Death.
What comes after that?
For me, it was a pitch-black void.
Where am I?
I could only feel a lingering sense of self—consciousness without senses. A space void of time, form, or sound.
Flash—!
Suddenly, a glimmer of light broke the darkness.
A reaper? An angel? I wondered.
But the shape that formed was... a musical note.
It shimmered, glowing like a living symbol of sound.
Ding—♬
A harp-like pluck rang out—clear, celestial.
Glowing particles drifted around me, like dandelion seeds of light.
What is happening?
The void transformed into a galaxy, stars of sound weaving around me. Each note was familiar—a soundtrack of my life.
Michael Jackson. French pop classics. Ballads I once covered at SY Entertainment. Even my own compositions.
Music was more than memory.
It was identity.
And I was shining brighter with each passing note.
This is me. This is my life.
I opened my eyes.
Above me: a flickering fluorescent light, half-dead.
The ceiling... familiar. The damp air, the moldy scent—it all clicked.
This was my first studio in Paris.
The graffiti of Jason Mraz on the far wall stared back.
Drawn by a friend when I opened the place—he swore it was Mraz, but to me, it always looked like my true hero: Michael Jackson.
I bolted upright. My old coat fell to the floor.
"Phone."
There it was. Charging beside my bed.
A Galaxia S—a 2010 French release from Oseong Electronics, one of the first smartphones I owned.
In 2010, this device had changed my life as a composer. Portable, powerful, essential.
With shaking hands, I unlocked it.
November 24, 2010.
14:22 — Clear skies.
What...?
I'd been in 2022. Ten years with SY, then an emotional collapse in my studio...
But this—this was twelve years ago.
I opened the browser. The old green homepage loaded.
Top stories:
Shelling on Yeonpyeong Island
Two soldiers and two civilians killed
F-22s dispatched from Okinawa
Foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Andong
Each headline a time capsule.
I turned to the mirror. Staring back: my younger self, wide-eyed, frozen.
Had I really traveled back in time?
I looked around.
My old Kurzweil 88-keyboard. The XV-3080 sound module. The battered MIDI interface.
I powered on the computer tower.
Whirrrr—
It groaned to life. The Windows XP logo appeared.
Cubase 5.0 loaded slowly on the monitor.
I collapsed onto the camp bed.
This was the year I finished the high school. The year I devoted myself to music.
The year Maison SY took me in.
But now, I wasn't starting from zero.
I had my knowledge. My memories. My regrets.
This was a second chance.
And I was going to make it count.
My heart raced with a new kind of energy.
Heh... haha...
I launched Cubase and opened my old project folder. Sketches, drafts, abandoned dreams. Each one had once felt like a failure.
Now? They were gold.
I fired up my keyboard. Grabbed the mouse. Played.
Layered bass. Laid in rhythm. Top-line melody. Done.
Even with old plugins, the music in my head flowed easily onto the screen.
Was this what mastery felt like?
Or was it just the result of having lived once before?
Whatever it was—it was working.
I was back.
Thank you. Whoever gave me this chance—thank you.
"Time check…"
November 25, 2010.
11:22 AM — Clear skies.
Twenty hours had passed.
In that time, I'd finished three full songs.
My body—refreshed. My mind—sharp.
This new-old body had stamina to spare.
"I'm a monster."
I stood, stretched—and my stomach growled.
Old me would've ignored it. Not this time.
If I learned anything in my past life, it's this:
Take care of yourself.
I grabbed my coat.
And stepped out into Paris—ready to begin again.