skye ⭑

୨ৎ books

percy jackson and the olympians

heroes of olympus

trials of apollo

magnus chase

kane chronicles

harry potter

maze runner

hunger games

divergent

the mortal instruments

the infernal devices

keeper of the lost cities

a good girl’s guide to murder

the folk of the air / cruel prince

shatter me

shadow and bone

six of crows

these violent delights

renegades

the secret history

the inheritance games + grandest game series

the naturals (jlb)

caraval

once upon a broken heart

acotar (like.. 2? 3? books)

divine rivals

heartstopper

to all the boys i’ve loved before

daisy jones and the six

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo

xoxo

asap

counting down with you

a show for two

stay with my heart

if you could see the sun

this time it’s real

I hope this doesn’t find you

one of us is lying / is next

two can keep a secret

the cousins

nothing more to tell

you’ll be the death of me

powerless + reckless

୨ৎ anime

jujutsu kaisen

haikyū!!

my hero academia

demon slayer

blue lock

bungo stray dogs

spy family

chainsaw man

saiki k

sk8 the infinity

tokyo ghoul

kuroko’s basketball

tokyo revengers

a silent voice

wind breaker

solo levelling

attack on titan

kakegurui

tougen anki

gachiakuta

wandance

death parade

୨ৎ movies / tv shows

fast and furious franchise

gran turismo

gilmore girls

pjotv

brooklyn 99

f.r.i.e.n.d.s.

once upon a time

superstore

arcane

never have I ever

marvel cinematic universe (mcu)

detective comics (dc)

stranger things

the umbrella academy

vampire diaries

greenhouse academy

the summer I turned pretty

my life with the walter boys

ncis

suits

the good doctor

new amsterdam

culpa mia—my fault

culpa tuya—your fault

incantation

the rookie

grey’s anatomy (s3)

the shadow’s edge

bet

finding her edge

love and monsters

la brea

୨ৎ k/c/j-dramas , webtoons , etc.

korean—✶ | japanese—Ი︵𐑼 | chinese—𓏲ּ𝄢 | thai&fillipino—᯽

seasons of blossom

omniscient reader’s viewpoint (cr episode 183)

alice in borderland Ი︵𐑼

xo, kitty

true beauty ✶

a business proposal ✶

all of us are dead ✶

bloodhounds ✶

the 8 show ✶

falling into your smile 𓏲ּ𝄢

hierarchy ✶

lovely runner ✶

love next door ✶

when I fly towards you 𓏲ּ𝄢

officer black belt ✶

twenty five twenty one ✶

20th century girl ✶

weightlifting fairy kim bok-joo ✶

sh**ting stars ✶

family by choice ✶

mr. plankton ✶

my name ✶

w—two worlds apart ✶

seoul vibe ✶

the judge from hell ✶

squid game ✶

vigilante ✶

revenge of others ✶

duty after school ✶

when the phone rings ✶

the trauma code: heroes on call ✶

f4 thailand: boys over flowers ᯽

weak hero class 1,2 ✶

twinkling watermelon ✶

night has come ✶

study group ✶

fight for my way ✶

the first frost 𓏲ּ𝄢

my dearest nemesis ✶

ang mutya ng section e ᯽

resident playbook ✶

the devil’s plan ✶

taxi driver 1,2,3 ✶

through the darkness ✶

good boy ✶

head over heels ✶

kill boksoon ✶

mantis ✶

love untangled ✶

the winning try ✶

zomvivor ᯽

cheer up ✶

hospital playlist ✶

speed and love 𓏲ּ𝄢

love.exe ✶

dynamite kiss ✶

can this love be translated? ✶

reborn 𓏲ּ𝄢

idol i ✶

kakegurui (live action) Ი︵𐑼

even if this love disappears tonight ✶

lovesick 𓏲ּ𝄢

the rain in espana ᯽

undercover high school ✶

moving ✶

alchemy of souls ✶

home school ᯽

boy in the pool ✴︎

the glory ✶

alice the ultimate weapon / ultimate weapon alice ✶

our universe ✶

boyfriend on demand ✶

18 again ✶

revenged love 𓏲ּ𝄢

vagabond ✶

doctors ✶

my dearest assassin ᯽

if wishes could kill / girigo ✶

mudborn 𓏲ּ𝄢

the 8th night ✶

the wonderfools ✶

perfect crown ✶

teach you a lesson ✶

salmokji ✶

viral hit Ი︵𐑼

snowball ✶

husbands in action ✶

notes from the last row ✶

parasyte: the grey ✶

currently watching—

wu (e9) ᯽

the manipulated (e8) ✶

on hold—

vincenzo (e19) ✶

school 2017 (e15) ✶

go ahead (e13) 𓏲ּ𝄢

itaewon class (e12) ✶

doctor stranger (e11) ✶

strong girl nam-soon (e11) ✶

friendly rivalry (e11) ✶

hell university (e7) ᯽

after school doctor (e7) Ი︵𐑼

no tail to tell (e6) ✶

spring of youth (e6)

pyramid game (e6)

duang with you (e2)

୨ৎ music • kpop+others.

stray kids (hyunminchan biased/rest wreck) [ULT]

cortis (james&keon biased/mars&jju&sean wreck ╥o╥ ) [2nd ULT]

enhypen (jayki biased/heehoon wreck)

tomorrow x together (beomjun biased/rest wreck)

lngshot (ryul biased/louis wreck)

ateez (san&mingi biased/hongjoong wreck)

p1harmony (keeho&jongseob&soul&intak biased/theo&jiung wreck)

seventeen (hoshi&mingyu&jun biased/the8 wreck)

modyssey (rowan biased/yichen&lynnlynn wreck)

baby nctzen don’t kill me idk much yet

one or eight (ryota, tsubasa, takeru, souma biased ToT)

boynextdoor (riwoo biased)

kickflip (amaru/minje/keiju biased)

xlov (rui biased)

aespa

xikers

katseye (megan biased/lara wreck) ~ casual fan

arctic monkeys

keshi

tame impala

oasis

linkin park

the weeknd

cigarettes after sx

cage the elephant

the neighbourhood

hozier

chase atlantic

the marias

don toliver

dominic fike

chet baker

one direction + solos

5sos

halsey

eminem

taylor swift

slight olivia rodrigo

slight sabrina carpenter

abba

bâo

ado

official hige dandism

neoni

yoasobi

odetari

måneskin

fall out boy

the score

imagine dragons

league of legends soundtracks

valorant soundtracks

subway surfers soundtracks

❝ tracklist ❞ ─── wires—the neighbourhood ❦ fields of gold—eva cassidy ❦ run—joji ❦ in the woods somewhere—hozier ❦ radioactive—imagine dragons ❦ colors—halsey ❦ space song—beach house ❦ inside the end—the xx ❦ medicine—daughter ❦ code—the prodigy ❦ ribs—lorde ❦ yellow light—of monsters and men ❦ sound of silence—simon & garfunkel ❦ intro—the xx ❦ we're going to be friends—the white stripes ❦ anchor—novo amor ❦ as the world caves in—matt maltese ❦ dynamic boy—joe hisaishi ❦ youth—daughter ❦ safe & sound—taylor swift ❦ end of the world—billie eilish ❦ saturn—sleeping at last ❦ sparks—coldplay ❦ heavy in your arms—florence + the machine ❦ somewhere only we know—keane ❦ control—halsey ❦ the scientist—coldplay ❦ static—godspeed you! black emperor ❦ another love—tom odell ❦ gilded lily—cults

1 ⭑ before the sky turned grey ───

the first day of school was supposed to be a massive, terrifying blur of a new language, unfamiliar streets, and a sea of faces that didn’t look like the ones from back home. seoul was too loud, too fast, and towering with concrete blocks that felt entirely different from the warmth of taiwan. 

at five years old, standing at the entrance of that giant, unfamiliar schoolyard, the world felt way too big for you. your fingers gripped your backpack straps until your knuckles turned white, your ears ringing with korean words you couldn’t quite piece together yet.

