Hell Inn: Rebirth - I Became a Chef in Hell

Chapter 110 Pain

'Honey, are you going back to China for spring break?'

"Of course I'm going back, Mom! But I haven't finished a few college projects yet, so I'll buy my plane ticket later... Oh, and if I have some free time, I'm planning to go to Florida for a couple of days during spring break!"

Why did I suddenly want to go to Florida?

'Ah~ I made a promise with my friend to give (*background noise)'

"That's true, it's rare that you want to go out and play. If you want to go, then go! But who will take care of the two dogs at home?"

'I'll ask my neighbor to keep an eye on things for me.'

'The young man next door has looked after your dog several times, right? Well…'

'Mom, is it possible that he likes my dog, and it has nothing to do with me as a person?'

"Then you should send your dog to a boarding facility. Otherwise, it's just too much trouble for them."

'I also helped him take care of his yard before, it's just reciprocity! Mom, please don't...'

'■■■！ Sister! '

(*Huge noise)

"Fine! You just stay in that lousy foreign country and won't come home! You even go on vacation to that awful place full of talented people! Do you even care about our family? Our whole family misses you, but you, [name omitted], have no time to think about this stupid vacation!"

'...Hey! (*Soundbite) You brat! Aren't you not coming home for a while?! Don't you dare steal my mom's phone! (*Laughter)'

'What do you mean "my mom"? Your mom is still my mom! Dad, look at this ungrateful wretch! Talk to her! She hasn't come back for two years! How can my sister be like this!? You… (sniffles) (chokes up)'

(*Background noise) Why are you crying? I'm definitely going back to China this year, I've already bought the plane ticket! (*Background noise) Don't cry, sweetie, you're such a big boy now, why are you still acting like a child…

"My dear daughter, you haven't been back to China for two years. Every year, we prepare a huge feast, but we never see you. During the Lunar New Year, when the family gathers together, everyone is so nostalgic, saying 'thank you this' and 'thank you that'. We all miss you."

……

'Oh, I know!'

(*Noise)

'I swear! Isn't my swear enough?'

"Don't worry! Even if it's raining knives or a raging inferno outside, I'll still come home no matter what!"

……

……

"Click, beep."

The deceased, [name omitted], female, was an international student at Columbia Business School, a graduate student whose PhD application had been approved, and was currently single.

'He had a history of part-time work, but he had a very good reputation both at the college and where he worked, and he was well-liked. He lived in a rented apartment before his death, and there is currently no reason for him to commit suicide.'

What caused the deceased to fall into the sea?

'Accident?'

'We reviewed all the surveillance footage from that day, but some people said she fell on her own, some said she was pushed, and others said (*noise)'

"The weather was bad that day, and the waves were high. The waves below the cliff swallowed the victim whole; she had no chance to struggle... No, we didn't see her."

'But witnesses said they saw the highest wave carry the victim against a sea rock... the rock sliced ​​off half of her head.'

'We didn't find her body after we went down, and the bloodstains on the cliff were washed away by the waves...'

"But our search and rescue team did find part of the woman's brain tissue and some dried blood among the rocky peaks."

'I've heard that some people can survive for a while after their heads are cut off... I hope she isn't one of them, and may God bless her.'

'What a pitiful girl. Is she traveling alone? Did she come here alone because she was feeling down?'

(*Noise) What...?

'What's going on? (*noise)'

(*noise)

"This case is currently under investigation, and we have no further comment."

'Suicide can be largely ruled out; it was likely an accident... However, we cannot rule out homicide at this time.'

'But no matter what—'

We will notify her school and family.

Let's leave it at that for now...

……

……

"beep."

"beep."

"beep."

"Click."

It sounded like a phone call being disconnected after a busy signal, or like a recorder being stopped.

……

……■■■.

Who was it again?

In complete darkness, you hold this question in your mind, bobbing up and down in some chilling liquid, drifting aimlessly.

It's as if a black cuboid is crumbling in your hands, and the unrestrained voices of middle-aged men and women and young people keep jumping around in your brain without any sense of boundaries.

You feel so tired and in so much pain.

You feel as if your flesh is being sliced ​​off thinly, bit by bit, by a sharp, cold blade, like slicing a fish, while someone is forcefully pulling at your bloody wound with countless thin fishing lines.

...You are all too familiar with this feeling of despair, where you can neither live nor die.

As you are enveloped in a hazy, familiar pain, feeling as if you have a high fever, you can hardly even open your eyes.

But soon, the liquid enveloping you brings with it a suffocating feeling that you fear, and your body becomes stiff and uncontrollable due to stress.

After regaining consciousness, having not been able to breathe a single breath, you immediately found yourself choking on water.

After the salty, icy liquid poured into your mouth, ears, and nostrils, you suddenly realized from the salty taste that the liquid enveloping you was actually seawater.

Because of drowning, you feel like your lungs and throat are on fire.

