Midnight in the rain at the hospital
"This hurts,"
Hastora, his body wracked with pain, tried to rise from the hospital bed.
But, no matter how hard he tried, his body refused to move.
Was it because of the IV drip in his hand?
He tried to remove the needle piercing his left hand.
However, he couldn't; his right hand wouldn't move.
He decided to stop trying to move and closed his eyes.
"I shouldn't have gone there,"
Hastora recalled the events before he was admitted to the hospital.
At that time, he went to a party, invited by a friend.
Initially, he refused, but his friend wouldn't give up, persistently urging Hastora to attend the party.
Hastora, exasperated by his friend's persistence, reluctantly accepted the invitation.
They both went to the party at 7:30 PM.
It was incredibly crowded and stuffy.
People danced and gambled together.
Hastora planned to leave after seeing how crowded and stuffy the party was.
It was far beyond his expectations.
Initially, he thought his friend had only invited a few people.
But that was wrong.
A dinner party would inevitably be crowded.
Especially one held in a ten-story building.
Seeing Hastora standing silently, his friend forcibly pulled him inside.
This completely thwarted his escape plan.
At the party, Hastora was forced to drink wine and sit silently, listening to the music.
Unable to bear it any longer, Hastora quickly left and went to the tenth floor.
There, he stood on the balcony, gazing at the city at night.
Colorful lights and billboards adorned with twinkling lights illuminated the city.
Hastora felt calmer there.
However, this tranquility ended when his friend approached him.
Surprised by his friend's sudden appearance, Hastora slipped and fell from the tenth floor.
Noticing someone had fallen, the partygoers quickly called an ambulance.
Once the ambulance arrived, the paramedics rushed him to the hospital.
Hastora, still semi-conscious, endured the searing pain.
His bones were broken; he couldn't move at all.
Upon arrival at the hospital, the medical staff quickly took him to a patient room.
The doctors tried their best to help him.
Their efforts yielded some results.
His condition was slightly better than before.
Slightly.
Just slightly…
Hastora needed further treatment to fully recover.
His friend felt guilty about the incident.
Hastora stared at the hospital ceiling with an empty gaze.
He couldn't think straight.
His mind was muddled from hitting the asphalt.
"I can't take it anymore… This hurts so much,"
Pain consumed his entire body. It felt like he'd been beaten with an iron rod until his body was crushed.
Pain.
Such intense pain…
Hastora tried to move his right hand, attempting to reach his smartphone on the table.
However, the more he moved it, the more it hurt.
But he didn't give up; he fought the pain and reached for his smartphone.
"I… I did it…"
He unlocked his smartphone.
The first thing he did was read a novel.
It was his own novel.
He wrote it as an escape from reality.
It was a fantasy novel titled "Echoes of an Unwritten Fate."
This novel had no main character; he did this intentionally to release his frustrations.
He used a third-person omniscient point of view.
This world was never meant to have a main character; Hastora merely etched its reality into the pages of her novel.
Strangely, his novel became incredibly popular despite lacking a main character.
People consistently gave positive comments; there weren't any negative ones.
Despite the pain, Hastora forced his right hand to move again and removed the IV needle from his left hand.
His body screamed in agony as he sat up.
It felt like being hit by a truck traveling at 120 km/h.
Hastora stared at his phone screen.
"At least I should write one chapter."
Slowly, he moved his thumb, trying to write a new chapter in his novel.
However, he felt excruciating pain when he tried to move his thumb.
"Damn it! It hurts like hell!"
The pain was so intense that he dropped his smartphone onto the hospital floor.
"Forget it… This hurts too much… I can't take it anymore… This is torture…"
He stared at his fallen phone with an empty gaze.
His intention to write at least one chapter vanished.
He lay back down.
"If only… If only there was someone I could talk to here… That would be slightly better,"
"Forgive me, Mom, Dad, I think I'm going to die soon. I'll meet you in the afterlife a little sooner than I promised,"
"Forgive me for not being able to save you both from the fire. It's all my fault… If only I could have saved you then,"
Regret for not being able to save his parents during the fire haunted him.
Five years ago, when he was only fifteen, a mall suffered a devastating fire due to arson.
An estimated fifty people were trapped inside during the fire, including his parents, who were shopping at the time.
Hastora, who was waiting outside, couldn't do anything.
He wanted to save them, but the firefighters didn't allow him, citing the extreme danger.
Once the fire was extinguished, people flocked towards the mall.
The firefighters tried to stop them, but their efforts were futile.
The people forced their way in, overwhelming the firefighters, who eventually let them enter the burned-out mall.
Hastora, seeing his chance, ran inside.
Sadly, his parents couldn't be saved; they both died from smoke inhalation.
Since then, he had been an orphan, working as a novelist to survive.
He had been a novelist for five years and had written many novels.
In total, he wrote five novels.
Of all of them, "Echoes of an Unwritten Fate" was the most famous.
He earned a substantial income from writing that novel.
Hastora closed his eyes.
"I'm so pathetic," he murmured softly, his voice barely audible above the sound of the rain.
!!!
"Ughhh,"
Suddenly, he felt excruciating pain in his heart.
It felt like his heart was being stabbed repeatedly with a knife.
"It hurts! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!"
The doctors rushed into the room after hearing someone scream.
The beeping of the EKG monitor was soft yet steady.
Beep… beep… beep…
But the beats were getting slower… more infrequent… until finally—
Beeeeeeeeep—
The green line on the monitor flattened.
A nurse immediately shouted, "Flatline!"
The doctor rushed closer. "Prepare the defibrillator! 200 joules, now!"
Tzzztt!
Two paddles were placed on the patient's chest.
"Clear!"
The patient's body twitched slightly from the electric shock, but the line on the monitor remained flat.
The doctor tried again.
"Clear!"
Still no response.
A few seconds that felt like an eternity passed before the doctor finally sighed.
"Time of death… 3:17 AM."
…
Ding!
[You have died]
[Starting transmigration process]
[Process complete]
[Transmigrating character to another world]
[Destination: Echoes of an Unwritten Fate]
To be continued in the next chapter…