Prologue

As I felt my blood leaving my body and the chill of death seeping into my bones, I felt despair.

"What the hell did I do to live a life like this? LIKE A DAMN COCKROACH?!"

"What kind of shitty life did I live, you ask?"

When I was 7, my father committed suicide by using cyanide. That was the start of my nightmare. Coming into my father's office and seeing his body, which had turned blue, became a never-ending nightmare for me. Even now as an adult, I still see his body glaring at me ever so often in my sleep. 

My mother, stricken with grief, fell sick as well, spending most of her time incapable of leaving the house.

Worse yet, the other children in my school heard what happened, and I was bullied until I got into high school. Whether it was having my things tossed, having "fatherless" written on my desk, or being pushed down the stairs, it kept happening endlessly.

Spending most of my time working during high school, as the meager government support we received was barely enough to keep my mom and me afloat, my grades were terrible.

Yet the other kids there were much better than the ones before, even making a few friends over the years.

My life started improving, with me getting higher-paying jobs back then, and at one point, having someone who loved me. While it didn't last longer than a year, it was still one of the few fond memories I look back on.

Finally, I graduated from high school and took the university entrance exams.

Not expecting anything, having learned my lesson, I didn't have any hope of being accepted into university. Yet, as luck would have it, while it was a third-rate university, it was still a university after all!

I thought things would turn for the better. They should have, right?

Yet, a month into university, my mother passed away. Grief-stricken, I don't remember much of the first year, except that I frequently started seeing things that weren't there. My vision worsened as well, and at one point, I started drinking to cope with the loss of the person closest to me.

And on this fateful day, as I came home from university, I found a robber inside my house. I'm no hero, I'm a coward who wanted to keep his worthless life, yet...

*BANG BANG*

As the two gunshots resounded, I felt a piercing pain in my torso and leg while i was running.

Falling down and feeling the agonizing pain, with my blood still flowing out, I turned to look at the robber. As the blood started filling my lungs, I didn't know if I could even make it out of there alive, so I decided, PAYBACK.

Approaching me, he wanted to search my body for my wallet, I'm guessing. I was ready, as I always carried a knife with me due to run-ins with gangsters in the past.

And he was finally within arm's reach. The knife hidden in my pocket flashed. With one swift motion, I cut open his neck. Clutching his neck, he started falling back and collapsed.

Yet as I breathed a sigh of relief at having killed the robber and maybe surviving, three more gunshots sounded out. Two of them missed, but one shot me through the heart.

Looking behind me, a second robber looked at me with hatred in his eyes.

More gunshots resounded, and finally, darkness enveloped me. Waking up after an uncertainty amount of time, it was still a neverending darkness. Yet different this time. 

"What a shitty life... But what now?"

The expansive darkness, like an infinite void, enveloped me. Calming down after that, i started contemplating. 

"Do I go to Hell for killing someone? Heaven, because even God would pity a cockroach like me? Or is it that the Buddhists are right, and I will get reincarnated? Will I turn into a cockroach in my next life, then? That would be fitting, HA! Ha ha, haaaaa... Or maybe, it's just eternal sleep? Maybe my soul will be destroyed, and that'll be the end of that... That would be a really upsetting ending, wouldn't it?"

Contemplating like that, I kept thinking about what would happen. After a while, I gave up. It's better not to dwell on things you have no influence over, be it the past or the uncertain future. As I currently can't do anything, I'll just enjoy the time I have left before something happens.

Humming a tune, I kept waiting there for what felt like countless years, probably only 5 minutes in reality, before I finally saw a ray of light streak past me. Yet suddenly passing me, the ray of light turned around and arrived in front of me.

A rainbow-colored amalgam of pure light stood before me. A piercing gaze that could see through my thoughts passed through me, and I felt like it knew everything about me. Things that i myself forgot as well. 

"You are one pitiful creature, aren't you?" the voice echoed in my head, pity apparent in it. 

"Well, I'd like to think there are some who have it worse than me, but I'd be lying if I said my life wasn't pretty bad overall." i replied with a wretched smile. Or at least i assume my soul was making that expression. 

Pausing for a moment, the shadow looked at me and, while sighing, picked me up.

Seeing the sudden movements, I guessed I was either done for or I'm going to reincarnate.

"Yes, you will reincarnate. Consider it your good fortune to have met me before your soul faded away, in this abyss between worlds. I'll even give you some help. So..."

At this point, my soul was suddenly compressed like a toy. While it didn't hurt, it felt uncomfortable as hell. Looking down at the shadow that took a stance as if he's throwing something, I had a bad feeling.

Suddenly grabbing me, then pulling back his arm, preparing to throw my now compressed soul, he said:

"AWAY YOU GO!"

With his throw, I flew out like a shooting star.

Suddenly feeling the massive force of the throw propelling my soul ahead, I let out a scream of panic.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."

And so, like a shooting star, I headed towards an unknown future.