There was no universe.
No stars. No void. No laws to bind existence.
Only the **Cave of Cosmic**—an endless, nameless expanse where reality itself was still a dream.
And in its heart, a man sat in meditation.
Not a god.
Not a being.
Something **older**.
---
A snake slithered through the formless dark.
Mindless. Soulless. A mere ripple in the unfabric of pre-creation.
Yet the man noticed.
***"A guest?"***
His voice was not sound. It was the first **law**—the first division between *is* and *is not*.
The snake, drawn by forces it could not comprehend, approached.
The man studied it.
***"You are outside my grasp. Interesting."***
A pulse. A decision.
***"Come in."***
The cosmos **shivered**.
---
The snake reached the man's feet.
A finger touched its head.
***"You are a guest. From now on, your name is Hakka."***
And with those words—
—**creation screamed**.
Energy equivalent to **a thousand black holes** tore from the man's being, weaving into the snake's form.
- **A mind was born** where there had been none.
- **Knowledge of all laws** flooded its essence.
- **A soul ignited**—the first of its kind.
Hakka, the **First Celestial**, rose.
The **Sentinel of Void**.
The **Bane of Heaven**.
---
The serpent regarded them with something akin to amusement, its void-like eyes flickering with ancient, alien humor.
***"You wish to learn?"*** it echoed, the words vibrating through their skulls like a slow, cosmic chuckle. ***"But your world is not ready. Your time is not aligned. You are... amusing."***
Before any of them could protest—before Fred could even open his mouth—the world *twisted*.
A sensation of falling, of being *unmade* and *reassembled*—
—and then they were outside, sprawled in the snow, gasping like fish thrown onto dry land.
The hollow was gone.
No fissure. No dome. No trace.
Just endless white.
---
They scoured the ice for days.
Jenny's fingers grew raw from digging. James' face became a mask of frustration. Fred... Fred just *watched*.
Because he knew.
The formation wasn't hidden.
It had *never been there at all*.
At least, not in any way they could perceive.
The serpent had erased it—not just from the ice, but from the very fabric of reality.
Like closing a book mid-sentence.
---
A presence coiled in his chest—cold, vast, *other*. Not invasive, but *nestled*, like a star choosing to burn within his ribs.
The serpent's voice echoed softly, only for him:
***"You carry a question even I cannot answer."***
The serpent floated before him, its form now small enough to curl around his wrist.
***"I have questions,"*** Fred said, his dream-voice steady.
The serpent laughed, a soundless ripple in the dark.
***"And I have no answers. Not for you."***
---
That night, in the cramped research cabin, Fred dreamed:
- **A void older than stars**
- **A cave where time was unborn**
- **A man who spoke in cosmic pulses**
***"You carry a question,"*** the serpent whispered in the dream. ***"Not yours. Mine."***
Fred woke gasping, his fingers clawing at his sternum. His skin was ice-cold. His breath didn't fog.
Jenny frowned at him over coffee. "You okay? You look… gray."
Fred forced a smile. "Just tired."
---
The serpent fed on *absence*.
On the space between heartbeats.
On the silence after a question goes unanswered.
Fred felt it growing hungrier by the day—not for flesh, not for energy, but for the *lack* of something. For the gap in its own ancient memory.
***"The formation was a cradle,"*** it murmured through his veins. ***"But the cradle is broken now. The Chaos comes."***
It was a relic, a machine built to run on energy that no longer existed—something like magic, like qi, like the breath of gods.
It should have been dormant forever.
But something had *touched* it.
A whisper of Chaos. A ripple in time.
And for the briefest moment, the formation had *stirred*.
Long enough to wake the serpent.
Long enough to lure them in.
Now, it was gone again.
And the serpent...
The serpent was *bored*.
Fred didn't understand.
He didn't *need* to.
---
In fractured visions, the serpent showed him:
- **The cave outside creation**
- **The nameless man who forged a god from a mindless reptile**
- **The purpose buried like a thorn in eternity**
***"He called me Hakka,"*** the serpent said, the words vibrating in Fred's molars. ***"The first wound in the void. The first error in the code."***
Fred's nose bled black. "Why me?"
The serpent's laughter was a glacier calving.
***"Because your soul is empty enough to hold my hunger."***
Not pure. Not good.
*Empty.*
A vessel with no stains, no history, no weight.
The perfect hiding place.
---
The storms started on their last day in Antarctica.
Not snowstorms.
*Lightning storms*—with no thunder, no clouds, just jagged forks of black energy splitting the sky like cracks in glass.
Jenny filmed it on her phone. The footage showed only static.
James packed faster. "We're leaving. Now."
Fred stood at the window, watching the fractures spread.
the serpent mused. ***"The new gods. The children of Chaos."***
Fred's reflection in the glass had no eyes. Just two swirling vortices of starless dark.
---
The flight home was uneventful.
Jenny wrote her report: *"No significant findings."*
James deleted all anomalous sensor data.
Fred sat very still, counting the spaces between his breaths.
The serpent slept.
And in the quiet, Fred heard the last whisper of its creator—the man outside time, the voice before words:
***"Walk the path."***
He didn't know what it meant.
He didn't *want* to.
The serpent walks now.
Not in ice.
In flesh.
And the new gods are waking.
---
Back in the School.
The school hallway was dead silent as Vin dragged Beom Seok's limp body, a macabre streak of blood smearing the polished floors behind them. Students and teachers pressed themselves against lockers, their breaths held. No one dared to speak—no one even *blinked*. The principal's door flew open as Vin hurled the unconscious teacher inside like a sack of broken bricks.
Principal Kwon barely had time to register the scene before Vin spoke, his voice eerily calm:
*"He insulted the dead. Repeatedly."*
Then, without another word, Vin turned and walked out. No defiance, no hysterics—just the hollow echo of his footsteps.
---
- The staff was paralyzed. Beom Seok *had* crossed a line, but Vin's brutality was undeniable.
- Whispers spread: *"Did you see his eyes? That wasn't just anger—that was something *broken*."*
**The Students' Code**
- Steve and others gave statements, but none condemned Vin. Even the quietest kids muttered, *"Beom Seok deserved it."*
- A rumor ignited: *"Vin's family died because of him. The teacher knew. He *provoked* him."*
**The Principal's Decision**
- Beom Seok survived, but his teaching career didn't. Transferred quietly, no charges filed—*too much shame on both sides*.
- Vin? Suspended indefinitely. But Principal Kwon's final words to him were unexpected:
*"You're not a monster. But rage like yours? It *eats* people alive. Come back when you've learned to leash it."*
---
He never apologized. Not for the desk, not for the blood, not for the terror. But that night, alone in his empty apartment, he stared at an old family photo—*shattered glass, —and finally let himself cry.