the same day, you bumped into james—literally. the teacher had just released the class to put away their heavy winter coats, and the narrow hallway by the cubbies was absolute chaos. children were shoving, bright jackets were flying everywhere, and the air was thick with the high-pitched, rapid-fire chatter of a language that still sounded like complete static to your ears. you felt tiny, entirely out of place, and so overwhelmed that your chest ached. wanting nothing more than to just disappear into your own locker space, you turned around way too fast, trying to escape the crowd.

instead, your oversized, bright yellow backpack—which your mom had bought two sizes too big so you could ‘grow into it’—smacked hard right into a bulky green backpack.

the impact was loud and clumsy. the momentum sent both of you sprawling backward, your sneakers losing their grip on the freshly waxed floor. you landed hard on your tailbone with a dull thud, your yellow bag twisting around your shoulders like a heavy turtle shell, while the other boy tumbled right into a pile of stray winter boots.

for a second, the entire hallway seemed to go dead silent. you froze, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. back home in taiwan, you were used to how kids reacted when they got knocked down—they either cried or they got mad. but here, in this strange city, you were absolutely terrified. you braced yourself for him to burst into tears, or worse, stand up and yell at you in that fast, sharp korean language you didn’t understand a single syllable of, completely exposing you in front of the whole class. you squeezed your eyes shut for a microsecond, your throat tightening, waiting for the humiliation to hit.

but when you forced your eyes open and looked up, there was no anger. there were no tears.

the boy in the green backpack was sitting flat on his bottom, his messy black hair sticking out in every direction from the static of his jacket. his tiny hands were planted on the floor to steady himself, and his eyes—huge, dark, and perfectly round—were just staring at you, wide and completely curious. he wasn’t looking at you like an annoyance; he was looking at you like you were a puzzle he wanted to solve.

“wo bu shi gu yi de,” you blurted out automatically. the words rushed out of your mouth in a panicked, desperate breath before you could even think to stop them. you scrambled backward on your hands and knees, trying to create distance, the familiar syllables of your native mandarin slipping out because your brain was too frightened to even attempt anything else: ‘i didn’t do it on purpose.’

the moment the words left your lips, you regretted it. you felt your face turn hot with shame, certain you had just made things worse by speaking a language no one else here knew.

but the boy just blinked. his head tilted slightly to the side, his chest rising and falling as he processed the sound. then, his entire face transformed. the curiosity melted away, replaced by a huge, brilliant, gap-toothed smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes into tiny crescents.

“ni ye shuo zhong wen ma?” he asked. he didn’t just speak; his voice came out as a breathless, excited squeak that practically echoed in the cramped hallway: ‘you speak chinese too?’

he scrambled forward on his knees, completely ignoring his scattered pencils and his upside-down green bag, his face suddenly so close to yours that you could see the tiny mole on the bridge of his nose. he looked like he had just discovered a hidden treasure chest right in the middle of the school corridor.

the relief that washed over you in that exact second was so intense, so thick and heavy, that it felt like physical sunlight pouring directly over your shivering shoulders. the icy knot of terror in your stomach completely dissolved. the terrifying, alien noises of the schoolyard, the towering concrete walls of seoul, and the intimidating sea of unfamiliar faces just faded into a distant, blurry background. the chaotic classroom vanished. the moment you realised you were both tiny immigrants trying to navigate this massive, bustling city together, the world shrank until it was just the two of you sitting on the floor.

then, you became instant, inseparable shadows.

your families found each other almost as quickly as you did. bonding over shared recipes, the mutual struggle of learning a new language, and the bittersweet ache of missing home, they became as tight-knit as a real family. because of that, james and you grew up attached at the hip. your moms would joke that they didn’t need to cook separate meals anymore because where there was one of you, the other was always sitting right there, waiting for a bowl of rice.

back then, everything was just so incredibly… vibrant. the world wasn’t a place of restrictions or fear; it was a giant playground waiting to be explored. you spent your afternoons running through the narrow alleyways of your neighborhood, your laughter bouncing off the brick walls.

every weekend was an adventure. you would save up your allowance pocket change, the brass coins clinking in your small palms, just to race down to the local convenience store with james. the sliding glass doors would open with a loud chime, and you’d drag him straight to the candy aisle with your fingers clenched tightly around the sleeve of his shirt.

“tiānshǐ, get the blue ones,” he would whisper, nudging your shoulder as you stared intently at the shelves. “the blue ones taste like magic.”

“no, the green ones are better,” you’d argue, though you were already reaching for both. “the green ones make your teeth look like a monster’s!”

minutes later, you’d sit on the curb outside together, kicking your sneakers against the asphalt. james would turn to you, sticking his tongue out to reveal a brilliant, stained neon blue. “look! am i a wizard yet?”

“you look ridiculous, xīn gān,” you’d giggle, shoving his shoulder, before sticking your own bright green tongue out at him. you’d laugh until your stomachs ached, the artificial sweetness lingering in the air, the world around you painted in the brightest, happiest colours imaginable.

james was always the one pointing out the details you missed. while you were busy racing ahead, he’d suddenly stop and yank on your sleeve. “hey, look down,” he’d whisper, pointing at a muddy puddle on the pavement where the afternoon sun hit the oil residue, creating a swirling, glowing rainbow. “it looks like a tiny galaxy. don’t step on it.”

you’d look from the puddle up to his face, his eyes reflecting the bright colours of the streetlights, and you’d smile, stepping carefully around it. 

as the years bled together, that bright, frantic energy only grew. by the time you were nine, the alleyways around your small apartments felt less like an unfamiliar maze and more like your personal kingdom—you knew exactly which loose brick behind the laundromat held the stash of shiny bottle caps you’d collected, and you knew exactly which corner store owner would give you an extra scoop of crushed ice in your taro drinks if you bowed low enough and practiced your best, polite korean.

there were late summer nights when the heat inside the cramped rooms became too thick to breathe. your families would drag old cardboard boxes and plastic stools out onto the building’s rooftop, chasing even the slightest hint of a breeze. while your parents sat in a circle, cracking open sunflower seeds and speaking in low, nostalgic murmurs about the humid night markets of tainan and taipei, james and you would lie flat on your backs on the warm concrete.

the seoul sky was always thick with smog and city glow, blocking out the stars, but james didn’t care. he’d hold his hand up to the black expanse, framing the neon red cross of a distant church steeple between his thumb and forefinger.

“see that?” he’d ask, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, turning his head so his cheek pressed against the rough concrete. “that’s not a church. it’s a beacon for a spaceship. one day, we’re gonna sneak on board and go somewhere where the sky is actually purple.”

you’d let out a soft snort, rolling over to look at him. “you read too many comic books, jamie. if a spaceship comes, they’ll probably just eat your neon blue brain.”

“nah,” he’d reply easily, turning his gaze back to you, a soft, familiar warmth crinkling the corners of his eyes. “they wouldn’t dare. not if you’re there to yell at them for me.”

you’d laugh, reaching out to punch his arm lightly, and he’d just catch your wrist, pulling your hands down between you both until you were just holding fingers, watching the slow blink of airplane lights passing overhead.

even at school, you were a fortress of two. when the older boys tried to mock your accent during the reading circle, james would instantly lean over your desk, purposely knocking over his pencil case to distract the teacher, giving you time to wipe your burning eyes and swallow the lump in your throat. and when he forgot his lunch box on a rainy tuesday, you’d split your scallion pancake exactly down the middle, pushing the larger half onto his desk without a single word. you didn’t need to say anything—you had a rhythm, a perfect, unspoken understanding built from years of shared breathing space.

you were just two kids with wide-open eyes, looking at a world that felt completely full of colour, totally unaware of the dark shadow the sky would drop on you both just a few years later.

2 ⭑ the afternoon the sky cracked ───

life on earth was peaceful back then. looking back, it felt almost ridiculously simple, like a black-and-white movie compared to the static-heavy, electric chaos that followed. seoul was still just a city of bright neon signs, crowded subway cars, and the comforting smell of toasted sesame oil drifting out of restaurant doors. people worried about the weather, about rent, about whether their kids were studying hard enough for middle school. you didn’t know how fragile the sky actually was—until you were eleven.

it was a thursday, right in the middle of a suffocatingly dull mid-semester afternoon. the classroom windows were cracked open just enough to let in the heavy, humid heat of early summer, and the monotonous drone of the teacher’s voice discussing long division was acting like a sedative on the entire room. your eyes kept drifting past the chalkboard, tracking the glittering, silver line of the han river tributary that ran right along the edge of the school grounds.

you leaned sideways, your shoulder nudging against james’ arm. his chin was propped in his palm, his pencil lazily drawing squiggles in the margin of his notebook.

