Prologue: Day 1: Close Your Eyes When It Gets Dark

“Say, pal, you don’t look so good. You’d better find something to eat before night comes!” —The entire tutorial of some game.

The Ghost couldn’t remember how many days it had been stranded on this Deserted Island.

Ever since it died here, every day had been dull and monotonous, like a pale, blank canvas.

Gradually, keeping track of the passage of time had become meaningless.

Most of the time, the world the Ghost could perceive was unnaturally narrow and monotonous.

It had no body and couldn’t interact with physical objects.

It couldn’t even move more than a few feet.

Apparently, the Ghost existed by clinging to a source, which restricted it and prevented it from wandering too far away.

That source was a Diary.

Its cover resembled ancient tree bark, with golden patterns resembling branches spreading across its surface.

The Diary lay where the woods met the beach.

Under the Ghost’s watch, it had endured countless storms and days under the scorching sun, yet its appearance remained unchanged from the beginning.

The Ghost thought it might once have belonged to it, but it couldn’t quite remember.

There was a lot it couldn’t remember.

It had forgotten who it was, where it came from, and even its own name.

In fact, the Ghost wasn’t even sure whether “Ghost” was the right name for what it had become.

From the few memories it had left, it vaguely recalled that when certain beings with powerful souls died, fragments of their scattered souls would cling to objects they had treasured during their lives.

Such beings were called Lingering Thought Remnants…

But the name was too complicated.

The Ghost worried that it might forget the term one day, so it preferred to call itself a “Ghost.”

Sometimes, the Ghost imagined how wonderful it would be if it could interact with and touch physical objects.

Then it could flip through the Diary and perhaps recover some of its lost memories…

‘But what would that change?’

Whenever it asked itself this question, the Ghost would become confused.

Its incomplete mind wasn’t capable of exploring such a complicated matter.

Of course, having an incomplete mind also had its advantages.

At least it allowed the Ghost to remain aimlessly in this little patch of land, passing one day after another without suffering.

Even when loneliness crept in, its mind remained intact.

Even so, the Ghost needed various ways to pass the time.

Its favorite pastime was watching the sun move across the sky.

Although it couldn’t move its point of view very far, its perception wasn’t as limited.

Therefore, whenever the first rays of dawn illuminated the sky, it would begin searching for the sun and watch as it slowly moved across the heavens.

It liked keeping the sun within its field of vision.

It made the Ghost feel safe.

It would continue watching until dusk, when the sun gradually sank below the horizon, heralding the arrival of night.

Whenever the Ghost realized that night was approaching, loneliness and fear would slowly creep into its heart.

The Ghost didn’t like the dark.

Because it had died when darkness fell.

The Ghost had forgotten many things, but it still remembered how it had died.

It remembered the final instant of dusk.

The moment the sun disappeared completely, all the light vanished without warning, as though the entire world had suddenly switched off its lights.

Nothing remained for it to see or sense except the deep, suffocating Darkness.

Then came the loneliness.

It was an unbearable silence, like its eardrums had suddenly burst.

During that instant in the depths of Darkness, the only sounds it could perceive were its own breathing and heartbeat.

But in the next second, even those final sounds were completely taken away, leaving nothing in the world but silence.

Finally, its perception itself disappeared, as though its physical form had been stripped away.

Every sensation and experience associated with it vanished.

The dimensions of space lost all meaning.

The Darkness was so cramped that breathing seemed impossible, yet so empty that it became unbearable.

Direction lost its meaning, too.

One moment, it was falling downward; the next, it was floating upward.

With nothing left to serve as a reference, time became meaningless.

Every second felt like an eternity, and every eternity felt like a second.

In the end, perhaps all that remained was the tiny fragment of itself that could still be called ‘consciousness,’ sending painful echoes through the endless Darkness as it slowly faded away.

That was why the Ghost was always deeply afraid of night.

Whenever it watched the sun gradually sink, its fear would turn into anxiety, then into a blind, chaotic, indescribable frenzy that slowly devoured its thoughts and will.

At times like these, the Ghost would always pretend to close its eyes, even though it had neither physical nor biological eyes.

It still remembered how it used to get through the night, back when it wasn’t a Ghost.

It would close its eyes, then open them again, and the night would be over.

Therefore, whenever night arrived and the frenzy completely overwhelmed its mind, the Ghost would “close” its eyes.

As night and Darkness descended, it pretended that it had genuinely shut them.

Then, amid the deep, silent Darkness, the Ghost would gradually stop thinking.

