Warmth arrived before the light.
It was not the suffocating, dense heat of blood soaking his shirt, nor the burning, metallic bite of the blade that had sliced open his abdomen. It was a gentle, almost impalpable warmth, caressing his skin with the delicacy of a spring breeze.
Then came the scent: a sweet, pervasive fragrance of damp earth, fresh grass, and crushed petals that swept away in an instant the acrid odor of iron, burned candles, and stagnant flesh that had filled his lungs just fractions of a second earlier.
Hayjin opened his eyes once more.
The darkness of his bedroom at the royal castle had vanished. In its place was a clear, golden haze that dazzled his vision for long moments, forcing him to blink aimlessly. His hands, which a moment before had been desperately clutching Isabelle's rapidly cooling fingers, sank into something soft, damp, and cool.
Stems of grass. Thin, vibrant green blades tickling his palms and wrists.
Hayjin lay flat on his back, completely disoriented, his chest rising and falling rapidly as his pupils struggled to focus on his surroundings. Above him, there was no carved wooden ceiling or dark canopy drapes; there was a boundless sky of a blue so clear and brilliant it looked painted, devoid of a single cloud, illuminated by a diffuse light that seemed to emanate not from any specific sun, but from every corner of the atmosphere.
With a slow, fearful motion, he brought his right hand to his neck.
His trembling fingertips brushed the skin of his throat. They searched frantically, pressing hard against the cartilage of his trachea, expecting to feel torn muscle, the ragged edges of shredded flesh, and the unstoppable jet of blood that had ended his life.
Nothing.
The skin was smooth, intact, warm. No cut. No scar. No viscous fluid.
His hand slid frantically downward, tearing open the folds of his shirt to check his abdomen and left flank. No entry wound. No trace of the two ruthless stabs that had pierced his internal organs just a handful of heartbeats ago. His skin was perfectly clean, free even of the cold sweat of death throes.
Hayjin bolted upright.
The landscape around him revealed itself in all its vast, terrifying scope. He was back there again. In the immense expanse of green, an endless sea of rolling hills and boundless meadows covered as far as the eye could see by millions of vividly colored flowers violets, wild lilies, red anemones, and tiny golden daisies swaying gently in rhythm with the wind. There were no trees, no mountains, no roads or buildings. Only grass and flowers reaching to the horizon, beneath a motionless, timeless sky.
Hayjin sat paralyzed for several seconds, his fingers dug deep into the cool earth.
Then, like a scimitar strike cleaving through his mind, the memory of what had just happened slammed back into him with brutal force.
The figure in the shadow. The pillow pressed against his face. The steel sinking into his gut. The table snapping beneath their weight. His desperate screams for help. And then... Isabelle. Isabelle entering through the door with that terrified look, Isabelle trying to save him, the sickening sound of six stabs piercing her chest, her body collapsing beside his, the weeping fit, the mysterious figure stroking his head on its straddled thighs like a grotesque nightmare, and finally... the cold blade tearing open his throat while he held the housekeeper's hand.
The sour taste of bile burned his throat, but it was nothing compared to the devastating, terrifying void opening wide inside his chest. Hayjin remained on all fours, hands dug into the dirt wet with his own vomit, as an uncontrollable tremor invaded his fingers, arms, and shoulders, wracking his entire spine in a sequence of violent spasms.
His chest tightened in a suffocating vise. The air in that meadow was pure, warm, scented with daisies and damp earth, yet it entered his lungs like crushed glass. He gasped in ragged hitches, making short, sharp, desperate wheezes, unable to draw enough oxygen to quell the sensation of smothering. His vision began to narrow terrifyingly, the edges of his field of view blackened by a dark, pulsing fog, while a high-pitched, deafening ring overpowered every other sound, thrumming in his ears like a high-frequency whistle that made his temples throb in pain.
"I-it's not possible... no... please, no..."
The sense of depersonalization and detachment hit him with the force of an earthquake. Hayjin stared at his trembling hands. They were clean. Untouched. No trace of the dark, viscous blood that had soaked his palms while he held Isabelle's cold fingers. But to him, those hands no longer belonged to his body. His very skin felt like a fake shell, a mask of flesh and bone forcibly stitched back together by the time loop only to be thrown back into the meat grinder of suffering. He clawed at his face, cheeks, and lips with near-manic frenzy, digging his nails into the flesh of his throat until it hurt, desperate with a visceral need to feel something real, to know whether he was truly alive or merely a phantom condemned to relive his agony in an endless cycle.
He could still vividly feel the exact spot where the assassin's cold blade had severed his windpipe; he could still feel the macabre weight of that figure sitting cross-legged over him, the nauseating warmth of its hand stroking his hair while whispering with fake sweetness to stay calm.
