The first thing Shin noticed wasn't the silence. It was the motion: the air moved in a way that was too special to be random or aimless. It had a measured rhythm and purpose, like a current that swept through the strange realm like a slow heartbeat.
He stood on a floating stone slab, eyes wide open. The supermarket was gone, but whether destroyed or not, he couldn't tell. The only thing he knew was that he was no longer there.
Above him stretched an endless ceiling of clouds shaped like shattered glass—as endless as the depths below. The place was a spiraling void of shifting light and shadow, with currents flickering like reflections in water. The very architecture looked like it was designed by someone who didn't believe in gravity or rules.
Something was wrong with the sky. It was not blue or even gray. Maybe it's not even a sky, he thought to himself. It was different, older, and otherworldly. It reminded him of legends he'd heard as a child—of Olympus, the residence of the gods.
He looked around him; several other survivors were scattered across nearby platforms. A few lay sprawled, screaming or trembling. One woman crouched with her arms over her head. Another clutched a phone, staring at a static black screen, unsure what to do when his life had shut down. Next to him, an older man in a suit murmured a prayer, while a couple argued whether to jump or stay put.
He didn't call out. There was no value in approaching them yet, not when anyone seems as clueless as he. Instead, he listened, trying to make sense of the new world he found himself in. He noticed how the wind whispered—perhaps not in words, but in something else, like a tone or vibration. A sort of pressure in the lungs. It wasn't just air—it was presence. Alive.
A pulse echoed faintly through the floating stones. Some shifted subtly beneath his feet, like they were adjusting to his balance. This place wasn't trying to kill them, he thought. It was trying to understand them.
"Hey! You! You saw that, right?!" A man in a blue tracksuit stumbled toward Shin, waving his arms. "The store just disappeared! This is some experiment—an illusion—right?" Shin chose not to answer, and the man stepped closer, his voice getting louder. "Hey! What's wrong with you?! You look way too calm for this to be normal!"
Shin ignored him.
"Everyone, stay together," a broad-shouldered man said from behind, forcing his voice into leadership. "We'll find an exit."
He pointed along a line of slabs close enough to jump—a path of sorts. A few people moved toward it, glad for the instruction. The man also glanced at Shin, inviting agreement, but Shin gave him a neutral look and said nothing.
A young guy in a gray hoodie laughed too loudly in the corner. "This is a prank," he said, swinging his foot into the edge of something that seemed like a cloud. His shoe hit something—soft at first, then strangely sticky. He yelped and stumbled back, more startled than hurt. The cloud stayed indifferent.
The group frayed apart. "I say we stay put," the business-suited man muttered, kneeling to pray. "Help will come. It always does."
"Fool! No one's coming!" yelled a younger woman. "Look around you! This isn't our world anymore!"
"I saw a path open over there," the tracksuit man added. "I think it wants us to go deeper. Maybe it's a test."
"Or a trap," someone muttered.
Shin remained silent. The division became clearer. One group huddled together, trying to keep calm and looking for safety. The other, restless, eyed the platforms stretching forward, curiosity—or desperation—glinting in their eyes.
A young woman with a scraped cheek approached Shin hesitantly. "You haven't said a word since we got here. You… are you not afraid?"
Shin turned his gaze toward the spiraling platforms. "No."
"…Why?" she asked.
He shrugged. He wasn't sure himself. "Would fear change anything? Besides, this place feels just…" He stopped, his eyes brimming with an unfamiliar glint.
The girl stepped back slowly. Her group pulled her back with wary glances.
Shin scanned the platform one more time. The man in the tracksuit was measuring distances in the air. The praying one stayed on the ground, refusing to move any further. Someone sat with her back to a floating wall, rocking gently, as if waiting would make it go away.
And then—as if an unseen will had given a sign—a path was formed. Floating stone steps spiraling inward like the bones of a titan's ribcage. Without a thought, as if something was urging him, he walked forward. There was no point in pondering when there was no other path anyway.
A woman behind him—one of the bolder ones—rushed forward to follow. "Wait—! I'm coming too—!" But Shin was too busy with what was happening before him. The wind responded like a curtain made of air. It was a single, quiet wall of pressure that formed at the end of the path. He pushed forward. The woman raced after him, but he didn't stop.