It would lose consciousness as though it had fallen asleep, and when it “opened” its eyes again, morning would have arrived.

That was how the Ghost had endured countless grueling nights.

Today would be no different, and neither would the foreseeable future.

It would continue repeating the same cycle of opening and closing its eyes.

Watching the sun slowly sink, the Ghost thought wearily.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the Deserted Island…

“Surviving in the wilderness is a piece of cake!”

The young man looked at the makeshift shelter he had built and nodded in satisfaction.

Although an accident had brought him to this godforsaken place, the young man named Wen Zhi had quickly adjusted his attitude, thrown himself into a desperate struggle for survival, and managed to build a shelter before nightfall…

Wen Zhi stretched his aching back and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt.

Then, narrowing his eyes, he looked up at the sky and estimated how much time remained before complete darkness descended.

‘There should still be some time…’

He estimated how much longer he could continue working based on common sense.

After a quick calculation, he decisively picked up the tinder he had left out to dry and headed toward the fire pit he had prepared earlier.

Since he had nothing else to do, he might as well give it a try!

Wen Zhi thought eagerly, ready to show off his skills.

But just then, his body suddenly stiffened.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted someone standing in a corner of his vision.

Someone he desperately wished he hadn’t seen.

‘His Mother.’

His Mother looked exactly as she had when she held him and set herself on fire when he was eight years old.

She wore the clothes she had loved most during her life.

Her exposed skin was either charred black or severely decayed.

His Mother never approached him.

She merely stood silently in some corner of his vision, glaring at him with a spiteful, venomous expression.

Ever since Wen Zhi had survived the fire at the age of eight, he had occasionally seen visions of the dead.

He didn’t know whether they were merely hallucinations or whether restless spirits had genuinely attached themselves to him.

These visions never had any direct physical effect on Wen Zhi.

However, whenever they appeared, they always seemed to foreshadow some kind of misfortune.

His Mother usually appeared only when something terrible was about to happen to him.

The instant Wen Zhi saw his Mother, he tensed up and braced himself for the impending danger.

But one second passed, then ten…

Even after ten minutes, nothing had happened.

Just as Wen Zhi began to think he could finally let his guard down for a moment, he suddenly saw his Mother’s mouth stretch so wide that it seemed about to split her face in two.

Her gums were exposed where her lips had been burned away, forming an incredibly hideous smile.

Mockery and resentment poured from that smile, barely concealed.

A sense of foreboding began to grow in Wen Zhi’s heart.

The next second, just as that feeling took hold, something changed—

Darkness descended without warning.

“?”

Before Wen Zhi could react, the Darkness surged toward him like a living creature, tearing him apart and swallowing him whole.

“Fuc—”

Those were his final words before he lost consciousness.

Even that fragment of speech was swallowed by the Darkness, becoming part of its silence.

For some reason, the Ghost felt that today had been unusually long.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The slower time passed, the later night would arrive.

At the same time, although it wasn’t sure whether it was merely imagining things, the Ghost felt that its mind had become a little clearer.

‘What does this change mean?’

The Ghost didn’t know.

For now, it still couldn’t comprehend such a complicated question, just as it couldn’t understand why it continued to resist completely embracing nothingness, even after death.

Perhaps it was waiting for something.

Given enough time, something different would eventually happen.

As long as it continued to exist, there would always be a chance for things to change.

Soon, the sun began sinking toward the horizon again.

No matter how slowly time passed, night would eventually arrive, regardless of what the Ghost wanted.

As usual, the Ghost watched the sun gradually sink in the west.

This time, however, although it was still afraid of night, its thoughts remained clear and weren’t overwhelmed by frenzy.

‘Is that a good thing?’

If it was, the Ghost sincerely hoped that some kind of change would occur.

It was growing tired of repeating the same days and nights over and over again…

At last, one second before the Darkness arrived, the Ghost habitually “closed” its eyes.

Perhaps a second passed.

Perhaps a very long time passed.

When the Ghost finally chose to “open” its eyes again, something unprecedented happened, as though some being had genuinely heard its prayer.

A writhing mass of Darkness squirmed in front of the Ghost.

Like something vomiting, it expelled a clump of human-shaped, fibrous matter that resembled chewed-up gum…

“?”

The Ghost was bewildered.

It had absolutely no idea what was happening.

But before it could react, the clump of fibrous matter began rearranging itself…

And then, a naked man sat in front of the Ghost.

“?!!”

This time, the Ghost completely crashed.