"Hah… Hah… Hah…"
Gyeong came to a stop after covering some distance, panting heavily as he tried to catch his breath.
"Did I… hah… lose it…?"
He turned back.
There didn't seem to be anything behind him.
Of course, the shadow had noticed him running like a desperate fool and had called out in an attempt to stop him, but he had ignored it and pushed himself to put as much distance as possible.
Perhaps his actions had been reckless.
He had no idea what kind of powers the strange entity possessed, and running away might have angered it. Yet he felt that staying any longer would have led to something unpleasant, something he couldn't bear to imagine.
Equally so, there was nothing he could do now. He had already run.
"Hah…"
Catching his breath, Gyeong turned his gaze toward the direction he had fled from, analyzing his situation.
"It doesn't seem to have followed me. I can't see its figure… I must have gotten really far. Could it be planning something? Ugh… it's useless to think about it. I should focus on finding an exit. Or… is there even an exit in this damn place?"
He ruffled his hair and glanced around. There was absolutely nothing in sight except the endless white.
It was a little depressing.
But he knew he had to hold on to hope. Who knows? Maybe he would find a way out.
Forcing a smile, he straightened his posture while also gathering his strength as he began to walk.
Straight ahead.
At first, he counted his steps. One hundred. Two hundred. Five hundred. Eventually, he stopped.
The numbers lost meaning when nothing around him changed.
Time passed. Or at least, it felt like it did.
Minutes turned into hours. Hours blurred together, indistinguishable in a place where there was no sun, no shadows, no shift in light to mark the passage of time. His legs ached, his breathing settled into a steady rhythm, and yet the scenery remained exactly the same.
White.
Endless.
Featureless.
By his own estimate, he had walked for several hours without rest. At an average pace, that meant kilometers. Five. Ten. Maybe more. His sense of distance was unreliable, but the fatigue in his muscles was not.
Still, nothing appeared.
Not even a change in texture beneath his feet.
At some point, Gyeong stopped again.
Slowly, he turned in a full circle, scanning every direction. The white stretched on uniformly, mocking his effort.
No matter where he looked, the view was identical.
"…This isn't normal."
His heart began to sink.
If there had been an exit, some kind of boundary, he should have reached it by now. Even an illusion would have slipped, even a false world would have shown a seam.
But there was nothing.
He had walked far enough that any enclosed space should have ended long ago. Far enough that his body was beginning to protest. Far enough that hope itself was starting to feel irrational.
A quiet, chilling realization settled in his chest.
There was no exit.
No matter how far he walked, this place did not end.
Gyeong clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. He tried to breathe, to deny the thought forming in his mind, but it refused to go away.
Accompanying that was a profound sense of inevitability.
An inescapable truth.
"…I'm trapped."
Only the uncanny silence answered him.
Gyeong opened his mouth several times, as if about to speak, to curse, or perhaps scream, but each time he closed it again.
What would be the point?
He sank to his knees, the exhaustion from hours of walking weighing down on him. His chest heaved, each breath sharp and shallow, as if the very air around him had grown heavier.
The white expanse stretched on endlessly, indifferent to his despair.
Pressing his palms to the ground, he expressionlessly stared at the featureless surface as though it might offer some clue, but there was nothing.
Nothing at all.
He hugged his knees to his chest, head bowed.
Am I… really alone?
The thought gnawed at him, and yet, as hopeless as it felt, there was a strange clarity in it. He was completely, utterly trapped. The stark reality settled like a stone in his stomach:
No matter how far he walked or distance he covered, no matter how fast or slow, the space stretched on indefinitely.
And with that realization came another, more insidious one.
If he couldn't leave, then he was left with only the entity — the strange, eldritch darkness that had observed him, spoken to him, and perhaps… was waiting for him to reach this conclusion and realize his efforts to escape had been meaningless at face value.
Did it know? That was probably why it had been calling out to him earlier.
He would have laughed if not his conflicting emotions.
'What am I supposed to do now?'
Since escape was impossible, only one option remained. Continuing onward would be pointless.
'I hope it isn't too upset. If it is… then I'm finished.'
Perhaps death was the only way to leave this hell.
Having reached that conclusion, Gyeong released a resigned sigh and turned back, retracing his steps toward the peculiar shadow.
It took him about an hour — or perhaps more, he had lost all sense of time — of trudging through the featureless white expanse to return to the place where he had first seen the shadow.
