Park Jin-ho's fingers flew across the keyboard, the blue light of his three monitors casting an ethereal glow across his pale face. The cramped studio apartment around him was dark except for those lights, takeout containers stacked precariously on every available surface. The clock on his computer showed 3:47 in the morning.
He rubbed his dark, tired eyes for the hundredth time. Despite the early hour, Jin-ho had only been awake for about two hours. His sleep schedule was perpetually chaotic—just last week, he'd woken at eleven in the afternoon only to stay awake until the same time the following day. His rhythm was completely inverted from the rest of society.
He hadn't spoken aloud in... how long had it been? Three days? Four? The delivery man had started leaving food outside his door without requiring a signature, an arrangement that suited Jin-ho perfectly. This deal had been established after Jin-ho had answered the door unshowered, wearing only underwear because he'd run out of clean clothes that week. It had been a particularly difficult month without running water. The day the water service resumed, it felt like discovering millions of won in his sink that morning—or night, as anyone else would call it.
Code scrolled across one screen while a fantasy MMORPG occupied another. He absently guided his character through a dungeon with one hand while debugging a mobile payment system with the other. Multi-tasking was second nature to him, his brain constantly processing multiple streams of information to avoid confronting the actual world around him. The same routine day after day.
A notification popped up on his third screen: Payment received - 3,450,000 won.
Another freelance job completed. His bank account was healthy enough to maintain his lifestyle for another few months. Not that his lifestyle required much: food delivery, internet bills, utilities, and rent for this shoebox he hadn't left in nearly three weeks. It's not that bad when you get used to it, at least that's what Jin-ho kept telling himself.
Jin-ho rolled his shoulders, wincing at the stiffness. At twenty-eight, he shouldn't feel this old, but the lack of movement and poor posture had taken their toll. His naturally thin frame had become almost fragile-looking over the years of self-imposed isolation. He rubbed his eyes once again, then swept his thick, long black hair out of his face. His final rubber band had given out when he'd taken his mess of hair down before sleep. The dreadful sound of it breaking had made Jin-ho's heart sink.
Jin-ho never knew why he kept his hair so long. When washed, brushed, and styled, it actually looked cool. The rest of the time—which was about ninety-nine percent of it—his hair remained a tangled mess. He'd been eyeing those scissors in his pencil cup more and more often lately. It was an ongoing battle. It had taken years for his hair to grow this long, but it was always disheveled, though it looked good when properly cared for. The internal debate continued endlessly. The worst was when it was wet and so very heavy. Jin-ho let out a long, heavy sigh.
His gaze drifted up from the pencil cup to the single photo on his desk. A faded image of a middle-aged couple standing in front of a small house. His parents. They'd died when he was seventeen—a car accident on a rainy night. The inheritance had been enough to finish high school, and after that, he'd forged the documents needed to convince employers he had the proper credentials. Not that it mattered; his skill spoke for itself. He'd taught himself programming, hacking, system architecture—everything he needed to secure remote work that required minimal human interaction. No people plus computers plus easy money equals perfection.
Jin-ho stood and shuffled to his mini-fridge, pulling out an energy drink. As he cracked it open, a strange sensation prickled at the back of his neck. He turned, scanning the dark corners of his apartment. The couch looked a bit funny, but nothing new there. Probably just the new clothes and boxes piled on it. Jin-ho couldn't even remember the actual color of his couch—red? No, orange? Maybe.
Something still felt... wrong. The air seemed to thicken, becoming difficult to breathe. Jin-ho grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it down, praying it wasn't another panic attack. He tried to put his drink down but dropped it. He went to pick it up but stopped as the sensation on his neck spread to his back and shoulders. The pain was getting worse. He looked toward his computers for his phone. His screens flickered, the game character freezing mid-action.
"System crash?" he muttered, his voice raspy from disuse.
System crash? Shut up, you're about to die or something. Jin-ho yelled at himself to get his butt in gear to grab his phone.
When Jin-ho tried to move toward it, he found his feet inexplicably fixed to the floor. No matter how he moved his legs, knees, hips, or his whole body, his feet wouldn't budge.
