The old halls of Lotus echoed with distant voices.
Not the steady chatter of preparations, nor the tense murmurs of fighters readying for battle — but something harsher, sharper.
Arguments.
Seo-jin could feel it the moment he stepped into the central corridor.
Tension coiled in the air like smoke before a fire.
Min-ji was beside him, her expression wary.
"You hear that?" she murmured.
Seo-jin nodded.
They moved quickly toward the source — the main strategy room.
Inside, several of the senior members were gathered — Ha-eun, Ko, Myung-soo, and a few others Seo-jin didn't know well.
Voices overlapped in frustration.
"We can't keep throwing ourselves against them without backup!" one man shouted.
"They're bleeding us dry," another added.
Ha-eun stood near the center of the room, arms crossed tightly, jaw set.
Ko faced them all, silent, heavy as a mountain.
Seo-jin and Min-ji slipped into the room quietly, staying near the wall.
Ko finally spoke, voice low but carrying.
"You think running will save you?"
Silence.
"You think surrender will be mercy?"
He scanned the room slowly, letting the words hang.
One of the younger men shifted uneasily. "Maybe if we negotiate—"
"Negotiate?" Ko cut him off. "With Crimson Shield? With Black Sun?"
He barked a harsh laugh.
Seo-jin watched, heart heavy.
This wasn't a strategy meeting.
It was a crack forming.
Min-ji leaned closer, whispering, "This isn't good."
Seo-jin nodded grimly.
**
After the meeting broke up — more like scattered in anger than ended properly — Ko stayed behind, staring at the battered map laid out on the table.
Seo-jin approached slowly.
"You alright?" he asked.
Ko didn't look up.
"Been worse," he said gruffly.
Seo-jin hesitated.
"Some of them are scared."
Ko snorted.
"They should be."
He finally looked at Seo-jin, and for a moment, Seo-jin saw it —
the weight crushing the older man's shoulders.
Responsibility. Fear.
The terrible knowledge that he might not be able to save them all.
"You think I'm wrong?" Ko asked quietly.
Seo-jin shook his head.
"I think you're doing the best you can."
Ko grunted, a sound that could have been approval.
Min-ji appeared behind Seo-jin, tossing a water bottle at Ko, who caught it automatically.
"Stop brooding," she said bluntly. "You're scaring the rookies."
Ko cracked a thin smile.
Maybe not much, but it was something.
**
Later, in the medic bay, Seo-jin found Ha-eun packing supplies into battered duffel bags.
She didn't look up when he entered.
"You're leaving?" he asked carefully.
She shook her head sharply.
"Preparing. In case we have to."
Seo-jin leaned against the doorway, arms crossed.
"You think it'll come to that?"
Ha-eun's hands stilled.
"I think people are starting to choose sides," she said softly. "Even inside Lotus."
Seo-jin said nothing.
What could he say?
She finally looked at him, eyes tired.
"Just… watch your back, Seo-jin."
He nodded slowly.
"I will."
**
That night, the tension was unbearable.
Seo-jin sat on the rooftop with Min-ji, watching the broken city sprawled out under the stars.
The wind was cold, snapping at their clothes.
Min-ji leaned back on her hands, staring up at the sky.
"You think they'll leave?" she asked.
Seo-jin shrugged.
"Some will."
Min-ji closed her eyes briefly.
"I don't blame them," she said. "This life… it's not what anyone dreams of."
Seo-jin tilted his head, studying her.
"What about you?"
She cracked one eye open, smirking.
"I'm too stubborn to quit."
Seo-jin chuckled quietly.
"Good."
They sat in silence for a while.
Down below, the lights of Lotus flickered —
patchwork, fragile.
But still burning.
But peace never lasted long in Lotus. The next morning, a mission would pull them back into the broken veins of the city.
The dawn was a gray smear across the sky as Seo-jin tightened the straps on his pack.
The world smelled of rust and dust and distant smoke — the scent of a city slowly dying.
Ko stood by the entrance to Lotus's inner yard, arms folded, eyes dark.
"This isn't a regular scavenging mission," Ko said. "It's deeper. Sector Five. Old ruins."
Min-ji, standing next to Seo-jin, raised an eyebrow.
"What's in Sector Five that's worth risking our necks?"
Ko's mouth twisted grimly.
"Old-world tech. Fragment relics. Maybe something we can use."
Ha-eun appeared, handing Seo-jin a med-kit without a word.
