The taxi screeched to a halt outside the apartment building, Samuel already throwing a wad of bills at the driver before the vehicle fully stopped.
He took the stairs two at a time, the early morning city sounds feeling unnaturally loud and sharp to his heightened senses. He had come straight from the penthouse, the urgency in his mother's voice a hook in his gut.
He burst through the front door, his usual composure pared down to a sharp, focused intensity. Esther was waiting in the living room, her face pale but calm, a cup of cold tea forgotten on the table beside her.
"Where is she?" Samuel asked, his voice low.
"In her room. She woke up screaming last night. She's… she's not calming down ever since. She thinks she's awakening, Samuel."
Samuel nodded, stripping off his jacket and tossing it over a chair. He approached Jin-Ah's door, the one adorned with a faded sticker of a cartoon character, a relic from a simpler time. He knocked softly, then entered without waiting for a reply.
The room was dim, the curtains drawn against the grey morning light. Jin-Ah sat on the edge of her bed, knees drawn to her chest, wrapped in a thick blanket.
She was staring directly at her surroundings, as if the monsters from her dream would come in the real world. They were trembling violently.
As Samuel watched, a faint, ephemeral wisp of silver-blue light, like the tail of a dying spark, flickered around her index finger and vanished. She let out a choked whimper, curling her fingers into fists and pressing them hard against her forehead.
She flinched when the door opened, a full-body shudder of panic, then sagged slightly in relief when she saw it was him. The fear in her eyes was raw, bottomless.
"Oppa," she whispered, the word cracking with strain.
Samuel closed the door and crossed the room in three strides. He didn't hug her immediately. Instead, he knelt on the floor in front of her, bringing his eyes level with hers. The action itself was a gesture of profound respect and focus. He was not the imposing boyfriend right now; he was a listener.
"Esther told me about your dream," he said, his voice steady, an anchor in the storm of her anxiety. "But I need to hear it from you. Tell me everything, Jin-Ah. From the beginning. Don't leave anything out."
The story spilled out of her in a choked, broken river. The recurring dream—the rain, the ruined school, the voices of her dead friends, the crushing guilt.
She described the monstrous shadow, its accusations that were echoes of her own deepest shame. Then, the umbrella. The surge of light. The feeling of power burning through the fear.
"And then I woke up," she gasped, her breath coming in short, sharp hitches. "Esther was there. I was safe. But then I felt… hot. And this… this humming under my skin. Like bees trapped in my veins." She unclenched one fist, staring at her palm with revulsion. "And then that happened."
As if summoned by her attention, the silver-blue light shimmered into existence again, not a flash, but a slow, eerie glow that emanated from her pores, outlining the tendons in her hand. It wasn't bright, but in the dim room, it was undeniable.
She cried out, shaking her hand wildly as if to fling the light off. "See?!" she cried, her voice rising towards hysteria. "It won't stop! It's inside me! What is wrong with me? Am I… am I turning into a monster? Is it a curse? Is it because I lived and they didn't?"
Her breathing dissolved into panicked hyperventilation. "I don't want this! I don't want this thing inside me! Make it stop, Samuel, please, just make it go away! I don't want to die! Jinwoo isn't here either! I don't know what to do?"
Tears streamed down her face, silent and desperate. She was unraveling before him, the brave front she'd maintained for years since her father's disappearance, her mother's coma, all of it crumbling under this new, terrifying internal invasion.
Samuel didn't move to hold her yet. He kept his gaze locked on hers, his own expression grave but not fearful.
"Look at me, Jin-Ah," he commanded, his tone leaving no room for hysteria. "Breathe. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Like I showed you when you have an intense workout."
He demonstrated, taking an exaggerated, slow breath in, holding it, and releasing it audibly. After a few ragged tries, she began to mimic him, her sobs subsiding into shuddering breaths, though her eyes remained wide and fixed on him, pleading.
"Good," he said, his voice softening a fraction. "Now, listen to me very carefully. You are not cursed. You are not turning into a monster."
He reached out, not to grab her glowing hand, but to gently take her by the wrist. His touch was firm, warm, real. He didn't flinch as the cool, tingling sensation of her unstable mana brushed against his skin.
He slowly guided her hand down, turning her palm upward between them. The light pulsed softly, reflecting in his dark eyes.
"This," Samuel said, his eyes shifting from the ethereal glow to her terrified eyes, "is called Mana. The light. The energy you felt in the dream. It is the source of a Hunter's power."
The word 'Hunter' landed in the quiet room with the weight of a stone.