You want to scream, but the pain and helpless fear make you only blindly flail your limbs and struggle.

The icy liquid enveloping you occasionally surges and churns with unstoppable force, like a hawk about to smash its prey to death; you have no chance of escaping.

—It's the familiar sea.

An endless, cold, bottomless, black sea.

As the fierce tide surges, countless sensations of weightlessness lift you into the air, only to be swallowed up by the swampy seawater.

But the ocean's playful "favor" towards you didn't last long, because you were soon swept up by the tide to a cliff that you knew all too well.

The sharp cliffs pierced your body, which had been swallowed up by the sea, with their fangs, and you burst open like a blood-soaked sack.

A familiar and excruciating pain immediately shot through the side of your head, followed by a chill that sent shivers down your spine.

Fragments of the skull that couldn't be cleanly shaved off remain at the edge of your wound.

They hang lightly on the edge of your exposed flesh, rubbing and patting your numb scalp, telling you the fact that there's a big hole in your head.

The pain and dizziness make you want to vomit, but the thought seems to flow out along with your shattered brain.

You soared high into the air like a tattered piece of cloth, then crashed into the sea with a splash, creating white foam, like a stone.

The blood that oozed from the wound on your head stained the black seawater and waves red.

The colors before your eyes are a chaotic mess, like a palette of reds, whites, yellows, and blacks.

In addition, there is the pungent smell of blood that fills your nostrils.

After the chaotic darkness, your weary body is swept by fierce waves onto a familiar, damp rock face.

'Yes, you didn't see the sun that day.'

A sentence floats lightly through your mind.

Only when death approaches do the icy seawater suddenly warm up.

Like a swarm of insects, they rustled up your body stranded on the rock wall, gnawing at your remaining consciousness, before slowly retreating.

—The climax of your entire life story seems to have ended at this moment.

What awaits you now is a bleak ending.

Everything you experienced in your life came to an abrupt end at this moment.

You lie blankly on the edge of the rock, staring at the red and milky white, tofu-like substance stained around your eyes.

That looks like your broken brain and spilled brain matter.

The sheer amount of blood a person can bleed before dying is as if their internal organs, smoothed out by the sea, are overflowing from the hole in the side of their head—

...That's strange, weren't these the feelings you had before you died?

Or was it just a long dream you had before you died?

But what did you dream about in that long dream?

Although you don't yet understand why you are feeling all of this at this moment, you are confused and terrified as you still vividly remember everything before your death.

But why hasn't all of this stopped yet?

Your brain is completely muddled.

Your face was twitching from the pain, and you stared wide-eyed like a fish without eyelids, unable to close your eyes in death.

You seem to be experiencing your third death, as if someone has pressed the rewind button.

As if time had reversed, you were swept back into the sea, like a pitiful piece of driftwood, tossed about by the ocean waves, rising and falling once more.

Your body, exceptionally frail by nature's standards, crashes wildly through the sea until seawater seeps into every wound.

"Hah, cough cough... Uh!"

It seems that you didn't even have time to let out a scream before you died; all you could utter were broken syllables filled with blood.

You soon saw the sharp rock that had smashed your head once again, with half of your skull still hooked on it.

With your neck completely broken, you can only turn your head to the side, forced to stare with your wide-open eyes at the half of your bloody, mangled head with your scalp and hair still attached, and finally die in pain and fear.

Broken railings, a weightless body, roaring tides, and a distant sky.

But all you want is for it all to stop, because you don't want to relive those memories of your death a second time. They've all come back to you.

……

……

—Ah, yes, you don't need anyone to remind you that you died in an accidental and tragic shipwreck, because you can't forget that memory even if you want to.

Really annoying.

Your eyes are filled with tears because of this recurring painful memory.

Is this pain perhaps punishment for breaking your promise?

You have to think that way.

Because you clearly promised your family that you would go back, but you ultimately failed to keep your promise.

That was the New Year, a day for family celebration... but what you sent home was a cold death certificate.

How should your parents, brother, and family spend that New Year?

What have you been doing?

It's all your fault.

It's all your fault.

But you've already tried! You've tried so many methods... You think about it every day, you think about how to get home... Even if you went to hell, you would still be searching for a way home!

...But you can't...you...

They were trapped in this hell.

Your heart is filled with grief and indignation, yet you cannot shed a single tear.

Strip away your emotions from your life, leaving only the obsession with "going home".

After lying on that hard, damp rock face again, one of your eardrums ruptured instantly from the violent impact, so you can only hear in one ear.

Even though half of your head was gouged out by the sharp cliff face, you still didn't die immediately.

But this time, for some reason, perhaps because your death this time matched all the feelings in your memory, your cycle of falling into the sea finally stopped.

But what awaits you is only a new torment.

Because you know that you did not die in the dark, deep sea, but from intense pain and excessive blood loss.