Chapter 23: A-XX The Portrait of a Dismantled God (2)

The Portrait of a Dismantled God looked at Manager Myeon.

Manager Myeon looked at the Portrait of a Dismantled God.

An instant.

Or perhaps an extremely long silence.

And then, it broke it.

In the beginning there was the abyss.

The air stopped.

The entire space.

No.

My ears.

No.

My mind.

I felt as though everything had been sealed inside a silence on the verge of exploding.

The light consumed itself to give birth to darkness, and the darkness devoured its mother to become a god.

A voice.

No.

That was not a voice.

It was not something that could be heard with ears.

It came from somewhere.

From within.

From the deepest part of my brain.

No.

From some hidden corner of the space called the soul.

You are clay molded by my fingers, my seventh failure.

I could not swallow.

My tongue curled up.

My eyes dried out.

Every capillary in my body trembled.

It was not a sound.

It was not words.

Pain itself flowed into me transformed into meaning.

I will tear you apart to complete myself.

Your eyes are my holes.

Your suffering is my curve.

Crack.

Something sounded inside my head.

An unbearable heat surged behind my forehead.

My knees gave way.

The world split apart.

Therefore, listen.

The world has not yet been born.

And life is the sum of false transactions.

Denial.

Denial.

Denial.

Those were not words.

It was an infection.

Each sentence drove itself into me.

Not through my ears.

But through the cracks in my existence.

My fountain pen throbbed.

The Relics of the Smiling Martyr squeezed my wrist so tightly it felt as though they were going to break my bones.

They were trying to forcibly inject calmness into me.

But the god’s sentences were infecting even those numbed nerves.

I am the rotten shepherd.

My sheep were hungry mouths.

And I distributed their lives as though they were meat.

“Ugh…”

I covered my mouth.

But it was already too late.

My tongue stopped obeying me.

My vision blurred.

My thoughts began to fragment.

Meaning disappeared.

Behold the black book that opens with my breath.

A black book?

No.

That was not a metaphor.

I heard something turning pages.

A hallucination of red flesh flipping over like sheets of paper.

A beheaded saint transformed into the tip of a pen describing pain.

Your name is written in the third column, twelfth row, seventh line.

It is written.

It is.

Where?

You have already died.

Until I forget that fact, I will return you to life again and again.

What are you saying…?

What… are you saying…?

What…?

What…?

Wh…?

M… m… mmmmmmmmm…

My thoughts began repeating themselves.

Words were being cut apart.

Images.

Images.

The images were melting.

My mind crumbled like sand.

I am who.

I am Jeo.

I am.

I am Jeong.

I am Jeong Hae.

I am Jeong Haeil.

Jeong Hae.

Jeong Hae.

Jeong.

My jaw trembled.

My tongue could not stick to the roof of my mouth.

The sentences piled up in my throat like phlegm.

I am your father.

Black light.

No.

A visual form without color.

That covered my vision.

My hearing.

My sense of touch.

My existence.

Can you hear me, my child made of clay?

I call to you with a mouth without a mouth.

Pray through the cracks in my joints.

Believe through the cavities of my eyes.

Kneel before the glory of my corruption.

·

.

……

……

You…

…to me…

You…

I—––––––––

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

Inside the light.

The outer wall of the heart.

A structure without meaning.

I am the record of everything I have devoured.

Words.

Words.

Words.

Wordswordswordswordswordswords.

The bones of a language sunk into my ears.

Thoughts become fragments.

Fragments vomit blood.

The concept of “I am.”

No.

I…

Following a black trajectory.

There was light.

And that light was the fanaticism that sprang from my eyes.

I swallowed that light.

And the darkness opened its belly.

Whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat.

JeongJeongHaeJeongHaeJeongJeongJeongJeongJeong.

It is smiling.

It is tearing apart.

It is crawling inside.

And you are the flesh placed upon me.

Chew.

Swallow.

Be saved.

Meaning disappears.

Meaning disappears.

Meaning disappears and becomes meaning.