When he arrived, the humanoid shadow was crouched in the same position as though waiting for him. Lifting its head and turning back to glance him, the entity seemed to acknowledge his presence but remained there.
Gyeong could only manage a wry smile.
"…I'm back."
There was no immediate response. The shadow simply stared at him for a moment before shifting its gaze forward, as if deliberately ignoring his presence.
Ah. It's more sensitive than I imagined. And here I thought I was about to be attacked.
An undeniable lapse in judgment.
How was he supposed to handle this situation?
Or more accurately… why should he even try?
Utterly exhausted and sinking further into despair, Gyeong slowly approached the shadow.
He hesitated for a moment, then lowered himself to sit beside it.
The shadow shifted its head slightly, finally acknowledging him. Despite its featureless face, Corvin could swear he felt a glance that said, Oh, so now you want to come close to me?
Gathering the last of his strength, he murmured:
"I'm sorry."
The shadow responded in kind.
[What?]
"…I said I'm sorry for running away. It wasn't fair to someone else, and I apologize for my actions."
[…]
The entity remained silent, as if weighing its words carefully. After a few seconds, it shifted its gaze back to the endless white and murmured three simple words:
[I forgive you.]
"I thought I was going to be hated."
[I can't hate you. For that matter, I can't really feel anything. Everything is fleeting,]
The humanoid darkness cupped its shadowy cheeks with its featureless hands. Its tone carried a weight of loneliness, even deeper than Corvin's own despair.
No… it was more pronounced than anything he had felt.
Gyeong flinched at the thought, feeling even worse for having run away.
"It must be really lonely."
[It is. That's why I was excited to see another person. Imagine my disappointment when you ran away without any explanation.]
"Oi! I apologized for that, didn't I?"
[But it still hurts, you know. Wouldn't you feel pain if someone slapped you!?]
"This and that are two different things! Damnit, I didn't think you were the type to hold grudges! What are you, a heartbroken high-school girl in a soap opera!?"
[How rude! Of all things to compare me to… You don't look all shine and rainbows yourself! You look like someone who died without even touching a girl's hand!!]
"What did you just say!?"
Immediately, Gyeong stood up, his eyes bloodshot.
There were a lot of things that could be forgiven or ignored, but when it came to his virginity, that was where he drew the line.
Indestructible virgin.
It was said that if one died at the age of thirty without losing his virginity, there was a possibility of becoming a Great Sage.
Not that he had such an unrealistic dream.
However, it was certainly true that his experience with girls and women in general had been… lacking.
In fact, his luck with the opposite gender was so bad that he couldn't even get a single match on a lowly rent-a-girlfriend app. And he was at the ripeful age of twenty-nine as well!
His body trembled as he desperately tried to suppress an incomprehensible rage.
Just then…
'Huh? Wait a minute.'
Gyeong noticed something and forgot why he had been angry in the first place.
The shadow's words were too strange to overlook.
You look like someone who died without even touching a girl's hand!!
Taken in isolation, it was bizarre but not extraordinary. But when combined with everything else like the humanoid entity, the infinite white space, the endless nothingness, the remark took on a new weight.
Could it be…?
"…!"
Gyeong trembled as a realization began to form.
He slowly parted his lips and addressed the shadow.
"Hey."
[Hm? What?]
"Please… where exactly is this place?"
Tilting its head in confusion, the shadow looked at him as though trying to understand the question.
[Where this is?]
It brought a hand to its chin, falling into thought.
[I wonder about that. But you may call this place an isolated space along the River of Destiny, which flows between the Up Above and the World Below. In simpler terms… you could think of it as a Death Canopy.]
"A death canopy? I don't understand. Hey, using something that ominous is bound to cause misunderstandings."
[Misunderstandings?]
After a brief pause, it continued.
[Oh… I see. So you don't know. Hmm. This truly is a peculiar situation.]
"Then stop speaking in riddles and explain it properly. Where exactly am I? What is this place? Fuck, fuck, fuck, where the hell am I?"
Gyeong's voice rose with each question, his composure fraying.
In truth, he had already reached a conclusion. He simply couldn't accept it. Refusing to acknowledge it, he clung to denial as if it were his last lifeline.
But it was pointless.
The shadow looked at him. Though its face was featureless, Corvin could feel the weight of its gaze; sadness, pity, and something akin to regret.
Even so, it did not hesitate to shatter the delusion he desperately tried to protect.
[I'm sorry. But this is a place only the dead may enter.]