Prologue
“Aaaaaaah!!!”
A scream of agony rang out. The place it rang out in was an ordinary high school classroom, utterly unsuited to such a scream.
It was a lazy afternoon, the hour when drowsiness after lunch was at its worst. A few students were nodding off, and most were absorbed in class ahead of midterms. Then, suddenly, a tremendous vibration disrupted it all, and in the blink of an eye a scream tore out along with an enormous roar.
The students all clutched their ringing eardrums in pain and fled in panic from their seats to the back of the classroom. The sight of the students gathered at the back was pitiful indeed. Cornered, fragile things, they trembled with fear as the air at the center of the classroom warped, adding to the ominous feeling.
They discovered the anomaly and struggled to escape the classroom, but cruelly, the classroom door would not open. They tried desperately, wedging their fingers into the gap and pulling together, but it was no use. The door, unmoving and utterly immobile, drove the students further into despair and terror. Like rats in a trap, they huddled in the corner of the classroom, trembling. Their gazes turned toward the ominous center of the classroom.
There was something there they had never once seen. That strange warping of the air and the gap that had opened were like a sinister abyss of unfathomable depth. The students did not know what that existence was, and instinctively felt fear.
That ominous abyss of a hole that had suddenly appeared in an ordinary high school classroom on a lazy afternoon would later come to be called a “dungeon gate.”
The students came face to face with that very first “dungeon gate,” and were isolated, oppressed by the gate’s powerful force.
“Keuk! Keok!”
“Se, Seol-hyeon…!”
Out of the gate, an arm of a monster shot straight out, horrifyingly huge, stinking, and hard as armor, nothing human about it.
In the monster’s hand were students who, just moments before, had been sitting quietly in their classroom chairs. The monster gripped humans over 180 centimeters tall as lightly as toys and squeezed.
“Aaaaaaah!!!”
Along with the first scream of agony that had been heard, a shocking sound of bones being crushed burst out.
“Seol-hyeon…!!!!!”
Overwhelmed by terror, Eun-chan’s body would not obey him and creaked stiffly. He reached out toward Seol-hyeon however he could, but could not properly reach him. His poor eyesight, always bad, was the problem. When the gate erupted with a tremendous vibration and roar, the glasses Eun-chan had been wearing could not withstand the shock and shattered miserably, cracked through. With his blurred vision, and his eyes stained with fear and terror, he could not properly secure his sight. On top of that, his always poor eyesight was acting up.
Eun-chan groped desperately, feeling his way with his hands, searching for Seol-hyeon. Though he could barely see, his hearing alone clearly found Seol-hyeon. Seol-hyeon was letting out screams and groans of pain.
When the gate burst open, Seol-hyeon had pushed Eun-chan aside and been seized by the monster’s hand in his place. Eun-chan was straining with all his might to save such a Seol-hyeon.
Just wait a little! I’ll save you, Seol-hyeon!
Not far away, the monster’s hand touched Eun-chan’s fingertips. Eun-chan immediately grabbed hold of the monster’s skin with his nails digging in and pulled himself up. Then he threw himself at the monster’s hand, pounding it with his fists, trying however he could to save Seol-hyeon, but the monster did not stir in the slightest, did not budge.
“Let go of him, you monster bastard!”
He shouted, kicked, and barely managed to grab one finger and pull with all his strength, but it was no use. Fearlessly, he even bit the monster’s finger with his teeth, but the monster’s hand was hard as rock, and his teeth could not even sink in.
Instead, Eun-chan felt pain as if all his teeth would shatter. On top of that, a foul, fishy stench vibrated off the monster’s body. Eun-chan felt dizzy from the nauseating stink, and a sour, strongly acidic nausea rose up in him.
“Ugh! Se, Seol-hyeon…! Please…!”
“Haa… keuk…! St, stop… it…”
“No, no, don’t! Se, Seol-hyeon!”
“Seo… Eun… chan… Are you crazy? You… ugh! Keoheok!”
The monster, which had lain still no matter the attack, suddenly showed movement, tightening its grip. From the shock, Seol-hyeon began to cough up blood and let out a horrifying scream.
“Ugh, you, you at least… please…”
“Fuck! What are you saying! Ugh! Cha Seol-hyeon! Snap out of it!”
He screamed desperately. He even spat out curses he rarely used, trying somehow to hold on to Seol-hyeon’s fading consciousness.
But to Seol-hyeon, who had broken bones and coughed up blood, it reached only faintly. Eun-chan struggled alone, until he was a wreck, trying to save Seol-hyeon.
To Eun-chan, Seol-hyeon was a childhood friend he had grown up with, and like a spoon beside chopsticks, like a soup bowl placed beside a rice bowl, always stuck together, his one and only precious existence. Moreover, Eun-chan had secretly been in love with Seol-hyeon, whom he had spent so long beside, for quite a long time.
That Eun-chan came to like Seol-hyeon had happened in the most natural way.
The two spent a great deal of time together due to Seol-hyeon’s personal circumstances.