A shudder of pure disgust and horror made the hair on his arms stand on end. A paralyzing sense of claustrophobia seized him paradoxical and ruthless within that vast, boundless expanse. That endless meadow was no refuge; it was a wall-less solitary confinement cell, a dead-end limbo where time no longer held meaning and where he remained trapped like an insect in amber.
His pupils darted erratically across the grassland, unable to fix on a single point, blown wide with panic. His heart pounded against his ribs with dull, erratic thuds, so violent it caused sharp pangs in his chest. The thought of eventually having to return there, of having to open his eyes in that world only to relive the anxiety, the sense of his own inadequacy, and the horror of the blade tearing through muscle, pushed him to the brink of pure madness. His mind shattered into a thousand shards of incoherent terror, completely incapable of formulating a rational thought or a strategy. It was raw, primal panic the ancient terror of a hunted animal realizing there is no safe place left to hide, neither in this world nor the next.
Oxygen failed him entirely. A choke of pure despair stuck in his throat and, unable to bear the pressure of that grassy floor that seemed to swallow him whole, his body reacted with the only automatic, desperate response left to it.
The memory of that carnage was so vivid, so real and physically visceral that Hayjin's brain rejected the illusion of peace offered by the meadow.
A violent heave surged straight from his stomach to his throat.
Hayjin doubled over on his knees, planted his hands in the grass, and began to vomit copiously.
Hot spurts of yellowish bile and gastric acid spattered across the pristine flowers, staining the daisies and fresh grass. His body wracked with continuous, violent convulsions, compressing his abdomen until it throbbed with pain. He retched until he was breathless, coughing and spitting bitter saliva that dripped from his chin, while excruciating shocks of air tore through his chest. He could still plainly feel the phantom slice of the blade severing the blood vessels in his neck; he could still taste the rust and iron filling his mouth before choking on his own blood.
"Hff... hff... hff..."
Hayjin remained on all fours, his head dangling over the bile he had just expelled, his breath a raspy, broken whistle.
"I'm dead..."
The thought formed in his head like a boulder plunging off a cliff.
"I'm dead again. I died another time... it happened again. They killed me again."
Panic real, blind, absolute panic that wipes away every trace of reason or control overwhelmed him completely.
Hayjin scrambled to his feet with reckless desperation, stumbling over his own legs and nearly falling face-first among the flowers. He looked around with wide eyes, pupils shrunk to trembling pinpricks, his heart hammering at such a frantic rhythm that his eardrums thundered like war drums.
"No... no, no, no, NO!" he screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the silent immensity of the grassland.
He began running aimlessly across the vast expanse.
He ran headlong, without any clear direction, trampling flowers, tearing up grass beneath the soles of his boots, cresting one hill only to find another identical hill ahead an infinite sea of green that seemed to mock him. He ran as if he could outrun the memory of his own death, as if he could leave behind the image of Isabelle's blood pouring across the wooden floor.
"Why?! Why the fuck is this happening again?!" he screamed through sobs, arms flailing in the air as the wind whipped through his black-and-white hair. "What did I do wrong?! What did I mess up this time?!"
As he ran, his mind was an infernal vortex of fragmented memories. He thought back to that very morning, the anger he had felt during his argument with Wilder, the frustration of feeling weak and inadequate, and the poignant conversation they had shared just hours ago in the royal garden at night. Wilder had told him to look forward, not to let himself be consumed by past mistakes, to grow stronger to protect those he loved... And how had it ended? It had ended with him slaughtered in his bed like a butcher's hog less than three hours later!
And then... Isabelle.
The image of the woman in purple collapsing to the ground bounced through his mind with every step. Isabelle had nothing to do with any of this. She wasn't a frontline fighter; she was the castle's housekeeper, a strict young woman who only cared about doing her duty well. She had rushed into that room solely because she heard his screams. Because he had shrieked like a coward instead of fighting because he hadn't been able to handle that monster in the shadows!
"I killed her..." The thought pierced his chest like a second dagger. "If I hadn't screamed, she never would have come. She would have stayed in the hallway, called the guards, and she'd still be alive! I dragged her into that room. I got her killed!"
Hayjin kept running for what felt like an eternity. In that timeless expanse there was no clock, no sun to mark the passing hours, but his legs kept pushing for hours on end. The muscles in his thighs began to burn, his lungs ached from lack of air, his throat turned dry as sandpaper, but the boy refused to stop. He wanted to run until his legs snapped beneath him, until physical agony overwhelmed the devastating void tearing his soul apart.
He crossed valleys of multicolored petals, ascended gentle slopes, traversed clearings devoid of a single patch of shade. The expanse never changed. It was a perfect, static paradise a golden cage locking him inside his own despair.
