I don't know how much time had passed when I opened my eyes to find myself in a strange, unfamiliar expanse.
"Am I dead?"
It wasn't a long life, which left me with many lingering regrets. Would I become a cursed spirit or a vengeful ghost? I laughed bitterly, filled with sadness and pity for myself. I was only 23 years old, with a long road still ahead. To die in this way... it felt pitifully tragic.
I wanted to go back immediately and strangle that useless friend of mine to death.
Oh, right, he was dead too, wasn't he? I hope he gets what he deserves—in hell!
That bastard! How dare he waste my life like this? Not that I didn't expect to die someday, but I didn't want to die like this. If I had to die, I'd prefer it to be meaningful or at least after achieving my goals.
But alas, life always flows contrary to one's wishes, and so I died in the prime of my youth.
Well, since I'm dead, so be it.
After sighing and lamenting for a while, I began to observe my surroundings.
The place was a vast, white expanse, like an endless sea. Floating in the air, I could see black, square geometric shapes, resembling flying saucers.
...It felt as though I were in the void.
I never imagined in my life that I'd end up in a place like this, which led me to one question: Is this the afterlife? It seemed like death wasn't as—
"You're not dead…"
Suddenly, a voice interrupted my thoughts.
I quickly turned toward the source of the voice and saw the most suspicious and peculiar person I had ever encountered.
He was a man with long silver hair cascading down his back and shoulders, resembling a wide, flowing river of silver. His hair alone was enough to make any woman in the world envious to death.
He wore a white nagagi adorned with gray cloud patterns, topped with a light gray haori, and a dark scarf with smoky edges draped around his neck.
What stood out most about him were his eyes.
The iris of his right eye was filled with black and white squares, like a chessboard, with no visible pupil. His left eye was similar, except its pupil was shaped like a black chess king.
What was with this glowing chessboard pattern? Contact lenses? No way, such lenses didn't exist in the world.
Aside from his unnervingly clear eyes, the rest of his facial features were indistinct, shrouded as if in a layer of mist, making them hard to discern.
He was seated on a floor cushion, leaning on his left hand, which rested on a wooden table in front of him.
He looked relaxed, even holding a cup of tea.
"You're not dead… and this isn't the afterlife," the man in white said again.
Who was this person, anyway? His presence made me feel like I was in the middle of some clichéd twist.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"What do I mean? What a foolish question! Isn't my meaning clear? You're not dead."
"It's just that you fell off a cliff. Right now, you're down there."
Liar.
Falling from such a height—so high I couldn't even estimate it—there was no way I'd survive. Even though I didn't want to admit it, surely I was now in some spiritual form or something similar.
Just to be sure, I checked my body.
"…"
My body was intact. My clothes were still on, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with them.
Well, aside from the dirt and dust clinging to my clothes and the few cuts and bloodstains on my hands from clinging desperately to the cliff wall earlier.
I was only now starting to feel the pain from these wounds.
Hmph.
A strange mix of emotions swirled in my chest.
How was I alive? It defied all logic.
"Well, I don't want to waste my time answering your questions; why don't you figure it out yourself?" he said.
What an arrogant attitude! Fine, I didn't have the right to argue anyway. I wasn't the spoiled CEO anymore.
"Come, take a seat," he gestured to the cushion on the other side of the table.
There was no harm in sitting, so I went to the cushion, sat down, and looked at the cup of tea in front of me.
Should I drink it? Foolishness—I wouldn't! This guy was way too suspicious.
"Where do you think we are?" he asked.
"Isn't this the afterlife?" I responded.
I mean, I fell off a cliff. Dying was the most logical outcome. Even if my body was intact, maybe this was my soul. Are souls even real? Scientifically speaking, there's no evidence to prove their existence. Yet, here I was, 100% sure that souls were real. Science can't explain everything, after all.
He shook his head and looked at me as though I were an idiot.
I felt an urge to punch him, but I restrained myself.
"Are you so eager to die? Anyway, the chosen one won't die so easily."
Hey! My reasoning was perfectly valid. No rational person would think they survived falling from such a height.
"Then what is this place?"
"Didn't I tell you? We're at the bottom of the cliff."
Hmm, I started to think about all the strange phenomena happening in the world.
"Is this a dungeon or something?" I asked foolishly. Still, maybe I wasn't entirely off track.
"Yes and no," he replied.
His answer was like an earthquake in my mind. I wanted to scoff, but I had asked the question in the first place.
Maybe... maybe the world really was starting to break through the boundaries of science and lose its mind.
Well, I was alive! Wasn't that the most important thing? The answer was yes.
"Welcome."
"Oh? I thought you wouldn't accept it so quickly."
Let's have a light conversation. Everything would be explained in due time, including why I wasn't dead.
"Did you save me?" I asked.
"No, you just have incredible luck! It was fate's desire that you survived."
Incredible luck? Where exactly? If you don't want to explain, just say it!