Why...
A sharp, wet crack echoed endlessly through the hollow void, each slap ricocheting into the suffocating nothingness. There was nothing here—no ground, no sky—only a mother and her child suspended in an infinite dark. Her palm rose and fell in relentless rhythm, each strike driven by a heatless anger.
The boy stood still, eyes glassy and lifeless, the spark long since beaten out of them. No tears dared to form; only the slow bloom of bruises spreading like sickly flowers across his skin.
Just why...
The sound grew louder, each strike reverberating like a drumbeat in the boy's skull. Thoughts swarmed inside him—fragmented, desperate, clinging to anything but the pain. Faces he could not remember, places he had never seen, a longing for a warmth he could no longer name.
But the void gave no comfort; it pressed in closer, swallowing the air, until the only reality left was the sting of skin meeting skin and the deafening rhythm that refused to end.
Why can't she love me?
Then, with a jolt, the void shattered. His thoughts scattered like shards of glass, and the endless darkness peeled away to reveal blinding fluorescent light. The sharp cracks were no longer echoes in nothingness—they were the sting of his boss's hand, striking his cheek in rapid succession.
A voice, harsh and spitting with fury, tore through the ringing in his ears. He was no longer a child. He was here, in the present, standing rigid as the slaps and shouts dragged him back into a reality just as merciless.
Oh, is it just another day dreaming?
He couldn't hear his boss—only the deafening roar of his own mind, a chaos of brutal, spiraling thoughts that gnawed at him from within. The words hurled at him were nothing but moving lips, lost beneath the static of his inner screams.
He stared at the man before him, eyes stripped of light, pools of black as if carved from the same void that once swallowed him. There was no spark, no curiosity, no tether to the world—only a hollow disinterest, as though life itself had bled dry of anything worth noticing.
Maybe I should've end it all from the beginning. Yes, that would make sense. Why would I still on this road, continuing this worthless fate?
The sun has set, the day had passed just like that, he didnt even happy, not even his crippled smile. He waited infront of the train section waiting for the upcoming train stared into nothingness infront of him. People around him was scared of him for his void stare and make a distance. But its normal for him, he doesn't even care, it is his daily routine.
The sun had long sunk beneath the horizon, and the day slipped away without leaving a trace—just another wasted stretch of hours. Not a flicker of joy crossed his face, not even the crooked mockery of a smile he once called his own. He stood at the edge of the train platform, eyes locked on the empty tracks ahead, staring into nothing.
The crowd shifted uneasily around him; strangers felt the cold weight of his void-like gaze and instinctively kept their distance. But to him, it was nothing unusual. This was routine—this silence, this stillness, this absence of care. A ritual of existing without living.
He rose without a word, drifting forward until his toes kissed the edge of the track. The steel rails gleamed faintly beneath the station lights. He glanced down, then turned his head to the left. A train was charging toward him, its horn blaring—a metallic howl that cut through the night air.
Maybe… should I just jump? They say most who leap feel regret in the final instant. Will I be one of them? Or will I finally be free from this suffocating world that has bound me for so long?
The people nearby exchanged wary glances, concern flickering in their eyes—but not one of them stepped forward. Even the man standing right beside him didn't bother to look up, thumbs idly scrolling across the glow of his phone. The world moved on as if he were invisible.
Even if I died, no one would dare to come. In the end, I am what I am. Atleast that's what I thought. Who in the world would help a man like me, right?
He exhaled, a bitter breath, and shook his head. Without a word, he stepped back from the edge and lowered himself onto the cold metal bench. The station hummed with distant machinery as he sat there, waiting for the train to arrive, his gaze fixed on nothing at all.
The train screeched to a halt, and he stepped inside with the slow, dragging gait of the half-dead. Passengers shifted away instinctively, parting around him as if he carried an invisible plague. Even after he sank into a seat, no one dared draw near.
Whispers floated in the stale air.
He's a freak.
He looks like a walking corpse.
Don't be near him or you'll be cursed.
The words never reached him. His head tilted forward, eyes closing as he drifted into a heavy, unnatural sleep—slumped but perfectly still, as if his body had long since adapted to resting anywhere. To a stranger, he might have looked like a weary, overworked man catching a moment of rest between shifts. But to those around him, he was something else entirely. Something to be avoided.
He stirred at last, eyelids peeling open with the sluggishness of someone waking from a too-deep sleep. The world around him was made of silence. The train was shrouded in darkness, every window a black void. No passengers. Only the dim, sickly glow of a single yellow emergency light bathing the carriage in an anemic hue. The main lights were dead.
A strange tingling prickled along his skin—like the echo of an electric shock, though no pain followed. He turned his head to the left. Empty seats. To the right. More emptiness.
Then he looked straight ahead. A figure stood there—humanoid, still, and watching him straight to his soul.
The faint flicker of the yellow light revealed her in flashes as the train hurtled forward. His breath caught. The body shape… the stance… it was his mother. Or at least, it wore her shape.
He couldn't see the face—only the familiar outline, the proportions burned into his memory. It had to be her.
What… what is this? What's happening—
He lifted his gaze, searching for her face. And then his stomach dropped.
A grin—stretched far too wide—split her features, so long it seemed to strain the skin. Eyes bulged unnaturally large, unblinking, locked straight onto him with predatory stillness.
Her voice slithered through the air, calm yet impossibly cold.
"Come… follow me, Kim Baeksan… my son."