Jin-Ah stared, comprehension and fresh terror warring in her eyes. "A… Hunter? No. No, that's not possible. I'm not… I'm just Jin-Ah. I'm not strong like you or Jin-Woo. I get scared. I have nightmares. I'm ordinary!" Her protests were a plea, a desperate attempt to reject the destiny being laid at her feet.
"Strength has many forms, Jin-Ah," Samuel replied, his thumb rubbing a slow, soothing circle on her wrist, just below the shimmering light. "And 'ordinary' people don't summon light from their dreams into their waking hands.
Do you think I or Jinwoo wasn't scared when I first awakened? Terrified. The power feels alien, overwhelming. It wakes up old ghosts and gives them new voices. Your dream… It's not just a nightmare. It was the final spark. Your psyche, your trauma, your latent power—they all converged and ignited."
He released her wrist and placed his hand over her heart. She could feel the steady, powerful beat of his own pulse through his palm, a stark contrast to the frantic rabbit-quick rhythm of her own.
"The guilt you feel, the fear, the sorrow—that's your fuel," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "In the dream, what happened when that shadow told you you couldn't save them?"
"I… I got angry," Jin-Ah whispered back, remembering the fiery twist in her gut. "My sadness burned."
"It ignited," Samuel corrected gently, his hand warm against her chest. "Your emotion channeled the Mana for the first time. That umbrella wasn't just a dream symbol, Jin-Ah.
It was a manifestation of your will. Your refusal to surrender. That is the core of being a Hunter. Not the absence of fear, but the decision to act in spite of it."
He finally moved, sitting beside her on the bed and pulling her into his side. She didn't resist, leaning into his solid strength, her head finding a place against his shoulder.
The blanket enveloped them both. Her glowing hand rested in her lap, the light now dimming to a soft, steady ember rather than a panicked flicker.
"What's happening to me?" she asked, her voice small and exhausted.
"You are awakening," he stated simply. "Your body is learning to contain Mana. Your mind is learning to perceive it. It's a transition. It's violent and frightening because it is violent. You are being fundamentally rewritten from the inside out. The light is proof. The nightmare was the process."
"Will it always feel like this? Like I'm going to fly apart?"
"No. This is the storm. It will pass. But only if you learn to steer it. The fear won't vanish, but you will learn to build a room for it, so it doesn't flood the whole house."
"Can you teach me?" The question was filled with hope and dread.
Samuel was silent for a long moment, looking at the closed curtains as if seeing the long, difficult path ahead. "I can guide you," he said finally. "I can build the training room. I can show you the door. But you have to walk through it.
The power is yours. Your will must be the compass. Your emotion, the engine. I can't feel what you feel, Jin-Ah. That territory is yours alone. And it's your greatest strength."
He felt a fresh tremor run through her, but it was less violent now. "I'm so scared, Samuel."
"I know," he said, resting his cheek against the top of her head. "And you have every right to be. But you are not alone. You have me. You have Esther, who sat watch over you all night.
You have a brother who is getting stronger, just for you. You are surrounded by walls, Jin-Ah. Let us be your walls while you learn what it means to hold the gate yourself."
They sat in silence for a long time, the only sound of their synchronized breathing. The terrifying unknown was still there, a living, humming energy in her veins, but it was now held within a new context.
It had a name. It had a reason. It was held at bay by the tangible reality of his presence, his explanations, his unwavering belief in her capacity to endure.
"Will learning… will it hurt?" she mumbled, almost asleep from emotional exhaustion.
"Sometimes," he answered truthfully, his voice a low rumble in his chest. "Growing pains always do. But the pain of staying powerless, of being forever haunted by what you saw and now by what you feel inside… that is a slower, deeper hurt. This pain has a purpose. It leads to understanding. It leads to strength."
Jin-Ah nodded, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement. The panic had receded, replaced by a deep, weary acceptance and the first, fragile glimmer of resolve. The girl haunted by shadows in her dreams now carried a light within her, unbidden and terrifying, but hers.
She was still afraid, but she was no longer drowning in the fear of the unknown. It had a name now. She had been given a map, however daunting, and her brother's hand was firmly on her shoulder, guiding her to the starting line.
Samuel held her until her breathing deepened into sleep, this time a dreamless, healing rest, the last vestiges of the silver-blue glow finally fading from her skin like twilight giving way to dark.
Only then did he carefully lay her down, tucking the blanket around her. He stood, watching her for a moment, his own expression unreadable—a mix of protective ferocity, grim pride, and the heavy weight of knowing the quiet, personal war that had just begun within Jin-Ah.
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