Most of us doomsday preppers are men—single men, at that.

At John Nae-non’s offline gatherings, I never once saw a female participant. Even in the online community, I can’t recall ever reading a post that hinted at someone being a woman.

It doesn’t take much thought to figure out why.

We preppers are, in simpler terms, people who perform rituals praying for the world to end.

Anyone who finds joy in the current world and lives with gratitude would pray for its continuation rather than prepare for its downfall.

What would have happened to us if monsters hadn’t appeared and the war never started?

For me, Park Gyu?

I would’ve been royally screwed.

Not just screwed—completely destroyed.

The evidence of my hypothetical doom is still preserved in the now-disconnected messages on my old phone.

*[Web Notification] (Shinheon Bank) Mr. Park Gyu, your secured loan is scheduled for auction execution.

[Web Notification] (Sanwang Money) Mr. Park Gyu, notification of debt transfer for overdue Lady’s Loan.

[Web Notification] From Silla Credit Information: http://sinramoneytaker.co.kr/...

Not only did I pour money into turning a piece of worthless land into a concrete fortress, but I also maxed out loans I had no intention of repaying when funds ran dry.

It’s hard to imagine a bright, cheerful woman willingly stepping into a community full of gloomy guys like us.

But recently, without any warning, a female user appeared.

It was one year and seven months into the war.

*

After living in a bunker for over a year, everyone faces the same inevitable problem: a lack of entertainment.

I don’t drink or smoke.

Sure, I’ll have a light drink in a safe place, but drinking alone leads to addiction, and addiction leads to death.

Smoking, while a reasonable pastime, is too valuable as a bartering resource and has a way of attracting people.

From experience, I know that the sense of smell in humans forcibly made to quit smoking becomes as sharp as a dog’s.

Seeking amusement elsewhere isn’t easy either.

There are no TV dramas airing weekly, no bars where you can meet friends over a drink, and no team sports like soccer without teammates.

If you’re part of a collective survivalist group, maybe you can play a round of table tennis. But for someone like me, who prioritizes solitary survival, even ping-pong is out of the question.

I considered taking up fishing, but the radiation levels in the nearby reservoirs haven’t dropped enough for that to be feasible.

As time went on and visitors became more frequent, I spent increasingly more time inside my bunker. Naturally, my hobbies shifted to things I could do indoors.

Honestly, at this point, the most entertaining pastime I have is our doomsday prepper community, Viva! Apocalypse!

It’s a place where people like me gather to share stories of our similar predicaments.

Sure, there are strange users like IamJesus, Dongtanmom, and The Human Hunter, but there are also plenty of exemplary users like myself.

More than a year and a half into the war, even a perennial lurker like me had started actively contributing to the community.

The reasons were mixed.

I was bored, of course. There was the faint satisfaction of connecting with others. But more than that, seeing my fellow members disappear one by one made me want to preserve the precious community we had left.

Here’s a sample of my posts:

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Daily Life) Tonight’s dinner, haha.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Tales) Hot news I picked up on a military frequency yesterday.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Creations) Tried making a wool felt doll!

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Videos) Skelton’s Beatboxing (Part 3).

In a way, my presence in the community had started to resemble my mentor, John Nae-non.

But I didn’t completely mimic him.

While John Nae-non would simply prepend “(John Nae-non)” to his posts, I added specific headers like “(Skelton’s Videos)” to better organize my posts for readers.

Still, unlike him, I had zero popularity. My posts consistently racked up single-digit views, with no likes or comments to speak of.

It was the limit of an ordinary person who lacked both skill with his hands and talent with words.

Watching popular users like DragonC—a former webtoon artist who uploaded beautifully illustrated comics about his daily life—or Anonymous118, who shared crude but creative homemade games, I began to understand why John Nae-non had been so harshly criticized.

Operating in the lowest caste of the popularity hierarchy, I naturally began to notice others like me.

There was the tenacious writer who kept posting original stories despite their abysmal view counts, the eccentric who uploaded grotesque photos of his own body with baseless confidence, and SeaMonkey Papa, who chronicled a bizarre diary about raising sea monkeys.

I often wondered if SeaMonkey Papa would’ve been more popular if he’d raised something else.

Among this lower-tier group was a user named Demian04.

He regularly uploaded ballpoint pen drawings of original characters, though to call them "art" would be generous.

His subjects were always long-haired women (or so it seemed), and while the poor quality could be excused, what couldn’t be overlooked was his insistence on drawing their chests absurdly large.