At last, after running for what felt like grueling hours upon hours, the strength in his knees gave out entirely.
Hayjin tripped over a tall tuft of grass and tumbled down the slope of a hill, rolling for several meters among the flowers before coming to a stop in a small green hollow.
Lying on his side, mouth agape as he gasped for air, his clothes soaked through with sweat, Hayjin could no longer hold back the tide swelling in his chest.
He curled into a ball, pulling his knees to his chest, clutching his arms, and began to scream in raw despair.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
It was an inhuman, high-pitched, drawn-out scream a roar of rage and sheer agony that ripped through the unnatural quiet of that lonely world. He screamed until not a single atom of air remained in his lungs, until his vocal cords tore raw, producing a raspy, painful whistle. He screamed at the blue sky, at the grass, at the gods playing with his life, at the cursed fate that kept dragging him back only to inflict more suffering.
When the scream dissolved into a bloody cough, Hayjin broke completely.
He began to weep for Isabelle.
Sobs wracked his shoulders with staggering force. Tears streamed from his eyes in an unbroken river, soaking the soil beneath his head. This was no longer the frightened crying of the night; it was a devastating, dark mourning, drenched in paralyzing guilt.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Isabelle..." Hayjin wheezed, his voice fractured by coughs and hysterical sobs. "It's my fault... it's entirely my fault... If I hadn't been so weak... if I hadn't been so pathetic... you would still be alive..."
He struck himself violently on the side of the head, slamming his temple against the earth.
"I'm useless!" he screamed at himself through tears, his voice twisted by self-hatred. "I can't do anything! I can't even protect myself! I keep dying like a nobody... like a worm stepped on in the street! Wilder is right, Wren is right, everyone is right... I'm just a coward who only knows how to talk big!"
The memory of Isabelle's hand that faint touch of her fingers before his throat was slashed haunted him. He had felt her die beside him; he had felt her life slip away while he lay there, unable to lift a finger, trapped beneath the sick strokes of that killer.
"What am I supposed to do?!" Hayjin shouted into the void, pounding both fists into the grass. "Tell me! What the fuck am I supposed to do to stop this?! I don't want to die anymore! I don't want to see people die because of me anymore! I JUST WANT THIS TORTURE TO END!"
His crying went on for a long time. In the unyielding quiet of that green expanse, his sobs were the only jarring note an open wound at the center of eternal perfection. Hayjin lay curled among the flowers for an immeasurable time, crying every tear in his body until his mind went completely blank, dull, anesthetized by extreme suffering.
He lay there, eyelids swollen and red, his gaze lost in the blank space between grass stems, his breathing slowly settling into a series of small post-crying hiccups. He felt only the wind caressing his hair and the lingering scent of flowers.
Then, suddenly, the wind stopped blowing.
The grass around him ceased swaying, frozen in absolute stillness. Even the golden light from the sky seemed to converge on a single point in the green hollow.
Hayjin sensed a presence.
It was not the terrifying presence, laden with death and iron, of the assassin in the castle. It was a light presence, almost weightless, yet imbued with an aura so ancient and vibrant that it made the surrounding air tremble.
Hayjin slowly raised his head from the soil damp with his tears.
Immediately after, however, the girl suddenly appeared before him.
She was standing there, less than three meters away, silhouetted against the emerald green of the hill. She was the same figure he had met the first time he ended up in this boundary realm: a girl of breathtaking, almost unreal beauty that defied human standards. She wore a pure white, delicate robe that seemed woven of pure light, draping softly along her flawless form. Her long hair, a pale sky-blue fading into platinum, fell over her shoulders like a silk waterfall, barely swaying despite the absence of wind. Her eyes, deep and iridescent like precious gems, fixed upon him with disarming clarity.
The last time they had seen each other in this infinite expanse, Hayjin had sat beside her on the grass. He had tried to talk to her, ask her questions, demand to know where they were and who she was, but the girl had not answered. She had remained silent, motionless as a divine statue, simply watching him as he was absorbed back into the time loop.
But this time was different.
The girl took a step toward him. Her bare feet brushed the flowers without bending a single stem, as though she did not fully belong to the physical matter of that world.
Hayjin stared up at her from the ground, mouth agape, cheeks still streaked with tears, his mind paralyzed by suspicion and wonder.
The girl stopped a meter away from him. She tilted her head slightly to the side with infinite grace, and an expression of deep, tender compassion bloomed across her flawless features.
She parted her pink lips and, in a voice that resonated like the chime of a silver bell submerged in water clear, warm, and terrifyingly real she finally greeted him by name:
"Hayjin."