“xīn gān,” you whispered, the following mandarin barely a breath between your teeth. “look at the water. it’s too sunny to be in here.”

he shifted his gaze to the window, then back to you, raising an eyebrow. “we have a quiz next period, tiānshǐ. if we miss it, my mom will actually strip my skin off.”

“the river level dropped because of the heat,” you coaxed, a mischievous grin tugging at the corner of your lips. you leaned closer, your voice dropping an octave. “the boy in the front row said he saw a school of giant silver carp trapped in the shallow rock pools by the embankment. they’re just swimming in circles. we can go catch them with our bare hands!”

james hesitated, his fingers tightening around his pencil. he was always the sensible one, the one who worried about the rules and the consequences, but he had one major weakness: you. you gave him a sharp, pleading look, tilting your head towards the back door of the classroom.

“five minutes,” he muttered, a defeated but thrilled smile breaking across his face. “if we get caught, i’m telling the principal it was your ghost that dragged me out, okay?”

slipping out was almost too easy. while the teacher turned her back to write a long string of numbers on the board, the two of you dropped to your hands and knees, sliding beneath the desks like two silent lizards. you popped open the back door slowly and slid into the empty hallway, your sneakers squeaking softly against the floor. the moment you hit the heavy metal exit doors and burst into the bright, blinding sunshine of the schoolyard, a wild, breathless laughter bubbled up in your throat.

you grabbed the sleeve of james’ uniform shirt, dragging him behind you as you sprinted toward the chain-link fence at the edge of the property. he was right at your heels, his face flushed with adrenaline, both of you giggling like madmen as you found the loose flap of wire you’d discovered months ago. you wriggled through first, scraping your elbow against the dirt, and james tumbled out right after you, his tiny tie completely crooked.

“we’re dead,” he panted, laughing so hard he had to squeeze his ribs. “we are completely dead!”

“shut up and run,” you laughed back, the wind rushing past your ears as you scrambled down the steep, grassy embankment toward the river.

the water was a brilliant, sparkling ribbon under the harsh afternoon sun. the rocks along the edge were baking hot, radiating a dry heat that smelled like mud and sun-bleached algae. you both dropped to your knees at the water’s edge, splashing the cool river water onto your burning faces. just like the boy had said, the water in the overflow pool was shallow and crystal clear, and beneath the surface, three massive, shimmering silver carp were lazily darting between the submerged stones, their scales catching the light like buried coins.

“whoa,” he whispered, crouching so low his knees hit his chest, his eyes wide and completely captivated by the motion of the fish. “they look like… pretty pieces of aluminum foil.”

“told you,” you beamed, sitting back on your heels, proud of your successful heist. you reached out, your fingers hovering just above the surface of the water, watching the ripples distort the reflection of your faces.

the air was perfect. it was thick with the scent of summer, the distant hum of city traffic, and the quiet, rhythmic splashing of the river against the rocks. everything was so intensely loud with life.

“yn, look,” james whispered, his hand suddenly dropping into the water, trying to be as still as possible. his sleeve got soaked up to his elbow, but he didn’t even care. “if i just freeze... do you think they’ll think my fingers are just weird, pink worms?”

“they’re not that dumb, jamie,” you giggled, leaning over his shoulder so close your breath stirred his messy hair. “they’re silver carp. they’re practically royalty compared to ordinary river fish. you have to be sneaky—like a ninja.”

“i am a ninja,” he retorted, tilting his chin up proudly, though a stray droplet of water splashed right onto his nose, making him squint. “who dragged who out of that boring class again? exactly. i’m the tactical mastermind here.”

“you only came because i mentioned the silver pools,” you pointed out, poking him softly in the ribs until he squirmed. “admit it. you were dying to see them.”

“okay, maybe a little,” he muttered, his eyes softening as he looked back down at the shimmering water. a gentle grin—the same one from the cubbies when you were five—broke across his face. “they really are beautiful, though. it’s way better than looking at long division on a chalkboard.”

“everything is better when we’re out here,” you said softly, sitting back on your heels and looking at him. the sun hit the side of his face, painting everything in bright, golden warmth.

james turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto yours, reflecting the sparkle of the river. “hey. even when we’re old and have weird grey hair, we’re still skipping out on stuff to come here, right? promise me.”

“i promise,” you laughed, reaching out to splash a tiny bit of water at his chest. “even when we’re ancient.”

“hey—!” he gasped, laughing as he raised his wet hands to splash you back.

then, the colours died.

it didn’t start with a sound. it started with a pressure so immense it felt like the entire atmosphere had suddenly turned into solid lead, crushing down on your eardrums until your head throbbed with a deafening, high-pitched ring. the silver carp beneath the water instantly went rigid, floating to the surface on their sides as if their hearts had stopped all at once.

“james?” you tried to say, but your voice was completely swallowed by a strange, heavy vacuum.

his laugh vanished instantly. his face went completely pale, his hands freezing in mid-air. “yn... what is that? look at the sky.”

you looked up, and the vibrant blue summer sky was gone. it had been ripped apart. instead, a jagged, blinding streak of violent purple and sickly, neon green fire tore through the clouds, moving with a terrifying, unnatural slowness. a massive rock—the meteor—was falling, surrounded by a crackling, alive web of static electricity.

“we need to go,” you panicked, your voice sounding small and distorted. you grabbed his wet sleeve, trying to pull him up, but your legs felt like water. “jamie, come on!”

“i can’t—i can’t move,” he choked out, his eyes wide with absolute horror as he stared at the descending green fire. the air grew violently hot, then freezing cold in the span of a single heartbeat. “it hurts. yn, my chest hurts—”

as the meteor broke apart in the upper atmosphere, raining down pieces into the distant mountains, a heavy, invisible wave of energy expanded outward. it hit the river bank with the force of a physical wall.

the radioactivity didn’t burn your skin; it sank right through your pores, feeling like thousands of freezing, microscopic needles invading your veins.

“james!” you screamed, but the sound was choked out as you fell backward onto the sharp rocks. your muscles locked up entirely, your chest heaving as you tried to breathe in an air that now tasted like copper and lightning.

“i’m here,” his voice was a broken, terrified whimper, completely stripped of its usual warmth. through the haze of your blurring sight, you saw him falling down right next to you, his face twisting in pain. “i’m right here, tiānshǐ, don’t look away—”

you reached out blindly, your hand smacking against the hot stones until your fingers found the edge of his soaked sleeve. he immediately squeezed back, his grip so tight it bruised your skin, his fingers trembling violently. 

the sky had just broken, and as you drifted into a dark, suffocating unconsciousness right there by the river, holding onto his hand like a lifeline. 

the colourful world you knew was wiped away forever.

