Gyeong lowered his hand, fingers aiming for the sleeping self's cheek. He expected cold skin, maybe the resistance of a solid body.
Yet his fingers met none. They sank through the flesh like a stone dropped into water, vanishing up to the knuckle. He felt nothing. It was as if he was reaching into empty space.
He yanked his hand back, staring at the limb. It looked solid, even casting a shadow against the white sheets, but it held no weight. He reached out again, palm flat this time, pressing against the chest of the sleeping Gyeong In. His hand went halfway through, the sight of his own arm intersecting his own ribs making his stomach lurch.
He was a phantom. He could see the world, but he couldn't touch it.
[You are part of your memories.]
Gyeong spun around, scanning the empty room. "My memories? You brought me back just to re-play a movie?"
[The Rebirth ability is active.]
"Rebirth," Gyeong muttered, looking back at his sleeping form. "So that's the cheat code? I die, I come back."
[Simple explanations for a simple mind,] the system text read. [You will be granted a revive of your location. However, you must live through the timeline. From the moment of transportation to the moment of death. No skipping.]
Gyeong felt a spike of pure rage. "Live it again? What for? I died at the bottom of a hole because… well, well because! Why would I need to re-watch my sorry ass do it again?!"
[Process begins now.]
"Wait!" Gyeong shouted, reaching for the floating text. "What does that mean? Like the whole thing? The whole two days?!"
The system vanished, leaving Gyeong alone with the sleeping image of himself. He stood there, a ghost in the room, watching the chest of his past self rise and fall. He waited, breath held, for the inevitable.
It came without warning. The sleeping Gyeong In jerked, a violent spasm racking his frame. His eyes snapped open, wide and bloodshot. He sat up, clutching his throat, wet hacking sound tearing from his lungs. It was a desperate, ugly noise of a body fighting a losing battle against its own biology.
Gyeong watched, detached, as the events he barely remembered played out before him. He saw the panic. He saw the trembling hands reach for the nightstand, fingers grasping at empty air. He saw himself slide off the bed, collapsing onto the cold tile floor with a meaty crash.
The bloody cough came next. A torrent of red, painting the white floor. It looked uglier from this angle. More pathetic.
"I remember this," Gyeong whispered, his voice sounding strange in the silence of the memory. "The floor was so… cold."
The Gyeong on the floor gagged, choking on his own life. His eyes rolled back, his limbs twitched, and then he went still. The pool of blood grew, widening slowly. The body didn't move again.
Gyeong stared at the corpse that used to be him. He waited for a feeling, some echo of the terror and pain he'd felt moments ago, but there was nothing.
"Well, that was quick," he muttered to the empty air. "At least I didn't suffer long."
The scene held for a second longer, the image of his death burning into his memory. Then, the white walls of the hospital room began to dissolve. The light faded, the blood drained away, and the world collapsed into darkness.
Gyeong hovered as a phantom, spectral arms crossed over his translucent chest. Below him, stretched out and warped like a projection on water, he watched his past self converse with the system.
[You appear to already have an idea of what I am about to present. Is that correct?]
Ghost-Gyeong tapped an impatient foot in the void. He saw his past lips move, heard the edge of his own voice bickering with the system. Denials. Negotiations. The pathetic bargaining.
[Your soul does not qualify for the afterlife.]
"We know!" Ghost-Gyeong snapped at the memory, his voice swallowed by the emptiness. "Get on with it."
Past-Gyeong spat defiance, as Ghost-Gyeong watched his past self fragment, dissolve, erase, knowing exactly where the shattered pieces would reassemble.
"Skip to the misery," he muttered. "I've seen the prologue already."
The spectral Gyeong folded his arms as his corpulent past-self groaned in the cramped bedroom. He watched the beginning of Lucian's journey unfold.
Lucian's sausage fingers poked at his gut. "Zero?" the memory-version wheezed, jowls trembling.
Gyeong floated closer, grimacing at the bloated reflection. "Still hurts, doesn't it? Knowing you're weaker than a toddler." His ghostly whisper echoed unheard in the memory-space.
"Criteria: Inadequate."
"You heartless bastard," present-Gyeong muttered at the vanished interface. Below him, memory-Lucian struggled with the bedroom door, sweat darkening his collar.
Lucian trudged down the hallway. Gyeong hovered behind his past-self like a familiar, watching the maid's expression shift from concern to poorly concealed pity when she saw the bruises on Lucian's neck.
The scene blurred as Lucian followed her to the bath chamber. Gyeong didn't need to see the rest of the humiliation, struggling to wash folds of unfamiliar flesh.
"Twenty-four hours or so," he calculated, watching dust motes swirl in light beams. "Twenty-four hours of weakness before I throw myself into that damn mine again."
Time crawled. Gyeong floated in annoyance as he wretched Lucian snore in rancid bedsheets. Enduring hours of wooden sword drills where his past-self stumbled like a drunkard. The fat noble's wheezing became nails on Gyeong's spectral chalkboard.
"Move your feet, idiot!" he snarled at memory-Lucian fumbling through a stance. Yelena's training blade smacked meaty ribs, the thwack echoing in the void. His phantom shoulder twinged sympathetically.
The repetitive agony of the library scene played out. Past-Lucian poked uselessly at his neck lotus. Gyeong pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really look stupid…"
Horseback riding revived his humiliation. Spectral Gyeong winced as memory-Lucian bounced atop the dun gelding like overripe fruit in a sack. "Even the horse looks embarrassed," he muttered, watching the animal's ears flatten in annoyance.
His phantom form blinked through the final minutes. The mine's jagged maw swallowed past-Lucian whole. Gyeong drifted behind, jaw tight, as his past-self squeezed through the collapsed tunnel.
Inside the suffocating darkness, spectral Gyeong watched his own trembling hand press against cold stone. He hovered inches from memory-Lucian's ear, mimicking the ultimatum: "I'm holding myself hostage, blah, blah, blah, If I die, I die. But you? You'll be back at square one, don't you?. Who knows what it cost to bring someone here."
Blue text flared, [You are bluffing.]
"Still a terrible judge of character," present-Gyeong noted dryly. He watched the goblins' skittering advance, their claw-scratches sharpening in the dark.
Memory-Lucian stepped forward into pitch black. Present-Gyeong followed, phantom heart thrumming with borrowed adrenaline. "Here we go," he breathed, "Minutes till impact."
The arrow flew. Gyeong instinctively grabbed his shoulder where the phantom shaft struck. He watched his past-self flee, the panicked stumble toward the ledge where darkness yawned.
"Look down," Gyeong urged the memory, teeth bared in a grimace. "Just look down and kill yourself already. Save us both the spear."
But past-Lucian turned. Goblins swarmed the ledge.
Gyeong closed his eyes.