Lookism: What Am I Even Doing?

Chapter 99

(Doc's POV)

This is my second life. Like a handful of others I was given an extra chance to make something of myself. When I woke up, I understood this immediately. Though this understanding meant nothing to me. I was old enough to understand that people can't stray far away from their original paths.

It doesn't matter how many chances I was given, my existence would become just as pitiful as the last. So I chose the same profession. I studied most of life for it so why would I choose something different? It's not that I enjoyed it. A job was nothing more than a monetary income. And I was lucky enough to be talented in this field.

Pharmaceutical Scientists get paid a good income. I didn't have to interact with regular people. Most of my time I spent it shut inside a lab with my colleagues. There was enough friction to keep things interesting but at the end of the day, we all respected each other.

This was good enough.

I wanted it to be good enough.

As time passes you become bored of playing doctor. I chose wrong by doing the same thing. By refusing to deviate from my original path, I created a second hell for myself and I started asking, "This can't be all I wanted to do." I was getting older and desperate.

Name a moment when you were happy.

Name a moment when you were sad.

When you grieved or rejoiced.

I couldn't answer any of those. And that made me insecure. It made me feel inhuman. Humans are built on their positive and negative experiences. So who was I who experienced nothing of the sort?

My life was so mundane that it drove me insane. Perhaps if I were simple minded like most of the population then I could've lived the rest of my life this way. It's a curse to be born self-conscious. Every day I look at my pitiful form with hatred.

Was I really alive?

I ate food but didn't like anything in particular.

I neither liked or disliked the cold.

I got sick.

I went through the basic experiences of life yet I didn't feel alive. There was this emptiness in my heart that I was so desperate to fill. In an attempt to comfort myself I began to experiment with things that I shouldn't have and it got me fired. But when I was left without a job I smiled. For once, I was confronted with a challenge and it exhilarated me.

What kind of other things could I feel? Instead of focusing on all the good things I could achieve with my brilliance I became a bad man. Like a mad scientist I played with ideas and theories that were buried for a reason. And this is what caught the attention of that person.

That person is one of the only people Jong-su could ever admire.

He confronted me one day with a proposal. A heavy income that no one else could offer and secrecy. I was an idiot for agreeing.

At first the requests were trivial things. Towards the end of our second year together, that's when he asked me to help him create the unthinkable.

You see, that man realized something that I hadn't. This world wasn't just another dimension. It was a place that had once existed in our plane of existence. A story that I had only read from the recommendation of a colleague. How he knew...he said a divine messenger told him.

And that divine messenger told him to create something strong.

Something so strong that it would make him the most powerful being in this world. I clipped together scraps of his insanity before this. A few words dropped here or there but once he told me of his plan, I knew I had to get away. No matter how hard I tried he'd always find me.