Those personal circumstances were that Seol-hyeon had no parents by his side. More precisely, they were alive, but lived as if they did not exist beside Seol-hyeon at all. Because of that, Seol-hyeon would often say, as if it were a habitual phrase, heartbreakingly, that he had no parents. As if he wanted to take comfort in the idea that it was better that way.
Eun-chan was the childhood friend who had watched such a Seol-hyeon since they were young. Eun-chan was the neighbor who lived next door to Seol-hyeon, and for the sole reason that they were the same age, they had rapidly become close and turned into inseparable childhood friends. But after Seol-hyeon’s parents decided to divorce, Seol-hyeon went through the hardest thing of all.
Staying by the side of Seol-hyeon, who had suddenly been thrown alone into the world, so that he would not feel lonely, Eun-chan spent time with him.
At the time Eun-chan was also only young, so sharing his toys and snacks and playing together was all Eun-chan could do. Because of that, Eun-chan’s parents took the lead in giving practical help.
Eun-chan’s parents cared for Seol-hyeon as if he were their own child. They tried to treat him fairly with Eun-chan, and Seol-hyeon readily came to follow Eun-chan’s parents with such affection and sincerity.
But reality was cruel, and the empty place left by his parents always shadowed Seol-hyeon, and each time, Seol-hyeon showed defensive behavior, seeking out dark places or trying to be alone.
Each time, as if playing hide-and-seek, Eun-chan would go find Seol-hyeon, take both his hands firmly, and bring him back to a warm place.
Eun-chan was always a sturdy support beside Seol-hyeon, who would have been emotionally unstable, and shared the small routines of daily life with him. Eating meals together, playing ordinary games, he stayed by his side so that he could live as much as possible without shadows.
Though Seol-hyeon did not properly have parents, through Eun-chan he recovered the everyday parts of life, and fortunately grew up stably and uneventfully, without any great trouble.
And so the two became high school students, and Eun-chan began to be gradually conscious of Seol-hyeon, who had shot up compared to when they were young. Eun-chan had a habit of looking after Seol-hyeon somewhat unconsciously, like a younger sibling. But from high school entrance onward, Eun-chan felt strange about Seol-hyeon, who had grown so much.
Their heights, once similar, now differed by more than a head, and compared to Eun-chan, whose growth had become slight after middle school, Seol-hyeon kept growing, and his build was far better than Eun-chan’s.
There was one occasion in particular when he felt this keenly. One day, Seol-hyeon, as he always naturally did, hugged Eun-chan from behind. For Seol-hyeon it was nothing more than an everyday action, but for Eun-chan it came as something entirely different, not everyday at all.
The moment he was pulled into Seol-hyeon’s solid, broad embrace, he keenly felt the changed build and tasted a strange feeling from that body.
At first he felt it was only a sense of betrayal and regret toward Seol-hyeon, who had grown so much more, but as he became conscious of him and began to feel uncomfortable with the grown Seol-hyeon’s physical affection, Eun-chan came to harbor a confused heart.
Why does Seol-hyeon feel different from usual…? Why…?
As Eun-chan began to be conscious of things about Seol-hyeon, the time they had always naturally spent stuck together gradually became something uncomfortable for Eun-chan, something he wanted to avoid.
From some point on, Eun-chan felt a strangely troubled heart at Seol-hyeon’s physical affection, which they had naturally shared.
Eun-chan hid this heart from Seol-hyeon. But the more he hid it, the more his heart developed into something more stifling and painful.
Because of that, Eun-chan for a while could not properly face Seol-hyeon. Without realizing it, he showed behavior like keeping his distance from Seol-hyeon or shunning his physical affection, and at times made Seol-hyeon feel hurt.
Eun-chan, who had provided the cause of it, also did not feel good about it. And he was trying hard to resolve it and get better. But no more time came for that effort.
Before his eyes, a horrifying thing he had never once experienced was happening.
Why, of all moments… does this come to mind now?
Could this be the regret faced before death, a life flashing before his eyes?
Eun-chan broke out in goosebumps all over. It was as if he smelled a thick scent of death. He could not accept this horrifying reality as it was.
“Cha Seol-hyeon! Don’t lose consciousness! Look at me as you are! Look at me, please…! Cha Seol-hyeon! Can you hear me?!”
He desperately clung to Seol-hyeon, whose consciousness was slipping away. Eun-chan clung to the monster’s hand to save Seol-hyeon. To rescue Seol-hyeon however he could, he desperately struck the monster’s hand, tried to bite it off, and strained with every method to save him.
“Let go, you monster bastard!”
He shouted, struck down with his fists, and brought his teeth to it several times trying to bite it off, but he could not pierce the monster’s armor-like skin at all. His teeth did not even sink in, and at the foul stench, sour and disgusting nausea rose up several times.
It was something horrifying that an ordinary person would have difficulty even approaching. But Eun-chan, with the single thought of saving Seol-hyeon, did not falter and threw himself at it fiercely.
Leave a Reply