The final shove sent Seonghyeon crashing shoulder-first against the rusted fence behind the gymnasium, and the violent tremor that followed traveled through his entire frame with enough force to leave his jaw locked tight, while laughter burst around him almost immediately, casual and effortless, as though the spectacle had already become an ordinary ritual woven into the school's daily rhythm.
"Yo, look at him," one boy muttered through a grin, nudging his friend with an elbow before jerking his chin toward the ground. "I think he's actually gonna cry this time."
Another student snorted quietly before driving the toe of his sneaker into Seonghyeon's bag, sending it skidding across the damp pavement until it collapsed beside a shallow puddle stained with muddy rainwater and cigarette ash.
"Leave it," the tallest among them said with a bored wave of his hand. "He'll just keep following us around anyway."
The group drifted away afterward without waiting for a response, their voices gradually blending into the noise of the campus courtyard where students continued passing beneath the fading afternoon light, indifferent in the practiced way people often became after witnessing the same cruelty too many times.
Seonghyeon remained beside the fence for several long seconds, one hand braced weakly against the cold metal while his breathing steadied itself in uneven intervals, and beneath the coppery taste gathering along his tongue, he could already feel the cut inside his lip beginning to swell.
Somewhere near the front gate, a group of first-year students burst into loud conversation before dissolving into laughter again, and for reasons he could not fully explain, that ordinary sound exhausted him more than the bruises spreading beneath his skin ever could.
By the time he reached the apartment complex, evening had already settled across the city in muted shades of gray-blue, while dim fluorescent lights flickered weakly along the stairwell leading toward the fourth floor.
The apartment greeted him with silence so complete that even the faint hum of the refrigerator beyond the kitchen sounded strangely distant, mechanical in a way that reminded him less of home and more of an empty convenience store after midnight.
"Mom?" he called halfheartedly while slipping off his shoes near the entrance, although he already knew nobody would answer.
Only silence returned.
He let his bag fall beside the couch before walking straight toward the bathroom, where the harsh fluorescent lighting exposed every injury with unforgiving clarity, revealing the dark bruise forming beneath his eye alongside the thin streak of dried blood lingering near the corner of his mouth.
For a brief moment, he stared at his reflection without moving, studying the familiar expression worn by someone who had spent too much time pretending certain things no longer hurt.
"Sigh…" he muttered beneath his breath before turning the faucet open. "At least aim somewhere less obvious next time, you bastards."
Cold water soaked through the towel almost instantly, and when he pressed the fabric carefully against his face, a sharp sting climbed through his nerves hard enough to make his shoulders tense.
The bathroom mirror fogged slightly from the running tap while droplets slid slowly down the sink beneath him, and somewhere in the apartment above, muffled footsteps crossed creaking floorboards before fading again into silence.
Seonghyeon lowered the towel afterward and met his own reflection once more.
Then he laughed quietly.
The sound carried no amusement whatsoever, because the thought already settling inside his mind felt painfully simple: tomorrow would unfold exactly the same way it always did, with the same classrooms, the same bruises, and the same hollow apologies teachers offered whenever things became too visible to ignore.
Later that night, exhaustion dragged him onto the bed fully clothed, and he collapsed against the mattress without bothering to search the kitchen for dinner, while the ceiling fan rotated lazily overhead with a repetitive mechanical clicking sound that gradually blended into the darkness surrounding him.
His gaze eventually drifted toward the digital clock resting near his cluttered desk.
11:58 PM.
The red numbers glowed faintly against the shadows coating the room, and as his eyelids slowly grew heavier, Seonghyeon listened absentmindedly to the distant rumble of traffic somewhere beyond the apartment windows.
Two minutes later, freezing wind swept violently across his skin.
Seonghyeon's eyes snapped open immediately, and before his thoughts could properly catch up, he lurched upright only to feel damp grass bending beneath his palms instead of bedsheets.
