A strange cry that pulls you out of the water
A poignant look at the past from today's youth's perspective

Mokhyeon-eup, a region with nothing special to boast about other than its pig farm.
A heartbreaking incident happens to Kihyun, a high school student who finds each day incredibly boring.
Mr. Kim, a duty officer known for his eccentricity, collapsed during a night patrol.
But what's more shocking is the place where Kim collapsed.
The fact that there was a swimming pool behind the school that looked like something out of a movie.
Besides, it is said that there were more than one or two on-duty drivers who collapsed after hearing a strange crying sound here… .
Ki-Hyeon, who was in need of help with researching and creating web novels, happens to run into two people while hanging around the swimming pool.
Jin-ho, who has vaguely harbored a grudge since childhood, and Yeong-ri, whose father was a foreign worker who once worked at the village's largest pig farm, Hyeon-ung Farm. Constantly bullied by Hyeon-ung Farm's grandson, Hyeon-sang-gu, the three use this commonality as a connection to uncover the school's secrets, in exchange for a share of the profits from Ki-hyeon's web novel.
The more you investigate the waterless swimming pool, the more meaningful clues are revealed: a gym teacher who looks exactly like the swimming team ace who died a long time ago, a pig keychain that Hyun Sang-gu found lying near the swimming pool, and even the Hyun Woong Farm that is not recorded in the foot-and-mouth disease white paper.

The foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, which occurred over a decade ago, may be a somewhat unfamiliar reality to today's youth.
Author Kim Seon-jeong, who has written for children and teenagers, has long held the foot-and-mouth disease crisis in her heart. How did she want to share this story? And why? Reflecting the tendency of today's youth to communicate through various media, the author borrows the web novel format they enjoy reading to intrigue and trace the unfolding of the outbreak.
Especially, just as the main characters initially approached the mysterious space out of simple curiosity, 『The Waterless Pool』 subtly shows that for today's young readers, far removed from foot-and-mouth disease, what started out as a trivial interest ultimately makes us look back on things we have inadvertently overlooked, and that small discoveries can expand the world before our eyes.
Above all, the main characters of this work are teenagers with little presence at school.
Children who are clearly at school but act as if they are not there.
It is even more meaningful because it depicts the process of children, in a similar situation to animals who had no choice but to be buried even when they screamed, uncovering the truth about the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
We must confront the forgotten past, if only to avoid repeating the same mistakes we have overlooked in the past.
That might be why three children gathered in a swimming pool that was empty of water, with only a shape remaining.

Lives with their eyes open and eyes closed, these must be saved!

The mass culling of the Hyunwoong Farm family due to the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, the blame for foot-and-mouth disease shifted to the farm's foreign workers, the veterinarian who tried to save lives but had to kill them with his own hands, the lives illegally buried in barren land to maintain the village and school...
Could we have ever imagined that something like this would be happening around us at the same time?
But this is not just fiction in a novel.
The setting of "The Waterless Pool," which makes us question whether the place we stand is safe, is nothing less than a recreation of the tragic reality of just over a decade ago.
“I don’t understand.
Just like the children who vent their anger by saying, “It’ll get better if you leave it alone, so why are you killing them all? (…) It’s the same as killing them all because they have a cold.” (p. 105), if we switch the positions of animals and humans, is this really a justifiable death? This work, which depicts the past of livestock that were mercilessly driven to death, breaks away from human-centered thinking and expands the scope from small animals close to our daily lives to large animals, making us think about the dignity of all living things that breathe and live together.
This work tells us that the end of livestock should be in the same legal and just manner as that of humans, through the vivid and bloody slaughter scene at Hyeonung Farm in the novel.

Anthropocentrism divides human and animal life into a hierarchy.
This work depicts the unethical thinking and the flawed hierarchy that exists in human society through the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
Farm workers, civil servants, and veterinarians who suffer from trauma from being accidentally involved in the killings, and foreign workers who are still pushed to the periphery as foreigners, are beings erased from society just like the countless animals who were forced to close their eyes while keeping their eyes open.
“Sadness does not harm others.
But a sadness that has been there for too long, too great, might be a little different.” (p. 183) Jin-ho, who hears sounds that no one else can hear, hears strange screams in addition to the howls of animals all over the village, which is close to the author’s desperate cry to save everyone who had to be erased to hide the truth.

A society that will be changed by those with a shred of responsibility

When it comes to uncovering the suspicions surrounding waterless swimming pools, there are those who present different claims.
A person who pretends not to know and buries it for the rest of their lives and a person who tries to bring out the truth.
However, the latter did not maintain this stance from the beginning.
They also thought that “no matter what you see, it is better to say nothing, go with the flow, and remain quiet no matter what” (p. 187).
But what changed them were the youth who had not directly experienced the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.
At first, the three children were united solely for the sake of web novel profits, but as they dig deeper, the village's past is gradually revealed, and the children will not sit still.
In the end, he goes around looking for adults and hears deeply about the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that the village has long overlooked and the pain of their families and neighbors.
The courageous steps of these children suggest a new attitude toward life to those who have turned a blind eye to suffering.

“This death march must stop immediately.
“That is what we must do to pass this world on to the next generation as a good, precious, and beautiful place.” (p. 222)

What is a humane human being, an adult-like adult?
The youth in this work constantly ask questions about things buried in the dark past.
Thanks to this, a veterinarian, a new gym teacher, a retired teacher, a pastor, and a foreign worker who are entangled in a waterless swimming pool give strength to the youth's steps and help the adults find a solution.
Like the image of three children and their teacher patting each other on the back in front of a burial ground now filled with vibrant greenery, unlike before, "A Swimming Pool Without Water" will make us reflect on the minimum responsibilities we must have for the children who will live longer in a society where disasters continue.