"You're doing so well."
These are words Jake had heard more times than he can count.
Jake was a terminally ill patient who spent half his life in a hospital bed.
It's funny, you know. There was a time he believed he would recover. Brush it off and get back to his old life. Maybe even make a new life.
Meet a wife, have kids, and die of old age.
But the world isn't so kind.
He was diagnosed as terminally ill, a disease never before seen.
But you know what, he didn't give up. He kept pushing forward, hoping there would maybe be something or someone who could help.
But that never came.
And he still didn't stop.
He studied hard and ranked first nationally on a famed, impossibly hard exam.
He was praised all around by family, friends, and even the news media, which came to document his story.
"Could you tell us about yourself?" The interviewer asked Jake.
Jake smiled. "Well... I'm quite handsome." Jake gestured to his face as he looked at the camera.
The news crew let out small laughs.
"But other than that," Jake continued. "I'm quite smart, although you already knew that."
"Sounds like you'd make a good boyfriend." The interviewer joked.
Jake shook his head. "Oh, please, we all know I'll never get the chance to meet someone."
"..."
The smiles faded from everyone's faces as the atmosphere switched to solemn but...
Jake continued to smile.
"What?" Jake tilted his head. "You all know I'm going to die anyway."
"..."
He chuckled. "Isn't that why you're here?" Jake gazed into the camera lens. "And those that are watching, you just want to watch my desperate struggles, isn't that right?"
His smile widened. "You all must find me pitiful."
He let out a laugh that sent a shiver down the spines of everyone watching. "Let me guess, maybe someone is showing this to their kids so they can appreciate what they have." He laughed again.
"And you know they're right..." He continued to smile. "I have nothing... My father died a few months ago, and I never even met my mother. She abandoned me a long time ago."
He placed a hand on his chin. "You know what? Maybe I am quite pitiful."
He turned and gazed straight into the interviewer's eyes.
The interviewer backed up instinctively as if...
"Am I scary?" Jake smiled and shook his head. "No, I'm not scary...
"It would be more accurate to say..."
"I'm insane."
------
[Brave terminally ill young man accomplishes amazing feat. Ranked First Nationally]
"Brave... huh?"
He laughed at the article.
It seemed they deleted the footage of Jake's outburst, leaving just an article talking about his useless achievements.
'I'm not brave.'
He wasn't brave; he never was. If anything, he was scared.
Not just scared of dying, he was scared of everything and everyone.
The way everyone looked at him with... pity, as if his fate was already decided. Even when he struggled, when he tried his best, they all looked at him with those eyes.
Eyes that he couldn't stand. Eyes that he hated more than anything.
He began to lash out.
"Get away from me!!" He screamed as he shoved away a nurse.
And yet all around were those eyes.
They were everywhere.
"D-don't look at me!!"
They slowly approached.
"Get away!!"
The eyes wrapped around him, forcing him down.
"Don't touch me!!" He screamed in protest, struggling to escape.
And he did escape.
He scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could through the halls.
The eyes were everywhere.
No matter where he went.
They were all around.
He eventually reached a place without the eyes.
But the eyes had followed him.
"Stay away!"
The eyes approached slowly and carefully.
He backed up until he hit something.
A balcony.
He climbed atop.
The cold wind brushed across his face.
Looking down, he saw no eyes.
To him, it looked like... an escape.
He jumped without hesitation.
As he fell, his life flashed before him, memories of his successes and failures, the people he loved and hated all came to him.
Despite this, he didn't regret his decision. It might have been pathetic, but he didn't believe dying in a hospital bed would have been better.
Maybe he would come to regr-
Never mind...
I do regret it.
------
"Shit!"
The ground beneath shook violently, causing me to lose balance and fall face-first on the rough ground.
"Sorry, your highness, but this is it." That bastard Paul smiled and ran, leaving me to die.
"You fucker!!"
Sure, I treated him like shit and blamed him for all the trouble I caused, but I thought we had a real connection, like brothers, just that I got everything and he got nothing.
The bastard betrayed my trust!
-RUMBLE
The cave rumbled as rocks fell from above.
'Damn it!'
The cave was going to be destroyed by that thing.
I tried getting up, but my body refused to move. I resorted to crawling but...
-CRASH
A crashing sound vibrated through the cave, causing the ceiling to fall down, blocking the cave entrance. Dust spread, causing me to cough.
My face paled as darkness swallowed me.
"No-no-no"
I tried pushing myself up, but to no avail. My body was long exhausted.
Luckily, the cave had stopped shaking, so I believed I was in the clear.
I weakly crawled up to the cave wall and leaned against it.
"Fuck! damn it!" I threw rocks against the cave walls to vent my anger.
Then suddenly...
"Ghkk-!!"
A sharp pain pierced my head. It felt as though something was forcing itself in. The pain spread throughout my entire body as I clutched my chest.
"Ha-hah-hah," I panted heavily as the pain subsided.
But now something was different.
"Arghh!" I grabbed my head.
My mind felt split as if two consciousnesses were existing at the same time.
'I am Ja-No! I'm Cassian!'
Memories began flooding into my head. The previous life I lived. Being terminally ill, the things I went through and... how I died. I felt the suffocating feeling that Jake had felt. It threatened to consume me.
I fought off the dark thoughts that tried to enter my mind.
'Why are you still alive?'
"S-stop."
'Look at them.' Vivid images began to appear in my mind of everyone Jake cared for, family friends, and those... eyes.
"Stop!" My voice grew more hoarse.
'They're just waiting for you to die.'
"No!"
'You think they care about you?'
"Fuck... off!"
'You're pathetic.'
"Hah...hah... n-no," My breath grew haggard.
'You're going to die soon anyway, what reason should you live out your last few months?'
"T-they cared a-about me." I felt my heart tighten as I spoke.
'No, they didn't... they never did.'
"NOOO!!" I punched myself as hard as I could.
'Yo-'
"You won't control me... not again!!" I shoved away the thoughts and punched myself again.
"I-I... am Cassian."
I felt something deep within begin to change, or rather, both Cassian and Jake merged on a fundamental level, creating a new being...
Me.
My mind began to settle, the two personalities becoming one, oddly agreeing to keep the name Cassian.
A cold feeling washed over my mind as I realized the situation.
'I transmigrated?'
Yes, I had transmigrated and not into just any world, the world of The Regressor's Chronicles.
"I'm so fucked."
And I meant it. The Regressor's Chronicles, the shitty novel I'd read cover to cover, ended with the world burning. Twice.
The protagonist used an Old God's power to regress long before the world's destruction to stop the Dark Gods.
There was one big problem with this.
The fucker failed again. Twice! Fucking twice! He had a second chance but still failed. There was one main reason for this.
He was a fucking pussy!
He tried saving everyone, regardless of whether their deaths would help him win the final fight; he wanted to save them all. This led him to become humanity's greatest hero, but at the cost of countless missed opportunities.
There were so many times when his actions pissed me off so much that I almost threw my phone against the wall.
But I kept reading anyway. What can I say, the author knew how to write characters.
Every single character felt real, even the stupid main character. His stupidity was a trait that made him feel real.
Anyway, back to me. Who am I, and where do I fit in this story? Well, nowhere... because I never show up.
Which made no sense, I'm the son of The Sea King, a fucking prince, and yet I never show up. There was only one conclusion.
'I'm supposed to die in this fucking cave!'