POV: Yerin
The world felt too small.
Air pressed tightly against Yerin's lungs as the boundary flickered again, its faint silver shimmer pulsing like a heartbeat. Each pulse was weaker than the last. She could feel it. Not with her eyes… but with something deeper. Something that hummed under her skin like a buried chord being plucked.
The same chord that Jin's chain resonated with.
She clutched her wrist instinctively. The faint ring of light there pulsed once in answer, warm against the icy dread tightening her muscles.
Raine stood close beside her, shielding her with his body in a way that both comforted and terrified her. If the boundary broke—if that thing got through—there was nothing he could do against it. Nothing human could.
Jin was the only one who didn't seem afraid.
But he was tense. Yerin could see it in his stance, in the way the chain pressed against his skin like a living thing struggling to hold him together. He stood between them and the darkness, shoulders squared, gaze locked on the trembling shadow pressing at the boundary.
"Jin," she whispered, barely breathing the name, "what's going to happen?"
He didn't turn. "You need to stay with Raine. If the boundary fails, neither of you can move toward the forest."
Raine's fingers tightened around her arm. "Where do we move if it breaks?"
"You don't," Jin said.
The answer chilled her more than the shadow did.
The echo gathered itself again. It had grown. She could see it now—its edges sharper, the darkness inside it swirling like ink stirred through water. It no longer felt like smoke or mist.
It felt… aware.
As if it had eyes.
Her heartbeat pounded painfully. "Why does it feel like it's looking at me?"
"Because it is," Jin said.
Raine swore under his breath. "Why her? Why does it only care about her?"
"It doesn't care about her," Jin replied. "It cares about what's inside her."
Yerin's breath faltered. "Something inside… me?"
The chain glowed slightly, as if responding to her fear. Jin finally turned his head, eyes meeting hers with a gravity that made her pulse catch.
"Your soul remembers things your mind does not," he said. "The first you carried a power that bound the darkness. That power reincarnated with you."
Yerin's stomach dropped. "I don't have any power."
"You will," Jin said. "But only if you survive long enough to awaken it."
The echo slammed the boundary again.
The crack spiderwebbed outward.
Raine stepped back, pulling her with him. "That's not going to hold much longer. What do we do?"
Yerin's hands trembled. She didn't want to die. She didn't want Raine hurt. She didn't want Jin—
Her thoughts fractured.
The sound of the echo's whispering swelled, louder, swirling through her mind. But something else rose with it—faint images bleeding through her consciousness.
A temple at dusk.
Her own hands glowing with pale white light.
Jin kneeling before her with broken chains at his feet.
Her voice saying something she couldn't understand—
A promise.
Yerin gasped sharply.
The image vanished as quickly as it struck her, leaving her dizzy and breathless.
"Yerin?" Raine stepped in front of her, worry carved across his face. "What happened?"
"I…" she swallowed hard, gripping her temples. "I remembered something."
Jin turned fully now, eyes sharp. "What did you see?"
"A temple… and light. And you were there." Her voice shook. "Jin, I touched the chain. I—"
Before she could finish, the forest went silent again.
This silence was worse than the first. Heavier. Intentional.
Even Jin's posture shifted.
The echo stopped moving.
Stopped whispering.
Stopped pressing against the boundary.
It simply stilled.
As if bowing.
Then Yerin heard it.
Not with her ears.
With something deeper.
Something inside her.
A voice.
Not a whisper.
Not a sound.
More like a presence.
Something had arrived.
Her breath turned shallow. "What… what is that?"
Raine's grip on her tightened. "Jin, what the hell is going on?"
Jin's eyes went cold, his voice barely above a murmur. "The true one is awake."
The shrine floor vibrated under Yerin's feet.
Not from something moving—
But from something existing.
A shape began forming behind the echo.
Darker.
Deeper.
An outline that bent the morning light around it as though the world bowed in its presence.
The boundary flickered again.
Jin's chain blazed with sudden light, the symbols burning bright and frantic.
"Yerin." His voice cut sharply through the rising dread. "Listen to me."
She tore her gaze away from the silhouette forming in the forest.
"There is something you can do," Jin said, stepping toward her. "But you will not remember how unless I unlock it."
Yerin's pulse spiked. "Unlock what?"
"Your past self."
Raine stepped in front of her instantly. "Absolutely not. She's already overwhelmed."
"This is the only way to keep her alive."
"No," Raine snapped. "You don't get to decide that."
The forest trembled harder. The boundary dimmed.
Jin took another step toward Yerin, the chain glowing so brightly it cast shadows across the shrine walls. His voice was low but fierce.
"You remembered the chain because your soul is waking," he said. "And if you do not awaken fully now, that thing will pull you out of your body before I can stop it."
Yerin's knees weakened.
She could feel something tugging at her chest.
Faint.
Insistent.
Calling.
Her breath shook. "What do I have to do?"
Raine's voice cracked. "Yerin—"
She squeezed his hand, soft but steady. "If this… whatever is coming… wants me, then I need to be able to stop it. I can't just hide behind both of you."
Jin's eyes flickered with something almost like relief. Or respect.
"Stand," he said. "And do not fear what you see."
The forest roared with sudden darkness.
The boundary shattered.
Yerin gasped, clutching her chest as a searing heat burst under her skin, light erupting from her wrist like fire.
Raine pulled her back.
Jin moved forward, chain blazing like lightning.
And the true darkness finally stepped into the world.