The alarm went off again.
Han Jae-min groaned and slapped at the clock until the room fell silent. He lay on his back, staring at the pale ceiling of his bedroom. He counted the tiny cracks that spiderwebbed along the plaster, something he had seen countless times before. But this morning, the cracks shifted. He blinked once, twice. They weren't cracks anymore. They curled, forming spirals, intricate patterns like carved wood or etched sigils. For half a second, the ceiling didn't belong to his apartment at all.
Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. Just paint and plaster.
Jae-min sat up, his stomach coiled tight. He pressed his palms to his face, dragging down slowly as if trying to pull himself back into reality.
The smell of fried eggs and rice drifted faintly from the kitchen. He could hear the kettle whistling, his mother's familiar footsteps across the linoleum. All so normal, so mundane. And yet the air itself felt heavier today, as though the entire apartment was waiting, holding its breath.
He forced himself into his uniform—crisp white shirt, navy blazer, neatly knotted tie. His reflection in the mirror was pale, shadows under his eyes. For a moment, his reflection wasn't his. He thought he saw Lucien Graves staring back: a leaner face, sharper eyes, a boy who belonged to dark alleys and cobblestones, not fluorescent lights and textbooks.
He shut his eyes hard, splashed water on his face, and left.
---
The walk to school blurred together. The streets were busy—delivery trucks growling down the road, bicycles weaving past, students in clusters laughing and gossiping. Vendors set up stalls with snacks and coffee cans. The smell of roasted chestnuts and sweet bread mixed with exhaust fumes.
But Jae-min couldn't sink into the comfort of the routine. Every reflection in a shop window seemed delayed, lagging behind his movements. Street signs wavered, as though painted over water. Neon lights across the avenue flickered into warm gaslamps for a split second before snapping back.
By the time he stepped into the classroom, he felt like his bones were hollow.
The chatter of students filled the air, a low hum punctuated by bursts of laughter. The scrape of chairs, the tap of pencils against desks. Jae-min slid into his seat by the window, keeping his eyes fixed outside. He needed to anchor himself. He watched the clouds drifting lazily across a pale blue sky, telling himself that was real. The sunlight, the breeze rattling the leaves, the traffic—those were real.
He almost believed it.
Until the boy arrived.
He leaned against Jae-min's desk, speaking fast, voice lively and bright. His words tumbled out one after another—complaints about the math teacher, stories about last night's game, jokes about classmates. He grinned, gestured, never let silence breathe.
Jae-min froze.
It wasn't his voice that unsettled him, but the familiarity in his every movement. The restless energy. The way he tilted his head when he laughed. The gleam in his eyes when he teased.
Corin.
Not exactly, but unmistakably.
"You okay? You're spacing out," the boy asked, brow furrowed.
Jae-min shook his head quickly. "It's nothing."
But the words were hollow. His chest hammered with the weight of recognition. He had spent enough time with Corin Aldewick in Gravemont's streets to know these mannerisms weren't coincidence.
The world flickered.
The blackboard shimmered, warped into a cracked stone wall with moss creeping through the edges. The classroom chatter became muffled echoes of footsteps through narrow halls. The teacher's desk melted into a wooden altar stained with wax and ash. For one breathless moment, Jae-min was seated not in a classroom but in some forgotten chamber lit by torches.
He blinked, and it was gone.
The chalkboard returned, the noise of students flooded back, the sunlight was ordinary again.
But Jae-min's knuckles were white where he gripped the desk.
This wasn't a coincidence. It couldn't be.
---
The day dragged on. Words from the teachers blurred into nonsense. He copied notes mechanically, his pen scratching across paper without thought. Each tick of the clock made his head ache. He wanted to believe this was his life, his only life, but every time he saw the boy's smile or heard the faint sound of footsteps in the hallway, it felt like another world was reaching through the cracks.
When the final bell rang, he bolted.
The late afternoon sun painted the city in gold. Shadows stretched long across the pavement. Students spilled out of the gates, laughing and calling to one another. Cars honked, buses roared, pigeons fluttered in startled bursts.
It should have been comforting. Familiar. But Jae-min couldn't shake the sensation that everything was stretched too thin, like paper about to tear.
He turned a corner—and collided with someone.
Books spilled across the sidewalk. He dropped to his knees to help, muttering an apology. Then he looked up.
Her face stole his breath.
It wasn't her. It couldn't be. But it was.
Lady Elowen Valebridge—yet not. Her features were softer, her hair tied neatly in a style far more modern. Her uniform was crisp, her expression sharp. She looked down at him with the same chill he had seen in Gravemont, the same composure that made her seem untouchable.
"Watch where you're going," she said flatly, gathering her books.
The ground beneath them shuddered.
The asphalt rippled, shifted into slick cobblestones. Neon signs dissolved into wrought-iron lampposts glowing faintly in the dusk. The sky darkened unnaturally fast, replaced by Gravemont's skyline of crooked roofs and narrow alleys. The smell of exhaust turned to the tang of smoke and sewage.
The Riverside Quarters.
The girl's uniform melted into a pale gown. The books in her arms became bound parchment. Her eyes glinted under lamplight instead of the sun.
She wasn't just like Elowen. She was Elowen.
Jae-min stumbled back, heart lurching. His throat dried, his mind screamed.
And then the world snapped back.
Asphalt. Neon. The city.
The girl frowned at him, adjusting the books against her chest. "You're really pale. Are you sick?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't. He turned, almost running down the street, hands trembling violently.
---
Reality twisted all around him. Shop windows stretched, showing not his reflection but Lucien's face. The chatter of strangers warped into whispers, low and echoing, the same whispers that had dragged him through sleep before. The air bent, cracked, and through the fractures he thought he saw something vast and cold, watching him from beyond.
His mother's voice at breakfast. The crowded halls of his school. Corin's grin in a Gravemont alley. Elowen's calm voice under the gaslamps. They all churned together, blurring, feeding into one another until he couldn't tell where memory ended and dream began.
Am I insane?
The thought repeated like a drumbeat.
Maybe neither world was real. Maybe both were.
The sky itself fractured, like glass under pressure, splintering into jagged shards. For an instant, Jae-min swore he could see two worlds layered on top of one another—his city and Gravemont, asphalt over cobblestones, neon tangled with lantern light, skyscrapers rising through temple spires.
And he was standing at the center, split between them, unable to move.