STORYLINE: US Air Force base, Okinawa, late afternoon.
Angry clouds hung heavy over the Pacific.
Massive Mecha Scorpions moved into formation around the lighter infantry armor, their hydraulic joints hissing as hot steam vented across the puddle-choked tarmac. The ground vibrated beneath their multi-leg stomps. Behind them, armored hovercopters whined on helipads as the Night Troops loaded the Scorpion Attack Force for the sea crossing.
Cutting through the rainy mist and reek of aviation fuel came the legendary Commander Ashe. Tall, razor-thin, and clad in a high-density commando weave, Ashe moved with the unnerving stillness of a ghost. A crimson scar ran from his brow down his cheek, while a tarnished silver Victoria Cross dangled from his septum ring over his lips. In the dim tarmac light, his dilated pupils caught the red hazard beacons like a predator's eyes.
He unlatched the massive blast doors of the war room. Cold ozone-heavy air rushed out to meet the suffocating tropical humidity.
"President Spyder." His voice sounded more like a professor's than a warrior's. "The 101st is within visual range of Jeju Island."
Maximilian stood over the tactical holotable, red eyes gleaming. Overhead lights caught the sharp edge of elongated fangs as he devilishly grinned. He clapped a heavy hand onto Ashe’s shoulder with a firm grip. “This is the last stand of the wily old Pharaoh and his Harlot,” his deep voice rumbled. “Corrupt humans and lesser monsters are no defense against the might of the Vampire Nation. This is our world now. His reign ended in Berlin.”
His grin widened.
“Tomorrow, we finally burn out his ancient bloodline.”
Alarms went off, bathing the war room in red. Warnings violently flickered across the holotable. A distressed transmission broke through, framing the face of the Flying Bats Squad Leader. Inside his cockpit, lights flickered on and off as the craft tumbled out of control.
"REPORT!" Maximilian leaned over the projection, jaw tight.
Audio shattered into metallic screeching. Only two words survived the static before the signal died completely: "...No power..."
Ashe immediately swept his hand across the control interface, switching feed angles.
On screen, three more black hovercopters dropped from the sky like lead weights. Their engine glow winked out simultaneously before the black ocean swallowed them whole.
"PULL BACK! REGROUP!" Maximilian roared. "Deploy the Mosquito Bots. All units, locate the perimeter of that bloody shield!"
Ashe rerouted the holotable to an orbital optical feed. Below them, Jeju Island was going dark as if a black wave was sweeping over it. The sky above the island burned crimson beneath the storm clouds. Streetlights were dead. Buildings stood dark along the coastline. Even the traffic signals had died.
"An Entropy Barrier," Ashe said, his voice flat and analytical. "They anticipated our arrival."
Maximilian’s expression turned to iron. "Paine. That bitch betrayed us,” he snarled.
"Possibly. But extending an Entropy field this far beyond the Forbidden Zone would require infrastructure." His eyes narrowed. "The real question is, where did they get enough Entropy to power it?"
Maximilian huffed in disgust.
Ashe zoomed in on the rocky shoreline, targeting a slim lattice structure disguised among sea cliffs. "Notice these relay towers.”
He mapped the shoreline with two quick keystrokes. Six identical towers lined the coast in a precise geometric grid.
"Equidistant. Coordinated." Ashe traced the pattern across the glass. "These aren't cell towers.”
Maximilian turned toward the open comms panel, muscles coiled like a spring. "Unit Five, see that central spire? Dive bomb it."
The sub-window displayed a surviving pilot, pale against his flight harness. "Sir, our flight systems will die the second we breach the boundary zone."
Maximilian sneered into the camera. "Then climb to maximum altitude. Aim. And let momentum carry you. Gravity does not require voltage. Ram that target at top speed, soldier.”
A heavy chill fell across the room.
“Delay that order.” Ashe stepped smoothly into the frame, placed himself directly between Maximilian and the holotable, and clicked the master mute button.
The war room went completely silent. Maximilian’s eyes blazed with lethal fury. For three long seconds, the air balanced on the edge of violence as the President confronted his commander's defiance.
Ashe did not flinch. "Wasting pilots and expensive resources on tower relays is inefficient. There is no need to sacrifice pilots and aircraft when the towers can be dismantled by hand. Send the remaining 101st Flying Bats. They can tear those structures apart with more… traditional methods.”
