The silence was still there when Shin opened his eyes again, But there was no light around him again.
The darkness didn't greet him this time. It lingered like an old enemy—silent, unmoving, unwanted. It had claimed him… and it refused to leave.
At first, panic clawed at his insides, just as it had the last time he'd awakened. But something inside Shin had shifted. He remembered the blunt impact at the back of his head and his last memory before descending into unconsciousness. His hand, trembling, reached up to feel the spot.
The pain was still there… dull but real. That's when the bitter truth hit him again— He couldn't see, hear and speak. But it was different reaction from the past, he is calm and composed.
But now he could feel, the cold air brushing his skin, The warmth of cloths around his body, The coarse texture of old blankets and The firmness of the bed beneath him—not luxurious, but warmer than the cold, blood-soaked ground he'd almost died on.
He sat there-Still and Unmoving. For over an hour, Shin didn't flinch, curled atop the creaky, broken bed like a ghost clinging to flesh. The silence—absolute and devouring—was all he had. Slowly… painfully… he began to accept it. This was his world now.
But as he searched his mind, trying to find a thread of peace of memories to search what was happened to him.
He remembered, He remembered the pain and suffering of having his eyes gouged out, suffocating choke that shattered his voice and the deafening silence that followed the rupture of his eardrums.
Each memory returned not as a thought… but as a feeling— A relived nightmare. He wanted to resist the fear of that feeling but he can't. His body began to shiver. He recoiled, pulling his limbs inward, instinctively trying to shield himself from invisible Enemies in the darkness. He curled tighter and tighter, his back arching, shoulders drawn close— He is Trying to hide from the past and those dark and creepy feelings.
But it was no use. Those memories repeated—again in that dark world like a picture, again and again, and again, and with each loop, the agony grew stronger. The screams in his soul grew louder—even if his lips would never move again.
His mind was melting—unraveling beneath the weight of the trauma. He curled tighter, like a wounded animal, a soul trapped in a shrinking cage.
He curled up tighter and tighter, stretching his body to its very limit—folding in on himself like a coiled ball on the verge of snapping, wrapping as if trying to become smaller and less visible. But there was no escape from a darkness that lived inside.
A few hours passed before the old granny came to check on him again. her gaze fell on him—
Curled like a frightened child.
Muttering something under his breath, over and over again… too fast to understand, too broken to ignore. Only she could hear, "Please, let me go. I will never come near her again."
She tried to stop him from contorting any further, "Boy… boy, calm down…", but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get through to him.
Soon, the old grandpa arrived. Without wasting a second, he rushed to help, but Shin's body resisted like a coiled spring, tight and trembling.
"Tch... you stubborn child," he muttered, biting his lower lip.
Together, they straightened Shin's twisted body and tied his limbs gently to the four corners of the bed to keep him from hurting himself. But even then, he kept struggling—his lips trembling as he murmured the same words, again and again. Shin continued to struggle—his head thrashing, murmurs escaping his lips like whispers from a broken soul.
"…Still at it," the old man said with a frown, wiping sweat from his brow.
"He's lost between pain and fear," the granny whispered sadly, "He can't accept the state he's in."
The old man nodded, eyes shadowed, "If this keeps up, his mind will shatter. That pain… it's eating him from the inside. We don't have the skill of a Divine Physician to fix a broken spirit…"
Their gazes lingered on the boy—his lips dry, his skin pale, his murmurs still endless. The struggle was no longer physical. It was something deeper—like a storm ripping apart his soul from the inside.
The couple sighed and turned back to him, still doing everything they could to stabilize him.
Time passed, and the elderly pair tried every means they knew to bring him peace.
In those slow passing days, the elderly couple poured every ounce of love and patience they had into Shin.
But memories… memories are like ghosts. Some leave you while others haunt you until there's nothing left. As the saying goes, when memories haunt someone, there are usually only two outcomes—either they are consumed by those memories and perish, or they force themselves to forget the pain.
The same was happening to Shin now. Slowly, he was becoming stable, but along with that, he was losing the very memories that made him Shin Ji-Hoon.
Another summer arrived, its golden warmth washing over the earth's surface again. In front of an old, rundown manor, a young boy sat on the doorstep, his face turned toward the sky, eyes covered with a dark cloth. Despite the darkness in his eyes, a faint smile played on his lips.
To any passerby, it might have seemed like he was simply enjoying the sun. But to him, that small moment of warmth was the greatest happiness he could feel. After all the hardwork he done in his past life for him-self and his parents, now he didn't have to worry about it.
A short distance away, beneath the shade of an ancient tree, a little girl busied herself carving wooden dolls. Not far from her, an elderly couple worked their small farm, mending the soil with patient, weathered hands.
The boy exhaled slowly, gathering his thoughts. Then, in his mind, he introduced himself once again.
"My name is Park Ji-Hoon. I'm a transmigrator… but an unlucky one. I died while heading to school and got hit by a truck while trying to save a cat?"
"Back in my world, I was from a middle-class family. My parents worked hard, and I was a genius student, always at the top of my class."
"My best friend, Shin Ji-Hoon, was a total manga, novel, and game addict. He was always rambling about fantasy worlds, Murim, martial artists, and those ridiculous overpowered protagonists. If he were in my place, he'd probably be screaming in excitement right now. But me? I don't know much about all this…. But thinking about my parents makes me sad. They must have been devastated when they found out I was gone."
As he sat there, deep in thought, a tingling sensation ran down his spine as Someone was watching him. He turned his head slightly, already knowing who it was. That little girl. Again. Even though he couldn't see her, he could feel her mischievous eyes staring at him. With a wry smile, he waved his hand toward her.
"When I woke up here… I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I couldn't even speak. At first, it was terrifying. The kind of despair that could break someone. But I've gone through many hardships before. This? This was just another one I had to overcome."
"Slowly but surely, I had begun to adjust. I learned to feel the presence of the three people around me—two elderly figures and the little girl."
"To communicate, I created my own form of sign language. I memorized their faces by touch—the elderly couple's faces that were wrinkled, their skin marked by time, yet something about them felt warm, as if they had once been a beautiful pair."
"They help me in the time when I was in need, they save this body from the injuries and I got transmigrated in his place."
"And then… there was her, That little demon of a girl. A walking, talking headache in the form of a cute child."
"She never missed an opportunity to mess with me. She would pull pranks, hide my walking stick, and even—on multiple occasions—try to shove me off the nearby cliff just for fun. And every single time, she was scolded by the old couple while I sat there wondering if today would be the day I actually died again."
"She doesn't mean any harm… she's just lonely. She's never had friends before, and unfortunately, I'm the only idiot here for her to play with. From what I can tell, she's cute… but way too energetic. She's like a little fox with too much free time."
Thinking about her antics, he found himself chuckling softly. Life in this place was strange, but at least it was peaceful.
"I still don't know why these elders live deep in this forest, away from people. But honestly? I don't care. At least I don't have to deal with crazy martial artists flying around, killing people over some stupid grudge or treasure. I'm not some 'chosen one' like in those novels Shin always read. And that? That's a relief."
For the first time in a long while, Park Ji-Hoon sighed in contentment. Maybe, just maybe… this life wouldn't be so bad after all—unlike my last life, where I had to chase every opportunity just to gain recognition.