Chapter 2: Finn’s Past

[Cosmic Integration has begun…]

Cosmic what?

Gurgle, Gurgle, Gurgle

He did not even have the time to absorb the odd text that appeared at the side of his eyes. Everything slowly faded as the seconds ticked by, anyway.

At first, his body followed its instincts, with his arms thrashing around as panic clawed at his chest and his lungs begged for air. It didn’t help that his arms were sore and his body was tired, working on what felt like the last bit of energy it had left.

He watched as his last bit of oxygen escaped his lips in the form of bubbles rising to the surface. It was getting farther than he anticipated. How deep was this going?

But as time passed, his movements got slower, got heavier, and—no matter how hard he tried—he just wouldn’t rise up, even a few inches.

But then… he calmed down, and he stopped struggling. The natural panic that gripped his heart settled as he stopped fighting the inevitable. Although not seeing his restaurant welcome its first customers was a pity…he was tired.

He let the weight of the water take him in the end. He felt the cold bite of water, the pressure on his lungs, and the heaviness of his limbs. His ears rang, and he felt the darkness creep in at the edges of his vision.

At the back of his head, he wondered: Was this how his parents felt when they died? Or… did they fight to stay alive? To go back to him?

His parents died by drowning, you see. They lived helping others, and yet they died so miserably.

When they left the house that day, they were still so warm, but when he touched their corpses, he felt that they were colder than ice.

Now that he was floating into nothingness, his life passed through his mind.

Ah, so he really was dying, considering he was watching the infamous pre-death flashback.

In the first seven years of his life, he had a relatively normal childhood. He was the only child of two loving parents, who owned a humble inn in the countryside.

It was not much of a tourist attraction, but it was a common pass-through, especially to those heading to the beach area about an hour or two away from them.

Their lives were simple. They had a few rooms to maintain and rent out. His dad fixed all the handyman work and the gardens, while his mother did the cooking (they provided plated breakfasts to guests) as well as the housekeeping.

He was adorable and was put in charge of the front desk when he was free, though otherwise, he was asked to do his schoolwork.

His parents were very, very kind people, and they seemed to live helping others. They even had a room for people who couldn’t afford to stay. Like this, they were taken advantage of often, and he remembered asking a lot of questions as a child.

For example, why do they let people bully them? Why do they always take a loss? How could they not be angry?

At the time, his mother smiled at him, while his father patted his little head.

“We do not do good things to get things in return, nor do we do it to feel better about ourselves.

“It is because we want the world to be better for the future—for you,” his father said, and his mother nodded.

“Our family also believes in karma,” she added. “Do not fret about those people anymore, because the world has a way of getting back at them for us.”

Since then, the young him tried to understand their point of view, though his immature mind could not wrap its head around it.

Heck, he still couldn’t understand it until his death.

He even started to resent them when a trusted friend of his dad convinced him to lend the papers for the inn as collateral. His parents were dying, apparently, and he needed a huge amount of money for their hospital bills. He even showed them the bills, kowtowing on the inn floor—even when guests were there—to implore them for help.

His parents had always been soft-hearted people, but he had underestimated their kindness that bordered too closely with naivety. He only found out what happened when they had already lost everything.

It turned out that the man’s parents were indeed ill, but they never received anything from their son. Rather, the money was used to gamble, and he lost everything.

He had never seen his father so depressed and weak, and he had never witnessed his mother weep like that.

In a hurry, they had to go to the City where that bastard old friend was last seen. The boat capsized, and his parents went missing.

A week later was his birthday, and he spent it crying as he looked for them along the shores himself. Cruelly, their corpses were found exactly on his birth date.

Later, they found that his mother was even pregnant. It was still early, not even 3 months, so she wasn’t showing yet.

Finn, at the time, questioned everything he learned, and he even felt angry at his dead parents. He felt angry at them for their stupidity and their naivety. He felt angry at them for leaving him behind and taking away his sister’s life before she could even experience anything.

This feeling only got worse in time, especially during the first few years after their deaths, when he literally had to eat dirt and was beaten up for breakfast.

While he crawled onto the floor because his legs were broken, he thought: If his parents knew their only son would be punished like this, would they still have been so kind?

Good karma?

Heh. What a load of bull.

In retrospect, it was exactly 20 years since that happened.

It was as if the world asked: Wasn’t it fitting for him to die by drowning, too?

What a unique way to spend his birthday.

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