I Want to Die, But I Am Immortal-Chapter 33: Home Invasion

I was killed. The thought echoed in the empty void of Adam’s consciousness. But when? How? He was utterly bewildered. He couldn’t comprehend what had just transpired. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

From his perspective, one moment he was opening a bedroom door to check on Sophia. The next, he was dead. The seamless transition from life to oblivion, without any warning or apparent cause, sent a chill through him, a fear more profound than any he had felt before.

A stark, terrifying realization washed over him. The bad luck, the curse, the relentless pursuit that had defined his life had now followed him here. It had invaded Sophia’s home. It had tainted her sanctuary.

The thought filled him with a potent mixture of guilt and dread. He still didn’t know who had killed him. He didn’t know what kind of weapon or power could simply erase him from existence by opening a door. This new, unknown variable made him deeply anxious about the future he was about to be thrust back into. The loop he was about to relive was now infinitely more dangerous.

His eyes snapped open. The first thing he saw was the faint, pre-dawn light filtering through a window. The second thing he saw was the ceiling of a room he now recognized all too well.

He was back in Sophia’s bed. The realization hit him like a physical blow. He shot up into a sitting position, his heart pounding in his chest. He looked around the room, his eyes wild with a new kind of panic.

’What was it that made me die so suddenly without even knowing it?’ Adam’s eyes are open but the same scene that happened to him in the last loop is still going on in his mind.

He remembered the system window’s message: "New Respawn Point Located." Now he understood. The checkpoint had moved. It had moved from the teacher’s office to this room. To this bed.

His gaze fell on Sophia, who was still sleeping peacefully on the floor beside the bed. A wave of despair washed over him. He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, a gesture of pure frustration and self-reproach.

"No, no, no, no," he muttered under his breath, his voice a low, agonized whisper. He had brought this curse directly to her doorstep. Now, she was at the very center of his revival point, a fixed point in the storm that raged around him.

He couldn’t stay here. He had to get out. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and jumped to the floor. His sudden movement startled Sophia. Her eyes fluttered open, her face a mask of sleepy confusion. But Adam didn’t have time to explain. He ran to her bedroom door, wrenched it open, and charged out into the hallway.

As he did, he nearly collided with Sophia’s younger sister, who had just stepped out of her own room. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep. She was rubbing them with the back of her hand, completely unprepared for the sight of a strange boy bursting out of her sister’s room.

Adam didn’t care. He brushed past her and sprinted towards the stairs.

His sudden appearance shocked her out of her sleepy state. Her eyes went wide with alarm. "Who are you?" she screamed, her voice piercing the morning quiet of the house. "What are you doing in our house?"

Her shouts echoed behind him, but Adam ignored them. He was focused on one thing: escape. He took the stairs two at a time, his enhanced agility allowing him to descend with incredible speed.

He hit the ground floor and ran down the narrow corridor, heading for the side gate, the same way he had entered the previous night. He expected an ambush. He expected to find someone waiting for him. He was prepared for a fight.

But as he reached the gate, he found nothing. The corridor was empty. The house was silent, save for the panicked shouts of Sophia’s sister from upstairs. He was completely baffled. Who was it that was here to kill him? What was the threat that could strike so suddenly, so invisibly?

He paused for a second, his hand on the gate’s latch, his mind racing. Then he heard it. A soft thump from the other end of the corridor, from the direction of the small shop his mother ran. It sounded like something, or someone, had just fallen to the floor.

He couldn’t understand what was happening. He pulled open the side gate, looked out into the empty alley, then slammed it shut. He abandoned his escape route. He had to know what that sound was. He turned and ran down the corridor towards the shop. As he neared the end of the hall, just before the entrance to the shop, he saw them.

Three figures, all dressed in black from head to toe. They wore black masks that covered their entire faces, leaving only their eyes visible. And in their hands, they each held a pistol. A silencer was screwed onto the end of each barrel.

The moment he saw the silenced pistols, he understood everything. They hadn’t wanted to make a sound. They had been moving through the house silently, eliminating anyone they found. The thump he had heard was likely one of Sophia’s parents.

The three figures had already heard him running down the corridor. They were waiting for him. They had their pistols raised, their aim steady, all three guns pointed directly at him.

He didn’t even have a chance to react. He didn’t have time to think, to move, to even brace himself. In the next instant, three small puffs of smoke erupted from the ends of the silencers. There was no loud bang, only a series of soft, spitting sounds.

Three bullets crossed the short distance in a fraction of a second. They all struck him in the face. The world dissolved into a flash of red and an explosion of painless, all-consuming darkness. He was dead again.