Suwon – Midnight
The city slept.
Rain tapped gently against the windows of small apartments and corner shops. Streetlights flickered orange across narrow alleyways.
Inside his room, Ha-Joon sat perfectly still.
The pendant lay before him on his desk, glowing faintly in a pulsing rhythm. Like a heartbeat that didn't belong to Earth.
He exhaled slowly.
> "Show me."
He touched it.
And the world shattered.
---
Memory Realm – Somewhere Beyond Time
There was no sound.
No color.
No weight.
Just light.
He floated in it, unable to move, unable to speak. It wasn't cold or warm—just… there.
Then—a voice.
> "You weren't supposed to survive."
It wasn't Ji-Yun.
It wasn't human.
> "Yet you lived. And lived. And lived."
Images flashed.
A planet crumbling in red light.
A child standing before a mirror of stars.
A tower burning as it fell into a sky of endless black.
And then—
> Ji-Yun's hand reaching for his.
Two figures standing beneath a dead tree.
A promise spoken in the ancient tongue:
> "If we meet again, forget me. And remember only when it hurts the most."
---
Back in Reality – Ha-Joon's Room
He gasped.
Fell forward onto the desk, breath sharp, sweat dripping down his neck.
The pendant was cold again. Still. Silent.
But something inside him had broken loose.
He gripped the desk's edge tightly.
> "What was that…?"
He remembered a fragment.
Not clearly. Not by name.
But enough to feel something twist in his chest—a grief older than time.
---
Suwon High School – The Next Morning
He walked into class quietly.
His eyes were as calm as ever, but Baek Seo-Yeon noticed immediately:
Something was different.
He was heavier.
Not tired. Not sad.
Just... heavier.
At lunch, she caught him outside.
> "You remembered something, didn't you?"
He didn't answer at first.
Then—
> "A place that doesn't exist."
> "And a girl?"
He nodded once.
> "I think I knew Ji-Yun… before the first Gate ever opened."
---
Meanwhile – Seoul, Hunter Guild Headquarters
A meeting room lit up with urgent alerts.
> "Gate #3 in the Sahara is now officially rated S-class."
> "The tower structure has grown twenty meters in three days."
> "Psychic probes fail at 7 kilometers. There's a distortion field."
One senior hunter clenched his jaw.
> "We need a field team ready."
> "No. Not yet," the chairman replied.
He pulled up a grainy satellite photo: a boy with crimson eyes walking past a traffic camera.
> "We wait for him."
> "You really think he's the key?"
> "I think he's the one the Gates are responding to."
---
Back in Suwon – Rooftop That Night
Ji-Yun waited near the stairwell.
Ha-Joon joined her in silence.
> "The stone woke something," she said.
> "A piece of the past."
> "Just one," he replied.
She nodded.
> "There are more. Hidden inside you. Locked away."
He stared into the distance.
The city lights looked so small from up here.
> "Was I a good person?" he asked quietly.
She didn't answer immediately.
> "You were someone who carried the end of a world," she said.
"And you still chose to save what was left."
> "That doesn't sound good," he muttered.
> "It was… human."
---
Elsewhere – Bone Tower, Sahara
It moved again.
The tower twisted slightly—unnatural, slow.
No sound.
But at the base, a new structure began to rise. A spiral platform of black stone.
A throne.
And something began to grow on it.
Not born.
Built.
As if preparing a seat for an old enemy.
---
Final Scene – Ha-Joon's Window
Rain poured again.
He sat in the darkness of his room, pendant hanging from a nail beside his desk.
He didn't try to force the next memory.
He waited.
Because deep inside him, something had shifted.
One piece had returned.
And more were coming.
He could feel it.
> "I'll remember everything," he said.
> "Even if it kills me again."
His crimson eyes glowed faintly in the glass.
And for just a second—
They reflected an entire galaxy collapsing silently.
---