Gin Chan's consciousness stirred violently, like being pulled from the depths of a dark ocean into a raging storm. The air was thick — heavy with the choking scent of smoke and burnt wood. His lungs screamed for clean air, but all he tasted was acrid ash and despair. Every breath felt like inhaling fire.
He coughed violently, clawing at the dense haze that clouded his vision. His eyes snapped open to a sky painted with streaks of burning orange and swirling gray smoke. Flames danced wildly from shattered windows of a towering apartment building, licking the sky with deadly hunger. The heat pressed down on his skin like a physical weight, each second burning deeper into his flesh. The frantic screams of trapped souls pierced through the roar of the inferno like desperate prayers lost to the wind.
A surge of panic crashed over him. This wasn't his body. This wasn't his life. He was trapped inside someone else — living their final moments. The name etched in his mind was clear, sharp like a scar: Jin-woo Park.
---
Jin-woo Park was a firefighter — twenty-six years old, lean but muscular, a man forged by fire and hardened by years spent running into danger while others fled. His hands, rough and calloused, gripped tightly to the heavy hose as sweat trickled beneath the weighty helmet strapped firmly to his head. Each breath was a battle, burning his lungs like embers igniting inside him.
Images flooded Gin Chan's mind — memories or borrowed experiences that felt like memories: relentless days battling raging blazes, sleepless nights haunted by the faces of those he couldn't save, the sting of exhaustion and regret thick in his bones. Jin-woo was a man burdened by the impossible — tasked with saving lives while knowing some were already lost.
---
"Park! Get that hose ready! We've got people trapped on the fifth floor!" barked Captain Lee, a gruff voice cutting through the chaos. The man was a veteran firefighter whose face was carved with the lines of hardship and command.
Gin Chan — now Jin-woo — nodded, swallowing the rising panic. His fingers fumbled as he tried to steady the nozzle, slick with sweat and grime. The heat pushed harder, like a living beast, pressing close, threatening to consume everything. He forced his breathing to slow, though every inhale stabbed like knives.
The building groaned and creaked under the assault of the flames. Walls crumbled like brittle paper. Somewhere beyond the smoke and fire, he knew people were trapped, waiting — praying.
---
Suddenly, a piercing scream shattered the cacophony.
"Help! Somebody! Please!" The voice was small, high-pitched, trembling with desperation — a child's cry.
Without thinking, Gin Chan pushed forward, heart pounding like a war drum. The smoke thickened, wrapping around him in suffocating waves. His boots slipped on wet debris, his muscles screamed in protest, but he ran, driven by raw instinct.
Ahead, through the swirling haze, a small figure appeared — a little girl no older than five, eyes wide and glistening with tears. Her tiny body trembled, clothes smeared with soot, face pale and stained with dirt.
"Come here! I've got you!" Gin Chan called, dropping to his knees and pulling the child close. She clung tightly, her small hands clutching his jacket as the fire's roar grew louder, walls buckling ominously.
---
"Evacuate! Everyone, move!" Captain Lee's voice was sharp, urgent.
Flames surged forward with new ferocity. The floor beneath them shuddered, threatening to give way. A heavy beam creaked overhead, groaning under the unbearable heat. Time slowed, each heartbeat stretching into a painful eternity.
Gin Chan's mind raced — there was no room for doubt.
This can't be the end.
He sprinted toward the exit, the child safe in his arms, smoke stinging his eyes. The world was collapsing, chaos closing in. Then—
A deafening crack echoed.
The beam snapped.
---
Pain exploded, all-consuming and white-hot. Gin Chan's body was flung through the air, a tortured ragdoll in the firestorm.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
When Gin Chan's senses returned, he found himself suspended in an endless void — a place without time, sound, or gravity. Silence pressed down on him, cold and absolute. No breath to take, no warmth to hold.
Before him stood Death.
Her form was both terrifying and mesmerizing, draped in flowing black robes that seemed woven from the night itself. Her face was pale and beautiful, framed by silver hair that shimmered like stardust. She wore a smile — silver and cruel — and her eyes glinted with the knowledge of every soul she had ever claimed.
"Where… am I?" Gin Chan's voice trembled, disbelief and fear roiling inside him.
"This is my realm," Death said softly. "Where time stands still, and all the dead come to meet their fate."
Gin Chan's heart pounded wildly. "Why am I here? I should be dead… but I don't understand."
Death's smile deepened, colder now. "You were given a choice when you first died," she said, voice low and hypnotic. "But you laughed at me."
Gin Chan's mind flashed back — to that bitter moment before the fire took him, when, in anger and despair, he had sneered at the inevitability of death.
"After all, death is nothing but the ending."
His words had been reckless, a defiance born from pain.
"Because you mocked death," she said, "I cursed you."
In her delicate hand, she revealed a small silver gun — short, elegant, humming with an eerie power. The weapon seemed forged from moonlight and shadows, its surface engraved with ancient symbols that pulsed faintly.
"This gun," she said, "is the instrument of your punishment — and your journey."
Gin Chan's eyes widened, disbelief turning to fear as she raised the weapon and fired. The bullet shimmered with icy light, piercing him like a blade of frost.
---
Pain crashed over him like a tsunami. Memories, lives, deaths — everything fused into a violent storm as he was thrust once more into a new existence, a new body.
---
In the stillness of Death's realm, her voice echoed in his mind, chilling and clear:
"You have a limited number of deaths, Gin Chan. If you fail to understand the purpose of your curse and find your answers, you will face the true death — the final end with no return."
The weight of her words crushed him.
---
As Gin Chan adjusted to his new existence, he knew one undeniable truth: he was no longer just himself. He was a prisoner of Death's twisted game, forced to live, die, and learn through endless reincarnations.
He clenched his fists, determination burning in his heart.
He would find the meaning behind this torment — or perish trying.
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