On a sunny morning, the sun shone brightly, its dancing light illuminating the scene while birds chirped peacefully. On that beautiful morning, a guy in his early teens woke up with messed-up hair, carrying abysses under his eyes and fighting the guilt of having woken up late.
He stood up and launched into studying for his entrance exams like a madman, ramming through pages, solving equations, and revising notes. He studied and studied. Minutes passed by: one hour, two hours, ten hours, sixteen hours. He asked the sheets of paper what they knew, what they could teach him, battling math and migraine together. When he finally conquered the last question, the last concept, the last theory for the day—or was it?—he finally went to sleep again, filled with guilt, sadness, and sorrow.
Even after hours of studying to the point of self-torture, the thoughts of failing the exam and how the system had betrayed him bashed through his mind. He was unable to sleep; a gulp went down his throat. What caused sleepless nights built anxiety in him. Smiling in front of colleagues and family, he was dying inside.
But one day, he couldn't hold it anymore. A strange tingling started in his fingertips, a distant fizzing that he tried to ignore. The numbers on the page began to swim as a deep, unnatural numbness crept up his wrists to his arms. The weight of his own head became unbearable, and the pen slipped from his unfeeling fingers. A cold void spread through his chest, and the world tilted on its axis. While studying, he collapsed.
While on the ground, what he thought was the arms of death, he whispered to his mom, who was sitting beside him and crying, "Pray for me," and he closed his eyes. He thought, This is the end for me, the final chapter. Three years of relentless studying for sixteen hours straight, sacrificing everything. A voice in him screamed, I want to live!
What was a dark abyss suddenly resolved into a large screen. Trrnggg! A wide blue screen appeared in front of him. "You get a second chance at will. Do you want to accept it? Yes or No."