Standing before the huddled group of survivors—those pitiful few who'd clawed their way through terror—I let the silence stretch. My medium-length black hair swayed in a breeze that had no origin, as if the void itself exhaled in recognition. My lips curled into a half-smile, one that never reached the cold glint of my foxlike, dark brown eyes.
The black blazer I wore flared in the wind, elegant and sharp. Beneath it, a matching black vest hugged my frame, adorned with golden swirls—subtle, stylish, and jarringly pristine in this place of rot and despair. The patterns shimmered faintly, giving a regal contrast to the funeral-toned fit.
"We might die," I said slowly, then chuckled. "Actually, we will. I lied, you fucking suckers."
The smile didn't move. It stayed etched on my face like a scar—unnatural, eerie. The words I'd just spoken hung in the air like poisoned mist, curling into their ears, making them shiver.
Casually, I slipped a hand inside my blazer and pulled out a narrow glass tube. Inside it floated a pair of baby-blue eyes—glossy, distant, and disembodied. I held it up, tilting it so the eyes bobbed lazily in their pale crystalline suspension. Then I brought it closer to my face, parting my lips just enough to show more teeth than necessary, the smile widening, growing grotesque.
"Ar… are those eyes?" the redhead stammered, voice cracking. His face twisted into something ugly—dread and disbelief replacing whatever numb acceptance had settled in before. "What the hell?"
"Well, to be frank," I began, tone mockingly polite, "you needed to meet the missing item request. It was the only way out I could find. But the announcement didn't say you had to obtain a set of your own—it said to find a pair lost in the train."
I let that sit for a beat.
"Mei's cunning still counted," I added, voice lowering into something silkier. "And, well... as fate would have it, I found these right at the beginning of the ride."
A laugh tore its way out of me—rasping, cold, too warm and too raw all at once. It cracked through the tension like a whip, manic and mirthless, a laugh that didn't belong in a human throat.
The group—PK included—stared at me in open horror. Their faces twisted into masks of helplessness and betrayal. The uneven floor of the platform pitched, and most collapsed onto their knees, consumed by a hysteria that mocked the very idea of "Haven" or "Ecstasy."
This wasn't salvation. It was hell in a prettier coat.
Hope had long since fled. All that remained was anguish... and hatred. And that was fair. Especially when the cause of their inevitable death wasn't some unfathomable phenomenon, but me—a person they trusted. A fellow survivor.
Truly vile.
They loathed me. They feared me. They envied me.
And I loved it.
My grin grew more demented. I gave them a wink and blew a kiss.
Behind them, the neon lights of the station flickered, then dimmed, their glow swallowed by an approaching wave of nothingness—an indescribable void that devoured light, air, and meaning itself. It inched forward, consuming all in its path, until it stopped—just shy of where I stood. As if recognizing me.
"Well," I whispered inwardly, "thank God I still have the merch from the store."
The eyes weren't from a Person . Hell, they weren't even real—at least, not from a living creature. They came from a Rapture—an iconic artifact used by the protagonist of The Ash-Worn World. A beast's relic, found in the caves of the Alps Mountains, its only power was to instill fear. Pure, paralyzing fear.
To be honest, I had no idea if this stupid little thing actually worked. It only cost me 6,465.03 won—about £3.20 in Great British Pounds. Technically, it was just a keychain. A big one. Long and slender, barely wide enough to hold the glass-encased pair of eyes, their pale blue liquid catching the dimming light like ice on a corpse's lips.
However, its purpose had been served.
Whether it was the artifact's primal dread or, dare I say, my award-worthy performance that did the trick—I couldn't care less. What mattered was that the contradiction was strong enough to snap the station's hold. The fear became so intense that it folded back on itself, the paradox severing whatever cursed logic kept us trapped.
And how did I escape?
Really? I just explained this. I had the lost item. Duh.
The dark veil peeled back like rotting wallpaper, the pinkish purple, uneven platform crumbling away with it. One moment, I was standing in a broken world of flickering neon and cracked stone. The next—I was seated, upright, breath caught in my chest.
Back in the auditorium.
Same chair. Same spot. But the row around me? Empty. Not a whisper, not a breath. No one but me.
And her.
She sat a row behind, tilted slightly like she was posing for a portrait. There was a glimmer of something on her lips—half shock, half amusement—and she gave me a cheeky little wave like we were sharing an inside joke.
My expression twisted instinctively into a look of pure disgust. She smiled with smug satisfaction . But before I could fully marinate in my revulsion, a voice—cold, synthetic, and painfully cheerful—cut across the silence like a blade through silk.
[Congratulations to all those who have passed. Quite the surprise. Usually it's only one or two. But ten! Truly an exceptional batch this year.]
A pause followed. Not for applause. Just... a pause. Like the system needed to buffer.
[Well, we at Luminance Inc. reward talent, naturally. So get excited. The top-performing student of this batch is none other than Mei Tsukumo. And second place... Minh Vu. Please make your way to the stage.]
Of course.
I rose, smoothing the front of my blazer, and took a path that deliberately skirted away from Mei. No dramatic reunion. No theatrics. Just enough distance to be pointed.
As I walked past the others—the so-called "survivors"—I caught glimpses of their faces. Uneasy. Grateful. A little too quiet. Maybe they'd figured out I'd lied. Maybe they even understood why. Maybe.
Or maybe they just didn't know whether to thank me... or blame me.
I reached the stage. Dark polished wood. Unforgiving lights. The smell of old varnish and something faintly chemical.
A tired-looking man stood waiting for us—some mid-level Luminance office worker or manager didn't matter . Black hair slicked flat against his skull, shirt wrinkled, tie loose. He looked like he hadn't slept in three days. Honestly, same.
He approached Mei first. She was standing too close to me—close enough that her lavender perfume wrapped around me like a noose. Beneath it, I caught the faint, metallic tinge of blood.
Sweet and iron. Lovely.
He handed her a small, rectangular package. Then turned and handed me one of my own. No words. No praise. Just two parcels and a nod. Like we'd picked up takeout.
We were ushered off the stage without fanfare.
"How'd you manage it?" Mei asked, as we descended the steps slowly, deliberately.
I glanced at her, expression unreadable. "Maybe you should've stuck around to find out."
I picked up my pace, breaking the conversation with the kind of finality that didn't require punctuation.
Sliding back into my seat, I watched her take hers from the corner of my eye—her ever-present smile sharp as a scalpel. I turned my attention to the package instead, needing something less nauseating to focus on.
Inside was a phone—sleek, matte black, Samsung-esque. Functional. Impersonal. On the back was a symbol: a perfect circle, three triangles interwoven at off-kilter angles. The mark of Luminance Inc.
A device for "assignments" and "communications." Or surveillance, most likely. Same thing, really.
Next to it sat a ring. Smooth, metallic, unassuming. Crafted from a low-tier "safe" Rapture—safe being a matter of perspective. Its purpose? Part key, part biomonitor. It'd alert them if I started mutating or bleeding from my eyes or growing a second spine or... you get the idea.
I stared at it.
I could quit, sure.
Walk away. Drop off the grid. Live a quiet life in a rat-infested apartment and eat beans from a can.
But who am I kidding?
Just being associated with Luminance Inc. paints a target on your back. Other organizations wouldn't care that I resigned. They'd still drag me into some van, tear me apart, dissect what I knew, or worse—do things I haven't even imagined yet.
No. There's no exit. Only forward.
I slipped the ring onto my finger.
It fit perfectly.
Of course it did.