When Gin Chan awoke again, the world was no longer aflame.
Instead, he felt cold—biting cold. Snowflakes clung to his lashes and melted on his skin. The air was thin and sharp, cutting into his lungs like razors. As his blurred vision cleared, he realized he was lying face down in snow. Around him, towering pine trees stood like silent sentinels, their dark trunks coated in frost, their branches bending under the weight of winter's burden.
He sat up slowly, shivering. The body he now inhabited was not his own. He was thinner, wiry, with narrow hands and long fingers calloused from years of hard work. As he stood, he caught sight of his reflection in a sheet of ice along a broken fence—dark eyes sunken with exhaustion, high cheekbones, short black hair matted with sweat and frost.
He had become Jin-Soo Kang—a twenty-four-year-old ex-military sniper turned fugitive.
His mind was immediately flooded with flashes of this new life: a strict father who had raised him in the mountains, pushing him to hunt and shoot by age ten. An early enlistment into a military special unit. Then, a fateful mission gone wrong—where he was ordered to assassinate a political target he later discovered was innocent. Wracked with guilt, Jin-Soo disobeyed and tried to expose the operation. The result: betrayal by his squad, a bullet to his shoulder, and a manhunt on his tail.
Now, he was a ghost in the mountains of Gangwon-do, surviving on stolen food, moving between abandoned cabins, hunted by the very nation he once served.
Gin Chan stumbled to his feet, still trying to breathe through the heaviness of this borrowed history.
He didn't just inherit Jin-Soo's memories—he inherited everything. The instincts of a soldier. The precision of a sniper. The pain, the fear, and the relentless discipline etched into muscle memory. Each reincarnation didn't just hand him a story; it handed him skills, talents, and burdens he had never known before.
"So this is what pain means here..." he muttered, wincing as he pressed on the stitched wound in his side—Jin-Soo had been shot recently, again. Blood had dried beneath his jacket. Every breath felt like a chore.
He trudged forward, the wind howling through the forest. His thoughts swirled.
Why this life? Why someone already on the edge of death?
He didn't have long to ponder. The forest exploded with sound—a gunshot.
Pain bloomed instantly in his thigh. He collapsed, snow spraying in all directions.
Shouts echoed through the trees. Dogs barking.
"Move in! He's close!"
Gin Chan, now Jin-Soo, crawled behind a tree. His heart thundered. Blood poured into the snow, vibrant red against pure white.
He fumbled for the pistol tucked into his jacket—one bullet left. The same bullet Jin-Soo had saved for himself in case he was ever cornered. But Gin Chan didn't want to die yet. Not until he understood.
What's the lesson here? What's the point?
The barking grew closer. He couldn't outrun them. Not like this.
And so, with shaking fingers, he loaded the final bullet and pressed the cold barrel to his forehead.
---
The world froze.
Once again, everything stopped.
Gin Chan stood in that colorless realm, where time held its breath and stars flickered like dying fireflies.
Death stood before him, arms folded, silver eyes glowing with faint amusement. Her long, black coat billowed in wind that didn't exist. Her mysterious silver gun rested on her belt—sleek, ancient, almost breathing.
"Two deaths already," she said, stepping closer. "You're making progress."
Gin Chan's voice cracked. "What am I supposed to be learning from this? I was shot. I didn't even have a chance to—"
She held up a finger. "Ah, but you did. You chose to live instead of running. You hesitated. That matters."
"And then I killed myself. Again."
Death's smile faded. "No, Jin-Soo chose that. You are Gin Chan. Don't forget that. You inherit their pain, their memories—but your choices matter."
He looked down at his trembling hands. "How many more?"
Death walked in a circle around him, her heels clicking soundlessly on the void. "You have twelve lives. You've spent two. Ten remain. At the end, if you still haven't understood what it means to live... well, then you'll meet True Death."
"So you're punishing me."
She stopped. "Not punishing. Guiding."
He scoffed. "By throwing me into lives where I'm doomed to die?"
Death's eyes softened. "Every life ends. But not every soul learns why it lived."
She reached for her silver gun.
Gin Chan flinched. "Do you have to do that every time?"
"It's tradition," she said, loading a single shimmering bullet. "Besides, I like the sound it makes."
She aimed the gun at his chest. He didn't move.
"Ready?"
Gin Chan nodded, though his heart screamed otherwise.
Click.
Bang.
---
His eyes flew open again.
This time, he gasped—not from pain, but from heat.
The sun scorched his face, and he tasted sand.
Another life had begun.
And Death was watching.
---