Rain dripped from the edges of the roof like slow clockwork.
Seo-jin stood at the edge of the training yard, his hands wrapped in thick gauze, fists clenched tight. The stone beneath his feet was cracked — not from battle, but from him.
Again.
Every time he trained now, the fractures came too fast.
Too wide.
Too hungry.
Across the yard, Min-ji leaned against a rusted scaffold, arms crossed, watching him.
She hadn't spoken in ten minutes.
And that silence hurt more than if she'd screamed.
Jae-hwan jogged up from the hallway, chewing a protein bar and whistling off-key. "Okay, okay," he said through a mouthful, "what did I miss? More mysterious brooding, or actual drama this time?"
Neither of them answered.
He blinked, looked between them.
"…Yikes."
**
Inside the command room, the air was thicker than usual.
Ko leaned over the war table, hands braced on either side of the newest recon maps.
Two squads had gone missing.
Not dead. Not ambushed.
Gone.
Vanished without a trace somewhere between Sector Eleven and Twelve.
"I don't like this," Ko muttered.
Seo-jin, standing beside him, nodded slowly.
He felt the pressure in the air too — like the city itself was waiting for something to shatter.
"Could be Black Sun again," Min-ji offered, coming to stand opposite Ko. "But this isn't their style. They brag. They want people to know it was them."
Ko tapped the map with a scarred finger.
"Exactly. This was clean. Too clean."
Silence.
Then:
"We're going in," he said. "Today."
Min-ji stiffened. "You're sending us?"
Ko didn't answer directly.
He didn't need to.
Seo-jin sighed quietly. "Who else?"
Ko looked up at him, and for the first time, there was something almost… hesitant in his expression.
"You sure you're up for this?"
The words hit harder than expected.
Seo-jin forced his voice steady. "You're not pulling me off the field."
"You lost control in the tunnels."
"I still brought them back."
Min-ji's voice cut through like a whip. "Don't talk like you did it alone."
Seo-jin glanced at her.
She didn't blink.
Ko exhaled. "You go. All three. But this is recon, not war. You see something, you report. You don't engage unless you have no other choice."
He didn't have to say it aloud —
Because the real message was clear.
One more slip, and Seo-jin wouldn't be trusted again.
**
They left Lotus at sundown.
The streets between sectors were quieter than usual — not silent, but… wrong.
No traders.
No patrols.
No signs of life.
Jae-hwan walked with his knife drawn, spinning it between fingers.
"You feel that?"
Seo-jin nodded.
Every instinct in his body screamed at him that they were being watched — not by people.
By the city itself.
Min-ji tightened her scarf around her neck. "Sector Twelve's been dead for months. Too radioactive, too unstable. Why would anyone move through here?"
Seo-jin didn't answer.
Because he knew why.
The pull inside him —
the strange echo that had begun after their last encounter with the fragment core —
was tugging him again. Stronger now.
Like the ruins were vibrating with something just below the surface.
Something alive.
**
They reached the edge of the old commuter hub by nightfall.
Twisted metal and shattered trains loomed like corpses under moonlight.
Min-ji raised her binoculars, sweeping across the open station.
"Nothing on thermal. No signs of movement."
Jae-hwan tilted his head. "Then why's my skin crawling?"
Seo-jin knelt by a shattered terminal, brushing aside debris.
There — faint footprints. Recently disturbed.
A trail, barely visible in the dust.
"They're here," he murmured.
And then, without warning, the ground beneath him cracked.
Not fractured.
Not his power.
It split.
From underneath.
A faint tremor rippled outward.
Min-ji stepped back instinctively.
Jae-hwan crouched, eyes wide. "That wasn't you?"
Seo-jin shook his head slowly, heart thudding.
Something had just moved underground.
Something massive.
They weren't alone.
Not even close.
The echo of the tremor still rang in Seo-jin's bones.
He rose slowly from his crouch, brushing dust from his hands. "That wasn't a building shift. That was… movement."
"Something's under us?" Jae-hwan asked, voice half-joking, half-not.
Min-ji turned in a slow circle, flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. "Whatever it was, it didn't sound mechanical. That was… deep. Organic."
Seo-jin stared down at the ground. The dust shimmered slightly, like it was still vibrating.
The hum in his chest grew louder.
He was starting to feel it not just when he fractured —
but all the time.
Min-ji noticed his jaw tightening.
"Hey." Her voice was quieter now. "You good?"
He nodded once, then lied. "Yeah."
She didn't believe him. He knew that.
But she said nothing.
**
The tunnel entrance at the back of the station was mostly caved in — rusted beams and shattered tiles — but someone had cleared a path.
