W000h… Woooh…

W-A-K-E U-P

The sound was loud, jarring—like a mournful wail ripping through the fog clouding his mind. It pierced his senses, dragging him from unconscious.

What is that noise?

Lucius flinched as a sharp wave of pain tore through his skull. He forced his eyes open, but only greeted by darkness—thick and suffocating, pressing down on him from every corner.

His ears strained, catching faint sobs. Is someone crying?

No, not just one—many. A haunting chorus of despair swirled around him.

"Why did you have to die so young?" a woman's voice asked, choked with grief.

Are they talking about me?

"Why did you take such a drastic step? Don't you know how precious life is? Death is nothing but suffering!" a man's voice demanded, trembling with anger and sorrow.

What step? What suffering?

"Big Brother, go back. Live your life. There is no peace here. Your time will come, but don't condemn yourself so soon," a little girl's voice whispered.

"Go back… Go back… Go back!"

The voices overlapped, their chant building to a deafening roar. Panic clawed at Lucius’s chest. He tried to scream, but his throat felt crushed, his mouth sealed by some unseen force.

Why can’t I move? Why can’t I breathe? Why are they so loud?

PLEASE STOP!

The voices faded, replaced by suffocating silence.

A crushing weight bore down on him, his limbs frozen as if pinned by countless invisible hands.

Flickers of memory sputtered to life as he tried to remember: the glow of his desk lamp, the faint aroma of coffee, the frantic tapping of his keyboard. A deadline looming, and then… the loop of a rope.

Rope?

No, not a rope—the report. He had been working tirelessly on a client’s report, remaining in the office while everyone else celebrated the holidays. His mother had begged him to take a break and come home early, but as a manager, the responsibility was his.

A fresh pang of guilt tore through him. I promised her.

He tried to shake the oppressive fog from his mind. This must be one of my nightmares, he reasoned. I just need to wake up.

But the suffocating weight only grew heavier, dragging him deeper into the void. Piercing screams erupted around him, accompanied by the chilling sensation of sharp, tiny bites crawling across his skin.

Too real. Too much pain.

For a moment, he felt as though he'd been dragged into hell itself. Red flooded his vision; shadows twisted, and jagged shapes danced in a swirling, chaotic mosaic. His heartbeat slowed.

Am I dying? Is this death? There's still so much left undone…

FOC—US

He fought to focus.

W-A-K-E UP

I need to wake up!

The pain in his head exploded a hundredfold, like millions of red ants biting into his scalp at once.

AHH! Pain!

DO-N'-T GIV-E UP

He refused to submit. Straining against the agony, he felt a subtle push—like crossing an entire ocean in a single inch.

Gradually, the cries faded, and the pain began to recede. Sensation returned: his fingers twitched, his legs tingled, and his lungs burned, desperate for air.

“LIVE”

With a final surge of will, he broke the suffocating grip. His body convulsed as he gasped, fighting for breath. His feet brushed something solid beneath him.

The ground?

It felt rough, nothing like the smooth tile of his office.

He glanced down.

His feet dangled just above a toppled chair.

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Wait. This isn't my office.

Panic roiled in his stomach. He snapped his gaze upward.

A ceiling fan. A rope. A noose cinched tight around his neck.

"Oh, God—"

Clink. Scrape.

The rope snapped, and he tumbled onto the floor. Air flooded his lungs in frantic gasps as his body convulsed with shock. Overhead, the fan creaked, its slow sway a silent witness to his brush with death.

"What the hell!" he choked out, his voice raw.

A torrent of memories surged through him: a small boy's laughter, the shadow of a missing uncle, the weight of a failing business, crushing debt—and then a void of nothingness.

"These aren't my memories!" he realized, horrified. "But they're not fake either!"

Transmigration? C-could I have… transmigrated?

As a kid, he'd devoured countless novels about such things, but facing the reality was crushing, not exciting.

He pinched himself. It really is transmigration. A wave of panic flooded his chest.

"Why? How could this happen to me?"

"I had a stable job and a loving family! I wasn't some NEET fantasizing about isekai worlds, nor was I chanting weird rituals to some goddess. I don't care about martial arts or jade beauties, and those so-called 'systems' are ridiculous!"

His voice trembled. "How could someone like me get transmigrated?!"

And what will happen to Mom and my sister back home? His sister had just started college, and he had no savings left for them.

A painful dread struck him like a punch to the gut.

He scanned the room, heart pounding. Strange walls. Strange furniture. A bed, a fan, and the rope beside it… everything felt unfamiliar, oppressive in its silence.

He turned toward a large window. Moonlight spilled in, bathing the floor in cold silver. As he lifted his gaze, his heart lurched.

The moon.

It hung in the night sky, impossibly large and radiant—yet horribly wrong.

It’s broken.

Cracks ran across its surface, glowing like veins of light, while jagged fragments drifted around it in the void.