3 ⭑ the grey grey world ───

when you finally woke up on the riverbank, the sun was gone, but it wasn’t night. the sky had settled into a heavy, permanent bruise of charcoal clouds, and the air smelled like a struck match. james was lying less than a foot away from you, his fingers still tightly hooked into the fabric of your sleeve, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged hitches. 

you didn’t know it then, but the invisible needles that had sewn themselves into your blood while you slept were already rewriting your dna. you didn’t know that the boundary line of the schoolyard—the one you had breached with a childish giggle—was the exact perimeter of the initial radioactive drop zone.

life, as everybody on earth knew it, completely ended that afternoon.

the chaos of the first few months was something the news anchors couldn’t even put into words before the broadcasts went entirely dark. the meteor hadn’t just crashed; it had shattered in the atmosphere, showering the globe in a strange, crystalline dust that carried a completely unprecedented form of cosmic radiation. within weeks, reports flooded what was left of the internet—stories of people in the immediate blast zones surviving impossible accidents, or worse, manifesting terrifying, unnatural anomalies: a man in gyeonggi-do accidentally melted his kitchen table down to liquid slag just by resting his hands on it; a young girl in busan stopped breathing entirely but remained perfectly alive, the air around her dropping to freezing temperatures.

the news continued to report more such instances with self-proclaimed titles that would’ve sounded crazy a while ago—

the static boy of incheon: an ordinary middle-schooler survived a near-fatal shock from a downed power line during the initial blast, but his body became a permanent electrical ground. any cell phone, flashlight, or digital watch within ten feet of him would short out and permanently fry. his mother had to wrap his hands in thick rubber insulation just so he could hold a plastic cup, but the worst part was the sound—if the room was quiet enough, you could hear his skin constantly crackling and humming with a soft, low-frequency blue static.

the echo of gangnam: a woman who was caught inside a high-rise office building during the drop zone expansion didn’t get faster or stronger; instead, her personal timeline seemed to fragment by exactly three seconds. if you threw a stone at her, it would pass cleanly through air, and then three seconds later, the stone would bounce off an invisible barrier where she used to be. she couldn’t speak normally anymore because every word she said repeated itself three seconds later, perfectly identical, completely scrambling the minds of the guards who tried to interrogate her.

the heavy iron of daegu: a shipyard welder didn’t change on the outside, but his internal density shifted to an impossible degree after inhaling the metallic, irradiated smog of the crash. he looked like a scrawny, hollow-cheeked teenager, but the first time he took a step inside his family’s apartment, his foot crashed straight through the wooden floorboards, snapping the iron support beams beneath. he weighed nearly four times his actual weight, despite his tiny frame, his bone structure having converted into a dense, non-magnetic crystalline lattice that left deep, cracked footprints in solid concrete wherever he walked.

the blank spaces of jeju: a fisherman out on the water saw the green fire drop and came back completely different. he didn’t lose his sight, but his eyes turned completely black, swallowing light instead of reflecting it. any object he stared at intently for more than a little whole would simply lose its colour, turning into a stark, matte gray before crumbling into a fine, powdery ash that tasted like salt. the task force locked his family’s house down within hours, rumor being that he had accidentally looked at his own reflection in the mirror and collapsed his bedroom wall into dust.

the global response was instant, panicked, and brutal. 

world governments completely collapsed under the weight of the paranoia, giving way to militarised regimes. 

in south korea, the police and the national army merged overnight into a singular, ruthless entity called the unified crisis task force—the UCTF. their first move was total martial law. they didn’t know who was infected, how the radiation spread, or what triggered the ‘mutations’, so they treated the entire civilian population like a ticking time bomb.

the city of seoul was carved up like a piece of meat. towering, thirty-foot concrete walls topped with high-voltage wire divided the metropolis into isolated districts called sectors. if you were inside a sector, you were a prisoner to the bureaucracy. 

the global economy ceased to exist; money was replaced by government ration cards, and your survival depended entirely on your compliance with the weekly medical screenings. every freedom, every rule, every law—everything changed. you couldn’t look at the river anymore; it was entirely locked behind a massive military checkpoint. you couldn’t run through the alleyways; there were armed UCTF guards stationed at every single intersection, checking identification papers with hollow, untrusting eyes and fingers hovering over their triggers.

the surviving population was categorised by their proximity to the crash sites, tagged with digital registry numbers, and systematically crammed into high-density housing blocks. the spacious, light-filled apartments of your childhood were confiscated by the military, and families were packed into dense, grey concrete complexes like livestock.

james’ family and your family were assigned to a single, cramped apartment on the fourth floor of sector 7. it was barely a room—more like a cell meant for storage. the walls were bare, sweating concrete that leaked a foul-smelling moisture whenever it rained, and instead of real beds, there were only three small, rusted iron cots shoved against the peeling wallpaper. your moms slept on one, your dads on the other, and james and you shared the third, lying so close together on the thin, lumpy mattress that your shoulders constantly rubbed. 

there was no privacy; the entire floor—nearly forty desperate, terrified people—shared a single communal restroom at the end of the hall, where the water was usually lukewarm, smelled of sulfur, and tasted faintly of iron.

within a year, a suffocating lifestyle began to fester inside the compound. a makeshift school was set up in a hollowed-out basement downstairs, lit by buzzing fluorescent bulbs that flickered constantly and made everyone’s skin look sickly and yellow. a medical center operated out of a high-security tent in the courtyard, where doctors in white hazmat suits and heavy respirators constantly took blood samples from the children, checking for ‘anomalies’.

“move down, make space!” a sharp voice barked through the morning fog. it was officer park, one of the neighborhood fuarss appointed by the task force. he tapped his heavy baton against the rusted iron railing of the courtyard stairs, his eyes scanning the line of weary residents. “identifications out. children under sixteen to the medical tent first.”

your mom gripped your shoulder, her fingers trembling slightly as she pushed you a little closer to james’ side. “stay together,” she whispered in a low, hurried mandarin, her voice cracking. “don’t let go of each other’s jackets.”

“we won’t, aunty,” james answered smoothly, stepping seamlessly into the space right beside you. he flashed a small, reassuring smile over his shoulder at your parents before pulling you along into the slow-moving line. “come on, tiānshǐ. let’s just get it over with.”

the courtyard was a sea of grey. hundreds of neighbors you used to see wearing bright clothes and smiling at grocery stores were now reduced to the same drab, government-issued wool coats. the atmosphere was thick with resentment and an underlying, choking fear.

as you shuffled closer to the medical tent, a heavy-set woman from the third floor, mrs. kim, dropped her plastic water basin with a loud, ringing crash against the pavement. “again with the blood tests?” she cried out, her voice echoing raw and desperate against the concrete walls. “you took three vials from my boy last week! look at him, he’s pale as a ghost! when do we get real medicine instead of these needles? you’re draining them dry!”

an armed guard instantly stepped toward her, his gloved hand resting flat on the butt of his rifle. “step back into line, ma’am. this is for public safety. compliance is mandatory under sector law. any further disruption will result in immediate relocation to a labor facility.”

you flinched at the coldness in the guard’s voice, your hand automatically tightening around the hem of james’ jacket. he didn’t look back at the commotion, but you felt the muscles in his back go completely rigid. he quietly reached behind him, his fingers searching until they found your wrist, giving it a reassuring, steady squeeze.

“don’t look,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was barely audible above the buzzing courtyard speakers. “just look at my backpack. remember our plan from last night, okay?”

inside the medical tent, the air was freezing and smelled intensely of rubbing alcohol and bleach. a doctor in a thick, crinkling white hazmat suit didn’t even look at your face as you sat down in the metal chair. he grabbed your arm with cold, rubber-gloved hands, wiping a freezing square of antiseptic over your skin.

“name and registry number,” the doctor muttered, his voice muffled behind a thick plastic respirator.

“zhang yn,” you whispered, giving your registered name, your throat dry. “one-eight-zero-eight.”

the sharp bite of the needle sank into your vein, and you squeezed your eyes shut, your breath hitching. right on cue, a loud, dramatic clatter echoed from the table just two feet away.

“oh, man! i’m so sorry, sir! my hands are just freezing,” james’ voice boomed through the tent. he had completely knocked a metal tray of sterile cotton swabs and steel forceps off the side counter, sending them rolling across the floorboards.

the doctor sticking your arm hissed in annoyance, his hand shaking slightly as he pulled the syringe free. “hey! watch what you’re doing, kid! get out of the way!”

while the researchers distracted themselves cursing at the mess, james caught your eye through the chaos. he gave you a quick, subtle wink, his eyes crinkling at the corners. the stinging in your arm didn’t even matter anymore. the lump of terror in your throat dissolved into a tiny, hidden spark of warmth.

it was in this makeshift environment that you met other kids in your situation, all of you carrying the invisible weight of the schoolyard riverbank. one afternoon in the basement school—which was basically just a room filled with repurposed wood benches—you sat near a boy named martin. he was lanky, tall, and wore thick, oversized leather gloves even in the sweltering heat of the basement. he was drawing in the dust on his desk with a stick, his eyes darting around with a nervous, frantic energy.

