The air above ground should have been a relief.

Lin had expected the bite of wind, the wide openness of the sky, to wash away the stench of the abyss. But as he stood on the cracked edge of the ruins, staring at Seoul stretched out before him, it felt wrong. The city's skyline glittered, towers of glass and steel illuminated against the night—but threaded between them was a faint, crimson haze.

He blinked, and for a moment the haze thickened into swirling chains that wound across the rooftops like a net. He staggered, catching himself against a broken column.

"Lin?" Keller's voice cut sharp through the silence. His pistol was out, sweeping across the shadows around them. "You with us?"

Lin nodded, though it felt like a lie. "Still here."

Min-joon clung to his sleeve, his small frame trembling with exhaustion. He looked between Lin and the skyline with wide, fearful eyes. "The city… it doesn't look the same."

Keller's jaw tightened. "It's not. That light-show we caused down there? Half of Seoul must've seen it." He tilted his head toward the horizon. Smoke curled upward where the crimson beacon had punched through the sky. Sirens wailed faintly in the distance. Military helicopters buzzed like insects, their searchlights cutting across neighborhoods.

"We can't stay here." Keller slung Min-joon's arm over his shoulder and tugged him along. "Safehouse. Now."

They slipped into the streets like ghosts, moving through back alleys and broken lots where the streetlights had gone dark. It should have been noisy here—Seoul was a city that never slept—but the night felt hollow. Storefronts were shuttered, windows bolted tight. The few civilians they glimpsed hurried past without meeting anyone's eyes, whispering to each other in urgent, fearful tones.

"Did you see it? The red storm?"

"My cousin swears whole buildings disappeared near Gangdong—like they never existed."

"They're saying it's the government. Experiments again."

Lin caught fragments as they moved, the voices wrapping around him like threads of the abyss. Each rumor felt too sharp, too detailed to be coincidence. The whispers bled into other whispers, deeper ones that weren't spoken aloud but still reached his ears.

You did this.

They see because of you.

He shook his head hard, forcing the voices back into silence. But every step forward felt heavier, as though invisible chains dragged behind him.

Keller noticed. His gaze flicked to Lin, then away, his silence loaded with things unsaid. He didn't ask if Lin was fine—because they both knew the answer.

By the time they reached the Han River, the city's tension was palpable. Checkpoints had sprung up along bridges, soldiers in black armor waving scanners over cars. Drones buzzed overhead, their red sensors sweeping.

"Shit," Keller muttered, pulling them into the shadow of a bus stop. "They've locked the river down. Fast."

Min-joon hugged his arms to his chest. "They know… about the abyss?"

"No." Keller shook his head, scanning the streets. "Not exactly. But they know something big happened. And when the government doesn't have answers, it clamps down. Hard."

Lin crouched, staring past the checkpoint toward the skyline. His vision blurred again. The soldiers' rifles melted into twisted spears of chain, their helmets split to reveal eyeless, abyssal faces. He blinked and the hallucination vanished, leaving only tense men with tired eyes.

"I can't tell what's real anymore," he muttered. His voice was low, but both Keller and Min-joon heard.

Min-joon's grip tightened on his sleeve. "Then trust us. If it's not real, we'll tell you."

Keller's eyes softened for a heartbeat before hardening again. "We cut across east. There's an old safehouse near Gwangjin. Not government, not corporate. Should be quiet."

The detour was long and brutal. They stuck to abandoned service tunnels, drainage routes, and rooftops where drones rarely scanned. Twice, Keller had to pull Min-joon flat against the ground as patrols passed beneath them. Once, Lin nearly fell when his foot caught on a loose grate—the abyss's whispers spiking so loud in his skull he nearly blacked out.

"Lin." Keller's hand was on his arm instantly, steadying him. "Focus. Don't let it pull you under."

Lin drew in ragged breaths, nodding. His chains flickered faintly around his wrists before receding again. "It wants me to lose balance. To make you vulnerable."

Keller's expression was grim. "Then don't give it the satisfaction."

By the time they reached the edge of Gwangjin, dawn was threatening the horizon. The streets here were quieter still, the buildings older. An old noodle shop sat on the corner, its shutters rusted, paint peeling. To most it looked abandoned, but Keller stopped in front of it with certainty.

"This is it," he said, pressing his palm against a faded mural on the wall. A faint click answered, and the door slid open just far enough for them to slip inside.

The safehouse smelled of dust and old wood. The windows were boarded, the lights dim. A few tables and chairs sat in disarray, but the back room had cots and a working generator. For the first time in days, Min-joon sagged into a seat, his eyes half-shut with exhaustion.

Keller locked the door and finally exhaled. "We'll rest here. Just for a while."

Lin moved slower, his body stiff, his hands trembling as he touched the edges of the table. The abyss inside him was restless, chains crawling faintly across his skin like living shadows.

He closed his eyes—and heard it.

A heartbeat. Not his own. Slow, steady, coming from deeper in the safehouse.

Lin's eyes snapped open. His chains flickered instinctively. "Someone's here."

Keller froze, his gun out before Lin finished the sentence. He swept toward the back room, his boots silent.

The door creaked open.

And there, sitting calmly in the shadows of the cot, was a figure Lin recognized instantly—one who couldn't possibly be alive.

The breath left his lungs. Min-joon's gasp was sharp behind him.

The figure lifted his head slowly, his face half-lit by the dim light.

"Lin," the man said, his voice calm, familiar, and wrong all at once. "It's been a long time."

Lin's chains snapped to life, rattling with violence. His voice was a low growl.

"You're dead."

The man smiled faintly, his eyes glinting crimson in the dark. "And yet, here I am."

The safehouse's silence turned suffocating. The abyss within Lin surged like a second heartbeat, as if recognizing something even Lin didn't.

Whoever this man was—ally, enemy, or something in between—he was proof that the abyss's reach had already spread far beyond the ruins.

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