#skzcu

Read Nevermore | Masterlist | Nevermore Masterlist

Summary

Still in the building they found in the previous chapter, Seungmin is woken in the middle of the night by a small disturbance in the building. He comes face to face with a girl in the darkness who is dressed in the same clothes as the other patients from District 9 and seems very scared.

She introduces herself as Hana, and Seungmin offers her food, encouraging her to stay when she offers to leave rather than face all eight of them. While she eats, they talk; she points to Chan and asks if he 'invited all of you here too', and explains that she expected to meet some people in this building who knew the way to Miroh where 'they wouldn't be able to catch us again'.

Seungmin admits freely that they have no idea where they are or where they are going. Hana informs him that this is Injeon, and also gives him more information on the purpose of District 9, the Six, and the Cle.

Han wakes up in time for them to hear the sound of engines running on the hills outside and the echoes of voices shouting. Hana tells them it is a group of people called the Isekai, coming to take them back to District 9. They wake the other boys and start moving, first towards the door they entered the building through and then towards a second exit when they hear the sounds of people entering through that door.

The Isekai chase them out into a rocky valley. Chan wants to keep moving down the valley, hiding behind the rocks - Hana insists they will get caught that way and that they should steal the car parked on the ridge. She asks him why he wants to go down the valley when they have 'been that way before, and been caught'.

Chan doesn't have time to ask what she means; the Isekai chase them as they climb the hill, nearly catching Felix. All nine of them make it to the truck parked there, and they take off down the road towards the city.

Characters

This chapter's main intent, other than moving us towards the city of Injeon, is to introduce the first major original characters of the fic - Hana, the girl that joins Stray Kids for the Injeon arc, and Junseo, one of the leaders of the Isekai.

Junseo is very much a secondary character, introduced simply as a figurehead and a voice to the otherwise faceless Isekai. He is a villain through and through, a loyal servant to the Six and an enemy of SKZ, and not important enough to warrant much other information on.

Hana is the first representation of Stay included in Nevermore, inspired by the Prequel: Highlight Reel trailer, in which leaving District 9 is described as 'we went towards a small light, with you' - the you that they are indicating being Stay. She is named one as an indication that she is always destined to be alone - though this won't become truly noticeable until much further in the future.

In this chapter, Hana is introduced as scared and rather like a wild animal, fresh out of District 9. A little of her backstory is included - she used to live in the city, she claims to have met Chan before - but for the most part, she serves as a conduit through which to deliver information to SKZ in an audience-friendly manner, giving us more knowledge on the world that we've been tipped into, the powers at play, and solidifying the fact that we have stepped out of the 'normal' world into something much different.

Plot

There's little to no content pulled directly from music videos for this chapter, except for a few details inspired by different media:

the truck they steal is supposed to be similar to the one they are seen driving in the Side Effects music video

again, the warehouse is supposed to be the building from the end of District 9, adapted to suit the narrative

Read NEVERMORE | Content List

SKZ 1 (original world skz)

The main focus of all the arcs in Nevermore, SKZ 1 are a group of young boys from a world very similar to our own (perhaps even from our world itself). They are musicians, fighting to sign as a group under a company that won't commit to them - on the day that the decision is made to split them apart, one of them is called to the Clé, and as proof of their bond the others follow, unwilling to be split apart.

This SKZ are new to the Clé, and the idea of there being many worlds, their journey through it defined by the powers that point them in each direction they need to go in. Their main focus is to go home to their own world, their ties to it never fading no matter how deep into the Clé they travel - they are not interested in ruling over this universe, and though they want to help it and its people, they often feel that they are powerless to do anything for it. Their journey is one of identity as much as it is an adventure into another place; for them, this is a coming of age, a chance to discover who they are as individuals and as a group before they return to a different fight in their world.

SKZ 2 (clé skz)

The 'main' SKZ of the series, or the first SKZ to exist, these versions are existant throughout the entire series, from their first mentions in Nevermore, to the flip of Neverwas where they are now the villains. Neverwhere is their main story, though their history goes back much further than any of the series reaches.

Like SKZ 1, they were born in a different universe and dragged into the Clé when the time came for The Six to be unseated and for them to take power. This SKZ were the first victims of the Moment, the turning back of time created by The Six, and as such were the first version of SKZ to lose the battle. In the aftermath of this, they threw themselves into the future to avoid being thrown somewhere where they would never get the chance to face The Six again, and broke apart so as to hide seperately, biding their time in places all around the Clé until SKZ 1 would arrive.