I'd be happy to improve the flow and readability of this passage. Here's the edited version:
The pain intensified—a fire spreading across his back to his ribs, chest, stomach. Then Jin-ho saw it. Four large black fingers slowly rose from the ground before him, with a fifth appendage—a thumb—emerging to his right. If I wasn't having a panic attack before, I certainly am now, he thought, convinced he was hallucinating.
The dark appendages stopped rising. Jin-ho realized with horror that he was standing in what appeared to be the palm of a massive jet-black hand with long, razor-sharp nails. As quickly as they had stopped, the fingers slammed closed around him. Pain surged through his entire body.
The blur of falling made his stomach lurch. It felt like blazing hot hand squeezed his entire body, pulling him downward. Only his head remained free from the crushing pressure.
Jin-ho almost wished his head was being squeezed too. It would spare him from witnessing this void that was somehow nothing and everything simultaneously. His head throbbed with excruciating pain—the worst headache he'd ever experienced multiplied a thousandfold. Every color imaginable and beyond swirled before him. Jin-ho's brain couldn't comprehend what he was seeing as he plummeted—or was pulled—through this impossible space. The journey felt both eternal and instantaneous.
Finally, Jin-ho had the misfortune of being slammed against a blackened stone floor. Blood sprayed outward from where his body landed, creating a grotesque halo around him. Jin-ho knew, with terrible certainty, that it was his blood.
The room around him was vast and ancient, the walls made of some dark material that absorbed light rather than reflected it. Strange symbols glowed with an inner blue fire across the floor and ceiling. The place seemed to go on forever.
Jin-ho tried to move, only to discover with horror that his left leg was simply... gone. Not wounded or injured—completely absent, as if it had never existed. Broken bones protruded from what remained of his left knee, and blood poured from his mouth with each labored breath.
"Fascinating," a voice said from somewhere above him. "You're still conscious. That's unexpected."
Jin-ho lifted his gaze with enormous effort. Before him stood... nothing. Or rather, a shape made of darkness deeper than the void he had fallen through, vaguely humanoid but constantly shifting, as if unable to decide on a form. The entity's hands were peculiar—black like the rest of it, but disconnected from its body, hovering like that character, Rayman, whose limbs don't exist, it's just hands.
"Can you understand me?" the voice asked, resonating not from the shape but seemingly from everywhere at once.
Jin-ho tried to respond, but only blood bubbled from his lips.
"I'll take that as a yes." The shape moved closer, circling him with what might have been curiosity. "The transition was rougher than I anticipated. Interdimensional summoning is not my specialty. The Goddess always had a better touch for it."
The shape sighed, the sound like distant thunder.
"I'm the Demon God, by the way. Creator of demonkind, co-creator of the world you're about to inhabit, and your new... employer, I suppose you could say."
Jin-ho blinked. Maybe this panic attack made me pass out, or I've had too many energy drinks and my sleep deprivation is causing hallucinations, he thought desperately, searching for any rational explanation.
"You're not hallucinating," the Demon God said, apparently reading his thoughts. "Though I can understand why you'd think so. This is all very real, Park Jin-ho."
The shape stopped circling and hovered directly in front of him.
"I had to call in quite a few favors to pluck you from your world. Well, 'favors' might be generous. More like 'minor concessions.' The God of Earth was surprisingly amenable to the trade. A side of premium beef for your soul."
The Demon God's form rippled in what might have been laughter. "You weren't exactly a high-value acquisition in the cosmic marketplace."
Jin-ho would have been offended if he weren't in so much pain. The blood pooling beneath him continued to spread.
"You're dying, of course," the Demon God noted casually. "That body, at least. But I didn't bring you here for your physical form. It's your consciousness I need."
With tremendous effort, Jin-ho managed to lift one bloody hand toward the dark shape. What the Demon God interpreted as a plea for help was actually Jin-ho's desperate wish to destroy this shadowy entity for dragging him away from his sanctuary of computers and solitude into this world of agony.
"Interesting," the Demon God murmured. "Most humans would be cowering or begging by now. You're... different."
The shape moved closer, and Jin-ho felt an icy coldness as something resembling a hand touched his forehead. He found himself confused by the contradiction—those massive hands that had felt like fire were now small and cold as ice.
