Evening rush hour, near Gangnam Station in Seoul. As always, neon signs and billboards flooded the streets with light. Weary office workers poured out of the subway entrance, hustling on their way. To an onlooker, the streams of exhausted commuters might have resembled a horde of zombies. Snatches of laughter-laced conversation from a nearby café patio drifted past them. Taxis lined the curb, eager for homebound passengers, while a crowd gathered at the crosswalk waiting for the light. At a glance, it was a busy evening like any other.
But beyond that lively facade, something inexplicable was slowly seeping in, making the familiar scene feel strangely off. Moments later, an electronic billboard abruptly went black, then flickered back on. Streetlights began blinking on and off at random. One commuter grumbled that his phone had suddenly died on its own, while another muttered that the ground just gave a slight tremor.
Before long, the laughter faded, replaced by a growing chorus of confusion. The outlines of buildings started to blur and warp. The pavement itself began to writhe and ripple, almost like a living thing. The air—utterly still, without a breath of wind—turned damp and leaden, pressing down on everyone like an invisible weight.
High above, one portion of the darkening sky was glowing an eerie red, like a twisted sunset. And beneath that blood-red sky, a ghostly vision materialized: the entire city, hanging upside down in midair, faint and flickering.
"What the... how is this happening?!" a man screamed from the middle of the street. He had just seen a stranger's face suddenly morph into his own, a bizarre sight that knocked him off his feet. Not far away, a young woman stood frozen in front of a shop window—moments ago, her reflection in the glass had smirked at her with a different face than her own, then slid out of sight. All around, people were shrieking in terror and scrambling to get away.
Some wailed that the world around them looked like the past and present overlapping. Indeed, the hazy after-image of a building long since demolished flickered into view, then vanished again; an alley that hadn't existed moments before materialized and disappeared repeatedly. It was as if the entire city had been trapped inside a nightmare.
At that moment, a police siren blared sharply, cutting through the chaos as a patrol car barreled onto the scene. Detective Jung Hae-jun—who, at 45, had an energy that belied his age—leapt out of the car and shouted, "Everyone, clear the way! It's dangerous!" Hot on his heels, his team—Detectives Yoon Tae-sik, Park Jae-min, and Choi Do-yoon—sprang out of the vehicle.
The scene that greeted them was more chaotic than they could have imagined. The street was pandemonium: people crouched on the ground sobbing, others bleeding or unconscious after colliding in the panic. For a moment, Jung Hae-jun felt his breath catch at the surreal sights surrounding him. But he clenched his jaw and forced himself to focus.
"Captain... this is not normal at all," Yoon Tae-sik stammered, his voice wavering. Normally quick with a joke when nervous, Yoon was now white as a sheet. He stared up at the sky, lips parted in shock at the blood-red clouds and the inverted city mirage above, utterly at a loss for words.
Park Jae-min gave a helpless shake of his head, letting out a hollow laugh. "It's like the whole city's twisted into a dream… How are we supposed to get this under control?" he said, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. Park's sturdy frame was tensed as if to appear calm, but the tremor in his words betrayed his bewilderment.
Choi Do-yoon kept his lips set in a hard line as his eyes swept the area. A seasoned detective who had handled special cases in another unit, he was clearly fighting to stay composed amid the unreal chaos. "First, let's get the injured to safety. Captain, we should secure the perimeter," Choi said quietly but firmly.
Jung Hae-jun nodded and immediately issued orders. "Yoon, radio HQ and call for backup. Park, tend to the injured—give first aid and hand them over to paramedics as soon as they arrive. Choi, get everyone evacuated and keep an eye on our surroundings!" Even in the throes of confusion, their duty was clear. At Jung's command, the team sprang into action.
Yoon Tae-sik grabbed the radio on his belt and barked into it, "Headquarters, come in! Gangnam Station intersection—an unknown phenomenon is occurring, requesting immediate assistance with civilian evacuation!" However, only static answered him. Yoon grimaced and yanked the earpiece away as nothing but garbled noise hissed from it. The channel was completely scrambled.
