Darkness consumed everything.
Then—
A burst of light.
Fluorescent lighting—white and blue—flared overhead, flooding the space, illuminating everything at once.
A damp cafeteria materialized.
White walls.
Gray floor.
At the edge, near a large steel door, a body sat shaking.
Black T-shirt.
Black shorts.
Black silky hair plastered to his forehead.
Ha Joon.
His body trembled.
Aching.
Screaming.
Every nerve singing pain, broadcasting to the world the brutality his flesh had endured.
In front of him sat a mess tray.
White block of rice.
Brown tube-like cubes.
A puddle of gray porridge.
Sit-ups. Push-ups. Jumping. Climbing. Crawling. Lifting logs. Running. Standing still like a pole for hours.
All day.
Every day.
His body vibrated with exhaustion.
But his stomach—
It was eating him from the inside out.
Hollow.
Burning.
Demanding.
His vision blurred.
He blinked.
It cleared slightly.
He tried to lift his chopsticks.
His hand shook.
Opening his mouth required effort—stretching muscles, moving his jaw, activating gums.
Pure pain.
Non-bearable.
The chopsticks trembled in his grip.
He stared at the rice.
Tried to lift a small clump.
Slowly.
So slowly.
The chopsticks rose toward his mouth.
Not fully open.
But open enough.
The rice moved closer.
He tried.
With everything he had.
He felt it—the sensation rising in his chest, the urge to cry, to scream, to let it all out, everything bottled inside him clawing its way up his throat.
His eyes darted around the room.
Quick.
Searching.
Chi-Long wasn't there.
He couldn't see her.
But he knew.
He felt it.
The feeling an animal gets when a predator watches from the shadows.
She was always watching.
Always.
His body froze.
He forced the thought down.
*Don't.*
*She's always watching.*
He looked forward.
Across from him sat Eun Byol.
Light brown hair darkened with sweat and grime.
Green eyes that had turned darker.
A face.
Dead.
It reminded him of the same face he saw when he woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror.
The exact same dead face he wore going out to hunt in the dungeons, carrying the baggage of others, not knowing when the day would be his last.
The same face he wore walking through the empty gray halls to his mother's hospital room.
He knew that face too well.
His eyes dropped lower.
White bandages wrapped around her wrists.
He thought about her screaming.
Thought about her sleeping in that bed, face at peace.
The bandages slowly turning light pink.
Growing darker.
Finally into red.
Dark red.
Eun Byol looked at him.
His eyes snapped away.
She looked away too.
The room became a vacuum.
Silent.
The only sound was the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
Persistent.
Unending.
Ha Joon thought to himself—he wanted to say something.
But what?
What could he say that would fix anything?
What words could ease her pain?
He had done nothing.
Just stood there.
Watching.
Nothing.
That's all he ever did.
All he ever accomplished.
Nothing.
He tried to look at her again.
But he couldn't.
He just couldn't.
Silence.