Moonlight stretched endlessly across a vast open field where silver waves rolled through the tall grass beneath the force of the wind, while the sharp scent of wet earth and incoming rain filled his lungs so suddenly that panic struck him before reason ever could.
"What the hell—?"
Voices erupted nearby almost at once.
"Where are we?!"
"Hyung, what is this?!"
A girl wearing oversized pajamas stumbled backward while clutching her phone against her chest, her trembling hands repeatedly tapping the dead screen despite the static flickering across it without interruption.
Another man turned frantically in circles beneath the moonlight before shouting toward nobody in particular. "Who brought us here?!"
Dozens of people stood scattered throughout the massive field, all caught in the same confusion and rising terror, some barefoot, others still wrapped in blankets or winter jackets thrown on carelessly moments before sleep, while fear spread steadily through the crowd like cracks racing beneath thin ice.
Seonghyeon slowly rose to his feet as cold wind swept across the field once more, and somewhere far beyond the restless crowd, hidden somewhere within the endless darkness stretching past the silver grasslands, something enormous let out a distant roar.
The panic consuming the field had not yet settled into coherent thought when the heavens above them began to deform, because what first resembled distant storm clouds quickly thickened into something grotesquely unnatural, a spreading tide of darkness that rolled across the sky with violent fluidity until the remaining traces of moonlight vanished completely beneath its weight, leaving the endless grasslands submerged beneath a suffocating twilight where even nearby faces blurred into uncertain shadows.
Uneasy murmurs spread immediately afterward as people turned upward in confusion, their voices overlapping in nervous fragments while cold wind swept through the crowd hard enough to send trembling waves across the silver grass beneath their feet.
"Hey… this isn't normal," someone whispered somewhere behind Seonghyeon, although the attempt at composure collapsed beneath the strain tightening his voice. "There's no way this is normal."
Nobody argued with him, because the darkness above them no longer resembled weather moving through the atmosphere, nor did it behave like clouds gathering before rain, and the longer people stared upward, the more unbearable the sensation became, as though the sky itself had transformed into something living and hostile that had only just begun noticing their existence.
The black waves churned slowly overhead afterward, folding into themselves with unnatural depth while distant distortions rippled across the abyss like massive shapes turning somewhere far beyond human sight, and before the crowd could fully process the horrifying scale of what towered above them, a single golden eye opened silently within the darkness.
The reaction throughout the field proved immediate and visceral.
People stumbled backward instinctively while scattered screams tore through the suffocating silence, because the eye suspended above them dwarfed entire buildings in scale, its molten-gold iris glowing against the endless void while a narrow black pupil contracted with slow, deliberate focus before settling upon the crowd beneath it.
Then another eye opened nearby.
Then several more.
Within moments, the heavens became littered with countless glowing eyes emerging from the darkness one after another, each one shifting independently while their pupils moved with unmistakable awareness, studying the terrified crowd below with the cold patience of predators inspecting trapped prey.
Seonghyeon felt his stomach twist violently the moment several of those eyes turned toward him simultaneously, because despite the thousands of people scattered throughout the field, the attention descending from above felt disturbingly personal, intimate in the worst possible way, as though something ancient had already memorized every weakness hidden beneath his skin.
Nearby, a woman wrapped both arms around her younger son while trying desperately to shield his face against her shoulder, yet the child continued crying uncontrollably beneath ragged breaths.
"Mom, they're looking at us," he whimpered repeatedly, his voice cracking harder each time he spoke. "Why are they looking at us?"
No answer came.
The atmosphere itself had begun trembling faintly now, and as the black waves overhead twisted inward toward a single point near the center of the abyss, a deep metallic resonance spread across the field slowly enough for everyone to feel it vibrating through their bones before truly hearing the sound itself.
Then the darkness split apart.
A pillar of golden radiance erupted downward from the heavens with enough brilliance to force people across the field to shield their eyes immediately, while the surrounding abyss recoiled violently from the light spreading through it, writhing like living flesh pressed against fire.
