What does drowning feel like? Before I jumped, I read on google that it is the most painful way to die, for it is the most hopeful. Until the last moment, your hand remains stretched out with the hope that someone will pull you. The hope that you will rise from the darkness and see light again.
I can't see. I have never had hopes. Hence, drowning it was,
As my throat burned for air, I felt like smiling. The cold touch of water around me made my blood slow down. Eventually, I sunk so deep my bones felt crushed. My eyes didn't know anything but darkness anyway, so I felt comforted by it.
At the bottom of the sea, there was comfortable peace. There was no light here. Nothing will ever hurt me again. Nothing.
"Wake up, host."
Go away. Let me be free.
"Wake up, my dear."
Shut up. I am done. I am never coming back. Shut up.
"Wake up, Li Min."
There was a strange cat-like creature in front of him when he opened his eyes. The light is too soft to be from a hospital and…I can, see?
"How can I see?" He asked to no one in particular. He looked at his surroundings and at himself. This should be heaven but it looks more like the inside of a light bulb. There is only me and the talking white cat.
"Send me back. I am dead. I don't wish for an afterlife or rebirth." He sounded desperate, even to himself.
The cat smiles softly, placing it's paws on his hand before it spoke, "My name is Riri. A soul-merger system. I will-"
He shook off it's paws and cut it off mid-sentence, "Nope. Not interested. I just want to go back to the depths of the sea."
"No, you can't."
"Disperse my soul."
"No."
"Destroy my consciousness."
"No."
"..."
"..."
The cat's—Riri's— expression told him it was not any more interested in this than he was. It let out an exasperated sigh. Trying to reason with the cat, he said, "I have died. I am sure there are many more desperate souls than me. So, go help them. Let me go in peace."
"In your new life, you will be able to see." Those words, to him, were like manna. He lunged for the cat but it slipped through his fingers like sand. "What did you say?"
Now that he thought about it, isn't it weird for a cat to talk? Why, then, did he not find it weird? Perhaps because it was weirder for him to still be alive.
The cat spoke as if it was reading from a script. "Some people's souls split during their birth. Yours is one of such case. Your original destiny was not this tragic. Thus, fate has tried to make amends for you. However, fate can only open the door, the path forward is yours to walk."
Li Min thought those words for a long time, yet he couldn't make head or tail of them. "You are telling me I suffered for twenty-seven years and eight months simply because fate made a mistake? FUCKING HELL!"
He shouted all the curses he knew until the cat had to cover it's ears in torment. "Host! Please stop. The fate is fixing your destiny. You just have to accept this mission first."
That made him pause. "What mission?"
"Your name?"
"Li Min"
"Age?"
"27 years, eight months."
"Cause of death?"
"Sui…Drowning."
"By virtue of the power bestowed in me by the great heavens, I merge the two fragments of your soul. The memories of your other half soul will slowly come to you. Your life will be strange, but if it is not happy, it isn't the end."
The light around him started to fade. He heard two fading sentences before losing consciousness.
"Remember to not be too kind."
"Remember to not be too cruel."
What a paradoxical advice to give, he thought.