Chapter Text
Kim Soleum stood by the window of the quiet room the cult had given him, staring out at a world painted in twilight. The cult's sanctuary was nestled deep in a fog-covered mountain range. No cell towers. No cities in sight. No familiar roads leading anywhere he could recognize. Just clouds. Just silence.
Just not home.
He hugged his arms around herself, though the air wasn’t cold.
“I just wanted to go back home.”
That was all he ever wanted. That was the reason he had worked so hard, endured so much. Every ghost, every darkness, every dangerous assignment at Daydream Inc, he had taken them on without complaint. All for that one thing.
The wish potion.
A corporate myth to most. But to employees high enough in the chain, it was real. One wish. No restrictions. Whatever you truly desire will be granted. So Kim Soleum made his wish.
To return to where he was the day before he joined Daydream Inc. To go home.
But the potion didn’t take him home. Instead, it pulled something out of him; something that had been hidden for a long, long time. A truth.
He wasn’t human.
He didn’t know what he was exactly. Just that his body changed. Warped. Couldn’t hold its shape anymore. He felt his skin melt, his voice echo in ways no human voice should. His memories frayed at the edges like old photographs in water.
How was someone supposed to feel when they found out their entire life had been a lie?
He wanted to cry but he was numb. Empty. Then the collapse began. His body, his existence, started breaking down like he was being erased. No one could help. No one tried.
Except Director Cheong.
He remembered the woman’s red eyes and calm voice, the contract she offered.
“Sign this, and I’ll stabilize you. You won’t go home. But you won’t die either.”
Kim Soleum had signed it with trembling hands. From that moment, he was bound to Daydream Inc. No longer human. No longer his own. He couldn’t look human anymore. Not even if he wanted to.
Until the day the cult came. Until the day they tore the contract apart.
His body didn’t collapse again, surprisingly. Maybe the ritual they used had replaced the contract’s magic. Maybe his existence had become too tangled with stories and myth to unravel. Maybe the cult was telling the truth. He didn’t want to think about that.
‘I don’t care if I’m a god. I don’t want worship. I just want to go home.’
But the word “home” had started to feel distant now. What even was home, when you weren’t sure what you were?
The mundane office work that he used to work. And reading the Darkness Exploration Record after a long tiring day without having to worry about his life.
Was that kind of life still possible?
Behind him, he heard the faint hum of the cult members moving quietly through the hallways. Ever vigilant. Ever reverent. He sighed and leaned his head against the cool wall. The mountain mist swirled outside, indifferent.
“I just want to go home,” he whispered.
But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure he remembered what “home” really meant or where was the so-called home of his.