Ghosts of Eternity

The r/Biohackers subreddit on Reddit, visible on the tablet screen, was churning with near-manic excitement.

[AX-11 Week 3 Review: Body fat dropped and muscle pain evaporated.]

Seo-han let out a dry chuckle as he rolled up his shirt sleeves. An anti-IL-11 antibody did not deliver such immediate, dramatic physical sensations. What they were feeling was almost certainly a placebo effect.

Seo-han stood in front of the mirror and examined his left deltoid. The spot where he had injected himself three weeks earlier had healed without a trace.

No redness. No swelling. No muscle soreness.

The thermometer read 36.5°C. The heart rate recorded on his wrist smartwatch was a steady 62 beats per minute. His body was eerily quiet—a stillness on an entirely different level from the overwhelming, intense arousal that used to sweep through his mind whenever he used the Ghost 2.0 nasal spray.

“I feel absolutely nothing.”

His low voice cut through the sterile air of the lab.

Yet, Seo-han’s eyes shone sharper than usual. This complete lack of sensation matched exactly what his simulations had predicted.

An IL-11 inhibitor was no firefighter. It was more like waterproof sealant applied to a house, blocking the slow seepage that weakened its structure year after year. Its purpose was not to reverse damage overnight, but to slow its accumulation at the molecular level.

Seo-han lifted his tablet and reviewed his latest bloodwork. CRP levels remained unchanged from his baseline, and there were no meaningful shifts in fibrosis-related biomarkers either. It was the expected outcome. In a healthy body, these were not signals that could be captured in a mere three weeks.

To visually confirm its anti-aging efficacy, one would need five—no, ten or more years of treatment and controlled follow-up. It was a tedious battle that had to be proven statistically: slower graying, preserved skin elasticity, and delayed cardiopulmonary decline.

At the very least, this silence was no evidence of failure. So far, his body had shown no signs of intolerance to IL-11 inhibition.

Ping—

A soft chime broke the quiet air of the lab.

Seo-han turned his gaze to the monitor. With a dry clicking sound, his inbox opened. A PDF document stamped clearly with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s red electronic seal appeared on the screen.

[Acknowledgment of Ghost 2.0 Phase 1 Final Report and Approval of Phase 2 Clinical Trial Application]

Seo-han rested his chin on his hand and slowly scrolled the mouse wheel. It had been three months since the first dose, and exactly one week since the final safety review meeting concluded.

Normally, this administrative process would have taken months. There were no standard requests for supplementary data, nor any of the bureaucratic delays typical of government agencies. No government agency moved this fast without pressure from above. The desperate impatience of powerful men thirsty for youth seemed to bleed right through the document.

The corner of Seo-han’s lips curled upward.

“Impatient, aren’t they?”

Muttering to himself, Seo-han chose not to dig deeper into who was pulling the strings. Who pushed the paperwork through did not matter. What mattered was not wasting the time he had secured.

Without hesitation, he double-clicked the Phase 2 protocol file. A stark white protocol dashboard opened, filling the screen with tables, formulas, and data charts.

The primary objective of this trial was the collection of precise biological data. The study population had been clearly defined.

The first group consisted of 90 women with persistent HSDD associated with perimenopause or menopause. The second group comprised 90 men aged forty to sixty-five with clinically significant age-related loss of libido.

A sample size of 180 subjects in total. They might think they were coming to be saved, but to Seo-han, desire, arousal, and sexual drive were ultimately nothing more than measurable biological responses.

Seo-han leaned deep into his chair, checking off the outcome measures one by one.

The primary endpoint was a subjective metric: the change from baseline in spontaneous sexual desire score. It was the process of reducing something as intangible as desire to a number from zero to ten.

The secondary endpoints were more objective. They recorded the actual frequency and satisfaction of sexual activity while simultaneously drawing blood at fixed intervals on designated evaluation days to characterize the pulsatile secretion patterns of LH and FSH.

Illuminated by the blue glow of the monitor, Seo-han murmured softly.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I need to prove through data just how far pulsatile stimulation can restore LH and FSH waveforms… and how closely testosterone and estradiol follow in their wake.”

Seo-han lightly tapped his keyboard to finalize the recruitment notice for Phase 2 participants.

The treatment period was only one week. In that brief window, how quickly could this forced pulsatile stimulation restart a dormant gonadal axis?

On the first screening day of the Ghost 2.0 Phase 2 clinical trial, the lobby of the Seoul National University Hospital Clinical Trials Center was filled with a strange, heavy silence.

Through the expansive glass walls, the gray cityscape was visible, but the air inside felt dry and isolated from the outside world. The pungent odor of isopropyl alcohol mingled with the faint scent of nervous sweat rising from the men gathered there.

In a separate waiting room across the hall, female applicants were completing the same questionnaires under equally strict security protocols. Here in the men's waiting room, over a hundred men sat with their heads bowed, eyes glued to tablet screens.

From corporate executives in tailored luxury suits to self-employed men in wrinkled dress shirts, their eyes darted nervously across the screens.

A question popped up on the display:

[Over the past month, how many times have you experienced sexual fantasies?]

A man wearing an Italian Brioni suit swallowed hard. He fidgeted with his shirt cuffs, unconsciously rubbing one of his polished cufflinks.