"Your mind is exceptional—isolated, analytical, detached. And there's something else... a darkness in you. Not evil, but... emptiness. A void untouched by human connection. Perfect for my purposes."
Jin-ho's vision began to fade, darkness creeping in from the edges.
"Don't worry about the pain," the Demon God said, almost gently. "It's nearly over. Your human form was never going to survive the transition. But I have another body waiting for you. A vessel of great power."
The dark shape expanded, enveloping Jin-ho completely.
"My world is in crisis," the Demon God's voice continued, now seeming to come from inside Jin-ho's mind. "The Goddess who co-created it with me has abandoned her responsibilities out of spite. She summoned a hero from your world before departing—a perfect, shining champion tasked with destroying my children, my demons."
Jin-ho felt his consciousness begin to detach from his failing body, a strange floating sensation replacing the pain.
"Her summoning was perfect, of course. No blood, no pain, no messy transition. Always showing off." The Demon God's voice held ancient bitterness. "We were lovers once, creators together. Then she met another, a higher God, and turned her back on everything we built."
Images flashed through Jin-ho's fading awareness—two divine beings creating mountains and oceans, shaping creatures from darkness and light, their love manifest in the very fabric of reality. The emotion wasn't his own but the Demon God's—a bittersweet warmth of remembered joy.
"She couldn't leave our world entirely—we were both bound to it by creation laws. So she spent centuries turning the humans against my demons instead, twisting their minds to hate at puberty, giving them powers to hunt my children."
Jin-ho could barely process the information as his life ebbed away. The pain paradoxically grew both less distinct and more intense simultaneously.
"Now she's finally gained permission to leave, to create a new world with her new lover. But before departing, she summoned a champion to finish what she started. I couldn't allow that. I needed a champion of my own."
The darkness pressed closer, becoming Jin-ho's entire existence.
"So I chose you, Park Jin-ho. A human with no attachments, no great purpose, no meaningful connections. Your life was..." the Demon God seemed to search for a diplomatic word, "...expendable. But your mind has potential."
Jin-ho felt the last threads connecting him to his human body snap. The pain vanished instantly, replaced by a sensation of pure consciousness floating in void.
"Your arrival here—broken, bloody, yet still alert, still trying—confirmed my choice. There's a resilience in you I didn't expect from someone who lived such a small, contained existence."
Jin-ho tried to speak with a mouth that no longer existed. What do you want from me?
"I want you to become my Demon King," the Demon God answered the unspoken question. "To lead my children, to protect them from the humans who would destroy them. Without the Goddess to regulate human development, they'll devolve into something worse than demons ever were. They must be eliminated before that happens."
Why me? Jin-ho's consciousness pulsed with the question. Why not a demon?
"Because I need someone who understands humans, who can think like them. And paradoxically, someone who has lived apart from them, who can see them objectively... and I think it will be deliciously ironic that a human will kill the humans that bitch 'loves.'"
Jin-ho felt himself being pulled through space, rushing toward some unknown destination.
"The body I've prepared for you has been preserved for five centuries. The previous Demon King, murdered by his human queen at the beginning of this conflict. His body holds great power, and fragments of his memories remain. They will help you navigate your new existence."
I don't want this, Jin-ho protested weakly.
"Want?" The Demon God's amusement was palpable. "When were your wants ever considered in your previous life? Did you want to be orphaned? To live alone in a box, your only worth measured in lines of code? At least now you'll have purpose. Power. A role of consequence."
Jin-ho couldn't argue with that assessment of his former life.
"Besides," the Demon God added, "the alternative is oblivion. Your human body is dead. This is the only continuation available to you."
The darkness around Jin-ho began to thin. He could sense another destination approaching.
"I should warn you," the Demon God said, almost as an afterthought, "the transition into the new body will be... unpleasant. But the pain will be temporary. The power will be eternal."
Jin-ho felt himself accelerating, rushing toward something solid and real.
"Oh, and one more thing," the Demon God's voice began to fade, "I'll be with you. In your mind. Guiding you. We're going to be very close, you and I."
The last thing Jin-ho remembered was a final, searing pain as his disembodied consciousness slammed into something solid and cold. Then darkness once more.
Until he opened his eyes to a stone ceiling, illuminated by flickering torchlight.