"Someone just shove a log up my ass!"
"A total loss. A complete, unrecoverable, spectacular failure! I should just sell my soul for a role, damn it!"
Han Si-Yoon had been shouting at his monitor, his voice raw from the despair of flubbing a simple regional commercial audition. He had poured three weeks into that character study. Three weeks! All for the director to say, "Your enthusiasm is great, but could you try for... less?"
Now he was pacing the cramped floor of his Seoul officetel, running a hand through his perpetually messy hair and wishing the floor would swallow him whole.
Sell my soul. He repeated the phrase in his head, half-serious, half-drowning in self-pity. Seriously, Lucifer, are you hiring? I'm cheap.
Then the floor did not so much swallow him as it simply dissolved.
The sensation was not falling, but unraveling. One second, he felt the cheap laminate under his worn sneakers, the next, his consciousness was stretched, snapped, and re-stitched together like a piece of cosmic embroidery.
Si-Yoon gasped, but the sound that came out was a dry, hollow rattle.
He opened his eyes, or rather, he registered light passing through the empty sockets where his eyes should have been.
Hold on. Something is extremely wrong.
He looked down. Where his actor's hands, perpetually ready for a dramatic gesture, should have been, there were now two perfectly clean, ivory-white skeletal hands. The knuckles were sharp, the finger bones elongated, and the grip felt unnervingly solid.
He tried to scream. Click, click, click. That was the sound of his jawbone clacking together.
"What the actual... where is the emergency exit?" Si-Yoon muttered internally, his panic spiking to a level not even a failed actor should reach.
He was seated on a massive throne carved from jagged, obsidian-black stone that looked less like furniture and more like crystallized trauma. The room was vast, gothic, and dripping with aggressive evil. Massive stone columns rose into a smoky ceiling, and the only light came from flickering green braziers that cast nauseating shadows. The air tasted stale, metallic, and vaguely of old earth and poor life choices.
He was the centerpiece of a diorama titled: Here Lies The Worst Idea For Interior Design.
As his modern mind struggled to process being bone-dry and bonafide undead, the realization hit him with the force of an armored carriage. The throne, the specific green flame, the palpable aura of death and drama...
This wasn't just a fantasy world. This was The Ballad of the Holy Hero, a novel he had read.
He was sitting on the throne of Kallian von Draich, the Skeleton Lord. The infamous, terrifying, completely irredeemable villain destined to be annihilated by the Holy Hero in exactly three months.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Si-Yoon thought, his jaw rattling a nervous rhythm. "I transmigrated. And not into the hero, or the supportive friend, or even the blacksmith with amazing abs. I got the final, un-killable, ultimately dead bad guy. I'm a death flag with a crown!"
He instantly regretted wishing to sell his soul. Lucifer had definitely overcharged him.
He frantically tried to move his hand to adjust the ridiculous crown of black spikes that was digging into his skull, but the movement was shaky. He had zero control over this body, which was apparently made of borrowed ligaments and sheer magical willpower.
Focus, Si-Yoon.
He tried to conjure a cold, evil sneer, but since his face was just bone, he settled for sitting absolutely still, hoping the sheer existential dread he felt would translate as Menace.
The massive ebony doors at the end of the hall shuddered open.
Cue the first co-star.
A figure strode in. It was a suit of midnight-black armor, enormous and intimidating, emitting a chilling, grinding sound with every step. The armor was covered in grotesque spikes, and a faint blue glow pulsed menacingly from the slit of the helm. This was Knight Commander Mortem, the Skeleton Lord's most loyal and terrifying general. Si-Yoon knew him well from the novel; relentless, humorless, and fanatically devoted to the "Lord of Darkness."
Mortem knelt on one armored knee, the movement cracking the stone floor. The sound echoed in the massive chamber.
"My Lord," Mortem's voice was a low, resonant drone, like stones grinding in a coffin. "The daily reports. Is there an issue? You have been... rigid. Your stillness is making the Court anxious."
Si-Yoon inwardly groaned. He had been rigid because he was terrified he would fall over if he moved. He needed privacy. He needed a minute to figure out how to stop his new bone-body from rattling and how to check the lore for the 'Escape Portal' shortcut.
But he couldn't say that. If he showed even a sliver of weakness, Mortem, with his fanatic loyalty to the true tyrannical Kallian, would likely execute him as an imposter.
Okay. Improv. What does an evil lord want? Silence and Isolation. A dramatic moment of reflection before unleashing hell.
Si-Yoon channeled every dramatic role he had ever studied, dredging up the vocal tone of an ancient, bored deity. He cleared his throat. It sounded like two rocks tumbling down a drainpipe.
He focused his magical willpower (which he miraculously seemed to have control over) and projected his voice across the chamber, lending it a deep, chilling reverb.
"Mortem."
The Death Knight Commander flinched—a minuscule movement, but visible.
"The reports are... dust," Si-Yoon continued, trying to sound vaguely dismissive. He wanted to sound like he was above such petty paperwork.
"My thoughts require stillness. A void of disruption, Mortem. I seek true, absolute silence in which to contemplate the coming darkness."
He finished the line with a slight flick of his skeletal wrist, a gesture he hoped looked regal, but which felt like he was nervously shooing a fly.
Mortem's massive helmet tilted slightly. He remained kneeling. The silence that followed stretched out, thick and heavy, like poorly mixed cement.
Si-Yoon's non-existent heart hammered against his ribs.
Did I overdo it? Did I sound too theatrical? Was the word 'darkness' too on-the-nose? Oh, god, I should have gone for 'impending doom.' That's less cliché.
Finally, Mortem spoke, his voice reverent.
"As I suspected. Your Lordship is considering the Ultimate Silence of the capital."
Si-Yoon blinked his empty eye sockets. The Ultimate what now?
Mortem rose slowly, cracking the floor again.
"You seek to eliminate all sources of chaotic noise before the Holy War truly begins. A masterful, necessary move. I shall begin the Great Muting immediately. The noisy, troublesome mortals in the border villages will be reduced to silence within the hour. Absolute, permanent stillness, as you commanded."
Mortem spun around, his armor clanking with renewed, terrible purpose, and strode out of the throne room with the zeal of a man whose boss just gave him permission for mass homicide.
Si-Yoon slumped his bony shoulders back onto the jagged throne, the obsidian digging into his nonexistent flesh. He stared at the giant, shuddering doors.
"I just wanted quiet time," he whispered internally, letting out a despairing, internal wail.
"I think...I just accidentally ordered a genocide."