He woke up drenched in sweat.
The ceiling of his apartment stared back at him—plain white plaster, faint cracks running toward the corner, the same ceiling he had looked at every morning for years. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Outside, a car horn blared briefly before fading into the distance.
But his body still remembered the fog.
His skin prickled as if the cold from that world clung to him. His hands shook. He raised them slowly, palms upward, and the scratches glared at him under the dim light of his lamp. Thin red lines. Shallow, but real.
He touched them with his other hand, tracing along the skin. The sting was sharp.
It hadn't been just a dream.
The blanket clung damp to his body. He shoved it aside, sat up, and pressed his elbows against his knees. His chest rose and fell unevenly.
It took a long time for his breathing to steady.
When morning finally came, he forced himself through the motions. Shower. Toothbrush. Comb through his hair. Button the uniform shirt.
His reflection in the bathroom mirror looked back at him the same way it always did: pale skin, dark circles, eyes that never seemed to wake up. He looked ordinary. Forgettable.
Nothing about him stood out. Nothing ever had.
But the whispers still lingered in the back of his mind, faint as breath.
"—you are not awake."
His jaw tightened. He turned from the mirror and left the apartment.
---
The city was alive with noise.
Seoul's streets were crowded as always—suits rushing toward subways, students in uniforms streaming toward schools, the low growl of buses pulling in and out of stops. Neon signs buzzed faintly even in the daylight.
The noise wrapped around him, pressed in on him. For most people it was normal, the rhythm of life. For him, it felt like a cage.
The classroom was worse.
The teacher's chalk scraped loudly against the board. Students whispered across aisles, giggled in corners, scrolled through their phones beneath desks. Someone crumpled paper and tossed it. Someone else laughed too loud.
The noise clung to him until his head ached.
He kept his eyes down on his notebook. The pen in his hand barely moved, but he forced himself to pretend he was writing. His letters warped into messy scratches, overlapping until they meant nothing.
A boy at the back of the class shouted something about a game. A group of girls burst into laughter.
He clenched his jaw.
The sound pressed harder against his skull, and beneath it—faint but undeniable—the whispers began again.
"—truth lies beneath your skin."
"—your bones remember."
His pen slipped from his hand. It clattered against the desk, but no one turned. They were too busy laughing, talking, existing.
He stared at the desk for a long time before picking the pen back up. His fingers trembled.
The bell rang.
---
At lunch, he sat in his usual corner by the window. His tray sat untouched. Rice cooled. Soup grew skin on its surface.
He stared outside at the clouds dragging slowly across the pale sky.
The city looked almost the same as the one in the other world. Tall buildings, shadows stretching over streets, faces moving without pause. But here, the people laughed. Here, the voices carried warmth, even if none of it belonged to him.
He pressed his hand against the cool glass of the window. For a moment, the reflection startled him—the faint blur of his own face, overlaid with the drifting clouds. The fog almost seemed to ripple in the reflection.
He blinked hard. The vision cleared.
Just the sky. Just the city.
Normal.
He repeated the word in his mind, over and over.
Normal.
But his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
---
Afternoon classes dragged on. The teacher droned about history, but he barely heard the words. Every few minutes, the sound in his ears warped—like static beneath the voices around him.
A classmate beside him leaned over and whispered to a friend. Their voices shifted in his head, twisting.
"—do not resist."
He jerked upright, knocking his pen from his desk again. The boy beside him gave him a strange look before turning back, uninterested.
His chest rose and fell sharply. Sweat collected at his temple.
The classroom was slipping. The lines of the walls blurred. The windows dimmed as though fog were pushing against the glass.
He dug his nails into his palm until pain anchored him. The world snapped back.
Students laughed. The teacher wrote. The sky outside stayed gray.
But his breathing didn't slow until the bell rang again.
---
By the time he left school, the city was already awash in evening lights. Neon signs glared. Car headlights flickered past. The air smelled faintly of rain, sharp and metallic.
He walked slowly, every step heavy. People brushed past without looking at him.
They didn't look at him.
Just like the people in the other world.
The thought crawled down his spine.
At his apartment, he locked the door and collapsed onto his bed without bothering to change. His bag slid to the floor with a dull thump.
Silence filled the room. The refrigerator hummed faintly in the background.
But the whispers didn't wait this time.
"—we remember."
"—you are not awake."
"—the worlds will crack."
He pressed his hands to his ears, curled in on himself, but it didn't help. The voices weren't outside. They were inside.
His chest burned. His breath came ragged.
He sat up suddenly, gasping, eyes darting to the window. The city stretched out, ordinary. Lights scattered. Cars moved.
Normal.
He repeated it again. Again.
Normal.
But the scratches on his palms pulsed with pain, and deep down, he knew.
Neither world was real.
---
He didn't remember closing his eyes.
But when they opened, fog swirled around him.
The cobblestones spread beneath his hands. Lanterns flickered weakly in the distance. The crowd flowed past, their faces blank, their steps silent.
The whispers were louder this time.
They rose and fell like a chorus of voices hidden beneath the earth, pressing against his skull.
"—truth lies beneath your skin."
"—you are not awake."
"—we remember. We remember."
He staggered to his feet, heart racing. His eyes darted across the crowd, searching for the crooked figure with the living shadow.
But he wasn't there. Only blank faces. Only the endless press of people who didn't see him.
His knees trembled. The whispers clawed at his head until pain throbbed in his skull. He stumbled forward, pushing through the crowd.
None of them moved aside. They brushed past him as if he wasn't there, their shoulders cold and solid against his.
He gasped, clutching at his chest.
The fog thickened. The voices roared.
He fell to his knees, palms scraping against the slick stone. Fresh pain burned into his hands, the scratches tearing open.
The world spun.
The lanterns flickered.
The whispers reached a single, overwhelming chorus—
"—YOU ARE NOT AWAKE."
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
When his eyes opened, he was back in his room.
His ceiling. His bed. His uniform still wrinkled on his body.
But his palms bled faintly.
And in the silence of his apartment, the whispers did not stop.
"—you are not awake."
"—you will not wake."