted me, and we’re going on a date later.” Soojung sighs happily.

“Where is he planning on taking you? Do you know what you’re going to wear?” Jieun starts throwing questions. “Are you even ready? What time is the date? Is he going to pick you up?”

The more questions Jieun asked, the more nervous Soojung was feeling. She checked her watch since Taeyong was going to pick her up at 6:30; and it was currently 3! That meant she had a little more than three hours until Taeyong showed up at her house.

“Oh no, I’m not even remotely close to being ready.” Soojung groans. “I’m such a mess already.”

“Well then, hang up and tell me all the details about the date later! Go get ready! And go use that mascara I bought you for graduation! It was a lot of money, you know!” Jieun nagged. “I promise you, your lashes will look amazing.”

Soojung laughed. “Okay, mom. I’ll text you later.” She hung up and sighed. The more time went on, the more nervousness she felt. She barely talked to Taeyong outside of calculus class, and they already graduated from high school. What if he didn’t like what he saw?

“Whatever. Let’s just go for a walk for an hour and cool down.” Soojung says to herself, grabbing her phone before walking out of her bedroom.

Soojung smiles to herself, walking down her favorite path in the wooded area near her home. It’s where her father taught her how to set up camp, how to fish down by the creek, and her favorite – sitting around a campfire. She always loved being in pure nature; where there were no electronic devices, and the only thing that illuminated was the moon in the night sky. She couldn’t wait until her brother came home from college; that means another family camping trip.

After a while, she starts imagining her wardrobe in her head; what outfits would look good for her date tonight with Taeyong and whatnot. Questions like, “Should I curl my hair?” or, “Should I wear a skirt or dress?” were reoccurring thoughts in her head.

She checks the time on her watch – 4:00. She lets out a huge sigh before turning around on her path, making her way back towards her home. She reaches for her phone to shoot a quick text to Jieun, but notices her phone was off.

“That’s weird…” Soojung mutters. “I could have sworn it was just 86 percent charged when I left the house…” She sighs in annoyance. “Stupid phone.”

She puts her phone back into her pocket when she notices something strange – there were no noises. No birds chirping, no leaves rustling in the wind, no bugs buzzing.

In fact, she looks up into the sky and instinctively gulps in fear. All of the birds were flying away; and she knew that wasn't good.

Her heart sunk, and she felt naseous. Was there a predator around? Is someone else scaring all of the birds away?

The silence was killing her.

Soojung wasted no time as she quickly started to run towards her house, cursing herself for walking such a far distance away.

“Why did my phone have to die out of all times? Why now?!” She whispered under her breath.

She ran for about three minutes before stopping by a tree in order to catch her breath. She pulled out her phone and tried pressing down the on button, but it was no use. She was starting to feel more uneasy by the second.

Suddenly, the ground started shaking and she quickly caught her balance on the tree, goosebumps forming on her arms. An earthquake.

Despite still being out of breath, she begins to run again, and she feels the ground under her start to shake violently. She’s never experienced an earthquake before in her life, but she knew that they weren’t supposed to be as strong as this.

She looked behind her and saw a couple of branches start to fall, and then soon after, whole trees started to tumble down to the ground, making loud echoing noises.

She turned forwards and narrowly misses a tree branch, yelping as she feels a sharp pain in her ankle.

She winces as she has to stop running, and examines her ankle to see if anything was broken. She curses as she touches it, but nothing felt out of place.

Before she could attempt to run again, she sees a tree getting bigger and bigger, her eyes getting wider at the realization. She tries to jump out of the way, falling to the ground as the tree makes contact with the forest floor. A thick tree branch falls on Soojung, crying out in pain as a result.

 Everything is black.