I hadn't heard their voices directly before. Only hear their whispers.
For the past year, The Others just stood there — silent shapes in corners, clinging to shadows, sometimes whispering in my sleep, watching me with too many eyes.
Some smiled. Most didn't move.
They didn't talk directly to me before.
Or maybe I was lucky they hadn't tried.
But last night… that changed.
---
It started like a dream.
I was lying in my bed, half-asleep, the room bathed in blue moonlight.
At first, I thought it was sleep paralysis — the heavy feeling on my chest, the buzzing in my ears.
But then the temperature dropped.
I saw frost on my window. My breath turned visible.
And something was crouching at the foot of my bed.
It had no eyes. Just folds of flesh where a face should be.
Then I heard it.
Not with my ears. In my head.
> "You've waited too long, Han Jihoon."
I tried to move. I couldn't.
> "The gate opens tomorrow. You'll walk into it, smiling, blind. You won't walk out."
I swallowed. "The dungeon tour?"
> "A trap. Not built for you, but you'll be the one that bleeds."
Its voice was layered — like multiple beings speaking at once, some whispering, some growling.
> "You've seen us. Now… others will see you."
> "You are marked."
---
At school, the mood was cheerful.
Students joked about tomorrow's tour. A chance to visit a "safe dungeon," led by trained hunters and instructors.
> "We're going in with pros," said Minji, my classmate. "Just a walkthrough. They're not gonna throw us into anything dangerous."
I smiled back, hollow.
I didn't tell anyone about my dream.
Or the feeling in my gut — that tomorrow, I'd step into something no one else would see coming.
---
Dungeons weren't a mystery anymore — or so people believed.
Scientists had studied them for decades. The gates appeared randomly, shimmering like oil slicks in the air. Step through, and you entered... somewhere else.
Some said it was another dimension — a fracture in space where time flowed differently.
Others believed it was a world parallel to ours. Similar, but not the same. A world that wasn't meant for humans.
They called it the Hollow Realm.
No one agreed on the truth. But one thing was certain:
> People died in there. Often.
That's why tomorrow's "tour" was supposed to be safe — a Class 1 dungeon. No living monsters. Just terrain and old ruins, for education.
But now, I wasn't sure there was such a thing as a safe dungeon.
Not when something that wasn't human was telling me I'd die there.
---
> "Make a deal with us," it had said.
"Choose. Bind. Survive."
> "Or you will not leave the Hollow Realm alive."