Everything became clear when I moved to another city for college and rented my own apartment at 19. I worked during the day and attended college at night. I rarely slept because I was constantly working hard for my future and to make my mother, who had struggled for me all this time, happy.
One day, when I was extremely exhausted and only taking online courses since I had my own laptop, I suddenly fell asleep. The next morning, the police and my landlord were banging on my door.
I was shocked and scared, convinced I was about to be arrested. But one of the police officers, a middle-aged man, grabbed both my shoulders, his face full of concern. He examined my body closely, which confused me.
When I asked what was going on, he showed me surveillance camera footage from a 24-hour convenience store. My eyes widened because I clearly saw myself walking into the convenience store, which was being robbed by two armed men, and I looked completely unbothered.
The two robbers pointed their weapons at me, but I just kept walking toward them. Then they shot me. Now, here's the weird part: the first shot hit my body, and I fell. I genuinely looked dead there. But when one of the robbers approached me,
I suddenly swept his legs, then kicked his stomach using my heel, which rose straight up, taking him out completely. He didn't get up again. Then I leaped to my feet, and the other robber kept shooting at me, but I calmly dodged his shots while continuing to approach him, then took him down.
My hands were shaking watching the recording. My body suddenly turned cold, and my face went pale. The reason was that I didn't remember anything at all, and the scary part was that in the footage, even though I was wearing a hoodie with the hood up, my eyes were clearly open like someone who was conscious, not sleepwalking.
To confirm the recording was real, I ran into my room and looked at my hoodie. Right in the middle, there was a bullet hole, but there was no blood at all. I was immediately shaken and couldn't understand what was happening to me.
The two police officers who came to my apartment asked me to come to the station to give a statement, but I told them I didn't remember anything at all because, as far as I knew, I was asleep in my apartment. When asked if anyone could confirm I was actually in the apartment, only I could answer, since I was alone.
Everything got complicated when the landlord said he saw me leave the apartment, which was confirmed by the camera in the hallway. I was cornered and could only keep quiet. At that moment, I thought I couldn't get into trouble, and there was no way I could tell my mother any of this.
Reluctantly, I went with the two police officers to their station and gave a statement as best as I could. They also took my hoodie as evidence that I had actually been at the convenience store last night. In the end, I wasn't arrested because the two robbers were only knocked unconscious, but I was given a strict warning not to let it happen again and not to act alone without informing the authorities.
I could only accept it all and nod. After being dropped off by the middle-aged officer, who gave me all sorts of advice on the way, my landlord was waiting in front of the apartment building.
I thought he was going to evict me, but instead, he wanted to help me, perhaps by installing a lock on the outside to prevent me from leaving the apartment at night. Also, if the same thing happened again, he could testify for me.
I was very grateful to my kind landlord. He understood my condition because he also had a child who experienced something similar, although not as severe as mine. After that, I started living quietly, though sometimes I got complaints from neighbors about noise at night in the apartment. After that incident, I realized I had cheated death three more times.
First, when I was going home from work, a steel beam from a construction project fell on me. I was fine, though I was briefly sprawled out and even managed to lift the steel beam. Second, I was stabbed with a knife while consciously saving a girl who was almost raped near my workplace. And third, when I fell from the campus roof while chasing after my transcript.
That's what happened right up until I transferred to another world after supposedly being destroyed by a train and turning into a half-dragon human monster... maybe not a dragon, more like a kaiju or Godzilla, haha. Well, this is my story before I became King and how I met my five wives, but when I disappeared, I arrived in an empty place and met someone before reaching my current world, Aetheria. This is where I found out what was really happening to me and how I truly felt about my father after all of it.
***
"Ugh,"
Dash opened his eyes. "Huh," he was shocked to see himself floating in outer space. He immediately sat up and fumbled around beneath him. He could feel something beneath him. Then he tried to stand and found that he could. After that, he looked around. Everything was dark. Stars, incredibly distant and scattered like tiny dots, surrounded him.
"What is this? Earlier… I turned into a… monster, and now I'm here," Dash thought.