The subject who understands that I am not I disappears.

I dismantled a god following the shape of a man.

You are my collapsed memories.

A denied womb.

I was not created.

I simply remained.

That absence replaces me.

And that replacement replaces me again—

Crunch!!!

No screams.

No explosions.

Only the sensation of a blade piercing through my eardrums.

I forgot that I was suffocating.

I forgot that my tongue was twisting.

Crack!!!

The very concept of pain brought me back to myself.

I snapped my eyes open and turned my head.

To the left.

Something extending behind my head was piercing my ear.

A tentacle.

Cold.

Hot.

Slippery.

Sticky.

A flesh tentacle.

That thing lodged in my ear began to withdraw slowly.

And then I saw Manager Batori.

She was standing there.

As if nothing had happened.

With a faint smile on her pale lips.

Only one hand remained extended directly in front of my face.

Swoosh.

Her long white index finger moved toward my eyes.

The tip brushed the bridge of my nose.

And then—

Shh.

Do not listen.

Do not become infected by the words.

Remain silent.

I opened my eyes.

My heart was beating.

Little by little, my brain began to function again.

Crack—

As the tentacle left my ear, I felt as though something inside my eardrum had been torn apart.

Instinctively, I inhaled.

“…Ngh… haa… haaah… haaah…”

His tongue was numb, as if it had been paralyzed, and cold sweat ran down his forehead.

He felt as though something deep within his brain had been stirred up, mixing the very surface of his senses.

Colors cut out abruptly and then returned.

Sounds crackled like interrupted signals.

Human voices, the vibrations of the floor, breathing, and heartbeats overlapped and then scattered apart.

As if his entire body were filled with interference, reality trembled.

‘…It’s calming down.’

The confusion did not last long.

As if a medicine were taking effect, his senses gradually returned.

His vision stabilized.

The ringing in his ears diminished.

“Mr. Haeil, are you alright?”

A red tie.

Perfectly aligned folds.

The fist-head tilted slightly as he asked.

It was Assistant Manager Son.

“Grrr… Sniff…”

He heard something inhaling like a beast.

Beside him, Supervisor Shik gently wrapped one of his heavy arms around him.

“Thank you…”

His lips were so dry that they had cracked, but he still nodded firmly.

Supported by his two superiors, he slowly raised his head again.

Beyond the glass of the containment chamber.

‘What’s in there…’

It was something that could not even be compared to the dimensional entities he had seen so far.

And standing before that overwhelming existence was Manager Myeon.

Or rather, he was slowly walking around it.

Tracing circles around the Portrait of a Dismantled God, he murmured something with his seven faces.

The cracks in the sculpture.

The exposed flesh.

The viscous eyes.

He observed all of it with absolute calm.

Truly as if nothing were happening.

‘…Facing something like that and still behaving that way…’

His body trembled.

Not only from fear.

It was reverence.

And understanding.

‘…With Manager Myeon, I’d better always be extremely respectful.’

Etching that into his heart, he took another deep breath.

He could still feel residual heat somewhere inside his head.

But he was alive.

Then Manager Myeon looked up toward the sculpture’s head.

Kneel.

Once again, the proclamation of the Portrait of a Dismantled God echoed inside his eardrums.

Yet Manager Myeon simply continued observing the sculpture.

Worship.

The Portrait of a Dismantled God spoke again.

It was not an order.

It was not a declaration.

It resonated like an absolute truth that was merely being reaffirmed.

But Manager Myeon continued gazing at the sculpture.

He did not kneel.

He did not bow his head.

On the contrary, he uncrossed his arms and took another step closer.

At that instant, something twisted.

Instinctively, he focused all his attention on Manager Myeon.

‘His body…?’

At first, he thought the wrinkles in his suit looked strange.

The cuffs of his sleeves began to swell.

His shoes bent in unnatural ways.

The collar of his shirt rose in an impossible direction.

Crack.

Then came the sound of a bone breaking.

His shoulder tilted at an impossible angle.

Creak…

His back arched upward.