Maximilian glared at him, the tension slowly bleeding out of his shoulders, replaced by a slow, ruthless grin. "Do you think your elite boys still remember how to hunt with wing and claw?"
"It is innate," Ashe said. He unholstered a long-barreled WWII service pistol from his side, the cursed steel dull and heavy under the tactical lights.
“Old technology served us well in Europe.”
Max stared at the antique weapon. "That gun is over a century out of date."
Ashe checked the chamber, the metallic clack cutting through the silence.
"Digital systems fail. Blood and iron do not."
He raised his eyes. The Victoria Cross glinted in the red hazard light.
"We will hunt in the dark."
HAPPY OCTOBER, Everyone! Best month of the year. *throws fall leaves* I have fun spooky posts in the works with Engine Room items. The Engine Room is a historical fantasy event filled with high quality items, gifts, and even hosts DJ parties. This post was inspired by the many awesome war things at the event, and scorpions! I had making a more movie like image for this post.
On him, Maximilian Spyder:
Outfit:FOE - Imprecari Outfit, Legacy Male (Engine Room)(1999L)
Gloves:FOE - Imprecari Gloves, Legacy Male (Engine Room)(752L)
Boots:FOE - Imprecari Boots, Legacy Male (Engine Room)(799L)
STORYLINE: "We are reporting live from the edge of the Forbidden Zone!"
The frantic voice crackled from a holographic tablet resting on the steel desk, its audio ragged with static and barely cutting through the deafening thrum vibrating from outside.
From the quiet dark of the Okinawa command bunker, Maximilian Spyder watched the glitching archive footage. His long, pale fingers danced over the tablet's controls while his other hand idly twirled a black king chess piece. He was an ancient Briton warlord surviving in a cybernetic age. In stark contrast to his jet-black hair, his skin was the color of bleached bone. But it was his eyes that truly betrayed his terrifying power: solid, pitch-black voids of a supreme apex predator. Where his eternal rival’s eyes burned with gold, Maximilian’s shone with a cold, merciless crimson.
Behind him, torrential rain battered the reinforced glass, each drop a tiny, violent percussion against the sweating steel walls. The storm was merely a backdrop to the mechanized empire mobilizing for war on the tarmac below. Matte-black stealth hover-copters whipped the heavy, ozone-scented air into a wall of sound. Beneath them, thousands of vampire soldiers marched with machine-like precision. They wore high-tech, interlocking tactical armor and carried silver-alloy rifles equipped with UV-laser sights that sliced through the deluge like thin, blood-red wires.
Stark white UN insignias gleamed on the sides of the massive transports. They were no longer monsters lurking in the shadows. They were a supernatural superpower: authorized, weaponized, and preparing to strike.
A heavy transport shuddered the ceiling overhead. Maximilian didn't blink. His focus remained locked on the tablet as the reporter's face, framed by the rusted, towering gates of the Forbidden Zone, filled the screen.
"It’s not radioactive! There are no biohazards!" Lisa Liemawr’s scream tore over the ambient roar of the engines. "That’s right, folks, it’s all a government lie! What’s really inside the Zone is monsters! The government has a pact with them! Our boy, Yoon Jihoon, he’s the first person to escape that place alive, and they set him on fire for it!"
The camera panned over a crowd of terrified students, eventually zooming in on a dossier image of Yoon Jihoon. A second later, the feed cut to the final, horrifying footage: a human-sized inferno blazing across a college baseball field.
Maximilian stopped twirling the chess piece.
"Excuse me, Sir," a high-ranking officer interrupted, his combat boots clicking sharply as he stepped into the dark bunker. "Incoming Deep-Net encrypted call. It appears to be from Mother Superior."
Maximilian’s red irises flared slightly, the title echoing like a ghost from another decade. "Are the credentials legitimate?"
"The security certificate is out of date, but yes. It's an authentic ping from the Neu Seoul network." The officer handed over a heavy, secure halophone and immediately stepped back, lowering his eyes.
Maximilian laid the device flat on the tactical table and pressed accept.
