Morning broke over Lotus with a sky the color of steel.
Seo-jin stood alone in the courtyard, watching the clouds churn above the fractured skyline. His breath came out in tight, controlled exhales, his fists trembling slightly at his sides.
He hadn't told anyone about the fracture hovering in his palm the night before.
Not Ko.Not Min-ji.
And certainly not himself.
The memory was too raw. Too quiet. Too real.
Like something had whispered its way into his blood while he wasn't looking.
**
Ko's voice cut through the still air like gravel.
"Report."
Seo-jin blinked — the courtyard was gone. Now they were in the strategy room. He hadn't even realized he'd followed the others inside.
Min-ji gave a curt nod.
"Nothing moved near Sector Twelve last night. No new patrols. No heat signatures."
Ko's eyes narrowed.
"And yet, something woke."
Jae-hwan, who stood in the corner peeling an orange, chuckled.
"Is this a metaphor or an actual thing with claws? Because I'd really like to know before we're ankle-deep in corpses."
Ko didn't respond. He simply placed a hand on the map and circled a spot just east of the ruins.
"Two squads disappeared here."
Seo-jin leaned in. The terrain looked unfamiliar — a collapsed trainyard riddled with fragment scars and sinkholes.
"Any signs?"
Ko shook his head. "No noise. No signals. Just gone."
Min-ji's voice dropped slightly. "You think it's connected to what we saw?"
Ko's reply was blunt. "I think whatever's growing in Sector Twelve isn't finished."
Silence settled again, until Ko turned to Seo-jin.
"You're going back."
No question.
Just command.
Seo-jin swallowed. "Alone?"
"No," Ko replied. "But I'm not sending a full team. I need someone who can feel what's shifting."
That silence again.
Min-ji stared at Seo-jin, frowning.
"You're using him like a sensor."
"He volunteered when he bonded with something we don't understand," Ko snapped. "Don't blame me for noticing."
Seo-jin didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Because the truth was simple.
He could feel it again.Right now.
The hum was back.Deep under the floor.Under the city.
It was waiting for him.
And it was getting louder.
They moved out just after noon.
Ko didn't say goodbye. He never did.
Just a sharp nod as Seo-jin stepped through the main gate, Min-ji close behind, her jaw tight and unreadable.
They walked in silence for the first few blocks, the ruins around them whispering with dry wind and loose cables.
Jae-hwan wasn't with them this time.Ko had "reassigned" him to training duty — but they all knew why.
Seo-jin was unstable.And Ko didn't want more than one person near him when he cracked again.
Min-ji finally broke the silence.
"You should've told me about last night."
Seo-jin didn't respond.
She kept walking, her eyes fixed forward.
"I felt it. When you walked into the yard this morning. The pressure. The pull."
His voice came out quieter than he meant.
"I didn't want to worry you."
Min-ji stopped. Turned.
Her expression wasn't angry.It was something worse.
Disappointed.
"Seo-jin. I'm not just here to patch you up after every fracture. I'm supposed to be your partner."
He looked at her, feeling the weight of her words settle between them like ash.
She continued, softer now."But I can't protect you if you keep shutting me out."
"I'm not trying to," he said. "I just… I don't know what this is. And if I say it out loud, I feel like it becomes real."
She reached out, rested a hand on his chest — over the place where the fragment pulse lived.
"It's already real."
For a long second, they stood like that.
Just the sound of wind through dead rebar.The hush of a dying world.And the fragile weight of two people trying not to lose each other.
**
The collapsed trainyard appeared at the edge of Sector Twelve like a scar on the earth.
Twisted rails jutted from the ground like ribs, and massive train cars lay half-swallowed in sinkholes.
It should've felt empty.
But it didn't.
Seo-jin's fragment hummed like a second heartbeat.
Min-ji scanned the area with her scope."No movement. No heat."
"Still not comforting," Seo-jin muttered.
They descended into the wreckage carefully, boots crunching over shattered glass and scorched stone.
As they passed beneath a rusted archway, Seo-jin stopped.
His breath caught.
"Did you hear that?"
Min-ji paused, tilting her head. "Hear what?"
A sound.
Not quite a voice.
Not quite a vibration.
It slid behind his eyes, slow and liquid.
A thought that wasn't his.
"You came back."
His knees buckled slightly. He gripped the wall for balance.
Min-ji turned, eyes wide."What is it?"
He shook his head, voice hoarse."It's… speaking to me."
She moved toward him fast, grabbing his arm."Seo-jin, look at me."
His eyes met hers — and for a second, she saw them glow faintly.
Just for a second.
Then it faded.
He blinked.
But whatever had touched him —it was still there.
They followed the whisper.
Not in words. Not in sound.But in pressure — a sensation that pulled Seo-jin deeper into the broken rail tunnels, as if gravity itself had shifted.
Min-ji stayed close, flashlight flicking over twisted rails and walls choked with vines and rust. The tunnel narrowed, collapsed in places, but always just enough for them to squeeze through.
"You're shaking again," she whispered as they ducked under a beam.
"I know," Seo-jin muttered.
He wasn't cold.
He wasn't tired.
He was resonating.
Every step made his skin buzz. The fragment pulse in his chest now felt like a live wire braided into his spine.
They reached a chamber at the end of the tunnel — a sunken atrium, circular and dark, ringed by the bones of old train supports.
At its center stood… something.
A monolith.
No markings. No metal.Just a massive shape of smooth, black stone, veined with faint, pulsing light.
Seo-jin stumbled forward as if dragged.
"Wait," Min-ji called. "Seo-jin—"
But he was already crossing the threshold.
As he stepped into the chamber, the hum in his body synced with the glow of the monolith.
It answered.
The light pulsed once.
Then twice.
Then — a voice. Clear. Inside his mind.
"We knew you'd find your way back."
He dropped to his knees.
His breath hitched.He wasn't in the chamber anymore.
He stood in a field of white fractal lines, stretching endlessly in every direction.The sky above was broken. Shards of moonlight hung like knives.
A figure stood before him.
Humanoid, almost.
But wrong.
Its body was made of fracture lines — glowing veins wrapped around a hollow silhouette.
Its face mirrored his.
But it didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Only watched.
"You are ours."
Seo-jin tried to speak.
"Why me?"
The thing stepped forward.
"Because you were empty enough to be filled."
He flinched.
"And strong enough to survive it."
The field shattered.
He screamed.
**
He came to on the ground, Min-ji kneeling over him, her hands gripping his shoulders.
"Seo-jin! Hey—!"
He gasped, eyes wide.
The monolith had gone dark.
The chamber was still.
But something had changed.
Inside him, something had shifted.
No more humming.
No more pulse.
But he could feel it now.
Deeper.
Woven into him.
"Seo-jin…" Min-ji's voice shook. "What did you see?"
He looked at her.
"I didn't just touch the fragment," he whispered."It touched me back."