To put it mildly, it wasn’t just "exaggerated"—Demian04 had drawn breasts the size of two sacks of rice.

Had he been malnourished as a child?

Demian04 primarily posted these bizarre, monstrous sketches but rarely wrote anything revealing his thoughts or opinions.

It might’ve been his relentless dedication to uploading these grotesque chest monsters that etched him into my memory.

But then, out of nowhere, the man started talking.

His silence broke like a dam, and his posts suddenly flooded the community.

They were verbose and filled with opinions, a stark contrast to his earlier, almost mute behavior.

Some users speculated he might have found a spark of confidence. Others suggested that he had always been opinionated but was only now choosing to express it.

I couldn’t help but wonder what had caused this change.

Was it desperation? Isolation?

Or was it just another quirk of someone surviving in a world that had long since gone mad?

Whatever the reason, Demian04 was no longer just another faceless figure in the community.

He had become someone to watch.

*

Search Results: demian04 – 4,553 Entries

Demian04: Yuri, you're so beautiful~
Demian04: Picked a flower for you today, Yuri. Here’s a picture.
Demian04: This is the current state of Demian’s food storage.jpg
Demian04: (Demian04 Food) Tonight’s dinner, too good to eat alone~ hehe.
Demian04: (Demian04 Art) Fanart for Yuri!!
Demian04: (Demian04 Story) Just drove off some refugees.

“...Hmm?”

Why is this guy suddenly imitating me?

To be fair, that peculiar header style originally belonged to John Nae-non, but I was the one who improved it with flair.

And yet, Demian isn’t mimicking John Nae-non—he’s mimicking me.

I think I know why.

Not to brag, but I’ve recently gained some modest popularity.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Story) Memories with Chairman Jae Pung-ho (1).

A serialized story about my encounters with a billionaire struck a chord with the demanding users of the Viva! Apocalypse! Korean forums.

Part three, the climax, even made it to the top trending posts.

Demian must’ve read it.

But why has he become so chatty all of a sudden?

In these apocalyptic times, it’s not uncommon for someone to snap or start acting out of character overnight.

Stress, ignored truths, external threats, disease, radiation, drugs, fear of the future—there’s no shortage of reasons to drive us mad.

But in Demian’s case, it was clear he’d gone mad for a very different reason.

Demian04: (Demian04) Fanart for Yuri!!

Curious, I clicked on one of his posts.

As always, he had drawn his nymph-like, long-haired woman.

It was still horrendously bad, as expected, but something stood out to me after having reviewed all his previous works.

He’d put effort into this one. A lot of it.

That raised a question:

Who is this "Yuri"?

Is she a real person? An imaginary girlfriend?

I’d never seen anyone by that name in the community.

Then again, women don’t exist in this world anymore.

Unable to resolve my curiosity, I posted a question.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Question) Who the hell is Yuri?

Surprisingly, help came from an unexpected source.

Message from Defender: Looks like you’ve blocked them. Turn on the “Show Hidden Posts” function.

The Human Hunter himself.

In real life, he’s a psychopathic killer who takes lives indiscriminately, but within the community, he’s a sharp-tongued yet honest voice of reason—a sort of internet sage in a garbage human’s body.

Normally, isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

Anyway, I followed his advice and turned on the “Show Hidden Posts” function.

And the hidden truth was revealed.

Yuri_need_man: Yuri’s here~
Yuri_need_man: Took a selfie after putting on makeup for the first time in a while.
Yuri_need_man: Feeling down.
Yuri_need_man: I miss Starbucks.

“What the hell is this?”

A woman.

A young, beautiful woman.

Every post included a photo. Though her full face was never shown, the glimpses were enough to suggest she was an unmistakable early-twenties beauty.

Her figure was seductive, and she seemed fully aware of it, often wearing revealing outfits.

She also had numerous tattoos.

The photos were taken inside a bunker—not old pictures but recent ones.

But then...

“Wait a second.”

My usually calm demeanor hardened.

This was a trap.

Why had I blocked Yuri_need_man in the first place?

It wasn’t Yuri I had blocked.

I had blocked the person behind that account.

Account Info for Yuri_need_man
Account ID: viva103472
Nickname: Yuri_need_man
Posts: 10,323

“Of course.”

On Viva! Apocalypse!, you can change your nickname as easily as you would in a group chat, but the account ID is a permanent, unique value.