Wasting no time, Yoon turned to the panicked bystanders. He rushed into the middle of the road, pulling up people who had collapsed in shock and shepherding them toward the sidewalk. All the while, the distortions in reality only intensified. "Ugh… my head…!" Yoon groaned, suddenly dizzy, stumbling as he dragged a dazed man to safety.
In the next instant, the asphalt under Yoon's feet seemed to turn to jelly, rippling visibly. The street ahead of him twisted and veered in an impossible direction. A shop entrance that had been only a few paces away suddenly blinked out of existence, replaced by an alley that shouldn't be there. Disoriented, Yoon stumbled and groped at empty air. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them—only then did the world around him snap back to normal. He knew in his head it was just a hallucination, but facing such a grotesque shift in reality left him shaken.
"Dammit, get a grip…!" he hissed to himself. Slapping himself hard across the face, Yoon managed to steady his footing and clear his mind.
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion suddenly rocked the street. The windows of a nearby building blew out with a deafening crash, and huge shards of glass came raining down.
"Watch out!" Choi Do-yoon shouted. He lunged toward a young woman nearby, wrapping himself around her and pulling her to the ground. A jagged pane of glass the size of a human head slammed into the pavement right beside them, bursting into glittering fragments. Only after confirming the woman was uninjured did Choi realize blood was seeping from a cut on his own arm. His forearm had been nicked by a shard, but he paid it no mind—he was already back on his feet, eyes scanning for the next threat.
Moments later, additional police cars and fire trucks arrived on the scene. Officers hurried to cordon off the intersection as firefighters aided in guiding the remaining civilians to safety. But the bizarre hallucinations and warped space made rescue efforts painfully difficult. Jung Hae-jun and his team, now drenched in sweat, fought with everything they had to lead people out of danger.
Then, beneath the blood-red sky, a slow and haunting song began to echo from somewhere unseen—its soft, eerie melody sending a chill down every spine. Jung Hae-jun, breathing hard, whirled around in search of the source. By now most civilians had been evacuated, but the strange phenomena still hadn't subsided. In fact, an ominous hush had fallen over the area, like the uneasy calm before a storm. Jung had a gut feeling that the source of all this chaos was lurking very close by.
Just then, a loudspeaker crackled to life in the distance: "This area is experiencing a gas leak emergency! Please evacuate immediately!" The next moment, on the surrounding streets, bright yellow signs reading "GAS LEAK HAZARD" were hastily erected, and rolls of yellow police tape were strung up to block off the area.
Jung's teammates exchanged bewildered looks. A gas leak? It was obvious this was the official excuse to explain away the surreal chaos playing out before them. Jung Hae-jun pressed his lips into a grim line. He understood the need for a stopgap explanation, but it didn't sit right with him at all.
As he swept his gaze upward, something on a nearby rooftop caught Jung's eye—so much so that he blinked, unsure if he was seeing things. On the edge of the dim roof, two figures in black masks and protective suits appeared for the briefest moment… and then, in a blink, they were gone. The spot where they had been standing was now empty, without a trace.
But that fleeting glimpse cast a long shadow over Jung's mind. Who on earth were those mysterious figures? Had some government emergency unit already been deployed here? Question after question reared up in his thoughts.
A few minutes later, Jung found himself staring at a length of yellow police tape flapping in the breeze at the mouth of an alley. In the span of mere moments, the once-chaotic intersection had fallen silent, leaving that lone strip of tape fluttering as the only sign that anything had happened at all. Jung Hae-jun walked back over to his team. They were all utterly exhausted, but it seemed none of them were seriously hurt. He looked around at each of their worn faces and said quietly, "Good work, everyone."
Then Jung's expression hardened. He pointed toward an alleyway leading down into the underground shopping area of Gangnam Station, his instincts still on high alert. "It's not over yet," he said in a low, firm voice. "Something's hiding in there. That might be the source of all this."
No sooner had he spoken than a gruff muttering sounded beside him, colored by a thick regional accent. "Aw, hell... ain't this place just crawlin' with ghosts…?" the voice mumbled. Startled, Jung turned to see Fog—the shabby-jacketed vagrant who had helped him once before—suddenly standing there in the shadows. He looked utterly terrified. This was a man who would normally be cracking jokes with a mischievous grin, but right now he was plainly shaking in his boots.
