The silence that followed the storm was worse than the chaos.
Seoul's skyline, usually a living pulse of light, stood frozen beneath a pall of static clouds. The rain had stopped, but the air still buzzed faintly, carrying an unnatural vibration—like a lingering whisper through the circuits that lined the city's bones.
Keller sat in the center of the dimly lit lab, an oxygen mask hanging loosely around his neck. His body was there, grounded in flesh and blood, but his eyes… his eyes were somewhere else entirely.
Every few seconds, he blinked as though seeing things no one else could.
Hana paced in front of the cracked window, her arms crossed tightly against the cold. Lin stood at the terminal, trying to keep the system's readings from falling apart. Power had returned to parts of the city, but the data flow was unstable, and each flicker on the monitors made the tension in the room climb.