The air above the projector shimmered, smelling faintly of scorched copper. A classified, military-grade VR link established itself, weaving a flawless, table-top hologram into the dimly lit bunker. The figure that materialized was not the visionary engineer Maximilian expected. It was a blonde woman clad in the austere, symbol-laden habit of a nun. Her digital avatar blinked, adjusting to the simulated rain hammering the bunker and the sharp chemical scent of jet fuel drifting through the ventilation.
"Who are you?" Maximilian’s voice was a low, authoritative rumble that seemed to vibrate in the very floorboards. "And how did you get this line of communication?"
"I’m taking a massive risk contacting you," the woman replied. Her digital form stabilized, and she lowered her hood to reveal a cold, deeply exhausted face. "My name is Paine. Acting Mother Superior of the Children of Apophis."
Maximilian planted his knuckles on the heavy-duty tactical table and leaned forward. "And why is Lucien Ginerva’s most loyal disciple calling his archenemy?"
The hologram flickered as Paine bristled. "For two years, I believed my predecessor, Sophia, was merely in hiding. Tonight, I received confirmation her body has been found."
Paine’s digital avatar shuddered slightly, her rigid posture failing for a fraction of a second.
"She left a contingency packet with strict instructions to open it only if her death was confirmed. I broke the seal an hour ago." She swallowed. "Its contents included her secret contacts and far more than I ever wanted to know."
Maximilian murmured, the sound blending with the thunder outside. "Yes, I have not heard from her in some time. I assumed the worst."
"So it’s true, then. She was working for you. A traitor and a heretic," she sneered.
"Hmm," Maximilian offered a terrifyingly polite smile. "I imagine she contacted me for the exact same reason you are now."
Paine ground her teeth. "Make no mistake, I am not your ally. What I want, what we, the Children of Apophis, want, is to restore the Old Ways."
Maximilian let out a short, hollow chuckle. He picked up a crystal goblet of synthetic blood from the desk, swirling the thick, scarlet liquid slowly.
"I’m aware you run Lucien’s scam plastic surgery clinic," he said, his tone entirely unbothered. "Something extraordinary must have happened for you to turn on a master you've served for decades. But first, enlighten me. What exactly do you mean by the Old Ways?"
"The natural order," Paine said, her voice dropping into a fanatic's mesmerizing cadence. "All things must die."
Maximilian raised an eyebrow, his gaze dragging over the intricate embroidered symbols on her habit. "So you worship Apophis not as a God, but as the symbol of death?"
"Neither. Apophis is a force of nature," Paine corrected sharply. "Entropy. The physical direction of time itself. Order to disorder. There are too many undead walking the Earth, defying the arrow of time." She pointed a trembling digital finger at him. "How old, exactly, are you?"
Maximilian smiled, allowing a single, razor-sharp fang to peek over his lower lip. "An amusing irony, Sister. You worship decay, yet you serve the oldest, most vain creature of our kind, a man obsessed with erasing the very signs of decay you revere. You don't practice your religion very well."
"Apparently, neither did MasterGin," Paine fired back, stepping so close to the edge of her holographic boundary that the projection crackled at its edges. "He tricked us. Betrayed his own creed. He doesn't want to feed Apophis to honor the universe. Sophia warned me, but I didn't believe her."
She paused, her hands pressing flat against her habit.
"MasterGin wants to use Apophis, the only God capable of killing other Gods, to murder one for him. He wants to slay his creator."
Maximilian went entirely still. The scarlet liquid in his goblet stopped swirling. He set the crystal glass down with a slow, deliberate click that cut through the baseline hum of the bunker.
"Lucien wants to slay the Pharaoh?" Maximilian’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. "A bold delusion, even for him. How does a fraud plastic surgeon intend to shackle a cosmic force?"
Paine took a sharp, jagged breath, her eyes darting to the tactical maps on his desk. "He spent centuries engineering the infrastructure." She stopped, her jaw working. "Apophis cannot be tamed by worship alone. So he changed the parameters. If the god will not obey him, he will trap it in something that will."
Maximilian glanced at the peripheral glow of his tablet, where the muted footage of the university students continued to loop. His eyes locked onto the frozen frame of Yoon Jihoon. He tapped the glass directly over the boy's face.
"The boy who escaped the Forbidden Zone,” Maximilian murmured, completing the equation. He looked at Paine. "He is building a vessel."
