The Paralysis That Woke Me Up in Heaven
“Uh, uh uh uh…! I’m falling! It’s falling!”
It was an urgent situation.
“Huuuuuuuauuuu——!!”
A small child dangling from the apartment railing.
Even an eyeball estimate put the height over ten stories.
Why was the kid hanging there?
I didn’t have time to wonder.
People stared upward in a panic.
Nothing waited below the child—no cushions, just some ornamental bushes that wouldn’t soften the impact at all.
After all, it was ten stories.
“Uwaaaaaaaaang! Mommyyyy——!”
The child’s final cry echoed as the hand gripping the railing lost its strength.
The child fell.
“……”
——Ta-ta-tat!!
At that exact moment, without my knowing, my legs started moving.
I ran.
Why did I run?
Was it because my dream job had been a firefighter?
Or was I feeling a sense of duty for a job I hadn’t even been accepted for yet?
No, that wasn’t complicated at all.
The reason was brutally simple.
I was the person closest to where the child would land.
“Uwaaaaaaaaang!!”
“Uwaaaaaaaaang!!”
Shouting together with the child, I sprinted at full power.
It had probably been a hyper-sprint of my life.
At this speed, I might even break the short-distance world record?
The thought flashed through my mind as I leaped toward the exact spot where the child would hit the ground.
“I got you—!!”
“Uwaaaaaang!!”
The view slowed like a super-slow-motion camera.
Within that frame, I raised my head and reached my hand toward the child’s falling back.
Right after.
——Squish.
“Ugh…?!”
My body lurched backward from the heavier-than-imagined weight of the child.
The impact of my skull hitting the floor sent an ominous sound straight into my brain.
At the same time, the admiral’s line that reminded me of Mr. Wonja echoed in my head.
‘Speed is soon equal to weight.’
The child from ten stories up was insanely heavy.
“I saved him!”
“I saved the child!”
“Wooaaaah!”
Cheers rang out as people came running toward the child.
Even in that happy moment, I simply lay on the ground.
No, I couldn’t move.
‘Consciousness….’
My vision blurred.
Adults soothing the crying child.
People approaching me, worried and shaking me.
In that haze, I slowly closed my eyes.
Ah, am I dying…?
My life like this…?
Still, though…
I’d done a good thing, so…
This much…
Heaven…
…………
……
…
“Kim Siso-nim? Can you hear my voice? Kim Siso-nim?”
“……”
I thought I was dead, but maybe not.
“Brain waves are responding.”
“Then check the signal and distinguish yes from no. We need consent.”
“Yes, Professor.”
When I opened my eyes, everything around me was pure white.
I could see the ceiling of what was probably a hospital room.
My body still wouldn’t move, and doctors and nurses in white coats moved about my surroundings.
“Kim Siso-nim. This is a hospital. You lost consciousness for ten days. Do you understand?”
At that moment, a man who looked like a veteran doctor spoke to me.
I needed to answer, but my mouth wouldn’t move.
“If you understand, please blink your eyes twice?”
Blink…
Couldn’t do it easily.
My body just wouldn’t obey.
What the hell was wrong with my body?
“Pattern analysis complete.”
“Good… Kim Siso-nim? You don’t have to blink. Just show me YES or NO with your eyes.”
First, the situation started to become clear.
I was in a hospital, and the people around me were doctors.
And I was probably a vegetable…
“Kim Siso-nim is currently in Locked-in Syndrome. Due to damage to the brainstem, you have consciousness but no control over your body.”
So I wasn’t a vegetable…?
I didn’t know.
How was I supposed to understand those medical terms? I couldn’t ask anything right now.
If I couldn’t move, I was basically a vegetable, right?
…Anyway.
So I couldn’t move anymore…?
‘Sex… I wanted to try it….’
At twenty-five, I hadn’t even properly dated and had my body locked up in a cage.
Still, it was a miracle.
With modern technology, I could read my will through brain waves even though I couldn’t speak.
Soon this doctor would offer me euthanasia.
If I agreed, I could finally be free from this unmoving body.
“Kim Siso-nim, my name is Bori. Professor Jang Bori. A specialist in brain medicine. You were lucky. The story of you saving the child and sacrificing yourself touched countless hearts.”
The man I’d thought was a doctor suddenly spoke with a self-introduction.
I didn’t care who this uncle was, what field he specialized in, or how famous I was.
But.
“I have a good proposal for you, the national hero.”
Professor Bori brought up something unexpected.
“Would you like to bet on the future? At least ten years. By around 2043, medical technology will have advanced enough to restore your body.”
Bet on the future.
My life.
Not a casual offer.
This was a top-secret project run by the Omni-Cure System, the world’s leading medical organization.
In plain terms, he’d called it the Frozen Human Project.
“If you just consent, I promise to send you into the future through the safest experiment as a VVIP participant. You’ll definitely be able to move again.”
After explaining, Professor Bori gave me time to think.
At the same time, a few minutes later, famous people I’d often seen on TV came to visit me.
“Kim Siso-nim, thank you for your sacrifice.”
“The state will spare no expense for your treatment.”
“We hope you recover quickly.”
From the mayor of my city, to the head of a major political party,
and even the president.
They came to me lying helplessly and gave words of encouragement one by one.
