The first thing Shin noticed wasn't the silence. It was the motion—rhythmic, deliberate, like the place itself was breathing. That was the kind of detail he noticed before anything else. Not the panic. Not the people. Just… the patterns.
He stood on a floating stone slab, eyes wide. The supermarket was gone—whether vaporized, teleported, or folded into some higher-dimensional pocket, he couldn't say. All he knew was that he was no longer there.
Above him stretched a ceiling of clouds that shattered like broken glass—though whether that meant sky or roof, he couldn't decide yet. Below, it was nothing but endless depths, lit by currents that moved like reflections in water. The place spiraled—light and shadow chasing each other in impossible colors. The very architecture looked like a design from someone who hated gravity.
And something was wrong with the sky. It wasn't blue. Or gray, for that matter. Maybe this wasn't even a sky. Maybe this was upside-down. Or inside-out. Shin wasn't sure what direction was anymore. It reminded him of legends he'd heard as a child—of Olympus—where the gods lived, sure, but more importantly, where humans weren't supposed to be. It looked like that kind of place.
Perfect. Just what he needed.
He looked around him; several other survivors were scattered across nearby platforms. A few lay sprawled, screaming or trembling. One woman crouched with her arms over her head. Another clutched a phone, staring at a static black screen, unsure what to do when his life had shut down. Next to him, an older man in a suit murmured a prayer, while a couple argued whether to jump or stay put.
He didn't call out. Half of them were screaming or praying or arguing among themselves. No one was in control—not of the place, not even of themselves. If panic was contagious, then so was stupidity. He'd rather stay quiet.
He listened instead. The wind didn't carry words, but it didn't feel like silence either. It had tone. Vibration. Pressure in the lungs. He wasn't breathing air—he was breathing attention.
Something moved beneath his feet. The stone adjusted slightly—responding to his balance like a surfboard on invisible water.
Hmm. Doesn't seem like it's trying to kill us, he thought. But then what? Is it trying to… read us?
"Hey! You! You saw that, right?!"
A man in a blue tracksuit stumbled toward him, waving his arms. "The store just disappeared! This is some experiment—an illusion, right?" Shin didn't respond. He wasn't sure how to explain himself. And besides, what purpose would that even have?
But the man kept coming. "Hey! You're freaking me out! You look way too calm for—"
The man kept talking, but Shin could not care less. He said something short, unsure himself what it was, and then turned his head slightly. Not enough to engage, but enough to say you're wasting your time.
The man left in anger.
"Everyone, stay together," a broad-shouldered man barked from behind, forcing his voice into leadership. "We'll find an exit."
He pointed along a line of slabs close enough to jump—a path of sorts. A few people moved toward it, glad for the instruction. The man also glanced at Shin, expecting support, but Shin returned a slow, unreadable blink, the kind of look that made people stop hoping for reactions.
What exactly do you even expect me to do? He grumbled in his head. Ahh. He hated handling other people; how good would it be just to be back at his apartment? No people. No noise. Just his own fortress of solitude.
A young guy in a gray hoodie laughed too loudly in the corner. "This is a prank," he said, swinging his foot into the edge of something that seemed like a cloud. His shoe hit something—soft at first, then strangely sticky. He yelped and stumbled back, more startled than hurt. The cloud stayed indifferent.
The group frayed apart. "I say we stay put," the business-suited man muttered, kneeling to pray. "Help will come. It always does."
"Fool! No one's coming!" yelled a younger woman. "Look around you! This isn't our world anymore!"
"I saw a path open over there," the tracksuit man added. "I think it wants us to go deeper. Maybe it's a test."
"Or a trap," someone muttered.
Shin remained silent. The division became clearer. One group huddled together, trying to keep calm and looking for safety. The other, restless, eyed the platforms stretching forward, curiosity—or desperation—glinting in their eyes. It was a social split he'd seen before, only that this time, the environment might actually be watching.
A girl with a scraped cheek approached him. She moved like someone who hadn't decided whether he was the quiet hero or the silent psycho.
"You haven't said a word," she said cautiously. "Are… you not afraid?"
Shin looked at the spiraling path ahead. "No."
"Why not?"
He considered. "Would fear help?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
"This place…" He trailed off, eyes narrowing slightly. "It feels like it's waiting for something."
The girl took a step back. Her group quickly pulled her away like they'd just decided he was in the psycho column after all.
Shin didn't mind.
He scanned the platform one more time. The man in the tracksuit was measuring distances in the air. The praying one stayed on the ground, refusing to move any further. Someone sat with her back to a floating wall, rocking gently, as if waiting for reality to go away.