"Yes," Paine whispered, the confession leaving her sounding entirely hollow. "The Opening of the Mouth ceremony is tomorrow. If he succeeds, he controls the weapon that ends the Ruler. And that’s only the start. He intends to remake the world in his design, with power I doubt he can control. The consequences are too horrible to fathom."
"Indeed," Maximilian said softly. He leaned back, letting the silence stretch between them until the weight of it became a weapon.
A sheet of rain lashing across the reinforced window swallowed the tarmac armada in a blanket of grey. Paine looked past him, taking in the silhouettes of the stealth transports and the sheer scale of the mobilization.
"Can you stop them?" she asked, the desperation finally bleeding through her rigid exterior. "Can you take them out?"
Maximilian did not answer immediately. He reached beneath his heavy tactical collar and pulled out a thick silver chain. Hanging from the center was a single, yellowed human canine tooth. He laid it flat on the illuminated tactical map, the ancient bone stark against the glowing blue topography of Neu Seoul.
"With this tooth, I purchased sovereignty for the Vampire Nation."
For a heartbeat, the red in Maximilian's eyes disappeared, leaving only two endless black wells staring back at her. Lightning violently strobed outside, flashing his pale face in stark white relief.
"Berlin, 1945. The Allies were so desperate, they forged an alliance with creatures that eat them."
"Wait a minute." Paine’s holographic eyes grew wide as she stared at the relic. "Are you suggesting that tooth is...?"
"Yes." Maximilian tucked the necklace back beneath his armor, hiding history away. "We can make many things that should be dead, die, possibly even Lucien Ginerva. However, the Ruler is beyond our capabilities. He is too old and too powerful."
"So this conversation is pointless. I shouldn’t have called." Paine moved her hand toward her console to sever the connection.
"Not necessarily," Maximilian said, his voice smooth and absolute. "Unlike my opponent in Neu Seoul, I believe in evolving with humanity, instead of enslaving it. Our purpose is the Rule of Law. Capture, convict, and if found guilty, imprison. Surely that should make me worthy of a little more time to see this great work through to the end."
Paine held his crimson gaze for a long moment. Whatever calculation she was running showed in the tight line of her mouth. Finally, she reached into her pocket. She held out her hand, and a glowing, holographic data chip materialized in the air between them, instantly transferring its encrypted payload to Maximilian’s terminal.
"The barrier override codes," Paine said.
Maximilian smiled, a genuine expression of respect. "You’ve done the right thing. Thank you for this intel. My people will ensure you and your loyalists are protected in the fallout."
"The boy, Yoon Jihoon, and his university friends too," she quickly added, her voice tightening with newfound panic. "Or no deal."
Maximilian stood up. He pulled the image of Yoon Jihoon back to the center of the display, studying the boy's face with cold, clinical detachment.
Paine went rigid, her projection pixelating for a moment when the silence dragged on. She had already given him the access codes; the leverage was gone. "Did you hear me? I said the students must be safely extracted."
Maximilian ignored the demand entirely, keeping his back to her. Somewhere in the bunker, a cooling unit cycled on, pushing cold air across the room.
Behind him, the heavy steel door of the bunker hissed open. A communications officer stepped in, his face pale under his tactical visor, holding a secure datapad. "Excuse me, Sir. The President of the United States is on the line. The US abstaining vote is now a yes. The resolution has passed."
Paine blinked, her avatar glitching violently in shock. "The US President? No, that is impossible. He’s one of the clinic’s primary benefactors. Why is he talking to you?”
Maximilian’s smile widened into something truly wolfish as he finally turned around. He picked up his tablet and cycled the authorization screens with clinical precision.
"Lucien Ginerva is a theatrical idiot," Maximilian said softly. "He actually thought he could threaten to melt the face off a sitting US President during the State of the Union address and not expect consequences."
He turned the tablet so Paine could read the flashing red authorization codes.
"Washington just signed the resolution," Maximilian stated, his voice ringing with the cold clarity of a funeral bell. "The United Nations has officially authorized us to violate Neu Seoul’s airspace. Monstrum's sovereign immunity on the Korean peninsula is revoked."
"But the clinic," Paine whispered, her digital form trembling as the reality of her complete ruin set in. "The children. What happens to the rest of us when your troops breach the barrier?"