Her hands brushed his briefly — cold, steady.
"Be careful," she murmured.
Seo-jin nodded.
He glanced at Min-ji.
She rolled her shoulders, grinning.
"Let's go ghost hunting."
**
Sector Five was worse than Seo-jin remembered.
Buildings leaned drunkenly against each other, jagged teeth against the sickly sky.
Ash and dust coated everything like a second skin.
No birds. No wind. Just the hollow groan of metal shifting under its own weight.
They moved carefully, weapons ready.
Jae-hwan scouted ahead, bouncing on the balls of his feet like this was all some grand adventure.
"You sure this place isn't cursed?" he asked, half-joking.
Min-ji snorted.
"If it is, you're probably the curse."
Jae-hwan flashed a grin, unbothered.
Seo-jin barely heard them.
His senses were razor-sharp, every step a test of balance on cracked concrete and hidden pitfalls.
They passed the skeleton of an old commuter train, twisted around a collapsed support beam.
Seo-jin ran a hand along the rusted hull as they passed —
felt the jagged echoes of something old and broken humming faintly under his skin.
He shook it off.
**
Hours later, they found it.
An entrance buried under rubble — a thick steel door, half-sunken into the earth.
The markings were almost worn away, but Seo-jin could make out fragments of lettering.
Something military.
Something forbidden.
Min-ji crouched, brushing dust away from the old keypad.
"Think it still works?"
Jae-hwan peered over her shoulder.
"Only one way to find out."
Seo-jin studied the mechanism.
Most of it was dead — no power, no response.
But the lock had corroded enough that a strong enough fracture could shatter it.
He focused, letting the fragment energy gather at his fingertips — a thin, trembling line of force.
He struck.
The door gave way with a grinding screech, metal snapping and folding like old paper.
Min-ji gave him a mock salute.
"Showoff."
He allowed himself a small smile as they slipped inside.
**
The interior was worse.
Dark.
Claustrophobic.
The air thick with mold and decay.
Their flashlights pierced the gloom, revealing long corridors lined with rusted panels and shattered monitors.
Old stains darkened the floor.
The scent of chemical rot clung to everything.
Seo-jin moved carefully, heart pounding harder than he liked.
"This place gives me the creeps," Jae-hwan muttered.
Min-ji nodded grimly.
"Stay sharp."
They found the control room first — or what was left of it.
Monitors hung dead on cracked brackets.
Papers littered the floor, the ink long since bled into illegibility.
Min-ji sifted through the debris, her face serious for once.
Seo-jin moved toward a central console, half-buried under a collapsed beam.
There — faint, but real — a hum.
Energy.
Fragment energy, old and sleeping.
He brushed dust from the console carefully.
A small, flickering interface sparked weakly to life under his touch.
Jae-hwan leaned in.
"What the hell is that?"
Seo-jin squinted.
Schematics.
Fragment containment procedures.
Experimental weapon systems.
His stomach twisted.
This wasn't a bunker.
It was a laboratory.
One that had been abandoned in a hurry.
One that had probably gone wrong.
**
A noise behind them — soft, but sharp.
They whirled as a door slid open with a tortured screech.
Beyond it, a chamber pulsed faintly with shifting lights —
and at its center, a crystal.
Floating.
Rotating slowly, shards of light splintering off its surface like broken promises.
Min-ji took a cautious step forward.
"What the hell is that?"
Seo-jin felt it before he thought it.
A pull.
Like something deep in his chest recognizing something older, something terrible.
He stepped forward without realizing.
The crystal flared — and the world bent.
⸻
He was somewhere else.
Standing on an endless plain of cracked glass, under a black sky.
Shadows moved at the edge of his vision —
vague, impossible shapes.
He stumbled back, heart hammering.
A voice — not heard, but felt.
"Break it."
Seo-jin gasped as the vision shattered, dumping him back into the ruined lab.
He staggered.
Min-ji caught him instinctively.
"Seo-jin! Hey, you okay?"
He nodded shakily, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.
Jae-hwan looked spooked for once.
"You touched it, didn't you?"
Seo-jin didn't answer.
He couldn't.
**
They didn't linger.
Min-ji set a controlled fracture, collapsing part of the entrance to seal the lab behind them.
Whatever that crystal was — it was better left buried.
They retreated into the dying light of the city, breathing hard, eyes wary.
The city loomed around them, broken and vast.
No answers.
Only more questions.
Seo-jin didn't look back.
Neither did Min-ji.