As if every vertebra were rearranging itself in reverse.

His neck bent once.

Twice.

Three times.

Strangely.

Smoothly.

And yet in a repulsive way.

The smiles remained on the lips of his countless faces.

But those curves no longer belonged to a human being.

They were smiles pasted onto skin.

Not expressions born from emotions or muscles.

Only fixed shapes.

Predetermined designs.

Tap.

Something began moving beneath his skin.

Under the suit.

Near the abdomen.

It was not flesh.

It was something harder.

“…Is it moving?”

He muttered.

As if something were trying to come out from inside.

Manager Myeon’s abdomen began to swell slowly.

The buttons of his suit creaked.

From his chest.

From his back.

From his shoulders.

The flesh inflated like airbags.

Or more precisely.

Something inside it was inflating.

Something resembling faces.

‘…It’s coming out from inside.’

Bulging outlines pushed against the outside of the suit.

He could sense them even where he could not see them directly.

Like a tactile sensation.

Like a presence.

The impression that countless expressions were writhing beneath the flesh in a crowded mass.

Bile rose into his throat.

And then—

Boom!!

An explosion.

“…Hng!”

He inhaled sharply.

Inside the containment chamber, Manager Myeon shattered apart.

Without any warning.

Without any prior sign.

An explosion so sudden that he did not even perceive the sound.

Blood.

Suit.

Flesh.

And a multitude of faces.

‘…Ha… ha… did… did he…?’

They were flung in every direction.

Thick red blood splattered across the walls.

Fragments of the suit rolled across the floor.

The faces fell.

Jumped.

Wrinkled.

Crawled.

He was speechless.

Faced with something so absurd, the first thing he felt was not surprise.

It was the feeling that it could not possibly be real.

“…Manager Myeon…?”

He muttered it simply because he could not believe it.

A violent explosion.

And afterward, those faces covering everything.

Joy.

Confusion.

Indifference.

Contempt.

Affection.

Sadness.

And smiles.

“…This…”

He slowly exhaled and turned his head.

But.

But.

Why?

“…Why is no one…?”

Why was no one surprised?

Assistant Manager Son slightly tilted his fist-head.

Director Mok continued taking notes while adjusting his roots.

Manager Batori calmly drank blood through a straw.

Supervisor Shik was practically lying down in the hallway.

Everyone acted completely normal.

Then it happened.

They moved.

The faces scattered throughout the containment chamber.

Those things attached to chunks of flesh and stuck to the walls.

‘…They’re writhing…?’

One.

Two.

Three…

The expressions began moving toward one another.

Squirm.

Thud.

Squish.

Splatter.

The blood.

The flesh.

The fragments of the suit.

The skin of the faces.

All of it.

Joined together.

Entangled.

Coiled.

Embedded.

Unfolded.

Contracted.

Merged.

Dozens.

No.

Hundreds of chunks of flesh mixed around those faces as if trying to devour one another.

The flesh.

The fragments of the suit.

The blood.

The fluids.

The expressions.

All of it formed the shape of a human being.

Once again.

It was Manager Myeon.

The form reconstructed itself.

The wrinkles of the suit settled into place.

The shoes became immaculate.

The hands regained their smoothness.

And one of those familiar faces, with its eternal gentle smile, opened its eyes before him.

“Ha…”

He exhaled.

Bewildered.

Horrified.

Unable to comprehend it.

Manager Myeon was standing before him once again.

“I like it.”

He said.

In the same soft and orderly voice he had before exploding.

“It seems to have a very clear understanding of what it wants.”

The seven faces.

Those small faces he had always seen blooming between the openings of his suit.

An existence constructed by combining the materiality of faces with the very concept of expressions.

And now he was standing before him again with the same appearance as always.

It was grotesque.

He barely managed to cling to his sanity as their gazes met when Manager Myeon turned his head toward the other side of the glass.

“We will now proceed with the extraction.”

Manager Myeon spoke as though absolutely nothing had happened.

Calmly.

Composedly.

And… in a terrifying manner.