The space station had been out of contact for days.

A woman, left alone on the space station, cowered in fear, hiding between the communication consoles. The research on mental contamination from space had been completed, and she was scheduled to return to Earth soon.

By now, she should have already arrived back on Earth and begun her transfer to James Tower in Korea.

‘Why did I even come to a place like this?’ she thought.

She lifted the communication system's microphone clutched in her arms and spoke softly.

“This is JamesSS, requesting a response from the Object Center. We have an emergency situation on the space station, priority code red.”

But no matter how much she called out, the only sound from the communication console was static.

Krrrrrrk.

At that moment, an eerie sound began to echo throughout the station.

It was the noise of the green plants that had already overrun the station, growing ever larger and twisting the station’s structures. It was like a death countdown, moving toward the final moments of life.

The entire station was trembling as though it would tear apart at any moment.

Thud.

A sound of something dropping hit the floor in front of the woman, who was clutching the microphone with her eyes tightly shut.

When she opened her eyes, she saw something familiar: a small photo album her friend, who worked at James Tower in Korea, had sent her.

She opened the album and looked inside. There was a picture her friend had taken, smiling brightly, standing next to a small, golden object.

A golden reaper, looking clueless about the camera, but gleefully throwing its arms in the air in celebration.

“I wanted to see a golden reaper too…” she whispered, her voice catching, as tears welled up and blurred her vision. She stared down at the photo for a long while before lifting the microphone again.

“This is JamesSS, reporting abnormal plant growth and animal activity inside the station. Crew safety is compromised. I am requesting immediate emergency evacuation. Repeat, requesting emergency evacuation.”

But even with the weight of her plea, no response came.

When she finally lifted her head, she saw a sight she hadn’t noticed before: through the torn and twisted outer walls of the station, space itself was visible.

“H-ha ha ha…”

But there were none of the usual changes that came with a breach in the atmosphere, like air pressure or temperature shifts.

‘It’s definitely an object,’ she muttered bitterly to herself.

The sun disappeared behind the Earth, and the station was engulfed in the planet’s shadow. A bone-chilling cold set in, and ominous darkness swallowed the station.

And from within that darkness, she began to hear something crawling.

Something was approaching.

The woman, paralyzed with fear, huddled in on herself, clutching the microphone.

“Please, save me… This is the space station… Please, respond… Requesting emergency evacuation… Repeat, requesting emergency evacuation…”

“Anyone, please. Save me. Please…”

But the transmission from the space station would never be answered, drifting into the void of space forever.

In the warm courtyard of Sehee Research Institute, I lay on a soft marshmallow, eyes closed.

The warmth made me feel drowsy, a pleasant sensation, and the soft sounds of a small TV added a soothing background noise.

[Breaking news. The U.S. Object Association has reported losing contact with their space station.]

[Current long-range observations show no abnormalities in the space station, and local space development experts suggest it is likely just a communication error.]

Mini reapers were hopping all over my belly, bouncing around.

‘Mama’s belly is soft!’

‘It’s so squishy!’

Like my stomach was a trampoline, they jumped up and down.

Hmm.

Honestly, I didn’t care if I was getting chubby or not, but hearing the mini reapers constantly talk about it made me feel a bit strange. To be fair, I used to be too skinny, and now I didn’t have any extra fat. I was just right, wasn’t I?

‘Waaah!’

Suddenly, I sat up and startled one of the golden reapers playing on my belly.

‘!’

‘Ah! Mama’s mad!’

I grabbed one of the golden reapers as it tried to run away, beginning what I called the “Golden Reaper Piggy Transformation.”

The golden reaper struggled to escape my grasp, but there was no use.

Hehe.

Once caught, not even turning into a ghost could help them escape, and the strength difference was too great!

‘Noooo!’

The golden reaper squirmed desperately in my grip.

But even after pouring half of my heart’s fire into it, the golden reaper didn’t change at all.

How could this be?

So how much fire was Yerin putting into them on a regular basis?

As I stared blankly in disbelief, the golden reaper carefully slipped out of my hands and ran off to the Mini Reaper Garden.

Kewung. Kweengk.

Kew kew. Kweeng kweeengk.

I heard a sound like the cry of a maw in the distance.

When I turned my gaze, I saw a white maw on the roof of the Sehee Research Institute, covering its mouth and snickering.

‘!’