Something descended within the beam.
At first, the object remained obscured behind the overwhelming radiance surrounding it, although as the pillar dimmed slightly, the silhouette gradually sharpened into a shape recognizable enough for terror to spread through the crowd all over again.
A crown woven entirely from golden thorns floated silently in midair.
The crown never touched the ground beneath it, nor did it continue descending beyond the center of the radiant pillar, because it merely hovered there motionlessly several meters above the field while thin streams of light pulsed slowly across its twisted surface like veins carrying molten gold through sharpened branches.
The sight carried an unbearable contradiction.
Its craftsmanship appeared almost holy at first glance, yet every thorn curved inward with such deliberate cruelty that Seonghyeon could almost imagine flesh tearing open beneath the metal.
Then a figure emerged from the white radiance behind it.
He was not colossal enough to blot out the world around him, yet his presence alone distorted the atmosphere so completely that everyone instinctively recoiled the moment he appeared, because although the man stood only twice the height of the tallest human present, every movement surrounding him carried the unbearable pressure of something infinitely greater than mortal existence pretending to wear a human shape.
White robes resembling ceremonial hakama draped across his powerful frame with impossible stillness, untouched by the wind ravaging the field below, while intricate golden patterns traced themselves along the layered fabric like sacred scripture burned directly into silk.
His physique appeared refined rather than monstrous, broad shoulders and defined musculature visible beneath the flowing garments without unnecessary exaggeration, yet the terrifying calm radiating from his posture made him feel less like a warrior and more like an executioner standing moments before judgment.
Only his eyes possessed true color.
Golden irises glowed faintly against pale skin while dark pupils rested within them like cracks split through molten metal, and when his gaze lowered toward the field beneath him, the sheer weight hidden behind that expressionless stare caused several people nearby to collapse onto their knees immediately.
Nobody could endure being looked at for long.
The crowned figure raised one hand slowly afterward, and despite the simplicity of the gesture, the entire field seemed to tense alongside it as though reality itself anticipated what would happen next.
The floating crown drifted toward him.
Every person present watched in suffocating silence while the thorns approached the figure's head inch by inch, and the instant the metal settled against his pale hair, the golden eyes filling the heavens widened simultaneously.
Then the world changed.
An overwhelming pressure exploded outward from the crowned figure hard enough to drive countless people face-first into the frozen grass while blood burst from trembling noses across the field, and before anyone could recover from the suffocating force crushing against their bodies, enormous wings erupted behind the man in violent succession.
The sound alone resembled cathedral walls collapsing.
One pair unfurled first, formed entirely from blinding white feathers streaked faintly with gold, although another pair emerged almost immediately afterward beneath the first, followed by another, and another, until vast wings spread endlessly behind the crowned figure like a living wall stretching across the radiant heavens themselves.
The field disappeared beneath their shadow.
Each movement of those wings disturbed the atmosphere violently enough for the surrounding air to scream, while loose grass and scattered debris spiraled upward around the kneeling crowd caught beneath the overwhelming presence towering before them.
Seonghyeon struggled to breathe.
Not because the pressure crushed his lungs physically, but because every instinct buried within his body had already recognized the horrifying truth standing above them.
This was not a god descending kindly toward humanity.
This was something that expected worship as naturally as breathing.
The crowned figure lowered his gaze afterward, and for the first time since appearing within the endless white radiance, a faint expression finally touched his face.
Disappointment.
Nothing more.
Yet somehow that subtle shift unsettled Seonghyeon far worse than rage ever could have, because the eyes looking down upon the trembling crowd carried the same detached calm a human might show while observing insects struggling beneath rainwater.
Then the figure slowly widened his arms, the countless wings spreading further behind him until the heavens themselves seemed consumed by feathers and gold, while his voice descended across the field with terrifying softness.
"Humans," he said gently, although the sound echoed through the air like distant bells ringing at a funeral, "must fear always be the first thing your hearts choose?"