This SKZ are older and more knowledgeable than SKZ 1 - they have suffered losses and weathered through years, and they know what they want and what they have to do to get it, even if they begin the journey of Nevermore very isolated and beaten down. Their original world is far behind them now, and so their only allegiance is to the Clé, the world they were born to rule. They are also sorikkun, and far more aware of it than the burgeoning powers that are seen throughout SKZ 1's arcs.

SKZ 3 (clone skz)

Born in Yellow Wood, from the fear and anger of SKZ 1 during their time there in Nevermore, the clones are a piece of that SKZ's soul/being that was left behind, nurtured by the strange world they were created in. They play a role as antagonists in Neverwhere, and are the main focus of the story of Neverwas.

SKZ 3 are the strangest version of SKZ by far - a group of fragmented, confused beings who always feel like there is something missing inside them. Because they were created from it, they begin their story only knowing fear and anger, and it is this and the intrinsic knowledge that something is wrong with them that drives them to chase after the other versions of SKZ, to prove somehow that they are real people just like the other versions of themselves. Often, their thought processes don't make sense, or don't seem logical - as they get more desperate, they only embrace the madness more, folding to the expectations of the world they find themselves in.

Read NEVERMORE | Content List

STRAY KIDS & THE SIX

Throughout all of the Clé's living history, these two forces have been present; two groups, locked in eternal battle for control, new versions of themselves always coming back with new music to light up the worlds. They are called one at a time periodically, when the Miroh or the Clé itself gets bored or stagnant and needs to be moved again; each time another comes, it signifies the end of the reign of the other, until a new version of them is called and the cycle starts again. The only time this has not happened was most recently, when The Six created the Moment to stop Stray Kids and extend their reign past its ending point, spiralling the Clé into an era of blank, faceless art and soulless music, and eventually into time being frozen itself.

THE ISEKAI

The Isekai are the supporters of The Six, a nameless and faceless army that stands behind them. They are near-mythological within the Clé, particularly in Miroh - whether they are real people, or summoned into being out of someone's imagination, the regular people of the city cannot decide. The Isekai are responsible for a number of tasks across the Clé, from peacekeeping to the keeping of the ghosts in Injeon, to overseeing Geomijul and District 9, and whenever someone crosses The Six, they are there.

THE DOKKAEBI

A rebel organisation created in Miroh and Levanter, by a group of people enamoured with the hidden tales of the Clé before The Six came. Their purpose is to remove everyone from power and let the Clé itself become its own governing body again, even if this means a return to a more difficult and nomadic lifestyle in an ever-changing world, fighting against the tight control of The Six which keeps the Clé stable and allows life to run as it would in a 'normal' world outside of its borders.

The dokkaebi are viewed more as a nuisance than anything else by The Six, leading to them being named after a race of mythical, mischievous goblins. They were defeated in the third Moment, where most of them were caught and the rest scattered across the Clé, forming small cells or living in isolation to avoid further punishment, which remains as their current state at the beginning of Nevermore.

SORIKKUN

Sorikkun is the superpower of the Clé, a word to describe people who have the ability to read or manipulate the world in some way. It manifests in many different ways, and sometimes isn't even noticed by the person who wields it; it is just a part of life, something that makes them stand out from the crowd a little more than others. It is tied to artistry, affecting musicians and artists and creators of different pieces of culture, those who already affect the world and the people around them with the skills they have.

There are a lot of different powers that come from being sorikkun. Glitches fall into this category, the inability to be fooled by anything in the Clé, the innate drive to go against the grain. Some can open doors between worlds in one way or another, or can hear what the different worlds are saying or feel their intentions. Others might manipulate things like the winds that blow through Miroh and Levanter, signifying a change in fortunes or circumstances, or see between the worlds in mirrors and windows, or to places outside of the Clé.

THE GWOEMUL

The Gwoemul is a monster that has crawled out of the dark corners of the Nevermore, the in-between of all the worlds, the lining of the universe. It is a world-eater, an immortal outside of the realm of time or purpose, a hungry beast wanting to devour all of the life in the Clé simply out of boredom. It doesn't even have a physical form, its shape changing on any whim it pleases to suit the world it has found itself in.