“do you ever feel like the walls are getting closer?” martin whispered to you, not looking up from his drawing. “like the concrete is actually growing?”

you blinked, surprised he was talking to you. “sometimes. why?”

“the air here,” he said, his voice dropping. “it feels... heavy. like it’s waiting for something to rot.” he looked down at his gloved hands, his knuckles white. “don’t let anyone touch you. stay away from the walls, too.”

james leaned forward from the bench behind you, his eyes narrowing slightly, an instinctive protectiveness taking over. “we’re fine, martin. stay focused on your book.”

then there was juhoon, a boy who always sat in the corner by the air vents. he was quiet, almost invisible, but whenever a fight broke out between the older kids, he would just sit there, staring at the floor. you noticed that whenever he breathed deeply, the air around him seemed to ripple slightly, like a heat haze on a highway. it was subtle, but it was there—a strange, pressurised stillness that made your ears pop whenever you walked past his bench. 

none of you knew it yet, but you were all pieces of a puzzle that the government was desperately trying to control.

that same warmth between you and james was the only thing that kept the apartment livable at night. after the ten o’clock curfew siren wailed across the sector, turning off the building’s main power grid, the room would plunge into total darkness. you could hear the heavy, exhausted snoring of your fathers on the opposite cots, and the quiet, rhythmic sound of the searchlights cutting through the smog outside.

you sat on the very edge of your shared cot, your knees pressed hard against james’ to keep from shifting and making the rusty springs squeak.

“xīn gān,” you whispered, your voice a tiny, fragile thread in the dark. “are you awake?”

“always,” his voice came back instantly, a comforting weight in the blackness. he shifted closer, his hand reaching out under the thin, coarse blanket until his fingers slid between yours, locking tightly. “my hip hurts from the springs in this mattress. i think it’s trying to eat me.”

you let out a silent, breathless laugh, pressing your forehead against his shoulder. “everything in this building is trying to eat us. do you think the carp are still in the river?”

“probably,” he murmured, his dark eyes tracking the slow green beam of the searchlight as it painted a long, glowing stripe across the ceiling. “they’re probably giant monsters now… with wings. and laser eyes… swimming all the way back to taiwan because seoul is too boring now.”

“you still read too many comic books.”

“there’s nothing else to do,” he whispered, turning his head so his nose brushed against your hair. the scent of the artificial candy from your childhood was long gone, replaced by the sharp, metallic smell of the compound’s recycled water, but the warmth of his skin was exactly the same as it had been when you were five. “tiānshǐ?”

“hm?”

“we made it through today,” he whispered, his thumb lightly rubbing the small red dot where the needle had pierced your skin that morning. “we’ll make it through tomorrow, too. i promise.”

“promise?” you whispered back, closing your eyes and leaning your entire weight against him.

“promise,” he whispered. “always.”

it was a fragile, desperate kind of peace. 

you learned to navigate the world through hushed conversations and secret glances. you learned to recognise the specific, heavy footfall of the guards in the hall, and you learned the exact rhythm of the ventilation system so you could talk to james without being overheard. in a world that wanted to grind you into grey dust, you both held onto each other with a fierce, stubborn vitality. you were two survivors in a cage, two children who still remembered the taste of neon green candy and the sight of oil-slick rainbows, and in the silence of the night, that memory was the strongest weapon you had.

© hyuneskkami ❦

❝ tracklist ❞ ─── wires—the neighbourhood ❦ fields of gold—eva cassidy ❦ run—joji ❦ in the woods somewhere—hozier ❦ radioactive—imagine dragons ❦ colors—halsey ❦ space song—beach house ❦ inside the end—the xx ❦ medicine—daughter ❦ code—the prodigy ❦ ribs—lorde ❦ yellow light—of monsters and men ❦ sound of silence—simon & garfunkel ❦ intro—the xx ❦ we're going to be friends—the white stripes ❦ anchor—novo amor ❦ as the world caves in—matt maltese ❦ dynamic boy—joe hisaishi ❦ youth—daughter ❦ safe & sound—taylor swift ❦ end of the world—billie eilish ❦ saturn—sleeping at last ❦ sparks—coldplay ❦ heavy in your arms—florence + the machine ❦ somewhere only we know—keane ❦ control—halsey ❦ the scientist—coldplay ❦ static—godspeed you! black emperor ❦ another love—tom odell ❦ gilded lily—cults

1 ⭑ before the sky turned grey ───

the first day of school was supposed to be a massive, terrifying blur of a new language, unfamiliar streets, and a sea of faces that didn’t look like the ones from back home. seoul was too loud, too fast, and towering with concrete blocks that felt entirely different from the warmth of taiwan. 

at five years old, standing at the entrance of that giant, unfamiliar schoolyard, the world felt way too big for you. your fingers gripped your backpack straps until your knuckles turned white, your ears ringing with korean words you couldn’t quite piece together yet.

the same day, you bumped into james—literally. the teacher had just released the class to put away their heavy winter coats, and the narrow hallway by the cubbies was absolute chaos. children were shoving, bright jackets were flying everywhere, and the air was thick with the high-pitched, rapid-fire chatter of a language that still sounded like complete static to your ears. you felt tiny, entirely out of place, and so overwhelmed that your chest ached. wanting nothing more than to just disappear into your own locker space, you turned around way too fast, trying to escape the crowd.

instead, your oversized, bright yellow backpack—which your mom had bought two sizes too big so you could ‘grow into it’—smacked hard right into a bulky green backpack.

the impact was loud and clumsy. the momentum sent both of you sprawling backward, your sneakers losing their grip on the freshly waxed floor. you landed hard on your tailbone with a dull thud, your yellow bag twisting around your shoulders like a heavy turtle shell, while the other boy tumbled right into a pile of stray winter boots.

for a second, the entire hallway seemed to go dead silent. you froze, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. back home in taiwan, you were used to how kids reacted when they got knocked down—they either cried or they got mad. but here, in this strange city, you were absolutely terrified. you braced yourself for him to burst into tears, or worse, stand up and yell at you in that fast, sharp korean language you didn’t understand a single syllable of, completely exposing you in front of the whole class. you squeezed your eyes shut for a microsecond, your throat tightening, waiting for the humiliation to hit.

but when you forced your eyes open and looked up, there was no anger. there were no tears.

the boy in the green backpack was sitting flat on his bottom, his messy black hair sticking out in every direction from the static of his jacket. his tiny hands were planted on the floor to steady himself, and his eyes—huge, dark, and perfectly round—were just staring at you, wide and completely curious. he wasn’t looking at you like an annoyance; he was looking at you like you were a puzzle he wanted to solve.

“wo bu shi gu yi de,” you blurted out automatically. the words rushed out of your mouth in a panicked, desperate breath before you could even think to stop them. you scrambled backward on your hands and knees, trying to create distance, the familiar syllables of your native mandarin slipping out because your brain was too frightened to even attempt anything else: ‘i didn’t do it on purpose.’

the moment the words left your lips, you regretted it. you felt your face turn hot with shame, certain you had just made things worse by speaking a language no one else here knew.

but the boy just blinked. his head tilted slightly to the side, his chest rising and falling as he processed the sound. then, his entire face transformed. the curiosity melted away, replaced by a huge, brilliant, gap-toothed smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes into tiny crescents.

“ni ye shuo zhong wen ma?” he asked. he didn’t just speak; his voice came out as a breathless, excited squeak that practically echoed in the cramped hallway: ‘you speak chinese too?’

he scrambled forward on his knees, completely ignoring his scattered pencils and his upside-down green bag, his face suddenly so close to yours that you could see the tiny mole on the bridge of his nose. he looked like he had just discovered a hidden treasure chest right in the middle of the school corridor.

the relief that washed over you in that exact second was so intense, so thick and heavy, that it felt like physical sunlight pouring directly over your shivering shoulders. the icy knot of terror in your stomach completely dissolved. the terrifying, alien noises of the schoolyard, the towering concrete walls of seoul, and the intimidating sea of unfamiliar faces just faded into a distant, blurry background. the chaotic classroom vanished. the moment you realised you were both tiny immigrants trying to navigate this massive, bustling city together, the world shrank until it was just the two of you sitting on the floor.

then, you became instant, inseparable shadows.

your families found each other almost as quickly as you did. bonding over shared recipes, the mutual struggle of learning a new language, and the bittersweet ache of missing home, they became as tight-knit as a real family. because of that, james and you grew up attached at the hip. your moms would joke that they didn’t need to cook separate meals anymore because where there was one of you, the other was always sitting right there, waiting for a bowl of rice.

back then, everything was just so incredibly… vibrant. the world wasn’t a place of restrictions or fear; it was a giant playground waiting to be explored. you spent your afternoons running through the narrow alleyways of your neighborhood, your laughter bouncing off the brick walls.

every weekend was an adventure. you would save up your allowance pocket change, the brass coins clinking in your small palms, just to race down to the local convenience store with james. the sliding glass doors would open with a loud chime, and you’d drag him straight to the candy aisle with your fingers clenched tightly around the sleeve of his shirt.

