I'm Not a Regressor, Chapter 1: The Unexpected Return
The flickering fluorescent lights of the convenience store hummed a monotonous tune, a stark contrast to the frantic thumping of my own heart. Rain lashed against the windows, blurring the neon signs into shimmering streaks of color. I, Lee Jinwoo, age 27, was staring at a lottery ticket – a winning lottery ticket – with a profound sense of unease. This wasn't how I envisioned my life's trajectory.
Winning the lottery should have been exhilarating, a life-altering event. Instead, it felt…wrong. Like a glitch in the matrix, a jarring deviation from the meticulously planned script of my life, a script that, until a few hours ago, I'd believed was set in stone.
You see, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be alive.
What is a Regressor?
This is where the story gets…complicated. In my previous life, I was a regressor. A person who, through some inexplicable phenomenon, relives the same period of time repeatedly. I'd cycled through the last five years of my life, each iteration a meticulously planned attempt to change my fate, to avoid the catastrophic event that always ended it. Death. My death. And always in the same horrific way.
Each loop, I'd meticulously collected information, tweaked decisions, formed alliances, and built up resources. I thought I’d finally cracked the code, finally found the solution to my endless cycle. I even won the lottery – a key element in my meticulously planned final loop. But this isn’t that. This isn't the perfect, carefully crafted scenario I'd worked toward for years.
Why does this feel different?
This time, something is different. The familiar dread is absent. The crushing weight of impending doom, the unshakeable certainty of my demise…gone. Replaced by a strange, unsettling calm. It's as if I've stepped outside my own pre-written narrative, into a space that wasn't part of the plan.
How is this different from my past regressions?
The key difference? The memories. They're all there, vibrant and sharp, a complete and unedited record of my past lives. But they feel…distant. Like watching a movie of someone else's life. I still possess the knowledge and skills I'd meticulously acquired, but the emotional weight is gone. The urgent, desperate need to change my fate is absent, replaced with a baffling sense of…acceptance?
What is my new plan?
This isn't the end of my journey, not by a long shot. The lottery win is a resource, a tool. It's a symbol of my unexpected freedom. My new plan is uncertain. The familiar path of manipulating events, of striving for a perfect outcome, is gone. This feels like a new beginning, a blank page, and I'm not entirely sure what to write on it. Perhaps, for the first time, I'll just…live.
The rain outside intensified, but I barely noticed. The hum of the fluorescent lights faded into the background. I held the winning lottery ticket, a symbol of both my past struggles and my uncertain future. This is a new game, a new challenge, and I, Lee Jinwoo, am ready to play. I am not a regressor, not anymore. I am… something else. And I'm determined to find out what.