Like the Clé, it is born from the natural rhythms of the world and is especially tuned into music. Its favourite meal is people's voices; not their physical ability to make sound, but the emotion and intention behind their words, their ability to sing or speak and to have it resonate with others like them. It is capable of far more though; as shown in its singlehanded destruction of Injeon, where it turned every physical being into a ghost, a fraction of a soul left wandering around as if it never died.

The Gwoemul is a sly and devious creature, and capable of pettiness too - once crossed, it delights in the pursuit of revenge. The Six in particular have crossed it several times - and so, even though the potential of its resident's voices is an enticing enough meal, its driving force is to escape the corner of Geomijul it is imprisoned in and make its way to Miroh, to devour everything in its wake and finally cut The Six down to size.

GLITCHES

Glitches, simply, are people who cannot fit into the crowd. They are a type of sorikkun that is more common than the others. Where everything in the Clé moves to a rhythm, like a charmed snake or a sailor hearing a siren call, they move against it, creating their own burst of melody over the top of it. They are cursed to be individual and other, to float between worlds without ever being held by one, as no door can close to them, no ground can trick them into staying - and under the rule of The Six, they are cursed to be outsiders too, looked down upon and shunned as criminals by a society that no longer understands what their gift is for.

THE MOMENT

Read NEVERMORE | Content List

THE CLÉ

Stuck between the borders of 'real' worlds, the Clé is a collection of halfway places, limbos and middle-of-the-roads. The rules of nature can't always be applied in these places; they aren't planets that revolve around a sun or stretches of land where you can walk from one to another, but flat planes and long infinities that loop back on themselves. Some of them think for themselves. Others won't speak at all.

The thing that connects them all is music - moving the air and stirring the waters, bringing rain or snow or night or day - and the music is found in Miroh, the centre to which every other world connects. The Clé itself is not a living thing; there are people who would claim to rule it, but the Miroh is the only thing that can really control the Clé; its people are only here to please it with music.

Once, the Clé was a wild place, its worlds and their doorways moving about with no warning or reason and the rules of each plane changing with the wind. In those days, you could go to sleep in one place and wake up somewhere entirely different with no way home.

It was Miroh who called the first version of SKZ or The Six to the Clé, seeking music that would tame the wild lands so that their people could live, and it was Miroh who fell in love with them and the tension that would always grow when the two groups existed in the world together. For a long time, they traded places back and forth, never knowing that each time they came they were only another version of those who had come before - until The Six discovered this hidden history, and sought more control than they had ever had before.

Their fear of time passing and their reign ending led them to create the Moment, a way to use the life force of the Clé to turn back the passing of days. Through careful use of this, they were able to keep the Clé under their tight fist, turning back the victories of the next iteration of SKZ and the dokkaebi; but unknowingly, they let the Gwoemul slip into the world from the Nevermore and the resulting battle over Injeon led to the Moment being used too often, draining the Clé of power and freezing the world in the repetitive cycle of a single day. This is how it stands when the original SKZ arrive in Nevermore.

---

MIROH

as seen in: Miroh, Unveil Track: Victory Song, Victory Song Performance Video, Chronosaurus, Clé 2: Yellow Wood Trailer, Levanter, InLife Trailer, Back Door, Winter Falls, Oddinary (Main Trailer), Circus, Maxident Trailer, Give Me Your TMI, Ddu Du Ddu Du (Kingdom Stage), Victory Song (2020 MAMA), Venom + Maniac (2022 MAMA)

Miroh is an infinite city that grows and shrinks as the need for its buildings ebbs and flows. Being the nexus and the driving force of the Clé, it is a living thing that watches over all the worlds, not just itself, and is also the source of all music and voices in the Clé, the thing that draws people into the doorways between it and the real world, or sends them away. It is a neutral thing, generally kind and unconcerned with specific troubles within its walls, but it does love the creatures that make music for it to listen to and the games that it can play with them - sometimes at the cost of its favourite pieces.

For most of its history, the streets of Miroh have been unmappable, their layout changing with the wind and new structures always being squeezed in or taken away. Everything is out of order in the Miroh, inside the buildings and outside on the streets; to travel anywhere, people step out the front door and trust it to guide them where they want to go.

It is only within the Moment, when time is frozen, that the streets have settled into a permanent formation, only smaller sections of alleys maintaining that wild persistance of changing their layout regularly. Even new buildings have been curbed to a particular section of the city, while other sections lay empty.

