The wind howled louder than the city traffic.
Jisoo drove like a woman possessed, weaving through late-night lanes in a matte black SUV modified for speed and discretion. The world outside blurred in smears of neon and rain, but inside the cabin, the silence was thick and brittle.
Lucien sat beside her, monitoring a cracked military-grade tablet on his lap. Hana was in the back seat, arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her reflection in the window was pale, foreign.
She barely recognized herself anymore.
"What's the Silla site?" she asked finally, breaking the silence. "What exactly are we going into?"
Lucien didn't look up. "A tomb. Buried and erased from modern records. South of Gyeongju."
"A forgotten ruin," Jisoo added. "But not abandoned."
Hana's eyes narrowed. "What's there?"
Lucien met her gaze in the mirror. "A fragment of your past."
Jisoo swerved sharply off the main road, tires screeching as they descended into the countryside. The city lights vanished behind them, swallowed by shadow.
By the time they reached the site, the rain had stopped, but the wind carried an unnatural chill.
The SUV pulled up to an overgrown trailhead. Rusted chains and a faded sign blocked the entrance. Jisoo sliced through both with a switchblade. They continued on foot.
Hana's boots crunched against gravel and leaves, but her ears were filled with something else distant whispers, like a language she used to know but had long forgotten.
The forest opened into a clearing of moss-covered stones and shattered pillars. At the center stood the cracked arch of what had once been a ceremonial gate.
Lucien stepped forward, scanning the area. "No drones. No heat signatures. Mirror hasn't reached this far yet."
Jisoo knelt beside a broken statue, brushing aside dirt and vines. Beneath it was a metallic panel embedded into the earth ancient tech cloaked in ruins.
She tapped it twice.
The ground trembled.
The ruins responded.
A segment of stone floor began to descend with a grinding hiss, revealing a staircase spiraling into the dark. Cold air rushed out like breath from a long-buried corpse.
Lucien turned to Hana. "Once we go down, things may change. In you."
She nodded. "They already have."
The descent took minutes, but each step felt like an hour.
The further they went, the colder it became. The air smelled like ash and something metallic. Not blood. Older than that. Like rusted memory.
The chamber below was vast.
Circular. Carved directly into the rock. At its center stood a monolithic stone table, half-buried in dirt. On its surface, ancient symbols burned faintly, glowing with energy pulsing like a heartbeat.
Jisoo pulled out a small device and swept it across the room.
"No radiation. No active surveillance. Just residual..."
She froze.
Hana was already walking toward the table.
Lucien moved fast. "Hana wait!"
But she didn't hear him.
Her fingers touched the stone, and her knees buckled.
Lucien caught her just as her body convulsed. Her eyes rolled back, lips parting in a silent scream.
FLASHBACK 117 Years Ago
The fire spread across the temple grounds like a living monster.
Screams tore through the night as soldiers dragged monks into the courtyards. A child was crying somewhere nearby.
And at the heart of the chaos, a woman clad in ceremonial white stood defiant before a line of gunmen.
"Ha-eun, don't," someone called.
She didn't flinch.
The man beside her, wounded, bleeding, beautiful, tried to rise.
Lucien.
Only that hadn't been his name back then.
Ha-eun turned to him, tears streaking down her face. "Remember me," she whispered.
And then the world exploded.
Present
Hana gasped awake, clutching Lucien's collar, drenched in sweat.
"I saw it," she croaked. "All of it."
Lucien's voice was tight. "What did you see?"
"My death. And yours."
She stood shakily, her gaze shifting toward the walls where symbols were now burning brighter.
Jisoo moved beside her. "There's something under the table."
They lifted the slab with great effort, revealing a vault beneath no bigger than a briefcase, lined in lead and carved with matching runes.
Inside: a rolled parchment sealed with molten glass.
Lucien exhaled slowly. "It's real."
Hana stared. "What is it?"
"A location," he said. "A second site. Possibly the origin."
He didn't say the rest.
Possibly where all this began.
They climbed out of the ruins as dawn began to bleed across the sky.
Jisoo remained behind, sealing the site again.
Lucien drove this time. Hana sat beside him, the case locked between them.
The silence returned but it wasn't brittle this time. It was brimming. Something had shifted. Between them. Inside her.
"I think I know what's coming," Hana said quietly.
Lucien glanced over. "Tell me."
But before she could answer, a low beep came from the car dashboard.
A security alert.
Lucien tapped it and froze.
Jisoo's face filled the screen. Grainy footage. Her back turned. She was inside the ruins, touching the altar.
Then the screen glitched.
Static.
And then
A distorted voice echoed from the speaker.
Not Jisoo's.
"You opened the wrong tomb."
Lucien slammed the brakes.
The car skidded to a stop in the middle of the road.
He stared at the frozen screen. The last frame: Jisoo's silhouette dissolving into flickering shadows.
Hana's hands were shaking. "Lucien…"
He didn't move. "We have to go back."
But even as he turned the wheel, something in the back of Hana's mind whispered:
Too late.