The world bent sideways.

One moment, the safehouse was four walls and a rusted door. The next, its boundaries collapsed like brittle paper, folding inward and outward at once. The floor heaved, tilting as though gravity had grown drunk. Shards of light ripped through the plaster, splitting into jagged windows that revealed impossible landscapes beyond—storming deserts, black oceans, skyfields lit with two suns.

Keller slammed into a wall, only for the wall to ripple like water, spitting him back to the floor. "What the—hell is this?" His pistol skittered out of reach before he snatched it back, his knuckles white.

Hwan grabbed at the collapsing table, anchoring himself as the floor splintered into slices that no longer agreed on which direction was down. "This isn't a room anymore," he grunted. "It's a blender."

Min-joon steadied himself with his blade, every muscle coiled tight. But his eyes never left Lin. The fracture around them was secondary to the betrayal burning in his chest. "You did this," he hissed.

Lin's tether screamed in his veins, threads of light crawling up his arms in ragged bursts. He clutched at his chest as if he could hold it down, but the figure's presence made it impossible. The suited thing stepped lightly across the chaos, unaffected, its body flickering in and out like a badly tuned broadcast.

"You feel it, don't you?" the figure said, voice like silk dragged across broken glass. "The seams recognize you. They bend for you. Not for them. Only you."

Lin gritted his teeth. "Stay away from them."

The figure's grin was too smooth, too practiced. "Protect them? From me? Or from yourself?" Its gaze flickered to Min-joon, who bristled instantly. "He knows, doesn't he? He can feel it—the truth you've buried. That you're not a soldier. Not a leader. You're a wound given form."

Min-joon's blade trembled in his grip. The insult wasn't directed at him, yet it struck deep, validating the fury already burning in his chest. "I should've trusted my instincts. From the first day, you hid behind half-answers and riddles." His voice cracked with rage. "You're not Lin. You're a bomb waiting to go off."

"Min—" Lin started, but the floor buckled beneath him, dropping into nothing. He caught himself on a jagged edge of light, dangling over a chasm that wasn't there a second before. His fingers burned where the tether pulsed against the raw seam.

Keller lunged, grabbing Lin's wrist, teeth bared. "Don't let go, dammit! Not like this!" He hauled him back just as the gap sealed shut again, erasing the void as if it had never existed.

"Reality's folding," Hwan shouted, bracing himself as the ceiling sagged like molten glass. "It's tearing because of you two locking horns!" His gaze snapped to Lin. "Control it, or we're all dead!"

Lin's vision blurred. The tether wasn't his to control anymore—it was a flood, a current dragging him downstream, and resisting it only shredded him further. The suited figure stepped closer, its shoes clicking soundlessly against the flickering floor.

"You can't suppress it," the figure purred. "Why keep pretending? Your name has already been spoken. The seams have already chosen. Do you even remember what you were before you wore that false skin?"

Memories clawed at the edges of Lin's mind: a dark corridor, a voice whispering his name for the first time, light bursting from his body until the world fractured. He gasped, shaking his head violently. "No. I won't let you decide what I am."

The figure's smile widened. "You already did. When you answered the tether. When you stopped being human."

Min-joon snapped, his anger boiling over. "Enough!" He charged, blade slashing through the figure's midsection. The strike cut clean—yet the figure's body unraveled into smoke and reformed behind him, unharmed.

"Brave," the figure said, almost amused. "But useless." With a flick of its hand, the air twisted, and Min-joon was hurled across the room, slamming into the wall hard enough to crack it like ice.

"Min-joon!" Keller shouted, raising his pistol. He fired three rounds. Each bullet vanished the instant it neared the figure, swallowed into the shimmer of seams wrapping its body.

Hwan growled, pulling Lin upright. "We can't hurt it. You're the only one who can push back."

Lin shook, the tether screaming like a storm inside him. "If I unleash it, I don't know what happens to you."

Hwan's eyes locked onto his. "If you don't, we're corpses anyway. Pick your poison."

The floor lurched again, the fracture expanding. Through one tear, Lin glimpsed a barren wasteland under a blood-red sky. Through another, a city not unlike Seoul—but broken, abandoned, skyscrapers snapped in half like brittle twigs. The seams weren't just cracks anymore. They were doorways. And they were multiplying.

The suited figure extended a hand, its voice coaxing, honeyed and venomous at once. "Come with me, Lin. Step through. Leave them, leave this fragile city. Return to what you are. You'll stop fighting. You'll stop fearing."

Keller barked a bitter laugh, even as he steadied his aim again. "Classic. Evil bastard with the recruitment pitch." He spat on the floor. "Ignore him, Lin. He wants a puppet, not a partner."

But Lin's breath came in ragged gasps. The tether pulled toward the figure, toward the open seams, toward the inevitability of truth. His friends were shouting, the room collapsing, but all he felt was the raw gravity of choice tearing him apart.

The figure's hand remained outstretched, patient, unwavering. "You don't belong to them. You never did. Belong to us."

Lin's knees buckled, light searing through the veins of his arms, lashing out uncontrollably. A whip of energy cracked against the ceiling, ripping it open to reveal another nightmare vista beyond. The safehouse groaned, moments away from total collapse.

Min-joon staggered to his feet, blood streaking his temple, fury blazing in his eyes. "Don't you dare, Lin. Don't you dare take his hand. If you do, you're gone. You'll never come back."

The figure tilted its head, its face sliding into Lin's own likeness, a perfect reflection with the same eyes, the same trembling jaw. "Or maybe this is who you've always been."

Lin screamed, the tether exploding outward. The safehouse shattered in a burst of light, walls disintegrating, the floor ripping away beneath them. The team was thrown into weightlessness, their screams lost in the roar of collapsing reality.

And then—

They fell.

Through the seam.

Into the world beyond.

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