Even so, Fog hadn't faltered. His hand trembled as he pointed toward the darkness of the alley. In a hushed, shaky whisper he said, "Detective, I got a real bad feelin' about this. Up ahead… I'm gettin' a mighty strong vibe somethin's there."
Jung inhaled sharply at Fog's words. The skin on his neck prickled. The eerie chill in the air here, the faint crimson glow that clung to the alley walls—it all felt disturbingly similar to the traces of the Specter he had confronted during the Red Fog incident.
A fierce light flashed in Jung's eyes. The resemblance was too strong to ignore; his hunch wasn't just a wild guess. It dawned on him that beneath this chaos, perhaps something not of the ordinary world was lurking. This might not be a crime by any human hand at all, but the work of a supernatural presence.
Jung steadied his breathing and fixed his gaze on the alley. Seeing their captain tense up, the others naturally turned to look down the alley as well. In that moment, all of them felt it in their bones—the instinctive certainty that some terrible danger waited ahead in the darkness.
For a long beat, none of them spoke. At last, Yoon Tae-sik broke the silence, his voice careful and resolute. "Captain, if you're going in… then we're coming with you." The others immediately nodded in agreement.
But Jung lifted a hand to hold them back. "No. You guys stay here and secure the area," he said sharply. "Keep any civilians from coming in. If things get worse out here, take action immediately." His teammates looked at him with worry, but his decision was firm. Yoon hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod.
"…Understood. Be careful, Captain," Yoon said quietly.
With that, Jung Hae-jun turned and, with Fog by his side, stepped cautiously into the alley veiled in the faint red fog. Fog was plainly terrified, but he didn't let it stop him from following Jung. As they advanced, the noises of the outside world quickly fell away, replaced by a deathly cold silence that closed in around them. Their own ragged breaths sounded harsh in their ears as they moved deeper in.
Before long, the two had ventured far down the narrow passage, reaching the spot where a stairway led down to the subway's underground level. The area was littered with the detritus of long neglect—an old, abandoned vendor cart and a couple of garbage cans lay tipped over and forgotten, strewn about amid decades of dust. Even the red fog seemed to thin out here, as if holding its breath. Like the eye of a storm, the center of the distortion was submerged in an even more ominous stillness.
Jung carefully swept his flashlight across the ground as he crept forward. Suddenly, the toe of his shoe bumped into something hard and metallic. He knelt down and picked it up. It was a small black drone, about the size of his fist. One of its rotor arms was broken, and a tiny red indicator light on it was blinking weakly. Along the side of the drone's chassis, an alphanumeric code was clearly stenciled: SILR-04.
Just then, a burst of static-laced mechanical noise crackled from the drone. Through the distortion, a few fragmented words emerged in a robotic voice: "…retreat... SILR team, respond…"
Jung and Fog exchanged alarmed looks. It was only a broken handful of words, but one thing had come through loud and clear: "SILR team." Jung immediately pulled a plastic evidence bag from inside his jacket, slipped the drone into it, and sealed it shut.
At that exact moment, the silence was shattered by the slow echo of footsteps resonating down the alley. Jung's head snapped up. At the far edge of his flashlight's beam, beyond the thin crimson haze, two figures were materializing.
In the next breath, they stepped forward out of the mist—two people clad in black tactical protective suits and masks. Without a sound, they appeared and spread out to block the alley ahead, as if they had been lying in wait.
"Detective Jung Hae-jun… this is no longer the police's jurisdiction. I'm going to have to ask you to turn back," one of them said in a low, steady voice.
Jung didn't recognize the voice, but it had unmistakably spoken his full name. His eyes narrowed into sharp slits at the sound of a stranger addressing him so familiarly. He glared at the two mysterious figures and said in a hard, deliberate tone, "Just who the hell are you?"
No answer came. Only a hair-trigger tension filled the alley, thick with swirling red fog, as the standoff hung in the air.