Chapter 5 — Where Am I?
Darkness.
No — not darkness. Darkness implied the absence of light, but this place had neither. Jin Soowhi opened his eyes to a nothingness so vast, so absolute, that it was almost a color of its own. No floor beneath him, no sky above, no air to breathe — yet he breathed. His body floated in a place that wasn't space, wasn't earth, wasn't dream.
He blinked. His pulse hammered. He raised his hand. It cast no shadow.
The void was endless, crushingly endless, an infinite plain with no landmarks, no lines, not even the comfort of a horizon. It was the kind of emptiness that made the human mind rebel — a cage too wide, a silence too loud.
Where… am I?
He forced himself to sit upright. His body obeyed, though he couldn't feel the surface he sat on. There was no texture, no ground, and yet his weight held.
The last thing he remembered was light — white headlights, thunder, the scream of twisting metal. Then nothing. No pain. No blood. Just… here.
His lips moved, dry. "…So this is death?"
The void didn't answer.
Until it did.
"You survived the battlefield. You survived betrayal. You survived your rage. But you did not survive the truck."
The voice drifted across the plain, smooth and low, muffled as though passing through bone.
Jin snapped his head up.
A shape stood in the distance. Or perhaps it was close — in this place, distance had no meaning. Slowly, deliberately, the figure stepped forward. Black cloak dragging without sound, mask gleaming faintly in the absence of light.
The plague doctor.
The same sleek design, beak-like mask, crimson lining that shimmered faintly as though catching light that wasn't there.
The same one he'd seen in his car.
Jin's eyes narrowed. His voice came out as a growl. "You again."
The doctor inclined his head slightly. "I did warn you."
Jin barked a laugh, hollow and bitter. He dragged himself to his feet, standing unsteadily in the void. His boots made no sound on the groundless floor.
"Yeah, yeah, I didn't listen." He spread his arms wide, his grin mocking. "What's next? You scold me like I'm your child?"
The doctor tilted his head, silent.
Jin's grin faltered into a sneer. "Seriously… do you think I care? I'd rather die. My whole life's a curse. What's one more death to a man like me?"
His voice cracked like a whip in the nothingness. Every word echoed and returned, a choir of his own bitterness.
He jabbed a finger toward the masked figure. "You want to know the truth? Fine. I'll give you the truth. I was born an orphan. I never even knew my parents. You know what it's like to wake up every day wondering why you exist? To have no one, nothing, not even a name that belongs to you?"
The void swallowed his words, but his own echoes hurled them back.
"I clawed my way up alone. I bled for every scrap of recognition. My comrades — my brothers in arms — they died screaming in the mud of North Korea. I held their hands while they begged me not to let go. I buried them in shallow graves because there wasn't even time to mourn. And me? I survived. Lucky me. The cursed one."
His fists trembled. His breath came ragged.
"And when I came home, broken but alive, do you know what I had? A girlfriend. A promise. I thought maybe that was my reason to keep fighting. And what did she do?" His voice pitched higher, teeth bared. "She fucked another guy behind my back. While I was crawling through hell, still worried about her, she spread her legs for someone else. That's what my life is. Betrayal. Shit. Worthless shit."
His voice thundered across the plain, echoing endlessly until it sounded like an army of cursed men screaming with him.
"So yeah," he spat, chest heaving. "I'm glad I died. Good fucking riddance. Let the world burn without me."
The silence after was immense. Crushing.
The plague doctor did not move for a long moment. Finally, his head tilted again, slower this time, as though weighed down by thought.
"I see," he said softly. "This is… the first time in my life seeing a man who seems to truly want to die. A man who curses not only the world, but himself."
His words lingered, strange and heavy.
Jin snorted. "Who wouldn't? After a life like mine?"
The mask's empty gaze fixed on him. The voice that came was measured, almost careful.
"…How about this," the plague doctor said at last. The cloak rustled faintly in the stillness. "I will give you a chance. A new life."
The words dropped like stones into the void. Their echo stretched on and on, reverberating into infinity.
Jin stood there, chest heaving, as the silence devoured the rest.