In truth, he had indulged in a brief encounter with his secretary just a week ago. But that was a mechanical act fueled by a little blue pill—an obligatory duty barely executed while enduring a splitting headache. Real 'desire' had dried up long ago.

The man’s finger hesitated briefly before pressing ‘0 times’ with firm resolve.

To get his hands on this miraculous spray, he had to make himself appear completely devoid of sexual desire. With dull, lifeless eyes, he swiped to the next page.

[Level of sexual desire and spontaneous interest toward others.]

Here and there across the lobby, men unbuttoned their collars or let out dry coughs.

As the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) section began—separating sexual desire from purely mechanical erectile function—the atmosphere grew even gloomier.

“Please focus on the questions. If your answers lack consistency or contradict previous responses, you will be immediately disqualified from the trial.”

A researcher in a white lab coat passed by nonchalantly, holding a clipboard. His dry voice tightened the tension in the room once more.

[Number of sexual intercourse attempts in the past 3 months.]

[Frequency of masturbation in the past month.]

A man in his fifties sitting in a corner kept bouncing his leg, casting cautious glances around the room.

He had engaged in intimacy just last night at his wife's insistence. But none of that mattered if he could experience the surge Ghost 2.0 promised. If spraying a fine mist into his nose every morning could bring back the boiling blood of his twenties, it didn't matter.

On this questionnaire, he was more than ready to make himself look utterly dysfunctional. The man jabbed at ‘None at all’ with more force than necessary.

“Excuse me, about this...”

A man sitting next to him, twirling a Porsche key in his hand, whispered under his breath.

“They don't cross-check this with our recent health checkup data or anything, right?”

He was racking his brain trying to figure out how to drag his sexual desire score down to absolute zero. The researcher behind the reception desk replied mechanically without looking up from her monitor.

“We don't select candidates based solely on the questionnaire. If your blood work and interview details don't align with your answers, you may be disqualified. Please answer truthfully.”

The cold warning caused the men's shoulders to stiffen. No one dared glance at another person's screen.

Here, they were neither successful leaders of society nor devoted heads of households. They were merely aging bodies whose functions were being quantified one by one. A bizarre testing ground where they had to prove, on a screen, how much they had lost just to earn a shot at salvation—that was their current reality.

One man froze with his finger hovering above a prompt. His fingertip trembled faintly.

He stared blankly into space. His gaze landed on his reflection in the cold marble wall—his graying temples and drooping eyelids. He remembered those dark, hollow nights when no amount of stimulating videos could strike a single spark in his brain.

What had vanished with age was not simple stamina or virility. It was the primal capacity to intensely crave something, to yearn for another's skin, and to burn for tomorrow—it felt as though that very ability had been entirely snuffed out.

The man confronted the hollow place inside his chest. From deep within, a surge of shame and bitter sorrow welled up. With a trembling finger, he pressed the ‘None at all’ button.

The misery was fleeting. His obsession with 'Ghost 2.0'—the silver nasal spray that promised to drag him out of this hellish apathy—tightened its grip on his heart. He craved the moment the fine mist touched his nasal passages and set his blood racing again.

On the large display mounted in the center of the lobby, the waiting list for [Pulsatile Hormone Sampling] updated in real time. Every time the green and red numbers flickered, the anxiety in the waiting area multiplied.

Having completed their surveys, the men stood up one by one, their bodies heavy. Heading toward the blood draw room, their slumping backs looked drained of life, yet their eyes gleamed with a bizarre, feverish obsession.

“Applicant number 104, please proceed to the blood draw room.”

A nurse’s calm voice resonated across the lobby.

A man sitting in the corner sprang up like a coiled spring. Standing up so abruptly, the heavy gold watch on his wrist clattered loudly against his shirt sleeve.

He took one last look at his tablet screen, where the number '0 sexual intercourse attempts in the past 3 months' was clearly etched. Looking down at the display that preserved his claim of zero intercourse attempts on record, a twisted, bitter smile touched the corners of his lips—a grin mixed with relief.

Only ninety men would be allowed through that door. To squeeze through that narrow gate, they were staging the most desperate performance of their lives.

From behind the glass wall on the second floor, the entire waiting area stretched out below.

Dr. Park, the principal investigator of the clinical trial, leaned against the railing and looked down. Only the ticking of the clock broke the quiet. Beside him, a nurse holding a tablet spoke cautiously.

“These are the screening questionnaires from the Phase 2 applicants. Everyone seems desperate to make themselves look severe enough to qualify. The proportion of subjects checking off severe libido loss and erectile dysfunction is abnormally high—even among wealthy, high-status applicants.”

Dr. Park answered dryly without taking his eyes off the lobby below.

“Leave them be. We don't select candidates based on a questionnaire alone. Once we cross-reference hormone levels, repeat interviews, and partner surveys, most applicants who are exaggerating will be filtered out.”

Dr. Park turned around slowly.

“Those men aren't just coming here for a drug.”

The nurse looked up at him.

“They are here to reclaim their lost selves.”

Down below, applicant number 104 walked into the blood draw room.

The first screening for the Ghost 2.0 Phase 2 trial had officially begun.