Beneath the fractured moon, the city shimmered beautifully. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys, drifting above the paved rooftops, a towering clocktower, and even a creaking windmill.

He stumbled backward in disbelief, colliding with something solid. Pain flared in his shoulder, snapping his attention back to the room.

A dressing mirror wobbled from the impact, and in it, he saw his reflection.

Wide, terrified eyes stared back—familiar yet foreign. He looked like his sixteen-year-old self but with hair bleached stark white, unnaturally bright against his features. A chill crawled down his spine.

And then, a name floated through his thoughts with eerie certainty:

Lucius Orwell… So close to my own name—yet not quite.

Dread hollowed his chest.

Who am I now?

Lucius, born in the year 752 of the Yavana Kingdom in the Eastern Continent.

He does not remember much of his past and was adopted by his Uncle Jimmy Orwell at a young age, who ran a once-famous traveling circus.

Eventually, they settled in the quiet city of Karni, situated on the edge of the Daksha Kingdom in the Western Continent where the circus slowly lost its luster.

Three years ago, Uncle Jimmy mysteriously vanished, leaving behind a mountain of debt.

Desperate to survive, Lucius sold off the circus piece by piece. He performed on the streets as a clown and took on whatever side jobs he could find, but the debts only continued to grow.

Harassment and hunger wore him down, breaking his spirit, until…

Lucius's gaze fell on the rope. His chest tightened.

This Lucius… he took his own life.

An unsettling thought flashed through his mind:

His story mirrors mine—his uncle vanished, same as my… father.

He recalled his own father, also a circus clown. One day, he left home to buy milk and vanished without a trace, forever earning the infamous label of a deadbeat dad.

The police investigation hit a dead end; no one could determine where he had gone.

At the time, he had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and become a clown. But his mother had other plans. She uprooted the family, took on menial jobs, and removed all traces of the circus from his and his sister's lives as she worked tirelessly to support them.

Seeing his mother's relentless sacrifices, he realized it wasn't worth adding to her burden. Instead, he focused on his studies, earned a degree from a prestigious university, and eventually became a manager at a multinational corporation.

Tears stung his eyes, a surge of longing for the family he'd lost. “Mom, little sister... they’re gone,” he whispered, his voice wavering. “And what am I supposed to do here?”

Start over? Live this other Lucius's life? Be the protagonist of the novel?

"No." Though he felt a pang for the boy whose body he now inhabited, the thought of abandoning his mother and sister was unbearable. "I won't leave them behind."

He steadied himself. "If I could come here, then there must be a way back. I'll find it."

"This world, this Lucius… they mean nothing to me! I will find a way back!"

As he spoke, a sudden gust of wind rattled the window with startling force.

BHAAM

The window swung open wide, causing the single candle on a nearby desk to gutter and die, leaving only a dim wash of moonlight. The ceiling fan began to creak ominously, moved by the wind, while the rope attached to it spun slowly in circles.

A shiver ran down Lucius's spine as an unsettling sensation crept over him—the prickling awareness of unseen eyes watching, scrutinizing him from the shadows.

DING. DING.

The clocktower’s chime rang out in the distance, marking the arrival of midnight.

Then, without warning, thud.

Something struck his chest, knocking the breath out of him. He scrambled backward, his hands clawing at thin strings that tangled around his arms, tightening like an intricate, suffocating web.

From the darkness, a face emerged.

A bright, frozen smile. A cherry-red nose. Crimson clothes. Curly muffs. A ridiculous, lopsided hat.

A clown.

A puppet.

“A wooden puppet…” he muttered, his voice barely a whisper as he picked it up. It felt unnervingly lifelike, as though it were something more than carved wood.

A faint, bittersweet smile tugged at Lucius’s lips. He recognized it—it was one of the old Lucius's possessions, an item he had used in countless street performances. One of his favorites.

So many happy memories. So much laughter. Did you really make the right choice, old Lucius?

Raising the puppet by its strings, his eyes caught a strange mark etched into the wood. Bringing it closer, he examined it carefully.

“Hey, why does this puppet…”

Before he could finish, the puppet’s eyes flared a blazing red, its unnerving smile stretching wider, almost alive.

Strange symbols flickered to life, swirling in the air around him like a sinister dance. A crushing presence descended, heavy and oppressive, as if a monstrous shadow was swooping in to devour him whole.

For a moment, the moon and the night sky turned red as he felt unseen eyes staring at him from above.

Glowing crimson text shimmered into view, accompanied by a chilling verse in his ears:

Part of yourself forever belongs to the Death.

You shall not meet your end by suffocation.

A sacrifice requires — yours, or that of another.

Lucius gasped for breath.

Then, the puppet’s mouth moved. Its voice, hollow and mocking, cut through the silence:

“Choose wisely, oh son of Morningstar”

"AAAAAHHH!"