The red light filtering through the cracks of the abandoned warehouse looked like blood-soaked mist.
The air reeked of decay, rust, and something dying.
A single bulb swayed overhead—
flickering, trembling—
like a heartbeat on its final beat.
Black blood trails twisted across the floor, dragged into crooked lines like scars carved by fate.
And Ethan was hanging from the ceiling.
The ropes bit deep into his wrists, slicing his skin raw like barbed wire.
Warm blood dripped from his fingertips—
each drop carrying heat, agony, and the taste of death.
But none of that hurt as much as the face standing in front of him.
Shawn.
His colleague.
His brother.
The man he trusted the most.
They survived ten years of the apocalypse together—
the extreme cold, the blazing heat, the acid rain, the dark nights, the virus…
They were among the last surviving humans.
And now Shawn stood there with a new knife stained in old blood.
Under the shaking bulb, his expression twisted into a smile that no longer belonged to the man Ethan once knew.
"Ethan, you know… I really didn't want to kill you."
Shawn exhaled a thin stream of smoke, speaking casually, almost lazily.
"But you… always pretending to be righteous, to be some kind of hero—I got tired of it."
The blade pressed against Ethan's ribcage—
cold, sharp, almost affectionate in its cruelty.
"Don't blame me,"
Shawn whispered with narrowed eyes.
"Blame yourself… for being stupid."
Then—
The knife plunged into Ethan's body.
"—Ah!!"
A white-hot burst of pain tore through every nerve.
His body curved forward involuntarily as blood sprayed from the wound like a fountain.
"Stop!! Shawn!!"
A voice broke into the warehouse—
one that stabbed deeper than the knife.
Lena.
She wore the white loungewear Ethan washed for her just last night.
She rushed forward, grabbing Shawn's hand, trembling violently.
"Are you crazy?! You said you'd only scare him! You said you wouldn't use the knife!"
"Oh please, Lena, don't act innocent."
Shawn flicked her hand away with a mocking grin.
"Weren't you the one who pushed me the hardest?"
Lena's face went pale.
"I… I didn't… I just… I just—"
"Just couldn't take it anymore?"
Shawn sneered.
"You cried on my shoulder so many times, remember?"
Lena froze—tears sliding down her cheeks—but said nothing.
Shawn crouched down, tapping Ethan's cheek lightly.
"Brother… you always believed your daughter looked like you, right?"
Ethan's heart clenched painfully.
Shawn rotated the bloody blade, letting it gleam under the flickering bulb.
"Want to hear the truth?"
He smiled.
"She's mine."
Boom.
A crack split through Ethan's mind.
His chest burned with a pain sharper than the knife.
Rage.
Shame.
Grief.
All slammed into him like a tidal wave.
Shawn's grin widened.
"Don't give me that look. You suspected it before—you just didn't have the guts to admit it."
"Stop!! Don't say it!!"
Lena screamed, breaking down completely.
"Why not?"
Shawn lifted her chin.
"He's dying anyway. No need to keep pretending.
Once this apocalypse ends, we can finally be a real family."
Ethan's breath hitched, his chest rising and falling painfully.
So this was his life—
a cruel joke.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the sound never came.
The world blurred.
The lights spun.
His consciousness collapsed inward.
The last thing he saw was——
Mia, the child he gave his life to protect,
standing at the doorway, gagged,
her wide eyes watching him.
Those eyes…
indeed didn't look like his.
The darkness swallowed everything.
But his mind didn't fade.
It floated—freed from flesh, weightless, cold.
He looked down and saw himself hanging—
eyes half-open, blood pooling beneath him.
He was a soul.
And as a soul, he saw everything clearer than ever.
He saw corpses twisted by the virus rise again—
their bodies warping into demons:
White-skinned demons crawling out of rubble.
Green-skinned demons leaping between walls.
Blue demons unleashing shockwaves.
Purple demons ruling entire cities.
Golden demons collapsing fortresses.
Orange demons descending like natural disasters.
He watched demons rip humans apart—
including Shawn, Lena, and their daughter.
He saw humans fight, kill, betray each other for food, water, warmth.
And when humanity finally achieved a bitter victory…
The angels descended.
Countless winged beings fell from the heavens, gazing down upon the ruined world.
Cold.
Detached.
Judging.
"Humanity is not worthy of continuation."
The last spark of civilization was extinguished.
Earth turned into silent ash.
Ethan's soul shattered in the storm—
screaming, burning, breaking.
Moments before he completely dissolved, he roared:
"I shouldn't have died! Humanity shouldn't have ended—!"
The world split.
The darkness cracked open.
—
He gasped awake.
His chest heaved violently, sweat dripping down his temples.
A bedroom.
His bedroom.
Not the warehouse.
Not hell.
Not the end of the world.
His phone lit up on the nightstand:
July 17th, 2128
01:12 AM
His breath stopped.
A full year before doomsday.
He… had come back.
He rushed to the mirror.
The young face staring back at him had no scars.
No exhaustion.
No apocalypse carved into it.
"It's real…"
His voice trembled.
Then a violent pulse surged through his mind.
He shut his eyes—
and an endless, bright, empty space unfolded within his consciousness.
A warehouse of infinity.
Floating in the center—
a full-length mirror identical to the one in his bedroom.
He opened his eyes.
The mirror vanished.
Closed again—
the mirror stood in the infinite space.
Opened—
the mirror returned to his room.
He tested it again.
And again.
Until his heart trembled in a mixture of awe and fear.
He had returned.
With ten years of apocalypse memories.
With knowledge of demons and disasters.
With the entire sequence of humanity's extinction.
And with a power—
the Infinite Storage.
He could change everything.
He calmed down slowly.
Moonlight fell on the two figures sleeping in the bed.
Lena.
Mia.
They looked peaceful.
Ordinary.
Like any normal family.
But Ethan's eyes were not the same as the man who once died.
He watched them quietly.
For a long, long time.
Then he stepped back, leaning against the wardrobe—
his gaze deep, cold, absolute.
Tonight, he wouldn't act.
But in his heart, the past was already buried.
Tomorrow…
the cleansing would begin.
A man who truly crawled out of hell
no longer wastes time on the wrong people.
End of Prologue