“tiānshǐ, get the blue ones,” he would whisper, nudging your shoulder as you stared intently at the shelves. “the blue ones taste like magic.”

“no, the green ones are better,” you’d argue, though you were already reaching for both. “the green ones make your teeth look like a monster’s!”

minutes later, you’d sit on the curb outside together, kicking your sneakers against the asphalt. james would turn to you, sticking his tongue out to reveal a brilliant, stained neon blue. “look! am i a wizard yet?”

“you look ridiculous, xīn gān,” you’d giggle, shoving his shoulder, before sticking your own bright green tongue out at him. you’d laugh until your stomachs ached, the artificial sweetness lingering in the air, the world around you painted in the brightest, happiest colours imaginable.

james was always the one pointing out the details you missed. while you were busy racing ahead, he’d suddenly stop and yank on your sleeve. “hey, look down,” he’d whisper, pointing at a muddy puddle on the pavement where the afternoon sun hit the oil residue, creating a swirling, glowing rainbow. “it looks like a tiny galaxy. don’t step on it.”

you’d look from the puddle up to his face, his eyes reflecting the bright colours of the streetlights, and you’d smile, stepping carefully around it. 

as the years bled together, that bright, frantic energy only grew. by the time you were nine, the alleyways around your small apartments felt less like an unfamiliar maze and more like your personal kingdom—you knew exactly which loose brick behind the laundromat held the stash of shiny bottle caps you’d collected, and you knew exactly which corner store owner would give you an extra scoop of crushed ice in your taro drinks if you bowed low enough and practiced your best, polite korean.

there were late summer nights when the heat inside the cramped rooms became too thick to breathe. your families would drag old cardboard boxes and plastic stools out onto the building’s rooftop, chasing even the slightest hint of a breeze. while your parents sat in a circle, cracking open sunflower seeds and speaking in low, nostalgic murmurs about the humid night markets of tainan and taipei, james and you would lie flat on your backs on the warm concrete.

the seoul sky was always thick with smog and city glow, blocking out the stars, but james didn’t care. he’d hold his hand up to the black expanse, framing the neon red cross of a distant church steeple between his thumb and forefinger.

“see that?” he’d ask, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, turning his head so his cheek pressed against the rough concrete. “that’s not a church. it’s a beacon for a spaceship. one day, we’re gonna sneak on board and go somewhere where the sky is actually purple.”

you’d let out a soft snort, rolling over to look at him. “you read too many comic books, jamie. if a spaceship comes, they’ll probably just eat your neon blue brain.”

“nah,” he’d reply easily, turning his gaze back to you, a soft, familiar warmth crinkling the corners of his eyes. “they wouldn’t dare. not if you’re there to yell at them for me.”

you’d laugh, reaching out to punch his arm lightly, and he’d just catch your wrist, pulling your hands down between you both until you were just holding fingers, watching the slow blink of airplane lights passing overhead.

even at school, you were a fortress of two. when the older boys tried to mock your accent during the reading circle, james would instantly lean over your desk, purposely knocking over his pencil case to distract the teacher, giving you time to wipe your burning eyes and swallow the lump in your throat. and when he forgot his lunch box on a rainy tuesday, you’d split your scallion pancake exactly down the middle, pushing the larger half onto his desk without a single word. you didn’t need to say anything—you had a rhythm, a perfect, unspoken understanding built from years of shared breathing space.

you were just two kids with wide-open eyes, looking at a world that felt completely full of colour, totally unaware of the dark shadow the sky would drop on you both just a few years later.

2 ⭑ the afternoon the sky cracked ───

life on earth was peaceful back then. looking back, it felt almost ridiculously simple, like a black-and-white movie compared to the static-heavy, electric chaos that followed. seoul was still just a city of bright neon signs, crowded subway cars, and the comforting smell of toasted sesame oil drifting out of restaurant doors. people worried about the weather, about rent, about whether their kids were studying hard enough for middle school. you didn’t know how fragile the sky actually was—until you were eleven.

it was a thursday, right in the middle of a suffocatingly dull mid-semester afternoon. the classroom windows were cracked open just enough to let in the heavy, humid heat of early summer, and the monotonous drone of the teacher’s voice discussing long division was acting like a sedative on the entire room. your eyes kept drifting past the chalkboard, tracking the glittering, silver line of the han river tributary that ran right along the edge of the school grounds.

you leaned sideways, your shoulder nudging against james’ arm. his chin was propped in his palm, his pencil lazily drawing squiggles in the margin of his notebook.

“xīn gān,” you whispered, the following mandarin barely a breath between your teeth. “look at the water. it’s too sunny to be in here.”

he shifted his gaze to the window, then back to you, raising an eyebrow. “we have a quiz next period, tiānshǐ. if we miss it, my mom will actually strip my skin off.”

“the river level dropped because of the heat,” you coaxed, a mischievous grin tugging at the corner of your lips. you leaned closer, your voice dropping an octave. “the boy in the front row said he saw a school of giant silver carp trapped in the shallow rock pools by the embankment. they’re just swimming in circles. we can go catch them with our bare hands!”

james hesitated, his fingers tightening around his pencil. he was always the sensible one, the one who worried about the rules and the consequences, but he had one major weakness: you. you gave him a sharp, pleading look, tilting your head towards the back door of the classroom.

“five minutes,” he muttered, a defeated but thrilled smile breaking across his face. “if we get caught, i’m telling the principal it was your ghost that dragged me out, okay?”

slipping out was almost too easy. while the teacher turned her back to write a long string of numbers on the board, the two of you dropped to your hands and knees, sliding beneath the desks like two silent lizards. you popped open the back door slowly and slid into the empty hallway, your sneakers squeaking softly against the floor. the moment you hit the heavy metal exit doors and burst into the bright, blinding sunshine of the schoolyard, a wild, breathless laughter bubbled up in your throat.

you grabbed the sleeve of james’ uniform shirt, dragging him behind you as you sprinted toward the chain-link fence at the edge of the property. he was right at your heels, his face flushed with adrenaline, both of you giggling like madmen as you found the loose flap of wire you’d discovered months ago. you wriggled through first, scraping your elbow against the dirt, and james tumbled out right after you, his tiny tie completely crooked.

“we’re dead,” he panted, laughing so hard he had to squeeze his ribs. “we are completely dead!”

“shut up and run,” you laughed back, the wind rushing past your ears as you scrambled down the steep, grassy embankment toward the river.

the water was a brilliant, sparkling ribbon under the harsh afternoon sun. the rocks along the edge were baking hot, radiating a dry heat that smelled like mud and sun-bleached algae. you both dropped to your knees at the water’s edge, splashing the cool river water onto your burning faces. just like the boy had said, the water in the overflow pool was shallow and crystal clear, and beneath the surface, three massive, shimmering silver carp were lazily darting between the submerged stones, their scales catching the light like buried coins.

“whoa,” he whispered, crouching so low his knees hit his chest, his eyes wide and completely captivated by the motion of the fish. “they look like… pretty pieces of aluminum foil.”

“told you,” you beamed, sitting back on your heels, proud of your successful heist. you reached out, your fingers hovering just above the surface of the water, watching the ripples distort the reflection of your faces.

the air was perfect. it was thick with the scent of summer, the distant hum of city traffic, and the quiet, rhythmic splashing of the river against the rocks. everything was so intensely loud with life.

