Yuwon's boots hit the corridor floor loud and urgent. Soren walked beside him, quieter, but just as alert, both still half-covered in field dust. The containment unit sat at the far end of the hall, sealed off by reinforced glass and pressure locks. Inside it, Saejin hadn't moved.
Inside the chamber, his body lay flat, arms resting at his sides, but the shimmer in the air around him was visible. The surface of the room rippled slightly, bending the light at the corners.
Hara was already there, standing just beyond the glass wall. Her arms were crossed, her stance tense, and her focus didn't change as Yuwon and Soren approached. If she had more answers than they did, she wasn't eager to share them. She didn't turn until Yuwon stopped beside her.
Yuwon didn't hesitate. "What the hell happened?"
Hara shook her head. "They're not telling me anything useful. They had him locked down before I got here. No briefing, no clearance level update... just this." She gestured toward the glass without really looking at it. "He hasn't moved."
Soren moved to the glass, peering in. "How is he?"
"Vitals are holding" Hara replied. "But his sync is unresponsive. There's output, but it's not readable, it's like he's transmitting on a frequency the systems weren't designed to track. And he's emitting."
Yuwon stepped closer to the glass, narrowing his eyes. Inside the containment, Saejin looked weightless. His arms rested at his sides, his skin pulsed faintly with a soft shimmer.
"He's radiating" Hara said. "Residual gate energy of some sort. They pulled every piece of equipment out of the unit, even the walls are failing shielding tests."
"Can we see him?" Yuwon asked.
"No" she said, sharper. "Not unless you want to destabilize half the wing. They're already talking about moving him into full isolation."
Yuwon didn't answer immediately. His eyes stayed on the figure inside the glass. "He hasn't moved?"
"Not once" Hara replied.
Behind them, one of the tech monitors gave a faint, irregular chirp. Yuwon stayed where he was, watching, listening, trying to find something in the stillness.
But there was nothing.
--------
Somewhere else, Saejin opened his eyes into darkness.
There was no sense of direction at first, just weightless stillness pressing in from all sides, until, gradually, a soft light emerged enough to give shape to the space around him. The ground beneath his feet lacked texture, and no walls or ceiling framed the place, only blackness.
Then a shape moved to his right.
A child stood a few steps away, barefoot, thin, no more than ten. The shape of his face, the slope of his shoulders, even the way he held his arms close to his sides, it was all unmistakable. Saejin was looking at himself, younger.
The boy didn't speak. He raised one hand and began signing something with small and careful motions.
Saejin stepped forward, eyebrows drawing in. "I don't understand."
The boy tilted his head, then pointed past him, towards a door without any frame or hinges holding it in place. Just a clean rectangular outline waiting in the dark.
Saejin looked at the boy again. "Where are we?"
No answer. Just another gesture, this one smaller. Then the boy walked ahead and stopped in front of the door, waiting.
Saejin followed. The moment he touched the surface, it opened without sound.
Beyond the door, in the center, a medical bed hovered weightlessly, and on it lay the girl from the Gate, unconscious, her face partially hidden beneath layers of bandages. Around her, monitors pulsed in steady rhythms and medical staff kept around her, their voices faint at first, muffled shapes of sound that didn't quite reach him.
Saejin stepped in farther. "What happened to her?"
The boy didn't answer. He just stood beside him, watching.
Then the voices sharpened.
"She hasn't spoken since."
"The resonance pattern has changed, it doesn't match what we recorded before the collapse."
"She's mute. Probably permanent."
"There's facial trauma and extensive nerve damage. Recovery's unlikely."
Saejin's jaw tightened.
He remembered fragments of what had happened: the overload, the pressure, the Specter, but it came in pieces, like someone else's memory filed wrong in his head.
Then the room began to fade.
In its place, the collapsed Gate's entrance took shape, floating in blackness and humming faintly. A spark buzzed through Saejin's mind, short. Then another. Flashes. Snapshots of the collapse, the scream, the sync breaking open.
Beside him, the boy tugged at the edge of Saejin's shirt, just enough to pull his focus, then raised his hands and began to sign again.
"I don't know what you're saying" Saejin said, frustrated.
The boy lowered his hands and reached into his pocket. When he pulled it out, he was holding something small. Folded paper.
An origami crane.
He placed it in Saejin's palm, then stepped back. But before Saejin could say anything, the space changed again.
A new figure had appeared, Yuwon, seated in a chair somewhere, placed in the middle of nothing. The room had no shape, no structure at all, just him and open space. Saejin stepped forward slowly.
Yuwon looked up.
For a second, it was like both of them were seeing the same thing at the same time, it seemed like Yuwon's eyes locked on his. And it seemed as though Saejin knew Yuwon was seeing him. Then another voice broke through the space. Cold.
"Still not ready."
And the darkness swallowed everything.
--------
Back in the medical bay, Yuwon blinked, like something had just passed in front of his eyes. He looked around the room but nothing had changed. Soren sat nearby, scrolling half-heartedly through a scan log. Hara was still talking to one of the techs across the glass.
Soren looked up. "Something wrong?"
Yuwon hesitated. "I thought... never mind."
Before he could finish the sentence, Dr. Lys walked in. She wore an environmental dampener and carried a heavy tablet. Her eyes scanned the room quickly before settling on Yuwon.
"We need to talk about Saejin."