The world beyond the balcony was hushed beneath a heavy night sky. Clouds crept low and restless, their edges glowing with the fractured light of the full moon. It was not the clean, golden kind of moonlight that poets adored—it was pale, cracked like glass, casting uneasy shadows that shifted with the wind. The kind of moon that knew too much.
Inside the apartment, warmth lingered like a forgotten promise. The soft whir of a heater blended with the faint tick of a wall clock. Dan Oh had fallen asleep on the couch, wrapped in a worn blanket, her hand loosely cradling a notebook to her chest. Her hair spilled over the pillow like ink in water, her breath slow but uneven, as if her dreams were full of distant storms.
On the balcony, the air was colder. Distant car horns pulsed through the city like ghostly heartbeats. Ryu sat cross-legged on the wooden floorboards, hunched over the back of a flattened delivery box, a black marker dancing in quick, precise strokes. The diagrams he drew sprawled in unspoken patterns—concentric circles, eclipses, and trees with roots that pierced dimensions. A low hum of energy seemed to thrum beneath each mark, as if the cardboard itself remembered where it came from.
Next to him, nestled inside a shoebox lined with soft cloth, Antutu curled up like a sleeping ember. Its feathers shimmered faintly with bioluminescent hues, pulsing in a slow, rhythmic glow—one breath, one beat. It had been that way since it arrived. Since the world had begun to slip again.
The balcony door eased open with a hush, and Woon stepped out. His arms were folded, his posture rigid, eyes tired. The scarred light of the moon etched sharp lines into his face, shadowing his jaw, catching the edge of his silvered gaze. He didn’t speak. Just stood there a while, staring up at the moon as though it had betrayed him.
Ryu didn’t glance up from his work.
“It’s always during the full moon,” he murmured, voice soft as the wind. “Every breach. Every crossing. But not just any full moon... the pattern’s thinner now. Frayed.”
Woon shifted his weight, gaze still fixed skyward. The wind tugged gently at the hem of his shirt.
“The portal wasn’t supposed to open again,” he said, low and certain. “Not for another eleven years. That was the prophecy. That was the cost.”
Ryu finally stopped writing. He capped the marker slowly, the silence between them pressing like the night itself.
“But it did,” he said. “Three years ago, when you came through. Last month, when Antutu arrived. And now me—drawn through a glowing tree, under a sky like this. It keeps happening. Faster. Louder. Like something’s forcing the door open.”
Woon walked forward and sat down beside him, the boards creaking softly beneath his weight. His eyes traveled over the chaotic sketches, pausing on the line that traced the curve of a distorted moon.
“This wasn’t supposed to be possible,” he whispered. “But it is.”
Ryu tapped his fingers once against the box, then turned to him.
“Because it isn’t random. Because the door didn’t close properly when you came back with her. That first tear—it didn’t heal. It widened.”
Woon didn’t argue. His silence was agreement, heavy and bitter.
“You and Dan Oh,” Ryu continued. “Two elemental anchors. Fire and water. Both from Mirac. Both on the same side now. That imbalance—it’s not just pulling at the veil, Woon. It’s unraveling it.”
The moon slipped from behind a cloud, casting a silver gleam on Woon’s hand where it clenched into a fist.
“She was never meant to stay there,” he said. “But I—” His voice faltered. “I couldn’t let her go.”
“And so you followed her. Against fate. Against every rule. But fate doesn’t forget.”
The breeze turned sharp. Below them, the city kept breathing, unaware that its sky was beginning to crack.
“You being here wasn’t just a ripple,” Ryu said, his voice low and grim. “It was a fracture. And now the veil is responding. Alive. Reactive. I felt it—before I even crossed. It wasn’t just a gate anymore. It was... pressure. Like a wound flinching under heat.”
Woon leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring down at his palms.
“And now it’s bleeding. Both worlds. Mirac and Earth.”
“Yes,” Ryu said. “Antutu crossing was just the first leak. But the next full moon?” His voice thinned. “That might not be a crack. That could be a collapse.”
A long pause.
“And if it is,” Ryu added, “then neither of us can stay.”
Woon’s breath caught. For a long while, he didn’t answer. His eyes moved to the glass door, to the woman sleeping just beyond it. Her silhouette framed like a painting he’d never be allowed to touch again.
“I know,” he whispered. “I’ve known it since the day she turned to me and said she wasn’t ready. It was already breaking. I just didn’t want to admit that loving her meant... destroying everything else.”
Ryu’s voice softened, but didn’t waver.
“We were never meant to cross and stay. Not like this. I’ve been searching for a way back since I arrived. That’s why I followed the signs. Why I traced the moon paths. I wasn’t brought here to stay, Woon. I was brought here because I have to go back.”
He looked at Woon, voice like steel wrapped in sorrow.
“And so do you.”
The moonlight flickered in his eyes. A grim certainty, stripped of hope but full of purpose.
“Next full moon,” Ryu said. “We return. It’s not a choice anymore.”
Woon finally looked at him, and something passed between them—warriors born of a dying realm, bound by fire, burdened by love.
“Next full moon,” Woon echoed. “We seal what we broke.”
Behind them, Antutu stirred with a low, musical chirp, its glow pulsing faster—as if it, too, felt the gears of fate turning.
