Kim opened a gate behind him.
It was not a gate of escape…
but instinct.
The instinct of survival after everything had ended.
The void split open,
and his body was pulled into another world.
He fell.
Not a violent fall,
but the fall of someone who had lost all sense of direction.
When he opened his eyes,
he found himself in a completely different world.
A calm blue sky.
Green land stretching endlessly.
Ancient stone cities,
people laughing,
children running,
and life… moving without fear.
A good era.
A world that had never known angels,
nor chaos,
nor his name.
Kim stood with difficulty.
And in that moment…
he felt it.
Pain.
It was not the pain of a wound,
nor a fracture.
But something deeper.
He looked at his hand.
The veins…
were no longer red.
They were slowly turning black,
as if something was crawling inside his body,
not to kill him…
but to demand a price.
The darkness spread from his palm to his wrist,
then stopped suddenly.
His fingers convulsed.
His body bent forward.
Then he saw something else.
Time…
was no longer straight.
He heard a child's laugh,
then saw the same child as an old corpse in the same moment.
He saw a city being built…
then collapsing…
then being built again,
in the blink of an eye.
Kim pressed his hand to his head.
"…Stop."
But the clock hands inside his left eye
were not turning.
They were shattering.
A sharp wave of pain surged,
making him scream for the first time in a long while.
He fell to his knees.
The darkness spread to his neck,
to half of his face.
His reflection on the surface of nearby water
was no longer clear.
His features…
lagged a fraction of a second behind his movements.
As if time itself
was no longer sure
when he was supposed to be.
He tried to use life energy.
It did not respond.
He tried to seal the chaos.
The pain intensified.
Immortality did not grant him peace…
it deprived him of an ending.
His body trembled.
Stiffened.
Then…
he collapsed.
Unconscious.
When everything went dark,
this was not sleep.
But a temporary shutdown.
Because the pain…
even in absence,
did not disappear.
And deep within,
Kim understood the harsh truth:
Chaos did not kill him.
Time did not save him.
And the body…
was no longer a suitable vessel.
It had become
a bill
to be paid
slowly.