…Were they secretly filming?
More believable was that they’d come to visit me rather than the fact that I was now a vegetable.
“What will you decide, Kim Siso-nim? Have you made up your mind?”
After the celebrities left, Professor Bori came back and asked my decision again.
Participate in the Frozen Human Project and wake up in ten years for treatment, or stay in this body forever and die of euthanasia?
——Beep——Beep——Beep.
“I see.”
Of course.
If I was going to die anyway, the Frozen Human side was a million times better than euthanasia.
That meant…
I could at least hope.
“I will do my best for your recovery.”
And so I became the world’s first Frozen Human.
……
“……-nim!”
“Uhm…”
“……-nim!”
“Uuuuh… uuh… —Uuuuuuh!!”
“Kyaaaa! Siso-nim! Are you okay?! Here…! Here, throw up!”
“Gueeeeeeeee——!!”
The voice came first, then nausea surged.
At the same time, someone in front of me offered me something.
Instinctively, I threw up into it.
“Kuh…! Khek…! Haa, haa…, uuh…”
“Are… are you okay?”
Huh? I’m throwing up but nothing comes out…?
Just like when you’re so hungry you throw up stomach acid.
I kept expelling thin stomach fluids.
And only then did I realize.
“My… my body…!”
“Yes! Congratulations, Siso-nim! Your body is completely recovered!”
“Huh…?”
The body that couldn’t move at all until the moment I fell asleep now moved freely enough to raise itself for vomiting.
Yeah, memories were slowly coming back.
I had been frozen, hadn’t I?
At least ten years.
Some people survived on dumplings; I had become a Frozen Dumpling and survived right after.
But how could I move the moment I woke up?
Had the treatment finished while I was asleep?
“Since you’ve been asleep for a long time, don’t move too much yet.”
After catching my breath and figuring out the situation, I could finally look at the woman in front of me properly.
Hair dyed pink and styled with a single side braid falling over her shoulder.
The “death flag hairstyle” people joked about on the internet.
Her pink eyes narrowed softly as she smiled.
…Nurse?
“Eh? My… my hand…!”
At that moment, her hands, neatly gathered in front of her chest, entered my vision.
The hand held a transparent, foamy liquid.
No matter how I thought about it…
“My hand?”
“T-that… the thing I threw up…”
“Ah~ Hehe. Yes, I’m so happy! This is my first service, after all!”
“……”
Instead of disgust, she smiled brightly with pure joy.
…Angel?
Her face was incredibly beautiful too.
Even compared to the real women I’d seen in person during my life, and even the women I’d seen in videos.
The most beautiful person…
And this person was taking my vomit with her bare hands…?
Aha! Now I understood!
I must have died!
“My name is Penny. I’ll be your dedicated nurse from now on. Call me anytime you need.”
“Even angels have nurses… But is there a hospital in heaven too…?”
“Hehe, your mind is still recovering… Then I’ll go do the next check.”
Yeah.
The Frozen Human Project had succeeded in one shot?
Now it made sense why my body moved right away.
I was dead right after being frozen, and now I’d woken up in heaven!
Still, having a heavenly angel with such crazy looks as my welcoming committee wasn’t too bad.
“While you’ve been lying down, I’ll take a blood sample. It’s needed for the tests.”
“……”
“Ah~ Would you like to try it?”
“Ah…”
“Lift your shirt a little.”
“…Yes.”
Even right after waking up in heaven, the checks started in earnest.
Like actually examining a person who’d survived the Frozen Human.
They drew blood, checked my eyes, looked inside my mouth, pressed a stethoscope to my chest, and scanned my body with various strange machines.
“Hey… What year is it this year?”
“This year is 47. February 2, 3047.”
“……”
Yeah. After all that, it was time to stop the nonsense.
Not a fool, and I’d quit the overthinking protagonist concept.
So that was it.
The project had succeeded.
The Frozen Human Project had really worked like a miracle, and my body was healed.
I’d gotten into an accident in 2033, so roughly fourteen years?
What? I really had been an old Frozen Dumpling.
Then here was the question.
Where was the person who had frozen me?
Clearly… the professor named Bori.
“Professor Bori isn’t here?”
“Yes? Oh, do you remember Professor Bori?”
“Yes…”
“Good. Your memory is also fine. Ah, Professor Bori has passed away.”
“Ah…”
Yeah, fourteen years had passed.
The professor looked pretty old too.
Anyway, even after the professor who’d run the project died, it kept going.
They’d been so thoughtful. It made me feel like I’d done the right thing by throwing my body at the child.
I’d met a gorgeous smiley nurse too.
“Well, then last…”
“Are there still more tests?”
“Yes. …By the way, Siso-nim, is it okay if I lower your pants a little?”
“……”
At that moment.
During the final check among all the tests that had started right after waking up.
The nurse named Penny blushed and said she’d lower my pants.
So…
What kind of check required lowering pants…?
“……”
I asked carefully.
Penny looked up at me with eyes full of expectation for some reason.
The content was quite shocking.
“I need to collect and test your semen… Since you just woke up, you might feel it. I’ll help you well!”
“……”
Today, I realized this moment.
Let’s live a good life from now on.
Good fortune always comes back to me.
Long live the Frozen Humans!!