The apartment was quiet, too quiet. The kind of silence that wrapped around you like a suffocating blanket, where even your own breathing felt too loud. Young Yun Ha-jin sat in the corner of his room, knees pulled to his chest, staring at the window where the world outside seemed so distant, so unreachable. He was alone, as always.
The loneliness wasn't new to him. It had been there as long as he could remember a constant companion, gnawing at the edges of his existence. His parents were always busy, absent in ways that went beyond just not being there physically. The walls of their small apartment seemed to close in on him with every passing day, trapping him in an invisible cage of isolation.
At first, he had tried to fight it. He'd imagined friends, drawn pictures of the world he wanted to escape to. But none of it filled the void. Eventually, the emptiness grew too big, too consuming, until it began to change him. It was subtle at first—a coldness, a numb detachment from everything around him. The books he read, the stories he made up, they all became his refuge. But even those began to lose their color, turning into lifeless echoes in his mind.
It was during one of those long, empty afternoons that "it" appeared.
He hadn't summoned it, not consciously. But there it was, sitting across from him in the darkness of his room, a shadowy figure with no distinct form, just an oppressive presence that made the air heavy. The demon had no eyes, no features to speak of, yet Ha-jin could feel its gaze burning into him. It was watching, waiting.
"Who are you?" Ha-jin had asked, his voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly would make the creature more real.
The figure didn't respond in words. It didn't need to. Ha-jin could sense its intentions, the hunger it radiated. It wanted something from him, something dark and twisted.
As young Ha-jin stared into the demon's face, or what should have been its face, all he could see was blood and an endless abyss. It was almost as if this demon, with no eyes, was staring back at him, seeing into the darkest parts of his soul. There was a coldness there, a void that mirrored the emptiness he felt inside himself.
He should have been afraid. Any normal child would have been terrified, screaming for help, for someone to save them. But Ha-jin didn't scream. He didn't cry. Instead, he found something unsettling within himself a strange sense of recognition. The demon wasn't a monster. It was a part of him, a reflection of the dark corners of his mind he'd tried so hard to ignore.
"I'm not afraid of you," Ha-jin had whispered, more to himself than to the creature.
The demon shifted, almost as if it were smiling. It didn't need to speak, didn't need to explain itself. Its purpose was clear. It was there to protect Ha-jin, to fill the void that no one else ever could. But there was a price for that protection. The demon would feed on something deeperon the pain, the anger, the loneliness that had shaped Ha-jin's life.
And so, they made an unspoken pact. Whenever Ha-jin was pushed too far, whenever the world around him grew too unbearable, the demon would take over. It would become the shield, the weapon he needed to survive. But each time it surfaced, it left something behind a darkness, a stain on his soul that grew with every encounter.
The first time the demon took control was during a fight at school. Ha-jin had been cornered by a group of older boys, their taunts sharp and cruel, cutting deeper than any physical blow. He had felt the familiar stir of cold detachment, the part of him that wanted to disappear, to fade away. But instead of retreating, the demon surged forward.
He didn't remember much of what happened after that just flashes of blood, the sound of fists hitting flesh, and the sight of the boys lying on the ground, their faces twisted in fear. It wasn't until later that he realized what had happened, that the demon had taken control, using his body to lash out at the world that had hurt him.
From that day on, the demon became a permanent fixture in Ha-jin's life. It was always there, lurking just beneath the surface, waiting for the moment when it would be needed again. He didn't speak of it, didn't try to understand it. There was no point. The demon was part of him now, inseparable from the person he was becoming.
Years passed, and Ha-jin learned to live with the darkness inside him. It gave him strength when he needed it, kept the world at a distance. But every time he let it loose, a little more of his humanity slipped away. The demon wasn't just a coping mechanism it was a part of him that wanted to consume everything, to drag him down into that abyss he had seen all those years ago.
Even now, standing in the midst of the apocalypse, with blood on his hands and a world crumbling around him, Ha-jin could feel the demon's presence. It whispered in his mind, always waiting, always ready.
But no matter how much he used it, no matter how often he let the darkness in, he couldn't shake the feeling that one day, the demon would take over completely. And when that happened, Ha-jin wasn't sure if there would be anything left of him at all.
As he clenched his fists, staring at the chaos unfolding around him, the demon whispered again, softly, insidiously.
"You're not afraid of me… but you should be."