There is no water or food to easily be found within Miroh without passage to Levanter and Injeon as there is no rain when every day is the same, cloudless passing of the sun. There is also no art or music anymore; the city is nearly on lockdown to hide from the Gwoemul that wants to take its voice, suffocating under its own silence.

---

BEISEU

as seen in: Hellevator, Levanter

The most common entrance into the Clé is Beiseu; a small, flat world consisting of a single plain where only deadnettle grows, pretty purple that stretches right out to the horizon. The field is surrounded by a forest, which is then ringed by mountains that loop back on themselves, and there is nothing else to be found except for the elevator from which people come and go.

The walls of the world are thin in Beiseu. Occasionally, a city can be seen in the sky - Miroh, usually, or sometimes Levanter - and mountains can be seen through the ground. Doors between worlds open easier in Beiseu than any other place in the Clé, and it is most closely connected to Injeon, meaning that on the right day, you could fall through the ground at any moment and find yourself in another place entirely. It's best to watch your step here, no matter how mesmerising the horizon.

---

INJEON

as seen in: I Am NOT Trailer, District 9, Voices Performance Video, I Am You, Scars

A desert world, Injeon is a flat plain of rock and dirt and not much else, ringed by tall mountains that will only swallow you in fog until you can't find your way through. In the past, Injeon was prone to long droughts and heavy, one-off rainfalls that caused flash flooding and very little plant growth, carving out an image of itself of dry rivers and long, dusty stretches of nothing, its plant life all dead and withering away on the ground before it even has a chance to grow.

Being such a flat, empty space made Injeon the perfect space for innovation from the Six, expansion away from the fickle nature of the Miroh to a more stable, sleeping world where they could build life as they wanted. A city was purpose-built here, and after the Moment, a prison in the form of District 9, and for a long time it functioned as intended; until the Gwoemul was attracted to its noise and its doorways to Miroh and it was destroyed, its entire population wiped off the map.

Now, in the Moment, its city stands as a ruin on its eastern end, the remnants of the fight against the Gwoemul, and an empty city inhabited by the remnants of its citizen's souls further inside its borders. It is caught on the day that a storm breaks over a drought, rain washing it away every evening, and yet still nothing will grow - like the ground can't forget that it was barren, no matter how many days it lives.

---

GEOMIJUL

as seen in: Venom, Red Lights, 5 Star Dome Tour VCR 3

A liminal space that most often dresses itself in endless hallways, Geomijul, the Spiderweb, draws people in like flies to a trap, and doesn't easily let them go. Like Miroh, it's a maze - unlike Miroh, it doesn't want you to make your way through its hallways, but takes the most joy in seeing you lost and scared; especially if you happen to run into one of the monsters hiding in its halls.

Under the control of the Six, Geomijul has become a halfway house for undesirable characters that cannot be trapped within District 9, rather than going through the ordeal of luring them into Asadal without getting caught themselves. While Geomijul cannot be sealed off completely from the rest of the Clé, possessing the power to open its own doors wherever it sees fit, it is clever enough a prison to know when it should hold an individual for as long as it can, and who it will not hurt to allow to slip through the cracks.

---

LEVANTER

as seen in: Double Knot, Astronaut, Clé: Levanter Trailer, GoLive Trailer, God's Menu, Levanter, NoEasy Thunderous Trailer, Maniac, Lonely St, Freeze , Hey Monster! + Thunderous (2021 MAMA), DLC

Miroh's sister, the open land to match its endless urban sprawl, Levanter is a utopia of rolling fields, sprawling lakes, and tidy forests dotting the landscape. Homes don't come as easily here as they do in Miroh, needing to be built themselves and cared for so that the land doesn't swallow them, but crops are given in abundance, far from the modest effort of greenhouses in other cities.

Levanter has always been an even-tempered place, its weather and its temper consistent and its tolerance with the small city built upon its surface by the Six stretching long. This doesn't mean that it cannot be cruel though - where Miroh is gentle in its playfulness, Levanter is fickle and severe in its punishment to those who don't respect it. Many times, upstarts have found the ground ripped into chasms beneath their feet or the wind strong enough to toss them over the mountains in Levanter.