And then—as if an unseen will had given a sign—a path was formed. Floating stone steps spiraling inward like the bones of a titan's ribcage. He moved without thinking. Not out of confidence—just clarity. After all, the only way to learn anything was forward. Standing still was just another form of dying.
And there wasn't any other path anyway.
A woman behind him—one of the bolder ones—rushed forward to follow. "Wait—! I'm coming too—!" But Shin was too busy with what was happening before him. The wind responded like a curtain made of air. It was a single, quiet wall of pressure that formed at the end of the path. He pushed forward. The woman raced after him, but he didn't stop.
The corridor grew narrower with each step, the wind itself sharpened as he moved. At first, he thought it was just cold. But then he felt it under his skin—as if the air were peeling away layers of thought. The further he walked, the more the world seemed to fade, replaced by something foreign.
He stood in a translucent and humming corridor made of compressed air. The walls weren't solid, but they didn't yield. He kept walking a narrow path that extended forward. The floor pulsed under his steps, the way a bridge creaks when it remembers its weight.
Then came the whispers—not voices, but impressions. Glimpses of light in the mist around him. On one instant, a field of rusted swords. On another, a blurred image of a massive creature with antlers. And then, in the side of his eyes, a storm—if you can even call this that.
It pulsed like a drumbeat—violent, electric, and brimming with motion. Not merely a gust of wind—it was as if the storm was alive. And then he noticed it, a blurred and unfocused figure stood at its center. It had no face or lips, but Shin could almost swear he heard it speak.
It was surrounded by lightning—or perhaps the being was the existence of lightning itself. The eye of the storm moved, vibrating. Slowly, yes—but with a force that sent shivers through Shin's body.
He blinked once, and it was gone. He exhaled. The corridor seemed to tell a story, but what was it trying to say? He could not understand. Suddenly, the path tilted, and the walls shimmered between glass and sky. He felt upside-down without falling, forward without moving.
The platform beneath his feet was engraved with an ancient symbol: a spiral, with five branches. One glowed faintly—the branch facing him.
Then the wind howled.
From above, a cyclone descended. Inside it, a shape began to form. First came light. Then came pressure. And then—motion. A being made of air appeared. It looked humanoid yet fluid. Its arms were wings, and its legs were smoke. It hovered effortlessly, shifting with every breath.
It felt like something out of a video game: a guardian, a mini-boss at the gate. Except this one was real. Its presence pressed against Shin's bones, vibrating his ribs. He didn't back down. Before he could speak, it attacked.
The first strike came low—sharp, fast, spiraling. If he'd been a second slower, he'd be a red smear on a floating rock.
Nice welcome, he thought. So the first test is: don't die. Got it.
The guardian circled. Its movements were unpredictable but not unavoidable. Each step it took altered the pressure in the air. Each motion pulled the wind in a way that gave away its next attack— if one could read it.
Shin realized, very quickly, that he could. But since his mind reacted too slowly, his instinct took over. He ducked, pivoted, sidestepped, leapt—slipping past a slicing stream of air—then rolled under a gust that snapped like a whip.
Every motion of the guardian followed a rhythm. Not a combat pattern, but breath—almost a song. Shin had no weapon or armor, but he had instinct—and it screamed at him: Move!
He jumped. Instead of fighting the wind, he moved along with it. The guardian extended both arms, and twin vortexes launched outward in an X-pattern. Shin leapt, twisting midair. He didn't have time to think—only react.
He landed awkwardly, his shoulder slamming against the ground, and pain flared up his side like a pulled wire. Still, he smiled. He wasn't winning. Not even close. But he wasn't dead, and in this place, that was already a passing grade.
The guardian's body unraveled and reformed faster now. The guardian shifted tempo and began weaving attacks through vertical and horizontal planes, as though testing how well Shin had adapted.
Shin exhaled again, chest rising and falling in rhythm with the pulsing stone beneath him. Since he couldn't keep up, he instead tried to anticipate. When the next strike came from above, he dropped low. Then dashed immediately—not away from the attack, but into a weak pressure zone he'd felt a heartbeat earlier. The attack missed entirely.
But once he realized it, the wind changed. The guardian stopped attacking and hovered silently in the air. The guardian bowed its head and vanished.
Shin waited. One second. Two seconds. Three. But nothing came. All that remained was the sound of the air—no longer slicing, just… watching. The wind stopped screaming. A single tone—long, pure, and low—rang through the air. The rune at the center of the platform pulsed with light, and from the far side, a new path opened. A stairway of soft light, leading upward.
Shin didn't rush. He stood in silence, then looked at his arms. His hands trembled like a tuning fork had been struck inside his bones. He had felt it again—that sensation. That foreign feeling he hadn't known how to name. It came from the wind. And whatever lived inside it.
He took one step forward. Then another. And the Tower's breath became his own.