Using the account ID, I searched for its original nickname.

kurogod: My dad’s net worth is about 120 billion won.
kurogod: I miss caviar. U.S. Prime Steak doesn’t cut it for me.
kurogod: Here’s my Bentley from before the war.
kurogod: If I went all in, I could’ve built a way better bunker than you losers.

Kurologod.

This was one of the four users I had blocked along with Human Hunter.

He was the type to endlessly post diary entries filled with blatant lies.

Judging by his immature comments, he seemed young, but I remember his hands in his proof photos looking older than mine.

The problem was that Kurologod had disappeared over a year ago.

For someone who posted daily diaries without fail to suddenly vanish, there could only be one reason:

He had been killed, and his bunker had been taken over.

But the people who killed him had a new trick up their sleeves.

After looting Kurologod’s meager possessions, they must’ve found our community and decided to bait us with the image of a young, beautiful woman.

Defender summed it up perfectly:

Defender: No one’s dumb enough to fall for this, right?

Someone was.

Demian04: (Demian04) Yuri, you’re so beautiful today~ ❤️❤️

It was Demian04.

He followed every post Yuri made, liking them all and showering her with praise.

Concerned users tried to stop him.

The most vocal was someone with the nickname SUNBI.

SUNBI: Young man, you need to control yourself. I’ll DM you some adult videos. Use them to clear your head and achieve clarity.

That much was fine. Obsessing over a pretty woman is at least a healthy sign of masculinity.

Honestly, even I saved a few of Yuri’s real-time leggings photos—they were that devastating.

But all things must end.

The raiders finally revealed their claws.

Yuri_need_man: I’m lonely and in need of protection. Is there any gentleman who can shelter me for just one night?

The predator cast its deathly bait, accompanied by a seductive photo in lingerie.

I could already see the inevitable outcome, like a prophecy unfolding.

Demian04: Here!!

The prophecy came true.

Demian took the bait in less than a second.

“Wow... fucking unbelievable.”

A year and a half into the apocalypse, our community wasn’t as tightly knit as the Rupert Reich Palace group, but we still had a sense of solidarity.

Everyone banded together to try and stop him.

Defender: Don’t do it. This is your only warning.

Even the psychopathic Human Hunter.

Of course, I chimed in as well.

SKELTON: (Skelton’s Advice) Demian, you’re welcome to imitate me, but for God’s sake, open your eyes to reality.

The most passionate opposition came from SUNBI.

SUNBI: Yuri, consider this a warning. If you mess with anyone in our community, we won’t stand by and watch!

Faced with the backlash, the raiders adjusted their strategy.

Yuri_need_man: Too many jealous people here. Let’s talk via DM~

Private messages, invisible to everyone else.

Naturally, no one ever saw Demian04 again.

Even SUNBI, disheartened by the incident, vanished from the community.

The most mysterious outcome of all was Yuri’s disappearance.

Perhaps the raiders intended it as a one-time con. After luring their prey, they never returned to the forums.

Their wolf disguised as a beautiful woman was gone for good.

*

A week had passed.

For some reason, I suddenly became curious about Demian04’s past.

What kind of person had he been before the war, and immediately after it began?

His first appearance in the community was just after the war broke out.

Even then, he didn’t say much and only posted drawings.

But back then, his favorite subjects weren’t women with absurdly large breasts—it was landscapes.

Unlike his crude portraits, his landscapes were exceptionally good.

One piece in particular, titled Untitled 04, depicted a sunset over the ocean with a lone lighthouse on an isolated island. It was stunning.

So much so that I printed it out and hung it in my bunker.

I thought that would be the end of the Demian saga.

But there was an epilogue.

Defender: This might be a little late, but here’s the Yuri incident proof.

Demian04 hadn’t been the only one to show up at Yuri’s murder meetup.

Our very own Human Hunter had attended too.

He had killed both the raiders and their decoy face, Yuri, without mercy—and now he was uploading the proof photos to the forum.

But the raiders weren’t the only ones he had killed.

Our former comrades had also been there.

Unlike the raiders, their bodies were treated with some semblance of respect: their faces were covered in the photos.

Yet even with the slight reverence shown, the sight of their naked, beaten corpses told a story of brutality that set them apart from the raiders’ fates.

And there weren’t just one.

There were two.

Why two?

It hadn’t been only Demian04 who went to his death.

Defender: You’re wondering who the other one was?

Who could it have been?

Defender: 10.

10?

Defender: SUNBI.

“Ah.”