My eyelids grew heavy, and the world spun around me. A strange dizziness numbed my body, but my mind was crystal clear on one thing—what had just happened.
Fear… yes, I was afraid. Afraid to die. Afraid to disappear. But if my death meant someone else could live… then maybe it was worth it.
My chest tightened as my vision swam.
"Yes… it's worth it..." I whispered to no one in particular. "Everything… will be alright…"
Yet, in the shadowed corners of my heart, hidden beneath my resolve, a small truth whispered:
—I wished I could have been happy too, I don't wanna die.
But it was already too late, wasn't it?
Darkness finally swallowed me. The burning pain in my body dissolved into nothing. Cold silence wrapped around me.
And then—I heard it.
A voice. A soft, familiar voice. Someone calling my name.
"White…"
I wasn't floating, nor falling. Just adrift in an endless night. And before me appeared… light.
A shape stepped into existence, wrapped in silver glow—long, shining white hair flowed like rivers of moonlight, and her deep violet eyes pierced through me as if reading the very thread of my soul.
Her beauty was unearthly. I felt as though I'd… known her, somewhere.
My throat worked, but my voice shook. "Who… who are you?"
She tilted her head slightly, as if amused by my confusion. "Oh my… I forgot my manners. I should introduce myself. My name is—"
The world blinked, and everything shattered.
A Few Days Later
"Umm… ah…"
My dry lips slipped out the faintest groan.
"Ah! You're finally awake!" The worried voice rang next to me, familiar and grounding.
"Thank goodness… I thought you might never wake up."
A blurry hospital ceiling greeted me as I forced my eyes open. Turning my head, I saw her—my landlord.
She wasn't just a landlord, though. She was a college student who worked part-time jobs to keep things going. And to me—someone abandoned by his own parents—she was one of the few people who gave me a reason to keep living until now.
"Where… am I?" I croaked.
"The hospital, of course! You nearly gave me a heart attack! They said you were hit by a truck—you jumped right in front of it!"
She frowned. "The doctor said it was a miracle you even survived. Do you have any idea how reckless that was?"
Her words hit me like ice.
Hit by a truck… yes, I remembered. I remembered the headlights. The chill of metal tearing into my body. And before that—someone.
My heart thumped. "The girl…" I whispered.
She leaned closer. "What girl?"
"The girl I tried to save… She was standing there, in front of the truck. Did she… did she make it out alive?"
Her face froze, lips parting in confusion. "…White. There was no girl."
A cold sweat ran down my back. "…What?"
"The witnesses all said the same thing. You ran out into the street, but there was no one else there. Just you."
"No, no…" my voice cracked, trembling. "You're wrong! I saw her! She was right there—if I hadn't pushed her, she would've—she would've died in front of me!"
I was breathing too fast, throat raw. Desperation clawed at me.
"White… calm down. Please, don't push yourself—"
"Her name!" My skull throbbed, splitting, blinding white agony firing through my chest and brain. "Her name was—!!"
My words drowned in pain. The world convulsed, and I collapsed back into darkness.
A Few Days Later
When I finally returned home, the days dragged in restless haze. On the surface, life continued—me, alive and breathing, body mending. But the memory of that day… it never left me.
Was it just a hallucination? A delusion born out of my dying mind? Or… did I really save her?
Each night, when I closed my eyes, the dream returned. That same endless darkness. That same fragile thread of light drifting toward me, as though offering salvation. It was warm. Beautiful. A ray of hope in my despair.
Yet I always awoke before touching it. Alone.
I told myself again and again: It was just my imagination.
And slowly, I almost believed it.
Until—
That day came.
The day when reality itself answered my doubts.