The sterile scent of antiseptic clung to the air like a second skin. Machines whispered softly beside him—constant, rhythmic, indifferent. A muted heart monitor pulsed with green lines, each beat a stubborn reminder that he was still here.
Noel lay still.
The hospital bed creaked when he breathed. His body felt like lead—bones brittle, muscles hollow, skin stretched over what little remained. The morning light barely filtered through the pale curtains, painting the white room in cold, colorless hues.
'This place smells like death,' he thought, dryly.
His eyes, once sharp green, now dulled with exhaustion, scanned the ceiling. There were tiny cracks near the light fixture. He'd counted them dozens of times before. They hadn't moved. Unlike everything else in his life.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The wall clock mocked him.
'What the hell is life, anyway?'
'A one-way ride in a shitty car with no brakes?'
'Or some cosmic joke where the punchline is: "You die anyway"?'
He let out a breathless chuckle, the sound more rasp than laugh. Talking—even thinking—felt heavier these days.
He was twenty-two.
Twenty-fucking-two.
And already dying of terminal cancer.
'So much for "plenty of time," huh?'
He thought back—brief flashes. His old apartment, small and messy. Books piled on the floor. The cold glow of a monitor during all-nighters. A life spent reading fantasy novels and tearing apart plot holes with surgical precision. That was his therapy. Fiction was always better than reality. Cleaner. More honest.
Reality didn't care if you were smart. It didn't care if you played fair. It just... kept swinging.
He shifted slightly, pain flaring through his back like static.
'Can't even take a shit without feeling like I ran a marathon. Pathetic.'
The IV dripped beside him, the sound constant, irritating. It reminded him of water torture.
He swallowed hard. His mouth tasted like metal.
'No one tells you how fucking boring dying is.'
Silence returned.
No visitors. No family. No tears.
And that was fine. He hated fake people. He didn't need some estranged cousin showing up with flowers and fake sympathy. He'd burned most bridges years ago. On purpose.
But still... even he wasn't so heartless that the loneliness didn't sting just a bit.
Just a bit.
He closed his eyes. The hum of the machines kept him company. So did the bitter cold creeping deeper into his chest.
'Maybe tomorrow I won't wake up,' he thought.
'Might be the best fucking gift this hospital ever gave me.'
The door creaked open with a soft push, breaking the silence like a whisper in a chapel. Footsteps followed—light, careful. A familiar rhythm. Morning shift.
"Good morning, Noel," came a voice that was far too chipper for a place like this.
He didn't bother turning his head.
It was her again—the nurse with the tired smile and sunshine voice. Late twenties, maybe. Brown ponytail, faint shadows under her eyes, hands that trembled ever so slightly when she adjusted the IV bag. He never remembered her name.
He didn't care to.
"How are we feeling today?" she asked, voice gentle as she checked his chart.
Noel's lips twitched.
"Like a rotting vegetable, thanks."
A beat of awkward silence.
She gave a polite laugh, more out of habit than amusement, and went back to checking the vitals. "Well, your numbers are holding steady. That's good."
"Right. Holding steady while I'm circling the drain. Hooray for medical science."
She didn't respond to that one. Smart move.
He turned his head slightly, enough to catch her silhouette against the morning light. Her uniform was clean, her posture careful. Her eyes avoided his. Most of them did. He was a walking reminder that even young people die. No one liked that.
"You don't have to pretend, you know," he muttered.
She looked at him, confused. "Pretend what?"
"That you give a shit. This smiley, bright-eyed nurse act. You've got at least a dozen more patients to tend to. Just do your rounds and skip the inspirational bullshit."
Her lips parted—then shut again. Her jaw tightened.
"I do care," she said quietly.
Noel scoffed. "Sure. And I'm the fucking Pope."
She didn't say anything else after that. Finished updating the monitor, checking his IV line. Hands slightly faster than before.
He stared out the window, at nothing in particular.
'Why do they even bother?'
