Night fell over Seoul like a dimly lit confession.Traffic lights blinked red and green in the rain, neon signs blurred into rivers of color, and for a city that never truly slept—something about this night felt... paused.
In Ha-rin's apartment, the mysterious file still glowed faintly on her screen:ECHO 2 — SEOUL.
Jae-hyun leaned over her shoulder, tie undone, sleeves rolled. He looked less like a corporate director now, and more like a man bracing for déjà vu.
"Who do you think sent this?" she whispered.
"Whoever hacked the network had access to internal channels," he replied, eyes sharp. "That means someone inside Luma."
Her heart sank. "You think it's Soo-ah?"
Jae-hyun hesitated. "She's ambitious, not reckless. But she's been… different lately."
"Different how?"
"Like she remembers things she shouldn't."
The conversation was cut short when the screen flickered. The map zoomed in by itself—lines reshaping into the city's oldest district, Cheongdo-gu.A red marker pulsed near the riverbank.
Ha-rin frowned. "There's nothing there except abandoned factories."
"Maybe not anymore," Jae-hyun said, already grabbing his coat. "Come on."
🌆 Cheongdo-gu, 11:45 PM
The district looked like time had stopped halfway through a sentence.Broken streetlights. Graffiti. A stray cat darting past an old railway.
Their footsteps echoed against wet pavement as they reached a derelict building with a faded sign:
ECHO RESEARCH LABORATORY – Established 1989
Ha-rin blinked. "You have got to be kidding me."
Jae-hyun's lips curved. "At least they're consistent with branding."
"Jae-hyun," she warned, "this is not the time for your humor."
He grinned anyway. "When is it ever the time?"
She glared. "You're impossible."
"And you're still here," he said softly.
Her cheeks warmed. "Shut up and open the door."
Inside, dust motes drifted in flashlight beams.Rows of rusted computers lined the walls, their screens dead except one—a terminal blinking green letters:
ACCESS LOCKED — ENTER TWO SIGNATURES
Ha-rin exhaled. "Like the file."
They stepped closer. Jae-hyun hesitated. "What if it's dangerous?"
She smirked. "What if it's destiny?"
He groaned. "You've been hanging around me too long."
"Clearly not long enough," she said, placing her hand on the scanner.
He followed.
The machine whirred.Their names appeared in faint text: Yoon Ha-rin / Kang Jae-hyun — Access Granted.
Then the terminal spoke—an old voice, filtered through static, mechanical yet eerily human.
"Welcome back, Subjects H and J. Project Echo reactivated."
Ha-rin's pulse jumped. "Did it just say 'welcome back'?"
Jae-hyun's jaw tightened. "Project… Echo?"
The voice continued:
"Initiating memory protocol. Searching for lost sequence: Seoul Incident — Twelve Minutes."
The screens around them lit up—fragments of videos, blueprints, handwritten notes flashing by.
Ha-rin gasped. "That's us! That's—our faces!"
Old surveillance footage—two people resembling them, dressed in lab coats, standing in front of the same building—but decades earlier.
Jae-hyun whispered, "That's impossible."
Ha-rin whispered back, "Or it's déjà vu on steroids."
Then came a voice from the footage.Her voice. Clear, desperate, older.
"If you're seeing this… we failed to stop it. The second echo will try to overwrite the city. Save what we couldn't. Don't trust—"
Static swallowed the rest.
Jae-hyun froze. "Don't trust who?"
The lights flickered.Every monitor glowed with the same timestamp: 12:12.
Ha-rin's reflection stared back at her from one of the screens—except it wasn't quite her.The reflection smiled.
And whispered, "Too late."
The lights went out.The entire block plunged into darkness.
For a few seconds, only the sound of rain against the cracked windows filled the air.Then came the faintest tick.
One. Two.Twelve beats.
When the power returned, every clock in the lab displayed the same message:
ECHO 3: IN PROGRESS
Jae-hyun looked at Ha-rin, the glow from the monitors painting half his face in gold."Looks like time isn't finished with us yet."
She swallowed hard, fear and wonder clashing in her chest. "Then neither are we."