The wind outside the lab sounded strange—low, dragging, like the air itself had grown heavy.Kim Jisoo stood by the workbench, every muscle in his body tight.
Haru sat in the center of the room, hands resting on his knees, gaze steady despite the tension. His small wrist was turned upward, pale skin exposed.
"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Jisoo's voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it—like the final warning before stepping off a cliff.
"Yes." Haru's voice carried no hesitation. "It feels like… if I don't do this now, something worse will happen later. I just know it."
Jisoo's jaw worked silently. His instincts told him this was dangerous. But unlike every other danger he'd faced—monsters, darkness, the Others—this one didn't make him feel hunted. It made him feel… connected. Drawn in, like gravity.
He sat down across from Haru. "If something goes wrong, you—"
"There's no 'if,'" Haru interrupted, smiling faintly. "This is right."
That small smile unnerved Jisoo more than the threat of death. Still, he pulled out a sterile blade from a sealed kit and made the smallest incision on Haru's wrist.
A thin line of crimson welled up.
Jisoo hesitated for a heartbeat longer, then leaned forward and let the blood touch his lips.
It was warm—too warm—and the instant it hit his tongue, something surged through him. Not just in his veins, but in his bones, his thoughts.
A rush of heat bloomed in his chest, but it wasn't the good kind.
It was fire and ice at once, like his organs were folding in on themselves. His heart slammed against his ribs in a violent, irregular rhythm.
His breath hitched. His vision blurred.
"Jisoo?" Haru's voice wavered now, the confidence replaced with alarm. "Jisoo—!"
But Jisoo couldn't hear him anymore. His body convulsed once, hard, like it was rejecting something essential. His hands clawed at his chest as if he could tear the pain out.
Then his heart stuttered.
Missed a beat.
Another.
And then—Nothing.
Kim Jisoo collapsed sideways, his head striking the cold floor. His eyes were wide, but there was no light in them.
Haru scrambled to him, panic overtaking his earlier resolve. "No, no, no—Jisoo!"
But even as he tried to shake him, a strange heaviness crept into Haru's own body.
His legs went weak first. Then his arms.
His vision darkened at the edges, as though shadows were pouring into his mind.
And he understood—without knowing why—that whatever had been inside him, whatever had called him to give Jisoo his blood… it wasn't meant for human bodies.
He fell beside Jisoo, his small hand brushing the older man's lifeless fingers.
His last breath left him quietly, without struggle.
The lab went still.
The monitors kept humming, RAIN's dormant interface still blinking in low-power mode. Somewhere in the distance, a low groaning sound echoed through the forest.
And then—hours later—the silence was broken.
The reinforced doors shuddered. Metal screamed against metal.
A second later, they gave way.
Ryu Saeyoung stepped into the lab, weapon raised. His dark eyes swept across the room, sharp and calculating—until they landed on the two bodies.
The gun lowered. His jaw clenched.
He crossed the room in three long strides, dropping to one knee beside Jisoo. His fingers brushed the side of Jisoo's neck, then Haru's.
No pulse.
The smallest flicker of emotion crossed his otherwise unreadable face—a tightening around the eyes, the faintest quiver in his breath.
"…Late again," he muttered.
The words tasted like defeat.
He sank back on his heels, staring down at the still forms. In another life—another timeline—he'd seen them smile. Seen them survive. But that life had crumbled the same way this one had.
"Fourteen times," he whispered.
Fourteen failures.
Fourteen timelines where he had found them too late, or not at all. Where monsters took them, or the darkness did. Or fate simply moved faster than him.
And now—
He looked at Haru's hand, still almost touching Jisoo's. He could see the faint cut on Haru's wrist. Blood on Jisoo's lips. Something in his chest tightened further.
He knew the pattern by now. Every iteration was different in the details, but the ending was always the same.
This was the fourteenth.
And he only had one more left.
His thumb brushed the small silver device embedded into the back of his left glove—a smooth, oval plate no bigger than a coin, etched with intricate lines of code and quantum channels.
The Time Lattice.
The last one in existence.
It could only be used fifteen times before burning out permanently, erasing itself from reality.
He'd already burned fourteen.
This was the final chance.
And yet—his fingers hovered over the activation node without pressing it.
Because with each failure, the timeline had shifted further from what he remembered. He had lost more ground. Learned less. And now…
Now he wasn't sure he could save them, even if he rewound.
He closed his eyes briefly, forcing his breathing steady.
"Every time, I promise I'll protect you both," he murmured. "And every time… I watch you die."
His gaze moved between them one last time—Haru's small frame curled toward Jisoo, Jisoo's face still locked in that final grimace of pain.
There was no bloodlust here. No monstrous transformation. Just two lives gone still.
"I don't even know if you'd want me to keep trying," Ryu said under his breath. "But…"
He tightened his fist.
"…I can't stop."
He pressed the activation node.
The device hummed, low and resonant, the air around it warping like heat haze. The room seemed to pull inward, edges folding like paper.
The light dimmed—then flared white.
And the world began to reverse.
.
Kim Jisoo woke up with a gasp.
It wasn't the desperate, clawing inhale of someone escaping a nightmare—it was sharper than that. His chest hurt, his heart hammered, and for a moment, he swore he could still feel Haru's small fingers slipping away from his grasp.
The lab was gone.
No—this wasn't the lab at all. He was in his apartment, in his bed, sunlight streaming through the curtains.
Sunlight.
His breath caught. He shot up from the bed and rushed to the window.
The light outside was brilliant. The sky was the kind of impossible blue that felt like it belonged to another era. He could hear cars on the street, children shouting in play, the sound of life.
Life before the dimming.
His gaze darted to the corner of the room where the clock sat. The date was staring back at him.
Two weeks before the apocalypse began.
His knees nearly gave out.
What…?