The sunlight filtered through the tinted windows of the Seoul office tower, casting long golden streaks across stacks of paperwork and overworked faces. Phones buzzed, keyboards clacked, and the faint aroma of convenience store coffee clung to the air like a second skin — bitter, artificial, and endlessly recycled.
Kael adjusted his crooked tie with one hand while juggling a half-eaten triangle kimbap in the other. His inbox blinked angrily at him. Sixty-three unread messages. Again.
"Third coffee already?"
Hira's dry voice cut through his thoughts as she slapped a thick file onto his desk. Her ponytail flicked behind her like a tail from some mythical beast with zero tolerance for nonsense.
Kael looked up with a weary smirk. "I call it breakfast, lunch, and emotional support."
"Boss wants the analytics report in an hour." She turned, heels clicking away. "Better get to it, Mr. Emotional Support."
He let out a long sigh. Hira was the only one in the office who could mock him and still make him feel like she gave a damn. Everyone else? Just faces in suits — tired, twitchy, forgettable.
Turning back to his monitor, Kael clicked and dragged windows around like a machine wired for monotony. Cells filled with numbers danced in front of him. Sales. Traffic. Trends. All meaningless. Somewhere behind those digits was a story, but it felt like one told in a dead language.
Outside, Seoul moved like clockwork. The thrum of life. Scooters whining between cars, food vendors barking specials, a distant siren cutting through the air like a warning no one ever heard. The city pulsed with normalcy.
But something about it felt… off.
Wrong in a way you couldn't measure.
He'd been waking up lately with dreams he couldn't explain. No — not dreams. Visions.
Cities in ruin. Creatures with too many teeth crawling through burning alleys. A silver-haired girl screaming his name.
And him — standing in the middle of it all, drenched in blood that didn't always feel like his.
He shook his head.
> "Just stress," he muttered. "Or too much YouTube before bed."
His phone buzzed. A message from his younger sister lit up the screen:
Shira: Lunch later? Need to talk.
Kael smiled briefly and tucked the phone away. Shira always had perfect timing. Family — messy, loud, grounding. Just what he needed.
He glanced out the window. The skyscrapers glittered under the late-morning sun, their glass skins reflecting a city that looked perfect from far enough away. Somewhere out there, people were living ordinary lives. Dating. Binge-watching dramas. Worrying about bills and birthdays.
Oblivious.
And then—
The lights flickered.
Just once. Barely noticeable. But long enough to make everyone in the office freeze.
A ripple of murmurs followed.
"Did the power blip?"
"Again? Last week too."
"Budget cuts, man."
The flicker passed. Everything resumed. Coffee sipped, papers shuffled, chairs squeaked. Normality snapped back like an elastic band.
But Kael's stomach twisted into a knot.
He turned toward the window again… and saw it.
A shimmer in the sky. Like heatwaves rising off asphalt — only it was up in the clouds. A ripple. A distortion. It fluttered in the corner of his vision and vanished just as quickly.
No one else noticed.
And yet… his fingers hovered above the keyboard.
Frozen.
Because something in him had screamed.
> This has happened before.
He closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, shadows surged.
Ash blanketed ruined streets.
A monstrous roar shook the bones of dying buildings.
Screams — too many to count — devoured by darkness.
And somewhere, at the center of it all, stood him.
Eyes hollow. Clothes torn. A weapon in his hand that no longer existed.
His breath caught. His skin felt cold, even in the sunlight.