“yn, look,” james whispered, his hand suddenly dropping into the water, trying to be as still as possible. his sleeve got soaked up to his elbow, but he didn’t even care. “if i just freeze... do you think they’ll think my fingers are just weird, pink worms?”

“they’re not that dumb, jamie,” you giggled, leaning over his shoulder so close your breath stirred his messy hair. “they’re silver carp. they’re practically royalty compared to ordinary river fish. you have to be sneaky—like a ninja.”

“i am a ninja,” he retorted, tilting his chin up proudly, though a stray droplet of water splashed right onto his nose, making him squint. “who dragged who out of that boring class again? exactly. i’m the tactical mastermind here.”

“you only came because i mentioned the silver pools,” you pointed out, poking him softly in the ribs until he squirmed. “admit it. you were dying to see them.”

“okay, maybe a little,” he muttered, his eyes softening as he looked back down at the shimmering water. a gentle grin—the same one from the cubbies when you were five—broke across his face. “they really are beautiful, though. it’s way better than looking at long division on a chalkboard.”

“everything is better when we’re out here,” you said softly, sitting back on your heels and looking at him. the sun hit the side of his face, painting everything in bright, golden warmth.

james turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto yours, reflecting the sparkle of the river. “hey. even when we’re old and have weird grey hair, we’re still skipping out on stuff to come here, right? promise me.”

“i promise,” you laughed, reaching out to splash a tiny bit of water at his chest. “even when we’re ancient.”

“hey—!” he gasped, laughing as he raised his wet hands to splash you back.

then, the colours died.

it didn’t start with a sound. it started with a pressure so immense it felt like the entire atmosphere had suddenly turned into solid lead, crushing down on your eardrums until your head throbbed with a deafening, high-pitched ring. the silver carp beneath the water instantly went rigid, floating to the surface on their sides as if their hearts had stopped all at once.

“james?” you tried to say, but your voice was completely swallowed by a strange, heavy vacuum.

his laugh vanished instantly. his face went completely pale, his hands freezing in mid-air. “yn... what is that? look at the sky.”

you looked up, and the vibrant blue summer sky was gone. it had been ripped apart. instead, a jagged, blinding streak of violent purple and sickly, neon green fire tore through the clouds, moving with a terrifying, unnatural slowness. a massive rock—the meteor—was falling, surrounded by a crackling, alive web of static electricity.

“we need to go,” you panicked, your voice sounding small and distorted. you grabbed his wet sleeve, trying to pull him up, but your legs felt like water. “jamie, come on!”

“i can’t—i can’t move,” he choked out, his eyes wide with absolute horror as he stared at the descending green fire. the air grew violently hot, then freezing cold in the span of a single heartbeat. “it hurts. yn, my chest hurts—”

as the meteor broke apart in the upper atmosphere, raining down pieces into the distant mountains, a heavy, invisible wave of energy expanded outward. it hit the river bank with the force of a physical wall.

the radioactivity didn’t burn your skin; it sank right through your pores, feeling like thousands of freezing, microscopic needles invading your veins.

“james!” you screamed, but the sound was choked out as you fell backward onto the sharp rocks. your muscles locked up entirely, your chest heaving as you tried to breathe in an air that now tasted like copper and lightning.

“i’m here,” his voice was a broken, terrified whimper, completely stripped of its usual warmth. through the haze of your blurring sight, you saw him falling down right next to you, his face twisting in pain. “i’m right here, tiānshǐ, don’t look away—”

you reached out blindly, your hand smacking against the hot stones until your fingers found the edge of his soaked sleeve. he immediately squeezed back, his grip so tight it bruised your skin, his fingers trembling violently. 

the sky had just broken, and as you drifted into a dark, suffocating unconsciousness right there by the river, holding onto his hand like a lifeline. 

the colourful world you knew was wiped away forever.

3 ⭑ the grey grey world ───

when you finally woke up on the riverbank, the sun was gone, but it wasn’t night. the sky had settled into a heavy, permanent bruise of charcoal clouds, and the air smelled like a struck match. james was lying less than a foot away from you, his fingers still tightly hooked into the fabric of your sleeve, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged hitches. 

you didn’t know it then, but the invisible needles that had sewn themselves into your blood while you slept were already rewriting your dna. you didn’t know that the boundary line of the schoolyard—the one you had breached with a childish giggle—was the exact perimeter of the initial radioactive drop zone.

life, as everybody on earth knew it, completely ended that afternoon.

the chaos of the first few months was something the news anchors couldn’t even put into words before the broadcasts went entirely dark. the meteor hadn’t just crashed; it had shattered in the atmosphere, showering the globe in a strange, crystalline dust that carried a completely unprecedented form of cosmic radiation. within weeks, reports flooded what was left of the internet—stories of people in the immediate blast zones surviving impossible accidents, or worse, manifesting terrifying, unnatural anomalies: a man in gyeonggi-do accidentally melted his kitchen table down to liquid slag just by resting his hands on it; a young girl in busan stopped breathing entirely but remained perfectly alive, the air around her dropping to freezing temperatures.

the news continued to report more such instances with self-proclaimed titles that would’ve sounded crazy a while ago—

the static boy of incheon: an ordinary middle-schooler survived a near-fatal shock from a downed power line during the initial blast, but his body became a permanent electrical ground. any cell phone, flashlight, or digital watch within ten feet of him would short out and permanently fry. his mother had to wrap his hands in thick rubber insulation just so he could hold a plastic cup, but the worst part was the sound—if the room was quiet enough, you could hear his skin constantly crackling and humming with a soft, low-frequency blue static.

the echo of gangnam: a woman who was caught inside a high-rise office building during the drop zone expansion didn’t get faster or stronger; instead, her personal timeline seemed to fragment by exactly three seconds. if you threw a stone at her, it would pass cleanly through air, and then three seconds later, the stone would bounce off an invisible barrier where she used to be. she couldn’t speak normally anymore because every word she said repeated itself three seconds later, perfectly identical, completely scrambling the minds of the guards who tried to interrogate her.

the heavy iron of daegu: a shipyard welder didn’t change on the outside, but his internal density shifted to an impossible degree after inhaling the metallic, irradiated smog of the crash. he looked like a scrawny, hollow-cheeked teenager, but the first time he took a step inside his family’s apartment, his foot crashed straight through the wooden floorboards, snapping the iron support beams beneath. he weighed nearly four times his actual weight, despite his tiny frame, his bone structure having converted into a dense, non-magnetic crystalline lattice that left deep, cracked footprints in solid concrete wherever he walked.

the blank spaces of jeju: a fisherman out on the water saw the green fire drop and came back completely different. he didn’t lose his sight, but his eyes turned completely black, swallowing light instead of reflecting it. any object he stared at intently for more than a little whole would simply lose its colour, turning into a stark, matte gray before crumbling into a fine, powdery ash that tasted like salt. the task force locked his family’s house down within hours, rumor being that he had accidentally looked at his own reflection in the mirror and collapsed his bedroom wall into dust.

the global response was instant, panicked, and brutal. 

world governments completely collapsed under the weight of the paranoia, giving way to militarised regimes. 

in south korea, the police and the national army merged overnight into a singular, ruthless entity called the unified crisis task force—the UCTF. their first move was total martial law. they didn’t know who was infected, how the radiation spread, or what triggered the ‘mutations’, so they treated the entire civilian population like a ticking time bomb.

the city of seoul was carved up like a piece of meat. towering, thirty-foot concrete walls topped with high-voltage wire divided the metropolis into isolated districts called sectors. if you were inside a sector, you were a prisoner to the bureaucracy. 

the global economy ceased to exist; money was replaced by government ration cards, and your survival depended entirely on your compliance with the weekly medical screenings. every freedom, every rule, every law—everything changed. you couldn’t look at the river anymore; it was entirely locked behind a massive military checkpoint. you couldn’t run through the alleyways; there were armed UCTF guards stationed at every single intersection, checking identification papers with hollow, untrusting eyes and fingers hovering over their triggers.

the surviving population was categorised by their proximity to the crash sites, tagged with digital registry numbers, and systematically crammed into high-density housing blocks. the spacious, light-filled apartments of your childhood were confiscated by the military, and families were packed into dense, grey concrete complexes like livestock.

james’ family and your family were assigned to a single, cramped apartment on the fourth floor of sector 7. it was barely a room—more like a cell meant for storage. the walls were bare, sweating concrete that leaked a foul-smelling moisture whenever it rained, and instead of real beds, there were only three small, rusted iron cots shoved against the peeling wallpaper. your moms slept on one, your dads on the other, and james and you shared the third, lying so close together on the thin, lumpy mattress that your shoulders constantly rubbed. 

there was no privacy; the entire floor—nearly forty desperate, terrified people—shared a single communal restroom at the end of the hall, where the water was usually lukewarm, smelled of sulfur, and tasted faintly of iron.

within a year, a suffocating lifestyle began to fester inside the compound. a makeshift school was set up in a hollowed-out basement downstairs, lit by buzzing fluorescent bulbs that flickered constantly and made everyone’s skin look sickly and yellow. a medical center operated out of a high-security tent in the courtyard, where doctors in white hazmat suits and heavy respirators constantly took blood samples from the children, checking for ‘anomalies’.

