Ms. Heo silenced her class when The Rising of the Sun anthem played throughout the announcement speakers on school grounds. The country had already played the anthem around the time they always did every single day, at 06:17, but the school felt the need to play it again when lunch time was nearing. Some of the students were confused, some of the students understood why it was happening. The Rising of the Sun was a lousy song.  Apparently it was the song that played when the sun came back after setting for years on end leaving the world in a cold darkness.  Someone took it upon themselves to play a powerful orchestra tune. It’s dramatic melody felt befitting for the historic event. Sohyun didn’t like it. The teenager sat with her head resting on her hand. She stared lamely at the chalkboard that wrote : Angels.  Ms. Heo had wrote it several weeks ago and left it there.  School was still in session, but no one went by the schedule or curriculum.  Ms. Heo always came to her half empty classroom and looked out the window while the remainder of her students talked amongst each other in their last days. Sohyun watched her often times, wondering what the elder woman was thinking.

“Yah, Sohyun. Don’t you even care that we’re all going to die?” One of her friends scolded her for being apathetic toward the situation since the reoccurring events but Sohyun just scoffed. She directed her attention to the boy she admired sitting across the classroom, ignoring the bantering from her female friends who only wanted to talk about meeting each other in the afterlife. “Do you think you’ll even have a chance with Sungjae oppa if you’re dead?” The friend slapped Sohyun’s arm from under her head. Her body jerked and she raised her fist.

“If anyone is dying it'll be you if you keep it up.” She threatened.
“Wooooow, Sohyun is the only person who is still calm about this.” Another friend intervened, “School is practically over, we only come by choice, everyone is talking about how the sun is going to vanish and the world coming to its second end, we only have a week left to live and she can still only think about her delusional dream of marrying Kim Sungjae.”
“Ch. Whatever…” Sohyun side glanced at the front of the room where her homeroom teacher was looking at her. She flinched.  “Ms. Heo is being so weird today. She’s had the word ‘Angels’ written on the board for a while now..”
“Ms. Heo has always been superstitious and weird.” A friend spoke out.  “One of her ancestors witnessed the sun returning the moment it happened.”

Sohyun nodded while the rest of her friends gaped at the sudden piece of historical information.

“Really? Ms. Heo is a part of history, that woman is history!”

Sohyun let her friends talk frantically about the past while she went back to admiring her crush. The tall and pretty flowerboy of their grade Sungjae had been her ideal guy since the start of highschool. She called it love while everyone else called it delusion. The only person oblivious to Sohyun’s infatuation was Sungjae himself. He was a nice guy, friendly to all of his peers and never said anything bad about anyone.  There was no flaw about him.  Sohyun concluded that he, Kim Sungjae, was the reason why she was not fazed about the world coming to an end.

However, had that not been the case, for some reason Sohyun figured she would still feel neutral toward the current events. The Second Ending. There was something that made her feel indifferent about it compared to her peers. The days felt like any other regular day in her life. Boring. And void.

“Sohyun.” Ms. Heo called out to her student for a private moment. The old woman in her sixties dragged herself outside the school and directed herself and Sohyun to the running field. Sohyun didn’t manage to get a question out because it was too awkward. Then Ms. Heo asked a peculiar question.
“What is that in your pocket, Ms. Kwon?” The teacher never looked at the girl. She kept her gaze ahead of her, looking out at the field and the deserted city ahead when they stopped walking.

Sohyun felt her pockets on her school uniform and answered, “A yoyo, hard candy…some lint.”
“Your blazer pocket, Ms. Kwon.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No way…”

In her blazer jacket was the ring. No one else knew about it so it had to be a coincidence that Ms. Heo was talking about that specific pocket.

“Nothing.” Sohyun lied which made her teacher finally look her in the eyes. She broke the gaze, looking away nervously and forced a laugh. “Ms. Heo, why are you being so weird today? I know school is ending early and you don’t have to give lessons, but why did you write Angels on the board?”
“Do you believe in Angels, Sohyun?”
She met her teacher’s eyes again, baffled at the strange question. Shaking her head but at the same time considering the possibilities of it, Sohyun admitted that she was religious but angels had always been her idea of miracles, an intangible part of her religious belief.
“Well you believe in something.” Her teacher smiled and began walking again. Sohyun followed suit keeping the very slow pace of her instructor across the large field. “Sohyun, I know what you have in your possession because I can sense it.” She was talking about the ring again. “I don’t know why or how I know about it. I’ve never seen it nor was I ever told about it.”

They stopped walking and turned toward each other. Sohyun took the ring out of her blazer pocket and held it in her hand. Ms. Heo studied it for a few seconds and sighed.

“It's powerful.” She announced to them both. Sohyun agreed with that much, still trying to wrap her head around it. If anything she was more worried about the thing she had in her hand than the world ending. She was a bit relieved someone knew about her secret but still confused as to how her teacher of all people figured it out. She had no time to ask. “I believe there is a good reason why this ring has came to you. A reason involving these times. Put it on.”

Sohyun refused and shook her head. Ms. Heo pushed the ring toward Sohyun. “Trust me. I don’t think anything bad will happen.”

The 16 year old huffed. She took a few steps away…and fewer steps from Ms. Heo, counted a few times and then put the ring on. Nothing happened.

“Intriguing.”
Sohyun finally asked, “Ms. Heo, how did you know about this ring?”

They walked over toward each other again while Sohyun kept the ring on, smiling that it wasn’t tearing anything apart.

“I heard the other students talking in the class about my ancestor, Heo Solji, being one of the witnesses of the sun returning. She indeed was there when the sun returned after the first time the world ended. Just before it happened she encountered an Angel’s touch.”

Sohyun titled her head. “Really? An actual Angel?” She smile amused. “Ehhhh, Ms. Heo if you’re not joking with me then what was that like?”

“Frightening.”

The smile faded.

“Angels…are frightening. The touch was intended to kill her. Solji’s children, and her children’s children, all the way down to me, have that memory of the Angel that attacked her, which is why I can probably sense certain things about this world no one else can. I don’t have supernatural abilities, Sohyun, I just know that this world was destroyed because of Angels, and rescued because of Angels.”

The calm wind took place on the field, blowing the dying terrain’s contents in the air. Sohyun looked at her teacher’s hardened expression, waited for her to finish telling what she knew or what she thought she knew.

“The world ended in the year 2004 because God ceased to exist for mankind.” Ms. Heo laughed a bit. “It is good to know that there are some people who still believe. Because some Angels do too.” Ms. Heo never gave the implication she was ever going to explain what she had just said. She began her slow walk back to the classroom. Sohyun didn’t follow. In fact, she began to feel a tad bit weird.