The corridor grew narrower with each step, the wind itself sharpened as he moved. At first, he thought it was just cold. But then he felt it under his skin—as if the air were peeling away layers of thought. The further he walked, the more the world seemed to fade, replaced by something foreign.
He stood in a translucent and humming corridor made of compressed air. The walls weren't solid, but they didn't yield. He kept walking a narrow path that extended forward. The floor pulsed under his steps, the way a bridge creaks when it remembers its weight.
Then came the whispers—not voices, but impressions. Glimpses of light in the mist around him. On one instant, a field of rusted swords. On another, a blurred image of a massive creature with antlers. And then, in the side of his eyes, a storm—if you can even call this that.
It pulsed like a drumbeat—violent, electric, and brimming with motion. Not merely a gust of wind—it was as if the storm was alive. And then he noticed it, a blurred and unfocused figure stood at its center. It had no face or lips, but Shin could almost swear he heard it speak.
It was surrounded by lightning—or perhaps the being was the existence of lightning itself. The eye of the storm moved, vibrating. Slowly, yes—but with a force that sent shivers through Shin's body.
He blinked once, and it was gone. He exhaled. The corridor seemed to tell a story, but what was it trying to say? He could not understand. Suddenly, the path tilted, and the walls shimmered between glass and sky. He felt upside-down without falling, forward without moving.
The platform beneath his feet was engraved with an ancient symbol: a spiral, with five branches. One glowed faintly—the branch facing him.
Then the wind howled.
From above, a cyclone descended. Inside it, a shape began to form. First came light. Then came pressure. And then—motion. A being made of air appeared. It looked humanoid yet fluid. Its arms were wings, and its legs were smoke. It hovered effortlessly, shifting with every breath.
It felt like something out of a video game: a guardian, a mini-boss at the gate. Except this one was real. Its presence pressed against Shin's bones, vibrating his ribs. He didn't back down. Before he could speak, it attacked.
The first strike came low—sharp, fast, and spiraling. Shin jumped back instinctively, barely avoiding a gust that shredded the stone where he'd just been. A fraction slower, and he'd have been sliced in half.
The guardian circled. Its movements were unpredictable but not unavoidable. Each step it took altered the pressure in the air. Each motion pulled the wind in a way that gave away its next attack— if one could read it.
Shin realized, very quickly, that he could. But since his mind reacted too slowly, his instinct took over. He ducked, pivoted, sidestepped, leapt—slipping past a slicing stream of air—then rolled under a gust that snapped like a whip.
Every motion of the guardian followed a rhythm. Not a combat pattern, but breath—almost a song. Shin had no weapon or armor, but he had instinct—and it screamed at him: Move!
He jumped. Instead of fighting the wind, he moved along with it. The guardian extended both arms, and twin vortexes launched outward in an X-pattern. Shin leapt, twisting midair. He didn't have time to think—only react.
He landed awkwardly, his shoulder slamming against the ground, and pain shot through his side. Still, he smiled. He wasn't winning, but he wasn't losing either. And more importantly, he was improving. Slowly but surely, he learned to sense the motions of the wind.
The guardian's body unraveled and reformed faster now. The guardian shifted tempo and began weaving attacks through vertical and horizontal planes, as though testing how well Shin had adapted.
Shin exhaled again, chest rising and falling in rhythm with the pulsing stone beneath him. Since he couldn't keep up, he instead tried to anticipate. When the next strike came from above, he dropped low. Then dashed immediately—not away from the attack, but into a weak pressure zone he'd felt a heartbeat earlier. The attack missed entirely.
But once he realized it, the wind changed. The guardian stopped attacking and hovered silently in the air. The guardian bowed its head and vanished.
Shin waited. One second. Two seconds. Three. But nothing came. All that remained was the sound of the air—no longer slicing, just… watching. The wind stopped screaming. A single tone—long, pure, and low—rang through the air. The rune at the center of the platform pulsed with light, and from the far side, a new path opened. A stairway of soft light, leading upward.
Shin didn't rush. He stood in silence, then looked at his arms. His hands trembled like a tuning fork had been struck inside his bones. He had felt it again—that sensation. That foreign feeling he hadn't known how to name. It came from the wind. And whatever lived inside it.
He took one step forward. Then another. And the Tower's breath became his own.