The sound ripped through the house.
A baby's cry—raw, desperate, unlike any other he had made before. It echoed sharp and jagged, as though the walls themselves caught and held it.
Footsteps. Voices. Shadows fell across him.
"Han-woo…" His mother's hands lifted him, her breath quick with worry. Her warmth pressed against his trembling body, rocking, soothing, but unable to touch the terror that still shook him.
His father appeared in the doorway, face pale, eyes narrowed. The cry still hung in the air, as though refusing to fade. "Did you feel it?" he asked, voice low, cautious.
She froze. For a moment, neither of them looked at the child—they looked at each other.
"I thought… it was my imagination," she whispered. "But… that force…"
The infant Han-woo sobbed, chest heaving, still caught in the memory of drowning in fire and frost. He could not understand their words, but the tone pierced him—the weight in his father's voice, the tremor in his mother's.
Something had reached them too.
His father stepped closer, the floorboards creaking under his deliberate weight. He leaned down, gazing into Han-woo's wet eyes. The baby squirmed, caught between shame and fear, as though this man could see through him—straight into the place where Gray and Han-woo were still bound by a fragile thread.
"This child…" his father murmured. "So soon?"
His mother pressed Han-woo closer, as though shielding him. "He's still just a baby."
Her words were soft, but her voice shook. Han-woo felt it in her heartbeat, racing too fast against his cheek.
His father did not answer. Instead, he placed a single hand on the crib, letting his palm hover over the wood. Han-woo felt it immediately: a faint vibration, a whisper of the same force that had nearly torn him apart.
Qi.
It pulsed faintly, as if acknowledging him. As if answering his cry.
The air thickened. The baby's breath hitched. His parents stood in silence, caught between fear and awe, and Han-woo—trapped, helpless—could only wail louder, as though the sound itself might hold the world at bay.
The cry became the center of everything. A sound that did not belong only to an infant.
And they knew it.
The cry would not fade.
It rattled the air of the small wooden house, clinging to the rafters as though the world itself refused to release it. His mother's arms rocked him desperately, yet even her warmth could not soften the echo that refused to die.
She pressed her lips to his damp forehead. "Han-woo… hush, hush, my little one…" But her voice shook, uneven, betraying more than comfort.
At the doorway, his father stood rigid, shoulders squared like a man braced against a storm. His palm hovered, spread wide as if testing the unseen. His face was pale, his eyes wary.
"I was not mistaken," he said at last. His voice carried a weight she had heard only rarely, the kind that made silence follow.
Her rocking slowed. "You mean—"
"The Qi stirred."
The words landed like a blow. Her arms tightened, cradling the small body closer, as though she could shield him from forces too vast to touch.
"But… he is only months old. That cannot…" Her whisper trailed off, strangled by disbelief.
Her husband's gaze did not waver. "It should be impossible. And yet—when he cried, it was not only breath that moved. The world answered."
The infant's wailing hiccuped, faltered into weak gasps. His mother bent her head, murmuring into his hair, desperate to soothe him, desperate to anchor herself. But beneath her voice, her heart hammered too loudly to hide.
"What if it harms him?" she asked suddenly, her voice raw. "His body is too small… he cannot endure something like that."
The father's sternness wavered, softening only slightly. His hand lowered to brush the child's damp hair. His touch trembled, not with pity, but with awe.
"Dangerous, yes. But this is also a sign." His voice dropped low, reverent. "No infant cries with Qi unless the Heavens themselves are watching."
He turned sharply, pacing once, twice across the creaking floor. His jaw was set, his eyes shadowed. "If certain ears had heard that cry…" He stopped himself, gaze darkening. "He would already be gone from us."
Her grip on Han-woo tightened. Fear and defiance sparked in her gaze. "Then no one must know. Not yet. Not until he grows. If they learn too soon…" Her voice broke, but her arms locked around the child, making her meaning plain.
The man did not answer at once. His fists clenched at his sides. He stared into the night through the doorway, the blackness beyond seeming suddenly too vast, too close.
Finally, he murmured, almost to himself, "But how long can one hide Heaven's will?"
The mother said nothing. She bowed her head, lips brushing her child's hair, whispering a broken lullaby as though the tune itself could bar the world outside.
Han-woo whimpered, hiccupped, then drifted toward exhausted silence. His lids fluttered, his tiny chest rising unsteadily. He did not know the weight of the words that passed over him, nor the trembling that gripped both arms that held him.
But though his cry had faded, its echo still lived in the room.
And neither parent could bring themselves to believe it was gone.