By Zephyria 
“Hyung! Si-baek hyung! Get out of there!”
But no matter how hard he ran, the distance would not close, and Kim Si-baek’s body, being slowly eroded inside the eyelids, remained motionless. He was dying, right before his eyes. Because of me. Because of me again.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Tae-un let out a convulsive, single scream as he surged his power. Shadows spread from his fingertips, where blood dripped, and a new darkness was laid over the gloom surrounding them. The extending shadow struck the closed eyelid.
Kwoooong! Thump! As the blow hit the eyelid, the space itself twisted as if screaming, creating a humming sonic boom. Simultaneously, a surge of bright red blood erupted from Tae-un’s mouth.
“Keugh!”
It was partly because he had forced his body to move while suffering wounds that would have been instantly fatal in reality. However, Tae-un instinctively knew that wasn’t the only reason. This space constructed by chaos within the Id Portal—which had once been his own world of mental imagery—was connected to Tae-un’s mental landscape. It was only natural that the aftermath of the attack would recoil upon him.
But what did that matter? Kim Si-baek was fading away right before his eyes, in a place he couldn’t reach; that was no reason to stop.
The more he attacked the eyelid, the deeper the blood became, and his limbs trembled with such violent convulsions that it was strange he hadn’t collapsed. Nevertheless, the eyelid remained firmly shut, and hatred continuously seeped through the cracks of a reason splintered by extreme pain.
「Do you think you will be safe if this place is destroyed?」
“What the hell does that matter!”
「His death is not a complete end. He shall unite with us and become another version of us.」
“…….”
Tae-un clenched his fists in silence. Since the defeated divinity and the monsters repelled by humans had mixed and achieved unity within chaos, they were one and simultaneously everything. Kim Si-baek would also melt away to become chaos, and Tae-un, as a follower, would eventually return to chaos as well.
「Did you not originally wish to die with him?」
Thus, chaos whispered. If you stay quiet as you are, you will become one with Kim Si-baek forever. Is this not a result far beyond your wish to simply die together?
The whispering voice flowed in sweetly. Since you intended to die anyway, if you let him die, you won’t be left alone; by belonging as a part of a god, this too is eternal life.
It was true that it was eternal life, for he would remain a part of the god until the god called chaos vanished at the end of the universe. It was also true that he would become one, melting away like the remnants that had been unified into chaos until now. If becoming one meant erasing the ego, reason, life, and everything that defines a human.
Tae-un grit his teeth. Blood dripped from his clenched fists. The deep hatred shimmering from all sides swallowed the droplets of blood.
“……If hyung becomes something that isn’t hyung, what meaning is there in any of that!”
His fist slammed violently into the ground. The shadow, extending mixed with blood, soared sharply and attacked the closed eyelid. Space shook and darkness wavered. Bones crushed and flesh flew. He unleashed his power, heedless of the fact that his internal organs were completely concussed and red blood was gushing out.
His vision, stained red by burst capillaries, was already failing to function, but his attack hit the mark precisely. The surging hatred tightened as if to contaminate his mind, and the cells of his entire body were being destroyed. Even as fragments of the human once named Tae-un scattered, he did not stop his attack.
Isn’t it much better since you wanted to die together? The voice of chaos stirred through his brain as if mocking him amidst an attack that was no different from crushing and breaking himself. Yes, as those words said, he had wanted to die with him. Because he was terrified and afraid of living through dying, dying, and dying again, he had wished for a single death. He had wished to share that sole death with him.
To keep him in his sight, to hear his story, to share his time, and to be with him until the very last breath stopped—he had wished to die like that. The death he desired was the one at the end of a life.
At the end of a life shared with Kim Si-baek.
The flip side of the longing to die together was the craving to live together. It was Tae-un’s true wish, which he had been late to realize because he had been too eroded by death to properly perceive life.
He wanted to live with him.
The moment a scream of the soul—not a language that could be spat out because the organs to produce vocal sounds no longer existed—reached the target, the firmly closed eyelid split open.
The profound voice of chaos resonated.
「Child, you have finally overcome it.」
The small child who had ultimately failed to overcome his fate of death and had succumbed, had now, because of a single existence, finally surpassed death by his own will.
Since the will of a human who does not yield and moves forward was an offering as sweet as a shining future, the god willingly granted the apostle’s wish.
✽ ✽ ✽
The moment he closed and opened his eyes, Kim Si-baek was standing in a dim alleyway. It wasn’t the Id Portal, and it certainly wasn’t the ruined Seoul.
‘Wasn’t I swallowed by something like an eyelid?’
Confused by the sudden change in environment, he scanned his surroundings.
The abrupt transformation of the scenery reminded him of when he had vicariously experienced Tae-un’s past, but the situation was different. Unlike then, when he was a third party unable to intervene, he felt a strange sense of vividness. The humid temperature and the sticky air characteristic of an old alleyway. ……A sense of déjà vu hit him.
As his eyes adjusted to the faint light from a broken streetlight, the surroundings came into clearer view. A place he could never forget, even if he tried, unfolded around him. Old flyers with frayed edges fluttered in the night breeze, rustling beneath his feet.
It was the very neighborhood where he first met Tae-un. Not only the space, but even the time was similar to the decades-old memory.
Even so, Tae-un did not immediately appear before him, and as Kim Si-baek looked around, unable to understand the situation, his eyes widened. Beyond the quiet alleyway, black smoke was turbidly disturbing the air. It was the house with the semi-basement room where Tae-un had been trapped.
The moment he confirmed there was a fire, his cluttered thoughts vanished instantly. Kim Si-baek’s feet were already racing forward, ahead of his thoughts.
His entire body felt scorching, and his airways were stifled. The child, who struggled to lift swollen eyelids, coughed repeatedly. There was a pungent smell in the air. The child instinctively realized there was a fire.
He had to run. But where?
Dazed eyes that couldn’t focus wandered through the air. The door was locked from the outside, and the window was too high. Even so, as the child struggled to stand up and escape somehow, his body collapsed. He sobbed at the pain rising from an arm that he didn’t know if it was broken or just cracked. If he cried out loud, he would be beaten more.
The child crawled with difficulty and curled up in a corner. His bruised body hurt everywhere, and he couldn’t even breathe properly because of the fire, yet he felt strangely sleepy. Would he die if he fell asleep like this? The child lowered his head, sobbing. If he died, would he be able to meet his mom and dad who had left first……
How long had he been in that hazy state, neither fully asleep nor unconscious? When he suddenly felt a refreshing energy warmly caressing his body, the child found himself in the alley outside the house, held in the arms of a strange man.
Not only that, but the pain that had been so severe he would cry even while staying still had vanished, as if someone had snapped their fingers and healed him.
The child looked down at his own hand blankly and asked.
“Who are you, mister?”
“Mister……”
The man murmured, repeating the child’s words with a slightly surprised expression, and then he smiled.
“I suppose so. To the current you, I am a mister.”
The child felt a strange sensation. Since the night his mom and dad died, he had screamed, pleaded, and cried, but this person was the first to save him. The man’s touch as he wiped the soot from the child’s face was gentle. Like his mother’s hand, which he could never touch again.
His heart felt strangely ticklish. The child, who had forgotten what it felt like to feel emotions like joy or happiness, could not even guess what this thing coloring his insides red was.
Stroking the child, who blinked cautiously as if gauging the man’s reaction, the man whispered.
“Un-ah.”
Upon hearing that name, the child’s face turned pale.