“move down, make space!” a sharp voice barked through the morning fog. it was officer park, one of the neighborhood fuarss appointed by the task force. he tapped his heavy baton against the rusted iron railing of the courtyard stairs, his eyes scanning the line of weary residents. “identifications out. children under sixteen to the medical tent first.”

your mom gripped your shoulder, her fingers trembling slightly as she pushed you a little closer to james’ side. “stay together,” she whispered in a low, hurried mandarin, her voice cracking. “don’t let go of each other’s jackets.”

“we won’t, aunty,” james answered smoothly, stepping seamlessly into the space right beside you. he flashed a small, reassuring smile over his shoulder at your parents before pulling you along into the slow-moving line. “come on, tiānshǐ. let’s just get it over with.”

the courtyard was a sea of grey. hundreds of neighbors you used to see wearing bright clothes and smiling at grocery stores were now reduced to the same drab, government-issued wool coats. the atmosphere was thick with resentment and an underlying, choking fear.

as you shuffled closer to the medical tent, a heavy-set woman from the third floor, mrs. kim, dropped her plastic water basin with a loud, ringing crash against the pavement. “again with the blood tests?” she cried out, her voice echoing raw and desperate against the concrete walls. “you took three vials from my boy last week! look at him, he’s pale as a ghost! when do we get real medicine instead of these needles? you’re draining them dry!”

an armed guard instantly stepped toward her, his gloved hand resting flat on the butt of his rifle. “step back into line, ma’am. this is for public safety. compliance is mandatory under sector law. any further disruption will result in immediate relocation to a labor facility.”

you flinched at the coldness in the guard’s voice, your hand automatically tightening around the hem of james’ jacket. he didn’t look back at the commotion, but you felt the muscles in his back go completely rigid. he quietly reached behind him, his fingers searching until they found your wrist, giving it a reassuring, steady squeeze.

“don’t look,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was barely audible above the buzzing courtyard speakers. “just look at my backpack. remember our plan from last night, okay?”

inside the medical tent, the air was freezing and smelled intensely of rubbing alcohol and bleach. a doctor in a thick, crinkling white hazmat suit didn’t even look at your face as you sat down in the metal chair. he grabbed your arm with cold, rubber-gloved hands, wiping a freezing square of antiseptic over your skin.

“name and registry number,” the doctor muttered, his voice muffled behind a thick plastic respirator.

“zhang yn,” you whispered, giving your registered name, your throat dry. “one-eight-zero-eight.”

the sharp bite of the needle sank into your vein, and you squeezed your eyes shut, your breath hitching. right on cue, a loud, dramatic clatter echoed from the table just two feet away.

“oh, man! i’m so sorry, sir! my hands are just freezing,” james’ voice boomed through the tent. he had completely knocked a metal tray of sterile cotton swabs and steel forceps off the side counter, sending them rolling across the floorboards.

the doctor sticking your arm hissed in annoyance, his hand shaking slightly as he pulled the syringe free. “hey! watch what you’re doing, kid! get out of the way!”

while the researchers distracted themselves cursing at the mess, james caught your eye through the chaos. he gave you a quick, subtle wink, his eyes crinkling at the corners. the stinging in your arm didn’t even matter anymore. the lump of terror in your throat dissolved into a tiny, hidden spark of warmth.

it was in this makeshift environment that you met other kids in your situation, all of you carrying the invisible weight of the schoolyard riverbank. one afternoon in the basement school—which was basically just a room filled with repurposed wood benches—you sat near a boy named martin. he was lanky, tall, and wore thick, oversized leather gloves even in the sweltering heat of the basement. he was drawing in the dust on his desk with a stick, his eyes darting around with a nervous, frantic energy.

“do you ever feel like the walls are getting closer?” martin whispered to you, not looking up from his drawing. “like the concrete is actually growing?”

you blinked, surprised he was talking to you. “sometimes. why?”

“the air here,” he said, his voice dropping. “it feels... heavy. like it’s waiting for something to rot.” he looked down at his gloved hands, his knuckles white. “don’t let anyone touch you. stay away from the walls, too.”

james leaned forward from the bench behind you, his eyes narrowing slightly, an instinctive protectiveness taking over. “we’re fine, martin. stay focused on your book.”

then there was juhoon, a boy who always sat in the corner by the air vents. he was quiet, almost invisible, but whenever a fight broke out between the older kids, he would just sit there, staring at the floor. you noticed that whenever he breathed deeply, the air around him seemed to ripple slightly, like a heat haze on a highway. it was subtle, but it was there—a strange, pressurised stillness that made your ears pop whenever you walked past his bench. 

none of you knew it yet, but you were all pieces of a puzzle that the government was desperately trying to control.

that same warmth between you and james was the only thing that kept the apartment livable at night. after the ten o’clock curfew siren wailed across the sector, turning off the building’s main power grid, the room would plunge into total darkness. you could hear the heavy, exhausted snoring of your fathers on the opposite cots, and the quiet, rhythmic sound of the searchlights cutting through the smog outside.

you sat on the very edge of your shared cot, your knees pressed hard against james’ to keep from shifting and making the rusty springs squeak.

“xīn gān,” you whispered, your voice a tiny, fragile thread in the dark. “are you awake?”

“always,” his voice came back instantly, a comforting weight in the blackness. he shifted closer, his hand reaching out under the thin, coarse blanket until his fingers slid between yours, locking tightly. “my hip hurts from the springs in this mattress. i think it’s trying to eat me.”

you let out a silent, breathless laugh, pressing your forehead against his shoulder. “everything in this building is trying to eat us. do you think the carp are still in the river?”

“probably,” he murmured, his dark eyes tracking the slow green beam of the searchlight as it painted a long, glowing stripe across the ceiling. “they’re probably giant monsters now… with wings. and laser eyes… swimming all the way back to taiwan because seoul is too boring now.”

“you still read too many comic books.”

“there’s nothing else to do,” he whispered, turning his head so his nose brushed against your hair. the scent of the artificial candy from your childhood was long gone, replaced by the sharp, metallic smell of the compound’s recycled water, but the warmth of his skin was exactly the same as it had been when you were five. “tiānshǐ?”

“hm?”

“we made it through today,” he whispered, his thumb lightly rubbing the small red dot where the needle had pierced your skin that morning. “we’ll make it through tomorrow, too. i promise.”

“promise?” you whispered back, closing your eyes and leaning your entire weight against him.

“promise,” he whispered. “always.”

it was a fragile, desperate kind of peace. 

you learned to navigate the world through hushed conversations and secret glances. you learned to recognise the specific, heavy footfall of the guards in the hall, and you learned the exact rhythm of the ventilation system so you could talk to james without being overheard. in a world that wanted to grind you into grey dust, you both held onto each other with a fierce, stubborn vitality. you were two survivors in a cage, two children who still remembered the taste of neon green candy and the sight of oil-slick rainbows, and in the silence of the night, that memory was the strongest weapon you had.

© hyuneskkami ❦