'You don't comfort the dead. You bury them.'
"Try to get some rest," she said finally, and turned to leave.
He waited until the door clicked shut behind her.
Then, for a moment, something flickered inside him.
Guilt? Maybe.
She was just doing her job. Maybe she did care, in her own way.
'Fuck,' he thought. 'She probably cries in her car during lunch breaks. And here I am, being an ungrateful bastard.'
But the feeling passed as quickly as it came.
He closed his eyes again.
Alone.
Still.
Always.
The hospital office was quiet. Too quiet.
Muted beige walls. Framed degrees. A small window that didn't open. Everything sterile, clinical, and fucking beige.
Noel sat across from the doctor, arms crossed. He hated this room. It was like waiting for a jury to read the verdict—except he already knew he was guilty.
The doctor—a man in his fifties, balding, wearing glasses that didn't quite fit—folded his hands on the desk and cleared his throat.
"Noel," he began, "I'll be direct."
'Oh good,' Noel thought. 'No sugarcoating. A rare breed.'
"You have stage four metastatic cancer. It's spread to your lungs, liver, and spine."
The room didn't spin.
His vision didn't blur.
No dramatic gasp. No slow zoom-in like in the movies.
Just... silence.
Then, laughter.
Noel laughed. Sharp, bitter, short.
"You serious?"
The doctor nodded, visibly uncomfortable. "I wish I weren't."
"Fuck me sideways," Noel muttered, leaning back in the chair. "I thought it was just a collapsed lung or some shit. This is next level."
"We can begin aggressive treatment," the doctor offered, gently. "Chemotherapy. Radiation. It won't cure it, but it might give you some time."
"Time to what? Binge more anime and die puking my guts out instead of quietly in my sleep?"
The doctor didn't respond.
Of course he didn't.
This wasn't a conversation—it was a formality. A warning label before the inevitable.
Noel looked at the ceiling. There were no cracks here.
"What's the estimate?" he asked finally.
"If the treatments are effective… maybe a year. Without them? Six months. Maybe less."
He gave a low whistle. "Guess I better cancel my gym membership."
The doctor didn't laugh.
Noel stood up. His legs felt hollow, but they held. He turned to leave, paused at the door.
"Hey, doc."
"Yes?"
"Thanks for not bullshitting me."
The doctor gave a tired smile. "You're welcome."
Noel walked out, hands in his pockets.
He didn't cry.
Didn't call anyone.
Didn't scream at the sky.
He just lit a cigarette outside the building—even though he'd quit two years ago—and watched the smoke curl toward a sky that looked too damn blue for the news he'd just gotten.
'So this is it, huh?'
'Fuck you, fate.'
And the wind didn't answer.
The sun had shifted.
Warm light bled lazily through the curtains, staining the hospital room in amber and gold. Dust drifted in the rays like falling stars with nowhere left to go.
Noel shifted, slowly, painfully, until he was facing the window. His pillow sagged under the weight of his head. He could barely lift his arm anymore, but he managed to tug the curtain just enough to peek outside.
It wasn't much of a view.
A parking lot. A distant tree. A sky that looked like it had something better to do.
But it was better than looking at white walls.
His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.
'This again,' he thought.
Afternoons like this made him think too much. The pain wasn't sharp enough to distract him, and there was too much silence between the beeps.
His eyes stayed on the window, on the slice of sky he could see.
'What is life, really?'
He didn't expect an answer.
'A long-ass test with no answer key? A punishment for sins I don't remember committing?'
The question twisted inside him, deeper than sarcasm.
He remembered a book he read when he was seventeen. A fantasy epic with swords, dragons, and tragedy. He'd loved it—and hated it. The ending had wrecked him.
The world had ended in fire.
No heroes left. No hope. Just silence.
He used to scream at the author in forums, typing mile-long rants about "wasted potential" and "cheap nihilism." But now? Now he understood it a little better.
'Things die. Stories end. People break. That's the real fantasy—to think we can escape that.'
