Eternal Nightmare
Before there was Mage Jinwoo, there was only a young man named Lee Jinwoo.
His life could be summed up in two words: ashen despair.
Abandoned by his parents at birth, he carried the label of orphan through his days. The military, which he'd believed to be his one escape, left him with an indelible scar on his waist and the parting gift of chronic disc disease.
After discharge, all that remained in his hands was a threadbare uniform and the stabbing low-back pain that pierced like an awl every time it rained.
His world was confined to the square window of his semi-basement room.
Beyond it lay only the ankles of passing strangers and the grimy concrete pooling with filthy rainwater.
The room itself mirrored his existence—stale with the reek of mold and heavy with hopeless air. He spent his days staring out that window at the world beyond. Polished shoes and sneakers hurrying by.
Each footfall carried purpose, a home to return to, someone to share a laugh with. Jinwoo had none of it.
"Fuck... Korea."
He swallowed bitter saliva, cursing the nation that had forsaken him.
A country that offered no familial shelter to an orphan, that crippled a young man who answered its call, that shackled his attempts to rise again with the chains of "no opportunities."
The news droned on endlessly about youth unemployment and social safety nets, but to him, it was all talk from another world.
The Korea he knew was a fortress of concrete, built solely for the strong and the wealthy.
And he? Just another rotting corpse in the moat beneath those impenetrable walls.
No one would hire an orphan with a broken body. Dozens of resumes vanished straight into trash bins without a glance. The rare interview chance brought only deeper despair.
The interviewers' faces flashed with blatant pity and contempt at his awkward gait.
"We're sorry, but... our work involves a lot of physical activity."
He knew the true meaning hidden behind that hypocritical line.
'We don't need defective goods like you.'
Every night, Jinwoo lay on his worn mattress, choking down his rage.
Rage.
At the anonymous parents who birthed and abandoned him.
At the military that used him like a disposable tool and tossed him aside.
And at this profoundly unfair world that denied him even a single chance—pure, venomous, unrelenting rage.
He ground his teeth.
"A chance... just one chance..."
He growled at the ceiling.
His eyes gleamed fiercely even in the darkness.
"If I'm given just one chance. A chance to overturn it all, to make this ashen world kneel at my feet.
I could do anything.
I'd sell my soul to the devil himself. Hell, I'd snap the bastard's neck and steal his power. So please... anyone, give me that chance."
His cry scattered into the dank air of the semi-basement, but it was no mere complaint.
It was the final roar of a cornered beast, a prayer of scorching longing blooming from the deepest darkness.
He was a discarded orphan, branded a dropout by cruel society, a prisoner trapped in his own broken flesh.
But his soul remained unbroken. Nourished by despair, it sharpened itself like a blade for that one inevitable chance.
He swore it every night, staking his rotting life: when it came, he would never let it slip away.
That night, like any other, Jinwoo dulled his back pain with painkillers and sought sleep. Before drifting off, he mindlessly scrolled his smartphone.
In the mold-scented darkness of his semi-basement, his sole indulgence—his cheapest pleasure—was adult videos.
In reality, even meeting a woman's eyes was daunting, but on the screen, he was a king dominating all.
His tastes ran niche. Vanilla porn no longer stirred him.
What filled his hollow cravings were videos of "perfect submission" and "absolute domination"—fetishes he could never claim in real life.
Obedient maids, college girls enduring humiliating punishment, mothers and daughters devoting everything to one man... Gazing at their submissive eyes and shame-flushed faces, he forgot his misery for a fleeting proxy thrill.
It was unquenched lust, but also his conquest drive over the world, twisted into carnal form.
After barely sating himself, he sank into post-nut haze and scrolled aimlessly again.
His other guilty pleasure: NewTube channels delving into bizarre mysteries and urban legends.
One thumbnail caught his eye—a blood-red sky, grotesque building shadows, and the clickbait title: You Could Be Invited Too - The Truth of the Eternal Nightmare.
"More of this crap..."
He sneered but hit play anyway.
The NewTuber, in his signature hype voice, explained the "transference phenomenon" sweeping the globe.
One day, your real body gets summoned to a nightmare realm, endlessly toyed with and slaughtered by horrific monsters—a reality masquerading as a dream.
Most dismissed it. Mainstream media chalked it up to modern stress-induced mass hysteria or vivid lucid dreams from content addicts.
To those untouched, others' hell was just juicy gossip. Jinwoo felt the same, brushing it off as spooky entertainment.
But the video's end lingered faintly: the few "survivors'" common testimony.
'They all say they touched something anomalous in the nightmare... out of place there. An old book, a glowing stone, a talking statue... And through it, they returned to reality. Like... an 'Easter egg' hidden in the nightmare.'
"Lame..." Jinwoo muttered, tossing his phone aside to sleep.
As his eyes closed, familiar despair washed over him. But something was off. Not his usual numb void.
A slaughterhouse stench assaulted his nose, sharp screams—not human—echoed distantly. A slimy chill slithered over his skin, his body sucked into a swampy pressure.
"Ngh...!"
When his eyes snapped open, no mattress lay beneath him—only a pulsating, mucus-slick floor like living giant flesh, throbbing as if to digest him.
The sky bled crimson sunset, twisted buildings stabbed skyward like colossal beast ribs. Sulfur and rotting corpse reeked the air, gagging him with every breath.
"Where... am I...?"
One phrase flashed through his panicked mind.
Eternal Nightmare.
The urban legend he'd mocked hours ago.
The horror spreading online, shrugged off as bad dreams or hysteria. Now Jinwoo stood at its heart, on the most gruesome stage.
This was no dream. The flesh-touch, the stench, the crushing terror—all too vivid, too real.
"Grrr... hiss... hiss..."
From a nearby alley, a wet rag-dragging sound emerged with something.
Humanoid, but joints bent backward grotesquely, crawling on all fours.
Its face: a honeycomb hole studded with dozens of eyeballs staring wildly every which way. Spotting Jinwoo, it shuddered in delight, drooling viscous fluid as it approached.
Terror-struck, Jinwoo stumbled back.
Then, like lightning, the NewTube video's end resurfaced.
'...Escape even once, and you're free forever... They all touched something anomalous...'
Hope.
A thread-thin lifeline, never grasped in his ashen life.
He'd contemplated suicide hundreds of times, but not like this—toyed with and eaten alive by this abomination.
The military taught him one thing: survival and fight.
'Find it. Something that doesn't belong. Book, stone, anything!'
Forgetting his back pain, he bolted madly.
The monster shrieked gleefully, pursuing.
Lungs burning, legs screaming, he couldn't stop.
He had to survive. And find it.
The one "Easter egg" to escape this hell.
Perhaps the very "chance" he'd craved his whole life.