Let me succeed in this life

Chapter one: Prologue

Before it dawned on me, a knife was deep inside my chest.

My shirt was soaked in red while the figure above me deepened the knife inside. I hear my own heart pounding in my chest while my blood trickled down. The sting was making the corners of my vision darken and the limbs of my body become stiff. My whole body hurts but yet I can't move to stop this person, my mind was scattered everywhere.

I was drowning in my own blood and I, myself was oblivious about that fact.

My gaze solely focused on my murderer, but I couldn't see their face clearly. my chest started to tighten up from the blood I was losing. Everything was spinning, my stomach was turning, my vision was blurry and the pain was becoming numb. I couldn't see anything in the blur of my eyes but I can hear everything that was happening.

In a quiet whisper, the figure spoke. My breath was short and I felt suffocated, it was getting harder to keep my eyes open and breath.

"... Before you die... I want you to remember something."

Despite having a hardship in thinking, i can somehow still understand my attacker's words. As if being aware of my difficulty, the unknown voice continued its unfinished words and uttered them out.

"In your next life..." The owner of the voice quietly muttered the words, pausing for a moment before the knife inside me deepened until it was all inside my chest. "..I will make sure to kill you again."

I could feel the hatred and anger radiating in those words. What did I do to this person...? The words dissolved and melted in my head before i fell into unconsciousness and everything got dark before my eyes.

My breath slowly stilled, my chest felt much lighter as I felt a gentle breeze hit the skin of my cheek. A bright warm light coming along with it and radiating on top of my closed eyelids. My eyelids fluttered, I blinked a few times before raising a hand to shield my eyes from the light and opened them up.

When I attempted to raise myself and sit up I felt and realized that I had a couple of soft sheets under me. I couldnt help but look down and realize that im in a mattress and not on a cold ground. Am I in a hospital...?

I woke up in a seemingly luxurious mattress with a thick blanket covering my body and a bunch of soft pillows beneath my head while I had a white comfortable sleepwear. The blanket slipped down on my lap softly after I raised myself in a sitting position.

I felt like I slept for thousands of centuries. Yet, I still felt like I just ran a mile and my back was aching sore from the mattress. Though I wasn't sure if it really came from that or from how much time I was in the bed. I looked at my body and noticed the small differences. I looked a bit more.. I don't know, paler than I used to be?

I then lifted up my head and observed my surroundings. My eyes twitched and widened in shock at the sight. Is this really the hospital? Wouldn't a room like this cost too much...? I have never seen a hospital room like this before. Am I dreaming, or is this the land of afterlife?

"...how strange.."

My eyes shifted to the door. A quiet creak took my attention as a woman entered the room. What's with her clothes? Is she a nurse here? I have never seen a nurse's uniform like that. Just what the hell is this hospital.

She froze upon seeing me, as if seeing a ghost, she dropped the tray she was holding. A loud shatter hits the ground and echoed all over the room. The sudden scream made my eyebrows twitch in annoyance.

"Hey.. Are you a nurse here?"

Without listening to my words, she ran away from the door and headed somewhere else. I tried crawling off the bed to reach her, but it was already far too late as she had already gone off.

"A---.. Ah..."

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. What's so shocking about a man waking up from a slumber? I know that my face isn't very pleasant around women, but.. am i really that horrendous that in she froze and ran away after getting a glimpse of me?

The more I think about it the more my head hurts... That scream triggered my head in a way I can't put into words. I groaned at the slight twinge in my head, I lifted a hand up to my temple and held it. The ache gradually became more painful making my eyes close shut in pressure.

Words and paragraphs flashed in my mind, electrifying my my whole body like a bolt of lightning. I had no control of my own mind. Sentences seemed like it came from a book flashed in my head.

A distressed growl escapes the seal of my lips. Each sentence felt like a hammer in my head. Hitting the top of my head multiple times, each one getting more harder. The room was spinning, no it wasn't, it was my head. I couldn't focus. My heart beat raised, mingling with the shouts of the people. The images darkened, everything was looking red. A vein popped in the side of my jaw and on my temple as my breath quickened in distress. I was losing the sensations in my body, as if becoming numb.

It felt much worser than a morning hangover.

It didn't last for long, it stopped for a moment. Some images of two men flashed in my head, one of them had a darker hair color than the other. This time, my head wasn't hurting. The images focused on their faces and expressions.

Even from far away... They were both looking at each other with pure hatred. "Die...di..!" Those words repeated in my head like a protest, but the more I heard it, the more it sounded like a Chant.

It sounded like multiple people were shouting it all at once in my head. But before it came to me, the voices and shouts lowered down and fell into soft whispers in my ears. In a snap everything went back to normal as if nothing had happened.

My eyes gradually opened. I didn't realize that my breath quickened more than usual and a hand was tightly holding onto my hair.

Sweat dripped down from my forehead down to my cheek while I gather myself.

"... What the hell is happening..."