Until Death - 1 - ENG

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There is always a weight on your back. A phantom feeling that keeps stabbing at your skin, crawling beneath it when your mind goes blank — haunting the world of your dreams.

I don’t know when this feeling first appeared.

Maybe it was always there. I only noticed it when bad things happened. Growing stronger alongside every experience life threw at me.

But why? What reason does this feeling have to exist?

When I was young, I asked my mother about it.

I can barely remember her face, but that moment is burned into my memory with perfect clarity. The scent of cheap soap and cigarettes clung to her soft hair. Her rough palms tickled my cheek.

How desperately I want to return to that embrace. Sadly, at the time I was nothing more than a small child who could only cry on her shoulder — crying about why bad things kept happening to me.

The question came out of nowhere, and I asked.

She fell silent for a moment, but I was certain I saw the corner of her mouth rise as she said, “It’s because you are cursed. Being born into this world is a curse.”

Ah — that feeling became so much more real as memories of my mother passed through me. The stabbing sensation had reached my bones, and the cold of the lake water soaked into my skin, making it stronger still.

The moonlight piercing the surface of the lake made me forget all of it, my vision growing dimmer by the moment, while my breath came in shorter and shorter gasps with each passing second. Darkness slowly swallowed my body, falling into its embrace.

Why does this feel so comfortable?

Mother… is that you?

…

..

.

I think I understand now. Mother was right. Life is worthless… if death is this comfortable.

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Start?

“Ha?”

Gone was the piercing cold and the darkness of the lake’s depths, but the moonlight had grown far brighter — blanketing the place in something miraculous.

I stared in disbelief at the marble floor beneath me. I had clearly been drowning just moments ago — how was I kneeling here?

Even the last thing I had wanted…

“What is it that you want?”

That voice froze my body solid.

A woman stood some distance in front of me, her appearance unlike anything I had ever seen. A strikingly beautiful white gown hugged her slender figure, and a translucent veil adorned her head. Even her body itself appeared semi-translucent — like a shadow that had taken on real form.

“I hope you can understand what I’m saying — I don’t want to break you just yet,” she said with clear annoyance.

Whatever she said passed right through me as I was still processing what was actually happening.

“Are you a ghost?” I couldn’t help but ask. The woman was clearly translucent. Wait — if she was a ghost, did that mean I was in the afterlife?

Honestly, I was never particularly afraid of death, but I hadn’t expected to meet an actual ghost. I looked at my hands — they were still my hands, covered in old scars. Still made of flesh and skin, not translucent like hers.

“You’re not very smart, are you?”

How did she end up right in front of me!? I stumbled backward in shock.

The woman looked down at me as though she were observing an interesting animal. Because of her striking appearance, I could only look at her face, her bare neck… and the hint of her cleavage peeking out. I could barely keep my eyes fixed straight on hers.

I swallowed involuntarily. No woman had ever been this close to me before. Well — not exactly. At least not in a situation like this.

My heart pounded hard, my cheeks felt hot, and I could feel my hands growing damp with sweat. I couldn’t do anything — as though I were a mouse standing before a starving cat.