"SWOOOSH," suddenly, a white hole opened in front of him. Instinctively, Dash adopted his fighting stance and stared at the white hole in front of him, which was growing larger. Finally, a gray, smoke-like shadow emerged from within the spinning white, portal-like hole. The gray, smoky shadow twisted and merged, forming the head of an immensely huge gray dragon, like a kaiju, startling Dash. The dragon's head moved closer to Dash, its smoky white eyes focused intently on Dash's face. The massive dragon opened its mouth.
"Finally, we meet," the dragon said with a booming voice.
"Huh… wh-who are you?" Dash asked, maintaining his stance.
"My name is Dahrnel the Curse. I have been with you since you were six years old, ever since your father traded his soul for yours," Dahrnel answered thunderously.
Hearing Dahrnel's words, Dash was completely shocked. His mouth opened, but no sound came out, only his lips trembled. His entire face went pale. His hands, which had been clenched, now dropped and shook. He stared at Dahrnel in front of him.
"What do you mean? What do you mean my father traded his soul for mine?" Dash asked, finally able to speak.
"I will open your memories," Dahrnel replied.
Suddenly, a memory flashed through Dash's mind. He clearly saw his own memory as if he were back there, watching the event unfold in front of him. He was in the car with his father, who had just picked him up from a friend's birthday party before the accident. His mother and sister had gone home earlier because his sister felt unwell. As they crossed an intersection after the traffic light turned green, a SUV driver suddenly ran the red light from the right and slammed into the car from the side, right where Dash was sitting in the front seat.
Dash, watching it, was terrified, because his side took the direct hit from the colliding car, and judging by the impact location and the degree of destruction, there was no way Dash could have survived. His father still managed to check on Dash, but tears immediately streamed down his face when he saw a fragment of the crashing car's bumper pierced into Dash's motionless neck.
At that moment, Dash was certainly dead, which devastated his father. But suddenly, something that had been inside his father's body emerged, trying to claim Dash's soul. His father, realizing the curse within him that had been passed down through generations in his family, immediately reacted and negotiated.
The result of the negotiation was that the curse, which was Dahrnel, transferred to Dash's body, then locked all of Dash's memories, transferred Dash's fatal injury to his father, and took his father's soul, which was given as an exchange for Dash's life. Dash, watching his own memory, shed tears without realizing it.
He realized that his father sacrificed himself and his own soul to save him, even though his father could have lived and prevented his mother from being miserable. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Dahrnel in front of him. Now he understood what had been happening to him: sleepwalking, intense training, excessive appetite, a miserable life—all because of Dahrnel inside him.
"So you saved me but sacrificed my father? Do you have any idea what you did to me and my family… you made me train in my sleep, eat so much it troubled my mother, and now you've changed my body!" Dash said, staring at Dahrnel furiously.
"Your father made the agreement with me when I was about to claim you. The reason I tempered you and passed down all my knowledge was so that you wouldn't die, because I promised your father to keep you alive. When you were hit by the train, your body was destroyed, and only your head was intact. That's why I made your body half of myself. Now you must live and continue to carry my curse. Give me your children later, don't be like your father who only had two, and don't you dare try to die without my permission," Dahrnel said.
"Ha! What if I refuse? You can't just decide things like that!" Dash shouted.
"Your ancestor made a promise to me, and I will keep collecting. Like it or not, I will claim the second born male child. If the second born is female, then I will take the first or third male child. You have no power to change that pact other than obeying it," Dahrnel said.
"Okay, I'll give you as many children as you want, but free my father's soul," Dash said, furious.
"That cannot be. I will claim one soul every generation. That was my covenant with your ancestor, and that pact must be absolutely fulfilled," Dahrnel said.
Dash was silent. He kept staring at Dahrnel, looking for a negotiation loophole, but suddenly Dahrnel opened his mouth. He blew a gray, smoky fire at Dash, making Dash stagger. Dash's head became heavy. He fell to his knees on one leg.
"W-what are you doing?" Dash asked.
"Go. Continue your life elsewhere. I gave you all my energy so you can survive in a new world and fulfill your promise. Give me as many children as possible, and until you fulfill your promise, I do not permit you to die," Dahrnel answered.
"Arrgh, so… you revived me… just to carry on a curse and… make babies… you bastard!" Dash collapsed face down in the vast outer space. Suddenly, "KRAK," everything seemed to crack. "PRANG," the entire scene shattered into pieces.