Genesis Zero
The Bible clutched in my hand rustled open with a shraaaap. Not flipping to the apocrypha. No, it was surging forward, even further forward. Past the Luke-Matthew jumble-fry, the New Testament pages ignited in flames, and the Old Testament sheets crumpled like discarded trash. Heaven and earth creation. Tower of Babel. Sodom and Gomorrah. Battle of Jericho. Jesus' deeds. Final Judgment. Crumple. Crumple. Crumple. Crumple. Crumple. Crumple. Every page chronicling the Old Testament's key episodes had shriveled up when a single blank sheet remained between the book's thick cover and Genesis.
0-1: The moment the primordial being first harbored doubt, time began to flow from the 'beginning.'
0-2: The primordial being was space itself, and its act of thought was time.
0-3: Time and space were complete.
0-4: The primordial being began to think. Why was its surroundings not dark, silent, and cold?
0-5: 'Who am I?'
0-6: But no one answered the question. For the primordial being was alone, being the beginning itself.
0-7: Solitude made it impossible. No answer to 'Who am I?' could emerge.
0-8: There needed to be multiple beings existing in spacetime just like itself—embodied, capable of thought.
0-9: The primordial being gathered the stuff of the beginning. Just as it had always existed from the start, so too were the materials prepared from the outset. As if all of this had been 'designed.'
1-1: "Let there be light." Crack.
I snapped the Bible shut and watched the golden fortress—reeking of black flames and oozing blood—slowly dissolve beneath my feet. The archdukes of malice, Pandemonium's elite, hurled vicious auras my way, jabbing their savage claws to mark me. Their underlings bellowed triumphant roars. I flipped them the bird downward and spat,
"Come on up. Come up here and let's roam the Christmas dawn singing carols together. Attend New Year's commemorative service, pay your taxes. And come summer, join the Bible camp I run."
"Now that you've marked me, you're bound to me."
You'll have to charge to kill me, yap endlessly to curse me, cling like leeches to drag me to hell. Think you can resist? Think you can refuse me? I'm the irresistible honey, the overflowing wine—poured into this wineskin of a world. Come, crave what's inside.
Think you'll hunt me? Wrong.
With that, I stomped down hard. The mirror-like glass linking this world to hell shattered with a crash. A few sly demons who'd borrowed this space for a temporary manifestation in the human realm clicked their tongues in regret. I shook off the hissing steam rising from my toes, filling the air with acrid sulfur.
This 'mouth' of malice—untouched by human hands for decades—began losing its form the instant its esophagus snapped. And where does an esophagus lead? Straight to the stomach. Innocent human souls tumbling into evil's gut get limbs ripped off, bellies sliced open, innards yanked out. They crack skulls to slurp brains, devour gray matter like madmen. Pluck eyeballs to roll like candy before crunching them.
But souls aren't flesh. Even shredded to ribbons, as long as the 'self' endures within, the soul persists. Torn, torn again, until final annihilation.
Hell isn't some timeout for sinners, a mental room where Jesus the parent says, "Go face the wall and reflect!" It's just an abyss where souls suffer under wicked hordes until they vanish without a trace.
Why do demons tempt mortals, corrupt them, demand soul offerings? Why make the wicked sacrifice innocents as burnt offerings? Hellstarved for natural fodder.
Crack, pop. I rolled my neck to loosen knotted muscles, grabbed the village head's corpse, and scoured the hospital, recovering drained camera batteries. Like a lie, darkness fled; hazy dawn brightened to sunrise. Closer to the east than Seoul, Gyeongbuk let us glimpse the sun a tad sooner.
The moment I stepped out the hospital doors, the decrepit building collapsed in a roar. Every hill, tree, blade of grass tied by black threads to the hospital withered as I passed. Massive trunks rotted to deadwood, crashing down; stiff-leaved thickets sank into earth. The threads—taut like rubber bands—ping! Pop! Ziiing! snapped with shrill bursts.
It crumbled. The altar where countless souls were fed to evil's maw under "insane" pretenses crumbled. Mountains and flora fattened on expelled filth withered in seconds; even the altar's final foundation crumbled.
As the last stone powdered, agonized final shrieks from the depths echoed across the range.
"He who does not work, neither shall he eat. You can't live forever on manna falling from heaven or meals others serve. Like the thirsty digging their own well, the hungry must fetch their own grub."
I'll wait amid the banquets I've set across this world. Come to me. I'll make you repent, send you to Jesus' side. Crawl from the abyss to stand before the light. No more fate's plaything—you'll choose.
"Ah, mister?"
"Boss?"
Lee Ji-ah and Choi Yeon-jun crawled from their tent, stunned faces fixed on me.
"What're you waiting for? Time to pack up and head home."
"No, it's just..."
"Explain what the hell happened..."
I tossed the village head's body onto the pile of villagers' corpses. Folks who should've long departed this village, this world, this life. But snared in black threads, they'd endured past 80-90, hale and hearty, pumping endless foul energy—unlucky victims.
I snatched an oil drum from their haul—meant to kill and incinerate us, now repurposed to pray for their rest.
"The Lord said to Abraham, 'Take your son, offer him as a burnt sacrifice to me.'"
Lay your precious boy on the altar, burn him. Prove your faith.
What god demands a son's sacrifice to enforce belief? Didn't actually take the son, sure—but using another's precious child as a faith-extortion prop? Vile.
"Everything you crave is right here. Don't let demons snatch it—grab it quick."
I doused them in oil, chucked glowing embers from the campfire. Corpses blazed whoosh like perfect kindling. Most had mummified bone-dry despite mere hours.
"Your sins run deep."
You permitted innocents swallowed by evil's jaws. Ignored their gut-plunging screams, plugged your ears. Killed outsiders probing secrets, erased evidence to bury your shame forever.
Yet even you are sons and daughters to the One above, beloved beyond measure. Go. Cling to your Father. Plead innocence as mere pawns of evil.
Park Seol-ha and Lee Chan-young emerged trembling from the tent, standing silent behind me. Back turned to the occult club, I watched pristine white smoke rise heavenward.
"Believe ghosts exist now?"
The club members nodded mutely. Even skeptics without a shred of intuition would convert witnessing this. Heaven cracked; light more radiant than the sun poured down, tenderly embracing the soul-smoke—a spectacle of the supernatural.
"Alright, pack up. We're heading back."
They'd get just 500,000 won, but I turned from the reluctant scene. My phone had been buzzing like wildfire since dawn.