---

YELLOW WOOD

as seen in: Clé 2: Yellow Wood Trailer, Side Effects, TOP, Miroh (Kingdom Stage), I'll Be Your Man (Kingdom Stage), Side Effects/God's Menu (Kingdom Stage)

The rules of Yellow Wood are hard to understand to those stepping into its weird dreamscape for the first time. The lines here are blurred, between individual souls and creatures and magic and science - it's easy to leave part of yourself behind in Yellow Wood without realising, and easier again to get lost altogether.

As the name suggests, a great deal of the flora found in Yellow Wood is yellow; rolling hills and autumnal forests make up its majority. It seems to be an infinite space, as no one has reached its edge before and returned to tell the tale, though there are plenty who have tried.

While Yellow Wood isn't a thinking world like Miroh, it is prone to being wispy and whimsical, coming and going from the Clé as it pleases, the opening and closing of its doorways hard to predict. This also makes it a place that can be dangerous to visit, along with its habit of breaking souls apart and combining them together, as there is never a guarentee of a way out, or of being placed back in the same time and place that you came from.

---

ASADAL

as seen in: TOP, 5-Star Trailer, S-Class, Back Door Opening Video, Topline, Get Lit, 3rd Fanmeeting: For 5-Star Teaser, Social Path

A sliver of land in the corner of the Clé, Asadal is the least accessible of all the worlds - and the hardest to leave once you arrive there. Its doors typically only open into Yellow Wood, where it is the place most often seen in the sky, and they are one-way, luring unsuspecting travellers into its trap.

Everything in Asadal moves in circles; the city, the rivers, and the black wasteland beyond it. The sun comes up rarely, cloaking the world in cloud and darkness. No one knows where the borders of the world are, or what lurks out there in the darkness, because no one has ever returned from a trip to Asadal. It is widely regarded as an obscure sort of prison, albeit one as likely to swallow its jailors as it is its captives.

---

MEORI

as seen in: Levanter, Easy, Thunderous, The Sound

An ever-changing landscape, Meori is the most unstable of the three city-states of the Clé. You never know, stepping through the door, if it will be a desert or a mountain range, grasslands or swamp. Storms rage across its surface and the ocean often rises to swallow its land.

In the Moment, it was caught in an endless storm, the land ravaged - like Injeon, Meori is a ghost town now, impossible to access and uninhabitable by even the bravest souls.

---

THE NEVERMORE

as seen in: Social Path, Rockstar: Prologue, LaLaLaLa

Read the full version here.

Read NEVERMORE | Content List

STRAY KIDS & THE SIX

Throughout all of the Clé's living history, two forces have always been present; two groups, locked in eternal battle for control of the music of the Clé. They are called one at a time periodically, when the Miroh or the Clé itself gets bored or stagnant and needs to be moved again; each time another comes, it signifies the end of the reign of the former. The only time this has not happened was most recently, when The Six strove to stop the turnover of their reign and extend it past its ending point, spiralling the Clé into an era of blank, faceless art and soulless music, and eventually into time being frozen itself.

THE ISEKAI

The Isekai are the supporters of The Six, a nameless and faceless army that stands behind them. They are near-mythological within the Clé, particularly in Miroh - whether they are real people, or summoned into being out of someone's imagination, the regular people of the city cannot decide. The Isekai are responsible for a number of tasks across the Clé, from peacekeeping to the keeping of the ghosts in Injeon, to overseeing Geomijul and District 9, and whenever someone crosses The Six, they are there.

THE DOKKAEBI

A rebel organisation created in Miroh and Levanter, by a group of people enamoured with the hidden tales of the Clé before The Six came. Their purpose is to remove everyone from power and let the Clé itself become its own governing body again, even if this means a return to a more difficult and nomadic lifestyle in an ever-changing world, fighting against the tight control of The Six which keeps the Clé stable and allows life to run as it would in a 'normal' world outside of its borders.

The dokkaebi are viewed more as a nuisance than anything else by The Six, leading to them being named after a race of mythical, mischievous goblins. They were defeated in the past, when most of them were caught and the rest scattered across the Clé, forming small cells or living in isolation to avoid further punishment, which remains as their current state at the beginning of Nevermore.

SORIKKUN

Sorikkun is the superpower of the Clé, a word to describe people who have the ability to read or manipulate the world in some way. It manifests in many different ways, and sometimes isn't even noticed by the person who wields it; it is just a part of life, something that makes them stand out from the crowd a little more than others. It is tied to artistry, affecting musicians and artists and creators of different pieces of culture, those who already affect the world and the people around them with the skills they have.

GLITCHES