Two Worlds
Not being able to sleep is a terrible thing.
Kim Woojin first realized that fact while serving in the army. Back when he was a tense, tightly wound private, there was one man who was frequently mentioned every time the night watch was handed over.
"As for anything unusual… nothing much. It seems Sergeant Choi had trouble sleeping again tonight."
Sergeant Choi.
Woojin doesn't clearly remember his full name. At the time, Sergeant Choi was nearing discharge and soon left the unit. Woojin had only seen him for about two weeks.
The reason Woojin remembers him at all is because of the unfortunate chronic condition he suffered from.
Sergeant Choi had a ruptured lumbar disc and would complain of excruciating pain whenever he lay down. Even in the late hours of dawn, when everyone else was asleep, he wandered the dim corridors alone, unable to rest because of the pain.
Bloodshot eyes dulled by fatigue. Unsteady, staggering steps. Every time Woojin saw Sergeant Choi—like some restless ghost—he steeled himself.
I must be careful not to end up like that…
"…How many years ago was that?"
Woojin counted back in his mind.
By rough calculation, it was about fourteen years ago. He is thirty-five now. He enlisted right after finishing his first year of university.
Fourteen years is no short time. Long enough for most memories of military life to fade.
So why was he thinking of Sergeant Choi now?
The reason was simple. The figure reflected in the mirror looked far too similar to the man he once saw.
These days, Kim Woojin cannot fall asleep easily.
"…Has it already been twelve years?"
Once again, he counted the calendar in his chest.
He had been unable to sleep properly for twelve years now. It wasn't because of physical pain like Sergeant Choi's.
It was because of the dreams.
Every time he fell asleep, he had the same strange dream.
It was so vivid that it was hard to distinguish from reality. If he ran for a long time, his breathing grew ragged and his legs tingled. If he tripped and fell, he felt a dizzying jolt of pain.
So vivid that calling it a "dream" felt questionable.
The problem was that it was a wretched nightmare.
A forest lined with black trees.
The river that flowed through it was thick and murky, like pus oozing from a rotting wound. The creatures that gathered to drink from it… every single one of them was a grotesque monster.
In that dream world, Kim Woojin's role was simple: prey.
He ran without rest, fleeing from the starving monsters.
But his stamina was limited. He could not run forever.
In the end, what awaited him was nothing but a gaping maw filled with teeth.
Crunch!
He was devoured.
Then he would awaken from the nightmare.
He repeated this over and over again, every time he slept.
Experiencing death every night rapidly wore down his sanity. With so little real rest, ordinary daily life became impossible. It was a vicious cycle without end.
In an attempt to escape this situation, Woojin sought out numerous psychiatrists for treatment. He even met reputed shamans a few times.
"We've never seen symptoms like this before."
No matter whom he met, they only shook their heads. The conclusion was no different from a death sentence with an unknown time limit.
Kim Woojin sank into despair.
Why was this happening only to him?
He wanted an answer, but there was no way to find one.
All he could do was become the monsters' prey each night…
And then, in the midst of that bleak existence—
"What is this?"
One day, Woojin suddenly felt something was off.
As usual, he was running from the monsters in his dream. But for some reason, they seemed to have given up the hunt midway. No matter how he looked around, nothing was chasing him.
Could it be… he'd shaken them off?
Even someone without talent improves after repeating something countless times.
After hundreds—thousands—of rounds of this deadly game of tag, Kim Woojin had eventually learned how to avoid the monsters' gaze.
From that point on, the dream world began to look slightly different.
It's not entirely hopeless.
Even a place like hell has its own rules.
Woojin began to accumulate knowledge necessary for survival.
Which creatures were dangerous to encounter. Which could be fought. What could be eaten and what could not. How to obtain water…
There was no need to fear failure. Even if he died in the dream, he would revive again and again.
If I want to last longer… I'll need to learn some proper survival skills.
Skills from the real world could be applied in the dream world.
So while awake, he scoured the internet and studied various survival techniques—what people commonly call bushcraft. He went further, learning bits and pieces of martial arts, swordsmanship, archery, other weapon skills, and even how to set traps.
He was starting to grow tired of always running from the monsters.
I can't just live taking hits forever.
Even if he died, landing a single stab on those bastards would be satisfying.
Driven by that grim determination, Woojin mastered various techniques and tested their results in his dreams.
And so twelve years passed.
Even now, Kim Woojin still cannot fall asleep easily. Fighting the dream monsters head-on is reckless to the extreme.
But he is no longer prey.
He is a hunter.
Falling asleep is still difficult, but at least he no longer feels the same misery as before.
The problem is that he has become too immersed in the dream world, gradually losing his sense of reality.
"What a pathetic sight."
While brushing his teeth, Woojin stared at his reflection in the mirror.
His hair was tangled and unkempt from neglect. When he rubbed his chin, rough stubble scraped against his fingers. His bloodshot eyes—thanks to never sleeping deeply—completed the picture.
He had neglected himself far too much. Seeing himself like this, he almost felt it was disrespectful to Sergeant Choi to even compare them.
He couldn't keep living like this.
He had been scraping by as a factory laborer all this time.
He had no career to speak of. If he continued to age like this, reality would become just as bleak as the world inside his dreams.
Even so, thanks to having worked grueling jobs from early on, he had managed to save up a decent amount of money. Maybe it was time to use that capital for a fresh start.
Should I open a fried chicken place? Or maybe a billiards hall? But what if I try something and end up losing all the money I painstakingly saved…
With his toothbrush still in his mouth, Kim Woojin stood there, lost in thought, as if he had forgotten he was brushing his teeth. Naturally, coming up with a business plan wasn't easy. He mulled it over for a while, but nothing concrete came to mind.
Then his gaze drifted back to the mirror. His chin, covered in dark stubble, suddenly looked especially unkempt.
"…Let's shave first."
Instead of worrying about complicated things, he decided to handle something simple—something he could do right now.
After finishing the brushing he had left incomplete, Woojin picked up his razor and began shaving. Each stroke cleared away the shaving foam along with the black stubble, peeling it off like grime. When he washed his face, his features looked noticeably cleaner.
Heh, now I finally look like a proper person.
Smiling in satisfaction, Kim Woojin looked at himself in the mirror.
But the smile didn't last long.
Drip—
Suddenly, a deep red nosebleed began to stream down.
Startled, Woojin hurriedly pinched his nostrils shut. The blood poured out relentlessly, like a faucet left running. The tissue he stuffed into his nose was soaked through in an instant.
Why all of a sudden?
An unexplained hemorrhage. Woojin pressed hard against the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the bleeding. But for some reason, it showed no sign of slowing.
His head spun. Staggering, he stumbled out of the bathroom. Each time he steadied himself against the wall, crimson handprints were left behind.
Thud!
His body tilted like a rotting log. Woojin collapsed, his cheek hitting the floor as he struggled to breathe. Even then, the blood kept flowing without end.
"…Ha… at this rate, I might actually die."
To bleed to death from a nosebleed. Even in the dream world, he had never died like that before.
Despite death looming right before him, Woojin felt strangely calm. Had he simply grown accustomed to dying after experiencing it so many times in his nightmares? Or was the situation so sudden that his sense of reality had shut down?
Either way, Kim Woojin did not feel particularly afraid.
Only a little regretful.
In the end… I didn't accomplish anything.
Drowsiness crashed over him like a wave. With unquenched thirst lingering as his final sensation, Woojin soon lost consciousness.