"NO...!!!"
When he opened his eyes in the Virtual Space, the first thing he did was scream loudly,
As if he was running away from death itself. He immediately touched his head, checking whether it was still there or not.
When he realized his head was fine, a breath of relief escaped him… but then a doubt struck—
Why did he scream like that?
Lost in thought, his eyes shifted to his hand. At first, he thought it wasn't his, maybe someone else's… but then that same white hand touched his own shoulder, and only then he noticed his entire body.
"I am... What am I?"
He stared at himself in confusion. His entire body was covered in a smooth white skin-like shell. His fingers were oddly shaped, creepy, and fused into that white surface.
" What is this strange feeling of numbness, like nothing really matters to me?
A strange numbness spread through him. He placed his hand on his chest—cold, like touching metal.
"It's… very creepy."
He tried to feel the beating of his heart, but there was none. He knew a heart should be inside him, but it wasn't beating.
"Did I die?" he muttered quietly.
His dark black eyes scanned the surroundings.
Everything around him was empty—endless whiteness.
He looked up. A pale blue sky hung silently overhead. No sun, no moon, no clouds—just a lonely sky staring back at him, while beneath his feet stretched the same blank white ground.The whole environment gave him an eerie, unsettling feeling.
"What is this place?"
Far ahead—maybe a kilometer away—the silent sky seemed to bend down, touching the ground, as if kissing it.
He couldn't understand where he was. His mind filled with confusion… only questions with no answers.
After looking closely, he realized the sky wasn't kissing the ground. That curve was actually the boundary of this strange world.
"A tiny hell prison!! " he concluded, judging from the bizarre surroundings.
Suddenly—
" Shhhh!...
A thick reddish wave surged toward him from where the sky bent.
"Is this how they welcome guests in this tiny hell?"
He commented dryly. Yet, strangely, he felt no fear at all. His heart wasn't beating, but deep inside he sensed that wave wouldn't harm him.
He closed his dark abyss-like eyes.
In seconds, the crimson wave washed through him—but didn't hurt him. It passed through him as if he were part of it.
After a few moments he opened his eyes. He was still standing in the exact same spot—not an inch moved. He hadn't even felt the moment wave crossed him.
"What was that?"
Another question added to the pile, but there was no one to answer.
His own calmness felt unnaturally strange to him. He was never this brave. He remembered how he once trembled through nights, struggled for a meal, survived the war-like world, witnessed buildings collapsing, people dying painful deaths, how he ran for his life—killing some, saving himself—living constantly in fear, screaming in terror before his end.
But now? He felt like a fearless tiger.
Why?
What is the reason?
Then a disturbing thought struck him—
"Who.... am I?"
He suddenly couldn't remember himself.
Not his name, not his face, not how he looked—handsome or ugly—nothing.
He remembered every painful moment of his past life—yet not himself as a person.
Another odd detail—his memories were like a first-person video game view. He could only see his own hands holding a gun, moving, running, talking, falling—never his full body. Never his face. As if he never existed physically in those memories.
How is that possible?
Do we forget ourselves after death, leaving only experiences behind?
Doubts, questions, curiosity—everything was growing in his mind endlessly.
"Does my soul look like this?" he wondered, staring at himself.
He remembered hearing from religious people that after death, the soul doesn't take the body's appearance, but instead retains its original form—unchanged, fixed for eternity.
??...
"Hm!... Someone's coming?" He suddenly sensed it, like someone was approaching.
He had no idea how he guessed it, and he didn't think much about it. After being alone for a couple of hours, the loneliness had started to weigh on him. Now that he felt someone's presence, his curiosity grew—
What was this tiny hell-like prison?
What punishment awaited him for his past deeds?
Yet, strangely, he still didn't feel fear.
It was unusual.
He ignored the thought for now and looked to his right.
Around 800 to 900 meters away, a flash of light appeared. When it disappeared, he saw a beautiful woman, around twenty-five, standing there in a black dress. Beside her floated something bizarre in the air—
A strange structure…
And the moment he looked closer—
"A flying human brain?!"
He was slightly shocked, but it faded quickly, as if it didn't matter much to him.
He started doubting himself.
Why was he so calm? So empty inside?
He had never witnessed anything like this in his memories—certainly not a human brain floating in the air.
His gaze returned to the same spot,black eyes unblinking.
He wanted to go closer, but held himself back, watching that creepy brain structure glide through the air.
Then he noticed something—the brain sprouted fine nerve-like threads, forming a human skeleton.
Minutes later, flesh and skin wrapped around it, and an old man took shape.
The scene was unsettling.
"Was my transformation like that too? Is this how my body formed?" he wondered.
Instead of answers, only more questions filled his mind.
Suddenly, he heard the old man laughing loudly—almost maniacally.
"Why is that old man laughing like that…?"
His curiosity pushed him forward.
He took a step—
But that one step wasn't normal.
It was like a leap through space—200 meters in a single stride, yet he didn't even notice his god-like movement.
His focus remained fixed on the two figures—
The Old Man laughing loudly,
and the Woman watching him with a faint smile.
He took a second step—same distance.
Then a third.
Just before the fourth step, a voice echoed in his ears.
He paused and listened.
[I wanted a life that would never end. To achieve such a life, I chose a path extremely dangerous—one that could've killed me. But I trusted my Genius Mind. I continued my experiments without stopping, inspiring myself as I pushed forward.
Finally, Theory-4509 showed a possibility of success.
Artificial nano-cells—three times smaller than brain cells. They would enter the brain, copy all of its data, and create a second brain. My consciousness would then transfer into that copy within the Virtual Space…]
The voice came from a blue screen, showing the same old man lying inside a tube, speaking as if he were recording a log.
He was confused.
Nano cells?
AI?
Virtual space?
"Is this… not Hell?"
"This is a man-made space?"
After hearing the explanation, he finally had some idea—it wasn't a Hell-prison after all.
"Hmm… A virtual space? Just like the sci-fi novels I used to read when I was young… Is this old man talking about the same things I once imagined as fantasies?"
Suddenly, memories of his childhood resurfaced—memories he had long forgotten.
Of course, even those memories appeared only from a first-person perspective, like a character inside a game.
Back then, his favorite genre was always
sci-fi. Technology, evolution, machines—he was obsessed. But as he grew older, the cheerful world around him changed.
Life turned into a brutal survival game. Every day became a fight to stay alive, and the innocence of childhood—those fantasies—slowly faded and died.
Yet now, those forgotten memories rose back to the surface.He kept watching the video, without even realizing how he could see and hear everything clearly from nearly 200 meters away.
"A man abandoned his human body… transformed himself into an A.I… the evolution of humanity itself…this is very....."
He took his final step forward and finished his thought, speaking the last word loudly and clearly —
"INTERESTING!."
And by then, he was already standing right there.