It must have realized I’d seen it, because it quickly fled out of sight.

‘????’

Had the red reapers been burning things too much lately?

Or was the white maw going crazy because I hadn’t been teasing it?

I got up and started slowly chasing after the maw that had run away.

A taxi entered the quiet parking lot of the Object Research Institute complex.

From it, two figures emerged: Cheong and his sister, the Italian siblings.

“We’re finally here!” the younger sister exclaimed, stretching her arms as she looked at the Sehee Research Institute.

“We’ve also completed our visitor registration. A guide from the institute should be meeting us at the entrance,” Cheong said, glancing at his phone.

With an orange reaper perched on his head, he slowly began walking toward the institute.

The moment he did, the golden reapers wandering around the institute turned their attention to Cheong.

‘!’

Surprised, the golden reapers stared at Cheong, and soon, like ants drawn to sugar, they swarmed toward him.

“Ah!”

“You’re still popular with the mini reapers,” his sister said in a slightly envious tone.

“It wasn’t this bad before, why now?”

As the mini reapers clung to his legs, making it difficult to move, a researcher from the Sehee Institute hurried out.

The mini reapers started to disperse somewhat when they saw the researcher approaching.

“You must be the visitors who registered. I’m Researcher Oh Yerin, and I’ll be your guide.”

Following Yerin, Cheong and his group entered the institute. The inside was quite different from what they had expected. Though the exterior of the building looked like a normal research facility, the interior felt more like an amusement park.

There were researchers wandering around with mini reapers on their heads, candy baskets placed in various spots, and foam board cutouts of mini reapers all over the place.

It hardly felt like a research facility at all.

“Is it normal for the mini reapers to flock to people like this?” Cheong asked, voicing his long-standing curiosity to Yerin as she led the way.

“Hmm. They tend to cling to people who don’t have an attachment reaper. And if it’s someone they’re meeting for the first time, they’re even more likely to flock to them.”

Yerin glanced at the orange reaper on Cheong’s head and continued, “But even with an attachment reaper, it’s rare for them to swarm like that. You’re the first one I’ve seen, other than myself.”

As they headed toward the courtyard, which was said to be packed with mini reapers, something else caught Cheong’s eye.

TVs were installed in various corners of the institute’s hallways.

And every TV was playing a news channel.

[Tigers, numbering around 30, have been spotted in a group near Gwanak Mountain in Gwanak-gu.]

[Local residents are in shock and fear over this sudden development.]

[The Object Safety Management Council has launched an investigation to determine whether this unusual tiger sighting is related to an object.]

Cheong and his companions caught glimpses of the news about the tiger sightings as they passed by, but soon turned their attention to the courtyard of the Sehee Research Institute.

“Wow!”

Cheong couldn’t help but let out an exclamation.

The courtyard was filled with golden reapers, creating a beautiful, almost magical atmosphere that felt like stepping into a fairytale world.

In a dim room inside James Tower on the outskirts of Songpa-gu, an online video conference was in progress to discuss how to deal with the space station, which had been overtaken by the green moon.

[There’s no immediate threat, so can’t we just leave it until we find a proper solution?]

A director from the U.S. Object Association voiced a pessimistic opinion.

[The fact that it’s in space makes the whole thing too costly, and we’re not even sure we can handle it.]

An official from the Federal Government's Object Department also expressed a negative view.

But James firmly disagreed.

“No, we need to act immediately! We can’t leave this unattended!”

However, the meeting dragged on with no resolution.

While there was consensus that the seven-colored moons needed to be destroyed by the gray reaper, most participants believed they could afford to wait, as they had with the navy-colored moon in James City, U.S.

[So, in order to deal with the green moon, we would need to send the gray reaper into space. Is there even a way to do that?]

[It’s going to be difficult for humans to handle, let alone dealing with the object in space.]

[Is there a way to lure the gray reaper into the space station?]

[Would the gray reaper even be interested in a completely empty space station? It seems unlikely.]

The meeting continued with no concrete solutions, and eventually, it ended without any progress.

It seemed that either the green moon in space would need to cause a tangible problem, or a groundbreaking method to send the gray reaper to the space station would have to be discovered.

“Damn it.”

James, feeling stuck, closed his eyes in the darkened virtual meeting room.

The golden reaper, sensing James’ distress, stuck close to him, gently patting his head in a comforting gesture.