A narrow crawl space, just big enough to slide through.
Jae-hwan crouched next to it, whistling low. "Think they were trying to hide or trying to get somewhere?"
"Both," Seo-jin said. "Only one way to find out."
They slipped through one by one, Min-ji going last.
As she slid inside, her boot scraped metal — and it gave a low, metallic groan.
They all froze.
Then silence.
For a second.
Then, a breath.
Not theirs.
A sound like a low inhale.
Min-ji's voice dropped to a whisper. "Tell me I didn't hear that."
"You didn't," Jae-hwan whispered. "But we're leaving anyway, right?"
No one moved.
And then — lights.
Dozens of faint red glows flicked on at once, from the dark tunnel ahead.
Eyes.
Watching.
Min-ji cursed under her breath. "Back! Now—"
Too late.
The tunnel exploded in motion.
Shapes rushed from the dark — humanoid, but hunched, wrong, their skin mottled and glowing faintly around embedded fragment shards.
Jae-hwan was the first to react, flipping backward and slamming a smoke grenade into the floor.
"Cover!"
Min-ji threw a shockwave forward, catching two of the creatures mid-charge.
They didn't cry out. Didn't scream.
They just kept coming.
Seo-jin fractured the floor hard — too hard — and the ceiling above groaned ominously.
They fell back toward the station, barely ahead of the pack.
"What the hell are those?" Jae-hwan shouted as he slashed one across the neck — it barely slowed down.
"Fragment husks," Seo-jin gasped. "I've seen something like it before. But not this many. Not this organized."
Min-ji ducked under a strike and countered with a palm to the chest, sending her attacker flying.
"They're not human anymore."
They reached the open platform, light from the moon spilling in through the cracked ceiling.
The creatures stopped at the edge of the darkness.
Staring.
Waiting.
Seo-jin turned slowly, chest heaving.
His hands were glowing.
He looked down — and felt his blood go cold.
His skin shimmered faintly. Just like theirs.
Min-ji saw it too.
"Seo-jin—"
"I know," he said.
But he didn't.
**
Later, back in Lotus, they debriefed with Ko.
None of them mentioned the glow.
Not yet.
Ko stared at the drawings Min-ji sketched of the creatures, jaw clenched.
"This isn't a faction," he said. "This is something else. Something old."
Jae-hwan crossed his arms, eyes serious now. "They weren't trying to kill us. Not really. They were testing us."
Min-ji nodded slowly. "And they recognized him."
All eyes turned to Seo-jin.
He said nothing.
The hum in his chest hadn't stopped since they'd returned.
It was louder now.
Deeper.
Like something had woken up.
And it wasn't going back to sleep.
Night had fallen over Lotus.
But inside Seo-jin's head, it was anything but quiet.
He sat alone on the rooftop of the old dormitory, hands clasped together, elbows resting on his knees.
The lights from the city below flickered weakly — distant, meaningless.
Above him, the moon glowed pale and full.
Wind moved through the broken beams, carrying the scent of dust and rain.
But all Seo-jin felt was the thing inside his chest.
That pulse.
That hum.
That fragment that no longer obeyed him fully.
He shut his eyes.
And in the quiet… a whisper.
Not a voice.
Not human.
But something that wrapped around his thoughts like a vine.
"You are not just a user."
"You are becoming one of us."
**
Footsteps.
Light. Careful.
Min-ji.
She sat beside him without a word, knees drawn up, chin resting on them.
She didn't speak at first.
Then softly:
"You're losing control more often, aren't you?"
He didn't answer.
She turned her head toward him, eyes catching the silver of the moonlight.
"Seo-jin. I'm not here for you to protect. I'm here to stand with you."
Her voice was calm.
But every word felt like it went straight through him.
He lowered his head. "I know. But I'm scared of what I'm turning into."
She leaned closer, just enough that their shoulders brushed.
"Then if you change, I'll change with you. But I'm not letting you turn into something alone."
He looked at her.
And in her eyes, he saw something stronger than fear.
He saw trust.
And for the first time in days, the hum inside him…
receded.
Just a little.
**
Later that night, when all of Lotus had gone still, Seo-jin dreamed.
But it wasn't a dream.
It was a memory that didn't belong to him.
Shattered fragments.
Figures drowned in light.
A battlefield buried beneath silence.
And a shape — one that looked like him.
Too much like him.
He woke with a sharp breath, before dawn.
His palm burned.
When he opened his hand, a tiny fracture hovered above it — glowing, stable, silent.
Not summoned.
Not commanded.
It was just… there.
Alive.
A part of him.
Seo-jin stared at it for a long time, unmoving.
This wasn't just a tool anymore.
It was something else.