A/N- poem of the day: Time slips through our fingers like grains of sand, leaving only memories behind, while the world moves on without us, as though we were never truly here.
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A young man was lying on a hospital bed, gasping hard for air through the oxygen mask— as time passed by, his consciousness was fading away like a candle's flame swallowed by the great wind.
"Am I going to die like this? I haven't even lived my life to the fullest, and I still haven't repaid my parents for raising and loving me— and now I'm going to die without doing any of that? Why does god loves to see me suffer this much?" the young man thought to himself, struggling to draw each breath.
The young man was Zhou Chénhao.
Zhou Chénhao had been suffering from respiratory cancer-(lung cancer)— since he was nine years old. As the years passed through him, his condition only grew worse, and now, at sixteen, after living what he felt was a pointless life in this world, he lay on his deathbed.
The cardiac monitor on his side was beeping irregularly—sometimes fast, sometimes faint—mirroring his shallow, trembling breaths as he fought desperately to hold onto the last threads of life.
"Mom, Dad.. I'm sorry, I only hope that you do not shed your tears to someone as incompetent as me. If god were to ever give me a second chance to live, I will live that life with no regrets." Zhou Chénhao thought to himself, as he closed his eyes and fully accept his faith.
Zhou Chénhao's consciousness was fading away slowly, he could no longer breathe, even if he wanted too. All the oxygen in his body began to go up through his head, and his mind went completely blank.
Zhou Chénhao was now dead.
--
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in a vast, empty void—an endless sea of black. He felt no pain. No heartbeat. No breath. Not even the weight of his body.
"Where am I?" he whispered.
"You are in the Sea of Beginning," a voice echoed softly, neither male nor female. "Here, all souls drift toward the cycle of life."
Zhou Chénhao slowly turned toward the source of the voice. There, he saw a mysterious figure cloaked in black. In its right hand, it held a blue lamp that glowed faintly in the darkness. Beneath the hood, there was nothing—only an endless void staring back at him.
"Who are you?" Zhou Chénhao called out to the figure.
"I am the guide of all souls toward the cycle of reincarnation," the figure replied, its tone edged with sarcasm. "I don't have time to explain everything to you—I'm a very busy man."
The cloaked figure raised a hand and lightly tapped its finger in the air. At once, Zhou Chénhao's body began to sink into the dark waters beneath him.
"Wait! I still have a question!" Zhou Chénhao cried out, but the black water swallowed his body before he could say more.
"May you live your next life with no regrets," the mysterious figure murmured as the last ripple faded into the void.