He watched a bird land on the tree in the distance.
Tiny. Pointless.
Beautiful.
His throat tightened unexpectedly.
'Fuck.'
His eyes burned. Just a little.
'Why the hell does this stupid world have to be so beautiful right when I'm about to leave it?'
The colors looked sharper. The air felt cleaner. Like the universe had saved its best tricks for last, just to mess with him.
And it worked.
Because for all his bitterness—for all his hatred of people and their fake smiles—he had loved things too.
He had loved stories. He had loved rainstorms and shitty jokes and the feeling of winning a game at 3 a.m. with a bag of cold fries on his desk.
He had loved being alive.
Even if it was unfair.
Even if it hurt.
'This life... it was cruel. But it was mine.'
And that, somehow, made it beautiful.
The room was darker now.
Not from the lights—they were still on, humming faintly above him—but from something else. The kind of darkness that crept in through the cracks of time and settled in your bones.
Noel couldn't move much anymore.
Even shifting his fingers felt like dragging bricks underwater. His mouth was dry. His lungs worked like tired bellows, wheezing with each inhale. The monitor still beeped beside him, but the rhythm was slower. Hollow.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The clock mocked him again.
'Still here,' he thought.
'Seriously? Can't even die on time?'
He let his eyes fall shut.
The air felt colder. Not from the room. From inside.
A cold that wasn't on his skin—but beneath it. Curling through his chest like frostbite.
He knew what this was.
The final stretch.
His breath caught—one sharp hiccup of air, then release.
It wasn't panic. Not really.
There was no tunnel of light. No choir. No dramatic revelation.
Just... a body failing. Quietly. Without flair.
'So this is it, huh?'
He waited for regret.
Waited for some overwhelming surge of fear. Or pain. Or sorrow.
But there was nothing dramatic. No epic montage. No flashing memories of a life flashing by.
Just stillness.
A strange kind of peace. Not warm. But not cold, either.
Flat. Empty.
Like standing at the edge of a cliff, staring into fog.
His fingers twitched. Once. Twice.
Then stopped.
'Guess I don't get a goodbye.'
Beep...
Beep...
...
Silence.
There was no pain.
No sound.
No color.
Just black—deep, absolute, endless.
Not the kind of darkness you see when you close your eyes, but something heavier. Something that felt like it had weight. Like it could smother the universe.
Noel floated in it.
Or maybe he didn't. There was no sense of body. No breath. No beating heart. No warmth.
Just thought.
'This is it?'
His own voice echoed in the void, though no lips moved. No ears heard.
'No flames. No wings. No pearly gates. Not even hellfire. What a fucking scam.'
The silence pressed in.
For a second, he felt... nothing. Not peace. Not fear.
Just nothingness.
Then—
A spark.
A pull, sudden and violent, like being yanked from deep underwater.
And then—
Air.
Noel gasped.
His back arched slightly as breath punched into his lungs like ice. His eyes flew open.
He wasn't in the hospital anymore.
Stone walls. High ceilings. A flickering, blue-tinted lamp floating above his head, emitting a soft magical glow. Rich velvet curtains. A carved desk, an ornate wardrobe, and a bed far too luxurious to be his.
Everything smelled clean. Too clean.
Like wood polish and dried herbs. And something else—mana. He didn't know how he knew that word, but it was there. Lingering in the air like static.
Slowly, shakily, he sat up.
His body felt… different. Not just healed.
Younger.
Stronger.
He looked down—hands that didn't feel like his. Not thin and wasted. Not marked with IV bruises.
'...What the fuck?'
His voice was raspier than he expected. The words felt alien in his mouth.
He scanned the room again.
Bookshelves lined one wall, filled with leather-bound tomes. A fireplace sat unlit across from the bed. Everything screamed nobility. Magic. Fantasy.
It wasn't Earth.
It couldn't be.
Noel swallowed, then muttered under his breath.
"Where the fuck… am I?"