I was Kim Doyoon, and I was painfully average.
Thirty-four years old. Single. Worked as a financial analyst at a mid-sized investment in Seoul. My days were spreadsheets, quarterly reports, and the quiet hum of a monitor that needed replacing three years ago.
My hobbies were the only place where I wasn't average.
I was a gamer. The kind who optimized raid rotations in his sleep.
I led a 25-man guild in Mulk Online for seven years. I had spreadsheets for boss mechanics. I yelled at healers over Mic. I knew what "world first" felt like, once, on a minor patch boss that no one cared about. But I cared.
I also played simulation games. Trade Empires III, Kingdom Architect, Rise of the Silent King. I liked the illusion of control. You build. You manage. You win. No one betrays you if you manage their loyalty bars correctly.
Outside of that? I ate convenience store kimbap alone in my one-room officetel. I watched the same three comedy specials on repeat. I called my mother once every two months, let it ring twice, then hung up because I didn't know what to say.
I lied a lot. Small lies. Harmless lies.
"My phone died." (I saw your call and ignored it.)
"I'm almost there." (I hadn't left my apartment.)
"The report is almost done." (I'd open the file after one more dungeon run.)
"I'm fine." (I wasn't. But who wants to hear that?)
I lied to clients. "This fund has great potential." (It was a sinking ship, but my bonus depended on selling it.)
I lied to myself. "I'll start exercising next week."
"I'll visit Mom for Chuseok."
"I'll pay off the credit card bill."
I died on a Tuesday.
Heart attack. Too much coffee, too little sleep, too many years of pretending stress didn't affect me. I was thirty-four. The paramedics said it was "sudden cardiac arrest." My coworkers said, "He seemed so healthy." They didn't know I hadn't seen a doctor in seven years.
The last thing I saw was my monitor. An unopened email from my mother. Subject line: "Son, are you eating well?"
I didn't get to open it.
***
Somewhat Hell was not a fire for me instead It was a white room. Fluorescent lights. Plastic chairs. A reception desk with a woman who had no face just a smooth oval where her features should be.
"Kim Doyoon," she said. Her voice came from everywhere. "Welcome to the Preliminary Processing Zone. Please take a seat."
I sat.
"You have been assigned to the Fourth Circle. Category: Minor Repetitive Sins. Your term begins immediately."
I didn't ask questions. I couldn't. My mouth wouldn't open.
Then the floor disappeared.
I fell into a room that was my old officetel. Same beige walls. Same stack of ramen cups. Same monitor.
But my tongue was on fire.
I opened my mouth to scream. Nothing came out. My tongue—my actual tongue—was being pierced by thin, white-hot needles. One for every lie. The needles came from inside my own throat. They pushed through flesh like worms through soil.
"I'm almost there." Needle.
"The report is done." Needle.
"I love you too, Mom." (I hadn't said that in ten years.) Needle. Thicker this time.
I fell to my knees. The needles didn't stop. They twisted. They burned. My mouth filled with ash and the taste of rust.
This went on for what felt like hours. Or days. Time didn't move right.
Then it stopped.
I gasped. My tongue was whole again. No blood. No scars.
The room changed.
Now I was in a conference room. My old boss sat across from me. His face was also blank—just smooth skin where eyes and nose should be.
"You lied on the quarterly risk assessment," he said. Not angry. Just stating fact.
"I—"
My hand moved on its own. A pen. I signed a document I couldn't read.
Then my fingers broke.
One by one. From the tips inward. Crushed by invisible pliers. The bones splintered into needles—more needles—that shot up my arms.
For the lies I wrote. For the numbers I fudged. For the signatures I forged.
I screamed. No one heard.
The room changed again.
My officetel. My mother's voice came from the walls.
"Are you eating well?"
I opened my mouth to answer truthfully. I couldn't. The words that came out were, "Yes. I had homemade soup yesterday."
I hadn't. I'd had cold ramen and a convenience store triangle kimbap.
My stomach caved in.
Not metaphorically. It caved in. A hollow pit opened below my ribs. I felt hungers. The hunger of every meal I skipped. Every vegetable I didn't eat. Every "I'll cook tomorrow" that never came.
My insides twisted. I vomited nothing. Then dust. Then tiny black grains that looked like burned rice.
This is the lie of neglect. You said you were fine. You were not fine. You let yourself rot.
I curled on the floor. The hunger didn't stop. It grew. It became the hunger of every person I could have helped but didn't. The homeless man at the subway exit. The junior coworker I let take the blame for my mistake. My mother, who waited by the phone.
I starved for a long time.
***
I don't know how long I was there.
The torture cycled. Tongue, then fingers, then stomach, then heart. Sometimes all at once. Sometimes in sequences that felt like music a horrible symphony of small betrayals.
I relived every lie I told to my mother. Every spreadsheet I fudged. Every time I chose a video game over a human being. Every "I'm busy" when I was just lazy.
The faceless woman appeared between cycles.
"Your sin list is long but shallow," she said once. "You never murdered. Never stole more than time and trust. But you wasted yourself. And you wasted the people who cared about you. That's a special kind of sin. The quiet kind."
I couldn't answer. My tongue was being re-threaded.
To Be Continued.