And in the apartment, Dan Oh shifted in her sleep. Her brows furrowed, her lips parting as if to speak in dreams she wouldn’t remember.
Dan Oh curled deeper into the couch. Her body stilled, but her spirit stirred. Something ancient shifted behind her eyelids—a thread tugged from blood long buried.
The dream took her without sound or warning.
At first, it was warmth.
Gentle. Golden. Like the heat that lives in a childhood memory—familiar and safe.
She stood in a wide, open field bathed in amber light. The sky above was calm, streaked with clouds the color of peach skin. Flowers swayed. Birds called.
And then, the sky shuddered.
A crack split the sun. Not with noise, but with a light too sharp to see. The air thickened. The ground pulsed beneath her feet like a living thing waking from a deep, terrible sleep.
She turned—
—and the field was no longer a field.
It had become a forest. Not one from Earth, but Hwon—wild, massive, ancient. Trees twisted into impossible arches. Roots curled like sleeping beasts. She recognized it not from memory, but from something deeper: inheritance. This was sacred land.
But something was wrong.
The wind whispered not in leaves but in growls. Distant, low, reverberating.
Dan Oh began to walk.
Her bare feet passed over moss, then dirt, then ash.
With each step, the ground darkened. Trees turned to bone. The forest smelled of rust and smoke. A single flame flickered ahead—and she followed it.
One kingdom.
One island.
Two bloods made from the same earth.
She entered a clearing.
There, at its center, a wildfire burned.
But this was no ordinary fire. It did not spread like chaos. It stood, coiled in place, a towering column of flame in the shape of a great horned spirit—neither man nor beast, neither god nor ghost. Its eyes glowed gold, ancient and watching.
Around it, the forest wept.
Blood soaked the roots. Not gallons—just traces, trails. A duel? A betrayal? She couldn’t see the cause.
But she saw the result.
The fire raged.
Not to destroy—but to cleanse.
Birds turned to ash mid-flight. Rivers boiled. Trees cracked open like fruit, spilling embers instead of seeds. And the spirit stood still, unwavering, its rage thunderous in the silence.
You were made to protect this land. Yet you bleed it dry with your pride. Now the land will burn to remember who it belongs to.
Dan Oh reached out—but her fingers passed through the fire. Instead of pain, she felt heat crawl into her veins, into her chest, branding her lungs with breathless understanding.
She gasped—
—and the scene changed again.
Now she was above it all.
Looking down on Hwon island—half green, half scorched black. Villages smoldered. Creatures fled. The mountains howled. The fire wasn’t indiscriminate—it moved with will. It avoided the weak, the innocent, the pure.
But where blood had been spilled, where origin fought origin, it burned with holy fury.
And from its heart, two shadows emerged. One with wings of ash, the other with claws of light. They circled each other in silence, caught in orbit—doomed to fall together or burn apart.
You cannot stop it.
But you may still choose how it ends.
Dan Oh jolted awake.
The couch was cold. Her face damp with tears she didn’t remember crying. The fire spirit’s voice still rang in her ears—not a voice, but a judgment. A warning.
The dream hadn’t faded as dreams usually did. It was still inside her, a heat behind her ribs, branding every breath with a truth she couldn’t unsee.
She didn’t move.
Across the room, the sliding balcony door clicked quietly open.
Woon stepped back in.
He saw her immediately—rigid, pale, eyes unfocused as though she were somewhere far away. He didn’t say her name, not at first. He approached slowly, like one would approach a creature half-wild, half-wounded.
“Dan Oh,” he said softly.
She didn’t flinch, but her gaze slowly shifted toward him. She didn’t answer.
Woon crouched beside her. He gently reached out, but stopped just before his hand could touch her arm. “You’re awake,” he said. His voice had softened since earlier, carrying both worry and guilt.
Still, she didn’t speak.
Behind him, Ryu leaned against the doorframe, having followed Woon in from the balcony. The marker-stained delivery box now lay forgotten beside his feet.
Ryu’s eyes narrowed slightly as he observed Dan Oh.
Woon saw her face and stopped cold. The moonlight from the balcony caught the edge of her cheek, and something in her expression—some tight stillness behind her eyes—cut through him like ice.
Ryu, ever attuned to silence and its meaning, studied her from across the room.
His gaze lingered.
She saw it.
She knows.
The fire still clung to her skin, though no flame was present.
Woon slowly approached but didn’t speak. He crouched, his hand brushing the blanket around her as if checking she was still tethered here—to Earth, to him.
She didn’t look at him.
She didn’t look at Ryu either.
Her eyes were on the window.
Past it.
On something else entirely.
Woon looked at her for a long time. Then his gaze slowly shifted—over her shoulder, toward Ryu.
Ryu met his eyes.
No words passed. Just one look. A shared knowing.
Something had changed.
The fire in her dream might not have touched their world yet, but the heat had arrived. It sat in the room with them now—in her breath, in the golden flicker of Antutu curled beside the couch, in the charged air between them.
Woon stood, slowly. He didn’t press her.
He only moved to the window and pulled the curtain half-shut, muting the city’s distant lights, wrapping the room in dim shadow.
Ryu returned to the chair in the corner, but his gaze never left her.
Dan Oh leaned back again.
The fire spirit still echoed in her chest. The smell of scorched earth still filled her lungs. But she said nothing. Not tonight.
She closed her eyes.