tThere was a weight in the air that didn't belong to morning.
Snow sat at the edge of the empty classroom, one hand curled around the strap of his backpack, the other tapping against his thigh in a rhythm that had no beat. Outside the window, the clouds sagged low over the city like they were trying to smother it. The streets were quiet. The usual morning traffic? Gone. Even the birds had stopped singing days ago.
His schoolbag was light. They didn't give out textbooks anymore. What was the point?
No one taught the sixteen-year-olds now. No one really looked at them either. Everyone just waited for the whisper, for the pull, for the dark thing that came like a hand through a veil.
Snow's eyes flicked across the classroom. Seventeen chairs. Eight were empty. Six of those had gone missing in the last two weeks. One of them had been Jisoo, who used to hum under her breath during exams. Another had been Haru, who'd once knocked out two teeth fighting a senior and still grinned about it. Gone, all of them. Like breath exhaled and never drawn back in.
At sixteen, the Shadow found you.
It wasn't a disease. It wasn't a soldier, or a cult, or a program. It was a thing. A force. A curse. No one could explain it, not even the scientists who appeared on late-night broadcasts with fake smiles and scripted reassurance. The truth was simple: on or after your sixteenth birthday, it came for you. No one could stop it. Not your parents. Not the police. Not the government.
You just… vanished.
The bell rang dry, metallic, wrong. No one spoke. No one joked about lunch or exams. They all filed out like ghosts, shoulders hunched, eyes glazed, pretending the world was still spinning the way it used to.
Snow walked in silence.
His shoes scraped against the cracked tiles of the corridor. Posters peeled from the walls. "Future Leaders of Tomorrow" read one, curling like burnt paper. The teachers no longer watched the halls. They had all given up. What could they do when their students were hunted by something that didn't follow rules?
...The courtyard was a wasteland.
Dead trees stood like crosses in the wind, their branches brittle and motionless. The old benches were splintered and covered in dust. A single swing moved gently, creaking with every gust, even though there was no one near it. It all looked abandoned. Not just empty forgotten.
Snow crossed the cracked pavement with slow, measured steps. His gaze drifted to the school gate, the rusted bars yawning open like the teeth of a trap. He hesitated, then kept walking. Past the fence. Past the silent streets. Into the alley behind the dorm block, where the broken world could no longer see him.
His shadow followed him quietly.
He stopped halfway down the alley and leaned against the graffiti-stained wall. His breathing came slower now, but his heart refused to settle. He pressed a hand to his chest. His pulse was too fast. His fingers were trembling. Not from cold. From the weight of knowing.
It was his time.
No one told you when it was coming. But somehow, everyone knew. Some woke screaming. Some walked into the night and were never seen again. Others tried to fight. It made no difference.
And now it was him.
Snow closed his eyes. The city smelled like rain and rot. Somewhere far away, a dog barked. His shoulders slumped.
"I'm not ready…" he murmured. "I'm not like the others."
He thought of Haru strong, fearless. Of Jisoo calm even in the face of the unknown. They were brave. They were something.
What was he?
Just a boy with bad dreams and a slow heart.
A chill ran up his spine.
His eyes opened.
The air shifted.
He turned his head slowly.
His shadow no longer moved like his own.
It curled against the wall behind him, stretching and twitching. The edges distorted, rippling like it was alive. Snow froze. The hair on his neck stood on end. He took a step forward and the shadow stayed behind.
Then it rose.
Not like smoke.
Not like a trick of the light.
It stood.
It peeled away from the wall, still shaped like him but wrong. Slender. Crooked. Taller than it should have been. Its head tilted slightly, as though amused. No face. No eyes. But somehow, it stared.
Snow stumbled backward.
He didn't scream. He couldn't. His throat locked up. His muscles refused to obey. He reached for the wall, searching for balance
The thing leapt.
A blur of darkness.
It hit him like a wave of oil, smot
hering. His vision blurred. Cold tendrils wrapped around his