The safehouse had been silent only moments ago. Dust motes floated in the air, the faint hum of the generator echoing in the back. But now the silence was strangling, stretched taut by the figure sitting in the corner cot.

Dr. Hwan Ji-tae.

Lin's throat tightened. He remembered that face, though it was older now, scarred by burns and etched with new lines. The sharp jaw, the cold set of his eyes—it was impossible to forget. This was the man who had stood in the observation decks above the laboratories, scribbling notes as Lin screamed against restraints. This was the man who had told the others, clinical and detached, "Increase the dosage. He will adapt."

And this was the man Lin had seen die.

"I watched you burn," Lin said, his voice low and cracking. "I saw the fire take you when the compound fell."

Hwan tilted his head slightly, a thin smile pulling at his lips. "And yet, here I am."

Keller's pistol was up instantly, leveled between the man's eyes. His stance was cold and unshaking. "One wrong move, and you stop being here."

Min-joon's hand clutched Lin's sleeve tightly. He didn't speak, but his wide eyes flicked back and forth between the two men—Lin and the doctor—like a rabbit trapped between predators.

Lin stepped forward, his chains flickering into existence unbidden. They coiled around his shoulders and arms like angry serpents, rattling softly in the stale air. "You're dead. I saw you die."

Hwan's smile didn't falter. "Death is… a matter of perspective. The abyss doesn't let go of its useful tools so easily."

Keller's finger tightened on the trigger. "You're not giving me confidence you're not one of those things we've been fighting."

The crimson glint in Hwan's eyes brightened faintly, but his voice stayed calm. "If I were one of them, you wouldn't be standing here to question me."

The words hung, heavy and sharp.

Hwan leaned forward slightly, resting scarred hands on his knees. "Lin. The abyss recognized you. Chose you. And now, you carry it. I felt the surge when you bound it below. It tore through me like a second heartbeat. That's how I found you."

Lin's eyes narrowed dangerously. His chains shifted, tightening around his frame. "Don't call it choice."

"Call it survival then," Hwan replied smoothly. "You bound what was meant to consume you. That alone changes everything."

Keller's voice cut in like a knife. "Enough riddles. Who the hell are you working for? Government? Corporates? Abyss cults? Pick one before I put a bullet through your skull."

Hwan chuckled, low and humorless. "None of them. They all tried to erase me when the project collapsed. To them, I've been dead for years. That's a useful condition to maintain."

"Then what do you want with us?" Keller asked.

Hwan's gaze shifted to Lin again, ignoring the gun trained on him. "What I've always wanted. To understand the abyss. To guide it. And now, perhaps, to stop it."

Min-joon flinched at that. "Stop it? You're one of the people who made it spread."

Something flickered in Hwan's expression—regret, or maybe just the performance of it. "You're right. I helped design the protocols that opened the first gateways. I believed we could harness it, use it. I believed in control. That was my mistake. Now the abyss has spread too far. The beacon you triggered has accelerated it. The city is already… shifting."

Lin's stomach twisted. The crimson haze he'd seen over Seoul, the way faces in the crowd had warped—those hadn't been hallucinations after all.

"You're lying," Lin spat.

"No," Hwan said softly. "I'm warning you. What you saw is only the beginning. The abyss doesn't just exist underground anymore. It has nexuses across the surface, woven into the city like veins. Corporations, government agencies—they've been infiltrated for years. The abyss hides in plain sight. And now, with your binding, it's awake."

The safehouse felt smaller by the second, the air thickening with the weight of his words.

Keller's voice was steady, but his knuckles whitened around his pistol. "You expect us to believe you're suddenly a reformer? That after years of torture and experiments, you just want to help?"

Hwan's eyes gleamed. "Belief is irrelevant. What matters is survival. I've mapped the nexuses, the nodes where the abyss is bleeding into Seoul. If you want to live, if you want to keep the city standing, you'll need what I know."

He reached slowly into his coat. Keller's gun clicked louder, finger ready to fire.

"Easy," Hwan said, drawing out a small data drive and setting it on the cot beside him. "Maps. Coordinates. Surveillance logs. Everything I've gathered since the collapse."

Lin's chains twitched, ready to strike. His voice was a growl. "Why give this to me?"

"Because you are the only one who can use it." Hwan's eyes locked on him with unnerving intensity. "You are bound to the abyss now. You can sense it. Fight it. Shape it. No soldier, no spy, no machine can do what you can. You're the balance point, Lin. If you fall, Seoul falls."

Lin's breath came harsh, uneven. The abyss inside him throbbed at Hwan's words, as if agreeing. His skin crawled.

Keller lowered the gun slightly, though his glare didn't soften. "If this is true, then you're still leaving out the biggest part. Why are you alive? How did you survive when everyone else burned?"

Finally, the doctor's mask cracked. His smile thinned, his tone shifting to something darker.

"Because I didn't survive. Not entirely."

He held up his right arm, tugging back the sleeve. His skin shimmered faintly with crimson light, veins crawling like moving threads beneath. The same infection Lin bore.

"I was taken by the abyss in that fire. It consumed me. But like you, I bound it. Or perhaps it bound me. The line blurs."

Min-joon let out a strangled sound, stumbling back. "You're one of them."

"I am what you will become, if you're not careful," Hwan said, his tone flat. "But unlike the others, I still remember who I am."

The admission struck Lin like a hammer. His chest tightened, his chains thrashing once around him before snapping taut.

He lunged.

In a blink, Lin's chains lashed across the room, coiling around Hwan's throat and pinning him against the wall. Keller didn't stop him; Min-joon cried out but didn't move. The cot cracked under the force, dust raining from the ceiling.

Lin's eyes burned crimson as he hissed, voice raw. "Then tell me something, doctor. If you're so full of answers—tell me why I still hear his voice."

Hwan's face flushed as the chains tightened, but his smirk returned even as his air thinned. His words rasped through clenched teeth.

"Because Jin… was never truly gone."

The safehouse seemed to shake with the weight of the revelation.

Lin's chains rattled violently. Keller's gun jerked back up, indecision freezing him in place. Min-joon clutched his head, whispering Jin's name like a curse.

And Hwan, pinned and choking but smiling through it all, whispered one more word before the chapter fell to silence.

"Awake."

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