Thuos Kor was a universe inside a world. A bless for some, a curse to most. Being alive was not a miracle, it was a punishment. Having a life was a death sentence.

And it all began with a “reconciliation”.

In 2030, the then South and North Korea finally reunited. With the technological advance of South Korea and the military preparation of North Korea, the new nation ascended to be one of the biggest global powers. The ruler was Kim Jaejoong, the former president of South Korea, now just Korea.

Three years later, Korea and Japan merged to form a superpower. No one was expecting such occurrence. Japan would never accept merging with another country and Korea would never want to be related to Japan. But they did, leaving everyone stupefied. The new formed country, still called Korea, implemented that everyone had to speak Korean and the Japanese practically lost their culture, leaving everyone confused and even preoccupied. Why would Japan, a major economic power, merge with Korea (with which it had had a rough pass) and lose all its culture?

What practically no one knew was that, behind all the process of reuniting both Koreas and add Japan was none other than the called Legion, a group of South Korean’s most influential men and women, normal citizens ready to fight and all the military.  Kim Jaejoong was just the face ordered by the real organization and its true ruler, only known as The Almighty.

Soon all the other countries were dependent of Korea. U.S.A was powerless and so were the European Union or even China and Russia. The other Asian countries were all extremely dependent of Korea’s economy, Oceania could only depend on themselves and Africa was helpless.

It didn’t take long: by 2037, Korea had a new name, a new goal and a new government. It was a completely new and different nation. Thuos Kor was created, comprised of rich, influential people. The others – the proletariat, the so called “low class” – were the base of the economy, working non-stop. The Almighty ruled unfairly, helped by the powerful ones, the upper class, and the Legion, the military force, also part of the upper class.

A new dictatorship was formed in the world, but this was different from all the others. It was more powerful than any other: they controlled their own country, other countries around the world, the international stock market, the world production of food and every single life.

When, in 2093, a serum was found, life quality decreased even more; the entire nation was forced to take it, whether in pills or injection. It was called “serum of death” by the proletariat, but that was a rather misleading name. In reality, the serum was the most awaited formula around the world for centuries: eternal life.

Comprised of extract of Turritopsis nutricula, a jellyfish, and Pinus longaeva, a pine, the serum would regenerate all the internal organs and prevent people from getting old. It basically stopped their cellular activity, stopping aging. Since the formula only regenerated the internal organs and stopped aging, people would stay with the age they had when they took it forever. Because of that, the government decided that only the people between their 20’s and 60’s would take the serum; children had to wait until they turned 20 to take it and would have to take it before turning 35. Those who, at the time of the discovery of the serum, were 70 or older were forbidden of taking it. Thuos Kor’s government didn’t want old people incapable of working their money. Sure, the serum regenerated the organs, but not the muscles, not the strength, not the will of working.

By 2112, there were no old people in Thuos Kor and children had been forbidden in 2107 – no one could have kids in order to prevent an unsustainable raise of population. Nevertheless, some higher rankings of the upper class had the privilege of being able to have one child. Not that it mattered much: most people had become infertile after taking the serum.

From the outside, Thuos Kor’s population seemed to be happy and have a good life, better than in all the other countries. However, only Thuos Kor’s proletariat knew how their lives really were: working between 20 to 22 hours a day with crappy salaries, old, smelly houses to live in, bad food, bad clothes and forbidden to do practically everything, from playing, to reading, having fun and even thinking too much.

They needed a spark of hope. But even that was hard to find.