Is there really peace in living a life alone? Can we find a certain kind of happiness in it—the world on one side, and you with only yourself on the other?
The world will go on. It will move on. Friends and family will continue with their lives, while we remain apart. Undisturbed. No need to worry about what your friends think of you. No pressure to climb the social ladder to prove to your family and relatives that you've "made it." No burden of carrying the responsibilities your loved ones place on your shoulders.
Truly, it would be a life of weightless freedom.
You can write. You can read. You can eat, sleep, and wake up—
Without anyone touching you,
Without anyone intervening.
Aiden lived such a life—or chose to live it. He sold an idea for a few millions, then staked his life in solitude. He was what you'd call an introverted specialist—though, if you had to put it more clearly, he was the adult version of that.
He lived alone.
Not in the dramatic, tragic way movies paint it. Not in a cabin in the woods, not on a mountaintop whispering poetry to the wind. No. Aiden lived alone in a 32-floor high-rise, in a room so quiet that the ticking of the analog clock above the stove could sound like a metronome pressed against his skull.
And he chose it.
He chose the silence, the emptiness, the weightlessness.
Sometimes he wondered if peace was a lie people told themselves after everyone left. But other times… on nights like this, with the air conditioner humming and the city's glow bleeding gently through the blinds, he believed in it. Peace. That strange luxury of not having to perform, not needing to explain the sigh in your chest or the pause before a smile. That sacred freedom to wake, eat, read, sleep—and never have to be seen doing it.
No friends to impress.
No family to update.
No lover to reassure.
The world would go on. It always does. Friends getting married. Cousins climbing ladders. Office chats and engagement announcements. And Aiden? He scrolled past it all.
He sipped his coffee—still hot, a faint scent of hazelnut steam curling up—and scrolled through his mobile. Notifications filled the screen again. Missed calls. Messages. Familiar names.
He stared at them, thumb hovering above the 'clear all' button.
The buzzing of the phone gave him the jitters. Like electricity humming just beneath his skin.
A weird kind of fear and sudden anxiety. The irrational kind. The kind that doesn't come from trauma or a toxic past—but from something quieter. Something nameless.
He didn't hate them.
They weren't bad people.
Lisa, his ex, had a laugh that used to make him smile even when the world felt dead. His friends? Good guys. Reliable. Understanding.
But even reading their messages made his throat tighten.
So he swiped them away. The screen went clean. Like nothing had happened.
"Hehe… where was I in the novel?" he muttered to himself, trying to shake it off. "Chapter 122…"
He opened the web novel app again, the familiar warm light of the interface easing some of that static in his chest. This was his medicine. His ritual. Web novels about transmigrating heroes, hidden systems, empires at war—it calmed him down.
But tonight the calm lasted less than a second.
[LOCKED CHAPTER – UNLOCK WITH 10 COINS]
"What!!!…Damn it," he muttered, mouth twitching. "It's locked?"
His breath hitched, rising with his irritation. He sat up in bed, the covers sliding off his legs. His voice turned into a frustrated growl.
"This shitty story isn't even that good! Why now? Why the hell did the author start locking it—right at the motherfuking cliffhanger?!"
He stormed to the comment section, seething, reading others' frustrations.
Then paused.
And grinned.
"…Hmph. Why don't I do something.... different?"
With the flair of a villain, he tapped the review button and started hammering out his judgment. One-star. Scathing review. Vicious sarcasm.
"Hehehe… this is what you deserve… HAHAHAHA!" He belted, laughing in that stupid, satisfied way only someone with too much time and too little consequence could.
Then he sighed. Peace washing over him like a wave.
Of course… he bought the chapters anyway.
He had money. More than enough. He'd sold an idea a year ago for a small fortune. Wasn't proud of it. Wasn't ashamed either. It was just... done. Now he could do what he wanted.
'Twenty chapters. Just twenty. Then I'm out. I just want to know what happens next.'
But he kept reading. And reading. Unlocking more than he said he would. Just one more. Just until the next arc ends. Just until the MC meets the dragon. Just until the princess dies.
He cracked open a cold energy drink. Then another.
Time blurred. The silence in the room deepened into something thick. Like velvet pressing against his ears. The walls of his apartment faded into a vague presence. Only the glow of the phone and the heat of his heartbeat remained.
His body felt detached. Just a vessel to hold the story.
Until finally—
"...haaaa… gonna sleep now…" he yawned, the phone slipping from his hands. His eyes fluttered shut. The faint light of the morning sun coming from the window.
Pierce...
He didn't even process the pain at first. Just a heavy pressure in his chest. Then warmth. Then something sharp.
His eyes shot open.
.....Blood.... Crimson and soaking into the white sheets beneath him. Sticky. Warm. Thick.
His limbs froze in disbelief. But his gaze moved. Slowly.
A blade. Right in his chest. Buried deep. Still vibrating from the force.
And a hand holding the handle.
"…Lisa?" he whispered, voice barely air. She was shaking. Eyes wide. Her makeup smeared with tears. The kind of crying that starts with hope and ends in madness.
He couldn't breathe.
Lisa. His ex. The woman he hadn't answered in months. The co-owner of the very company that built his fortune.
She fell to her knees, sobbing harder now, pressing her hands to the wound like she could stop what she started.
"I tried…" she cried, her voice trembling. "I called you. I messaged you. I waited. I begged... I begged you just to answer… just once…"
Each word landed like a punch.
Her tears fell on his cheek, warm and pure and pointless now.
Aiden's vision blurred. Not from the pain. But from the weight.
From the sheer emptiness in his chest—not where the knife was, but deeper. Where something else had long since disappeared.
'...the next...chapter…' he thought weakly, his last fragment of will clinging not to her… not to life… but to a fictional world.
Then everything went cold.
Not painful. Just… empty.
Like becoming fog.
And for the first time, no one could call. No one could text. No one could break through.
'This must be it,' he thought.
'Eternal peace. Finally.'
But then—
{...Not yet...}
A whisper.
Not from outside. From somewhere 'beneath' thought. A ripple in his core.
His eyes flew open.
He gasped for air.
He was… alive?
No.
Something was wrong.
A ceiling he didn't recognize. A stale, freezing air pressing against his skin. Stone walls. A room too clean and too cold. The bed beneath him felt harder than anything in his apartment.
Aiden sat up.
His body—wrong.
Taller. Broader. His fingers thinner, longer. Muscles beneath skin that hadn't been there yesterday.
And a stain on his robe. Blood.
He touched his chest. The cloth torn. A hole right where the knife had been. But his skin—whole. No wound. Just a faint, pulsing ache like something 'remembered' the pain.
He stumbled to the corner, catching his reflection in a shard of broken glass from the window.
A face similar to his own....but
Pale ash-gray hair.
Golden eyes glowing faintly.
And on his forehead… small, black horns curling from the skin like polished obsidian.
"…fuck…I transmigrated...didn't I? " he breathed, heart pounding.