Tyler Park, the main protagonist of this story, was a thirty-year-old man with an appearance most people found unpleasant. Not because of anything he had done, but simply because that was how he had been born.
It was only natural that he often blamed the world for his shortcomings. It wasn't his choice to look the way he did.
When he was a child, it wasn't so bad. People were more forgiving then. A child with a large nose, crooked teeth, and a head slightly bent from complications during birth was seen as unfortunate, not repulsive.
But as Tyler grew older, he became painfully self-conscious. He wasn't tall. He couldn't even look normal.
If only I at least looked normal.
That was his wish.
His mother would tell him, tears in her eyes, that he was fine the way he was. Tyler would always respond the same way.
"You don't know anything."
She was gentle when he needed comfort, but she wasn't the kind of woman who tolerated self-pity for long. If he became too dramatic, she would not hesitate to remind him—sometimes painfully—that reality did not stop just because he was hurting. Tyler didn't know whether it would have worked on other children, but it worked on him.
She promised that one day, when he was older, she would help him save enough money to pay for facial surgery. When he was ready. It hurt her to see him suffer. After all, Tyler was her precious only son—only seven years old when he first brought it up.
Tyler moved to the United States when he was nine, brought over by his father and grandmother. The change only made things worse. No one expected elementary school children to be kind, and the adults in his father's family were no better. A single look in their eyes was enough to carve trauma into the ten-year-old Tyler.
His father promised he would never take him to another family gathering again.
All Tyler remembered afterward was the sound of his father arguing with his aunts and uncles, he himself was locked in his room, hiding from the world.
That was the childhood he remembered. Before he realized it, tears had already started falling.
Tyler's hands rested on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly.
He didn't trust himself to let go.
Outside of his car, the hospital lights cut through the winter darkness. Snow fell thick and heavy, swallowing the street in silence.
Somewhere inside that building, lives were being saved.
And inside that same building, he had said goodbye to his parents.
They had slipped away forever.
"If only I hadn't been so stubborn…" he whispered.
A sudden beep—beep tore through the quiet.
Tyler looked up.
A car was coming straight at him, sliding across the icy road. The driver had lost control. People were screaming. Someone shouted—he didn't know who. They told him to move.
Tyler didn't.
Not because he couldn't.
But because, in that moment, he no longer cared if he did.
It felt pointless.
He closed his eyes.
Leaving his life up to fate.
Tyler expected pain.
Instead, there was silence, darkness, and nothingness.
Not the quiet of falling snow.
But a silence so deep it felt like the world had stopped existing.
He tried to breathe.
There was no air.
But he didn't suffocate.
He tried to move.
There was no body.
But he wasn't afraid.
So this is death, he thought.
Nothing at all.
Then—
Something changed.
Not a memory.
Not a voice.
A sensation.
Pressure.
Warmth.
A tightness around his chest.
Then—
Air.
It burned as it filled his lungs.
Tyler tried to scream.
And did.
He didn't open his eyes to snow.
He opened them to light.
Not the harsh white of a hospital—
but something softer. Warmer.
Voices surrounded him. Strange voices. He couldn't understand them, but there was a certain kind of familiarity.
His body felt wrong.
Too small.
Too weak.
He tried to move his hands.
They barely obeyed.
Panic rose in him.
I died, he thought.
I know I died.
And yet—
He was breathing.
Crying.
Alive.