Would the world come to an end if a deadly virus spread through our modern metropolises? Would panic breed lawlessness, unwinding centuries of civilization and plunging even the most advanced nations into chaos? Having come out the other end of the COVID-19 pandemic, we know the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the young protagonists of Choi Jin-young’s novel “Everything Happened at Once,” translated into English by Soje. In the book, pandemonium descends as an unknown and deadly virus sweeps across the world. With the death toll in Korea topping 100,000 in a single day, the nation crumbles in a cloud of confusion and fear. Laws, ethics and all the threads tying modern civilization together disintegrate as the primal drive for survival takes over. Crime skyrockets, violence becomes constant and once-peaceful neighborhoods fill with death and destruction. When first publishing this book in Korea in 2017, Choi could never have imagined that a rapidly spreading pandemic just like the one she described would shock the world only a few years later.