Under the scorching summer sky, a young man leaned against the wall of a convenience store, one leg taking most of his weight. His gaze stayed calm, the kind of unbothered stillness that made passersby glance twice, until the world began to shake.
As though thunder had struck glass, the sky splintered like a spiderweb stretching across the world.
His eyes snapped upward, scanning the falling shards of crystal. His name was Kim Ji-hoon. He had been waiting for his best friend in a busy district of Seoul when the first crack tore through the air. It sounded like glass shattering, only louder, deeper, the kind of noise that felt as if someone had placed a drum right beside his ear and struck it with a bodybuilder's strength.
As if a match had been set to the city, people screamed and shoved, crashing into each other as they rushed toward shelters. Every breath carried panic, wild and uncontrolled, and bodies were already going down beneath the stampede. While the crowd moved like frightened animals, Kim Ji-hoon watched with calm horror.
He stayed where he was, staring as the myth crashed into their world.
Far out in the ocean, a giant golden tree descended, impossibly tall, impossibly thick. Even from Seoul, he could see it clearly. It had to be thousands of kilometers away, and yet it pierced the broken sky as if distance had stopped meaning anything.
The leaves burned with gold and etched themselves into his mind. He knew, with a certainty that made his stomach sink, that he would never forget this moment, the instant their world ended.
Without warning, the ground shook. The impact felt so heavy that even an eight-magnitude earthquake would have paled beside it. His knees loosened, and for a heartbeat, he felt like an ant standing before a passing giant.
A golden pulse burst from the tree's direction, and the sky painted itself like a final sunset. The once loud, bustling streets snapped into a different kind of noise as windows burst all around him, glass popping and raining down, car alarms twisting into the tremor.
Then something struck his chest.
Pain knocked the last breath from his lungs. Gold flashed across his vision, his eyes burning with it for a split second before everything went dark, dropping him into the unknown.
"!#!$!%!@"
In the darkness, a muffled voice reached for him, so sudden, so intimately close, yet impossibly far. It was not a man's language, but it carried intent all the same, like a hand extending through smoke to pull him from fire. A pull formed inside his body, strong enough to feel like gravity, and still, he could not reach back.
Yet to Kim Ji-hoon, it did not feel physical. His entire essence was like floating as an observer high in a sky with no horizon, surrounded by night so thick it swallowed direction.
He could not see who was calling, but he felt fingers close around him anyway, tugging him forward while he could not tell whether he was moving or trapped in place.
"!$!%!@%"
Who is calling for me? Am I still alive? I can't feel my feet. Tell me I didn't die such a boring, lowly death.
Questions surfaced and scattered. Something inside him felt hollow, as if a piece had been removed and all that remained was empty space. Maybe this was the end after all. His heart called out, and then something shifted.
Warmth spread inside his chest.
The heat grew quickly, blooming outward, turning sharper, wronger. Fear jolted through him because something was not right, and he had no way to stop it, no way to understand it.
"Kim Ji-hoon! Brother!"
A familiar, manly voice cut through the darkness like a bell, dragging him back to reality.
His eyelids were heavy. When he forced them open, the world swam, ringing, filling his ears until his skull throbbed. A hand gripped his and hauled him upright.
"Sunny?" The name came out uncertain, dragged from chapped lips. His mouth was scraped dry, as if all moisture had been stripped from him.
When his vision finally stabilized, the face he knew all too well came into focus, wearing that silly, brave smile Ji-hoon always hated and respected at the same time. It was his childhood friend, the one who had been at his side since kindergarten.
His real name was Simon, an immigrant from somewhere in Europe. Brown hair and green eyes framed his features, a presence that had always stood out even on normal days.
"Bro, I thought you were a goner." Worry was etched into him, carved deep.
Ji-hoon swallowed hard. "No joke… What the hell happened?"
He looked around, and the world seemed stained, darker, as if its colors had been bruised. Buildings, people, streets, all of it carried the same dim weight.
"There," Sunny spoke with a hint of excitement behind his words.
Ji-hoon followed the direction of his finger. Never in his life had shock hit so fast. Even his heart threatened to drop out of his chest.
From where they stood, the sky had vanished. Giant golden branches and burning leaves filled the world, masking everything like a living cage. It blocked any way of escape.
"What is that?" Ji-hoon's mutter cut through the silence too loudly, and voices ignited into panic.
"I told you all, the god has descended to bring us doom for our sins!"
"Keep calm, everyone, don't panic!"
"We're all going to die, aren't we?"
People stood frozen or stumbled in circles, staring upward with trembling jaws. Ji-hoon tried to force a thought into place, something stable, something logical, but the scene refused to become real. It still felt like a nightmare he had not woken from.
The panic rose, louder and louder, until his headache sharpened into something almost blinding. He wanted to scream at them to shut up, but he could not even gather enough air for it.
Then, in the next moment, the world froze, as if an invisible hand had stripped the crowd of its voice and authority, shutting up even the loudest.
Sunny and Ji-hoon were among the first to turn toward the massive tree again. Several figures crossed the sky, silhouettes moving against gold.
A loud explosion followed, sharp enough to silence even the boldest mouths, yet nothing actually blew apart. The sound came from one of the figures, made with its mouth alone, as if the sky itself had been commanded to listen.
"Silence, inferior species!"