Oculus: Chapter 2 - The Hangover
The thrumming energy was a lie.
It sang in his veins, a siren's call of power that made his nerves crackle and his blood feel like liquid lightning. For a few, glorious minutes, Kim Dae-Hyun felt invincible. He'd clenched his fist, watching the air around it warp and shimmer with the stolen kinetic pulse, a sensation so intoxicating it washed away the memory of Tae-Sik's terrified face.
But the walk home was a long one, and with every step, the song grew distorted. The sharp, clean power began to curdle.
It started as a pressure behind his eyes, a dull ache that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Then came the echoes. A flash of a woman's face—Tae-Sik's mother, maybe?—smiling down at a younger version of the thug. The coppery taste of fear and cheap synth-whiskey, a sensation that wasn't his own. The phantom pain of a split knuckle from a long-forgotten fight.
Dae-Hyun stumbled, catching himself on a rusted pipe. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the foreign memories didn't vanish. They played on the back of his eyelids like a damaged recording. This was the cost. This was the rot beneath the glorious, stolen power. He wasn't just taking an ability; he was scooping out a piece of someone's soul, and the dregs were left behind in his mind.
By the time he reached the dilapidated apartment complex he and Mina called home, the energy had faded entirely, leaving a crushing void in its wake. The headache was no longer a pulse; it was a vise, tightening around his skull. His limbs felt like lead, and a deep, neural exhaustion made every thought a struggle. The Ocular Hangover had arrived.
He fumbled with the key, his hands shaking, and pushed the door open.
The apartment was a stark contrast to the city's oppressive glow. Warm, soft light from a traditional lamp filled the small space. It was clean, but worn. The air smelled of ginger tea and the faint, always-present scent of the medicinal balm Mina used for her headaches.
"Oppa?" a soft voice called from the other room. "Is that you?"
"Yeah, Mina. It's me," Dae-Hyun said, his voice rough. He leaned against the doorframe, trying to steady his breathing, to force the pain from his expression.
Mina appeared in the doorway to her room. She was sixteen, small for her age, with a fragility that made Dae-Hyun's chest ache. She wore a simple sleep mask pushed up on her forehead. Her eyes, when they were uncovered, were her most striking feature—a beautiful, terrifying violet, with those twin, floating silver chain sigils etched within them. The mark of a power she could barely control and dared not show.
Her brow furrowed immediately. "You're hurt." It wasn't a question. Even without using her Oculus, she was preternaturally perceptive when it came to him.
"I'm fine," he grunted, shrugging off his jacket. "Just a long night. Gwin was being a pain."
He moved to the small kitchenette to pour himself water, but his coordination was off. The glass slipped from his grasp, shattering on the floor.
"Dae-Hyun!" Mina was at his side in an instant, her small hand on his arm. She looked up at him, and her concern sharpened into something else. Fear. "Your eyes…"
He froze. "What about them?"
"They're… bloodshot. The veins are… they're like cracks." She swallowed. "And for a second, I thought I saw… a flicker. Like a broken hologram."
A jagged, orange symbol. The memory of the puddle's reflection slammed into him. His stomach twisted. He couldn't hide this from her. Not entirely.
He sank into a chair at their small table, dropping his head into his hands. The weight of what he had done, the terrifying unknown of his own existence, pressed down on him. He felt a sob building in his throat and choked it back. He had to be strong. For her.
"Something happened tonight, Mina," he whispered, the words scraping out of him.
He told her. Not everything—he softened the violence, omitted the mortal terror—but he told her about the confrontation, about Tae-Sik's power, and about the inexplicable, instinctual thing he had done. He described the sucking void, the surge of stolen energy, the horrifying ease with which he'd used it.
Mina listened in silence, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. When he finished, the silence stretched, thick and heavy.
"You stole his sight," she finally said, her voice barely audible. There was no judgment in it. Only a profound, weary sadness.
"I didn't mean to. It just… happened."
"Is he…is he okay?"
"I don't know.I ran." The admission shamed him.
Mina reached out, her fingers gently tracing the back of his hand. Her touch was cool, a balm. "This is… big, Oppa. This isn't a minor trick. This is a power that… that the High Houses would go to war over. That the Commission would vanish someone for."
"I know." The vise around his skull tightened. He knew exactly what it meant. An Unmarked with the ability to nullify the very thing that defined their world's hierarchy? He wasn't just a freak; he was a threat to the established order.
"We have to be more careful than ever," Mina said, her voice gaining a sliver of steel. "No one can know. No one." Her own eyes, hidden behind the sleep mask, were a testament to the danger of being different.
Dae-Hyun nodded, the movement sending a fresh wave of nausea through him. He looked at the shattered glass on the floor. A mess he'd made. A fitting metaphor.
The next day, the Hangover was a physical prison. Daylight was an enemy, spearing through his eyes straight into his brain. The echoes of Tae-Sik's memories had faded to a dull murmur, but the neurological cost was immense. His thoughts were sluggish, his body ached, and a debilitating vertigo made it hard to stand.
He called in sick to Gwin, using a voice modulator to mimic the symptoms of the seasonal neural flu that sometimes went around. He spent the day on the couch, a cold cloth over his eyes, while Mina moved around quietly, making him tea and soup.
He was trapped in the dark with his thoughts. The fear was paralyzing. But beneath the fear, a stubborn, defiant ember refused to die.
He replayed the moment in the alley. The feeling of utter powerlessness, then the shocking reversal. The look on Tae-Sik's face. The thug's absolute certainty of his own superiority, shattered in an instant.
Dae-Hyun had spent his entire life being looked through. Last night, for the first time, he had been truly seen. And it had terrified the person looking.
A part of him, a part he was ashamed of, wanted to feel it again.
By evening, the worst of the Hangover had passed, leaving behind a deep-seated fatigue and a mind buzzing with unanswerable questions. He was stirring a pot of noodles when a sharp, official knock rattled their apartment door.
Dae-Hyun and Mina froze, their eyes meeting across the room. Panic, cold and instant, passed between them. No one ever knocked like that. It was the knock of authority.
Mina immediately pulled her sleep mask down, completely covering her eyes, and retreated to her bedroom, closing the door softly.
Dae-Hyun's heart hammered against his ribs. Had they found him already? Was it the Iris Guard? He wiped his hands on a towel, his mind racing for a lie, an excuse, anything.
He opened the door a crack.
It wasn't the Guard. It was a delivery bot, a sleek, floating disc with a glowing compartment. A neutral electronic voice chirped. "Package for Kim Dae-Hyun. Biometric signature required."
Frowning, Dae-Hyun pressed his thumb to the scanner. The compartment hissed open. Inside was not a package from Gwin. It was a single, pristine white envelope, made of expensive-feeling synth-paper. There was no return address.
The bot zipped away as soon as he took it.
He closed the door, leaning against it, his confusion deepening. He tore the envelope open.
Inside was a simple card. No words. Just a symbol, printed in stark, black ink.
It was an eye. But not just any eye.
It was rendered in exquisitely detailed, intricate clockwork. A golden, mechanical iris with tiny, perfect gears where the pupil should be.
The sigil of the Chronos Dynasty.
On the back of the card, in elegant, handwritten script, was a single line:
We have a proposition for the man who can dim the sun.
The card fluttered from Dae-Hyun's numb fingers onto the floor. The air left his lungs. Ice water flooded his veins.
They knew. One of the most powerful High Houses on the planet knew what he had done in that grimy alley. And they were not coming to punish him.
They were making him an offer.
The world, which had already tilted off its axis the night before, now fell away from his feet completely. He was falling, and he had no idea what lay at the bottom.