Maximilian stepped aside, granting her an unobstructed view of the massive military armada spooling up their engines through the glass. He reached down, his pale fingers closing around the black king on the chessboard, and casually flicked it off the table. It clattered loudly onto the metal floor.
"Thank you for your report, Mother Superior," Maximilian said. His tone carried no malice, only the absolute, chilling certainty of a general who had already won the war. "Have a good death... when your time comes."
Before Paine could utter another word, Maximilian severed the connection. The hologram collapsed into a shower of blue sparks. He turned his back on the empty space and walked out into the pouring rain without a coat or umbrella.
Outside, thousands of Night Troops snapped to attention. Every head turned to follow him. Every soldier stood perfectly still in the downpour. The hover-copters continued roaring above, their searchlights cutting through the dark. Cold rain sheeted off his shoulders. He raised one hand, and thousands moved simultaneously.
After a long hiatus from the blog, Maximilian Spyder returns in killer drip! From Midnight Order is the Sovereign's Grace Rapier & Spite by FOE. Each sword comes with an unrigged scabbard and animations you can trigger by touching it. Draw, sheath, and various poses. They both have texture huds to change the the different textures on each zone. ...From Krova is the Devil Mask. It's unrigged and mod so you can adjust it for the perfect fit. It comes with a texture hud. ...Matching the Oni style is the Kyouran pant set by Yuebin. The fatpack comes with texture hud with solid colors and Japanese fabric options. I used the Spider Lilly for Max. ...For Military style, I used Yuebin's Echo of a Dream jacket and top. You can wear either, or both together. It comes with a texture hud. ...From Oracle is the Sovereign Jacket and Cap. The cap is unrigged and mod so you can adjust it. The coat comes as an attachment or animesh attachment. Attachment has pose to keep the arms down. The animesh version has bonus arms down poses. It comes with a texture hud. ...I couldn't resist using the XTX Arana tattoos when I spotted them recently. They are Bom with several opacity options. ...And rounding out Max's look are the Sintiklia Axel hair, combined with the wet look for Argrace's Chizuru. Demon red and black eyes by Gloom. Coconut's intense Dong face texture. And Laura's black sheer bodystocking I use so much. ...Stay tuned for more shocking reveals as Escape from Club Apophis races to the finale.
STORYLINE: "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kyra gripped Romance’s arm.
Romance stopped at the heavy iron hatch leading down into the Resistance headquarters. "Relax. Neither of us is easy to kill. You don’t win wars by playing it like a mortal."
He brought the thick heel of his combat boot down hard on the rusted metal. The booming impact echoed into the vast, hollow chamber beneath them.
Kyra’s grip tightened, her metal knuckles glinting in the dim light. "Do you think they’ll know where Lisa is?"
"Definitely." He paused, looking at her worried face. "Maybe. No. Yes. If anyone does, they will."
The hatch groaned open, spilling pale yellow light across the mud like an invitation into a grave. This was the first time he had entered feeling like his true self, rather than just playing a role.
As they descended the metal ladder into the subterranean office, the air grew thick with the smell of mold, burnt coffee, and old paper. Condensation ran down the concrete walls, and water dripped somewhere unseen in the dark. The tunnel vibrated as a sonic hover train raced by on the surface above, rattling the buzzing fluorescent lights. The sound of Echo’s voice hit them immediately.
"But if the barrier operates on a closed frequency, couldn't we theoretically invert the signal? Or what if we bypassed the main junction completely?" Echo was pacing furiously in front of a desk covered in blueprints, firing questions in rapid, relentless succession. Romance noted how the weakest member of the Jae Won team now seemed like a tiger, already bloody from battle. He wondered what had changed her.
Behind the desk, Hwan rubbed his temples, exhausted. Hwan used to look like a man who could disappear into a crowd. Now the Resistance clung to him like heavy chains. Romance had watched him spend months moving people, supplies, and secrets into place, trying to outplay monsters who had been cheating for a thousand years.
Hwan's office was cobbled together from salvaged junk. Used coffee cups littered every surface. The trashcan overflowed with them. Stacks of maps covered the desk. Diagrams plastered the walls next to a calendar detailing human ration lists. Hand-bound ledgers crammed the shelves, carefully labeled with the name of every person who had gone missing in The Pen. There were even crayon drawings by children tacked with love onto the side of a rusted filing cabinet.
Romance looked away before Hwan caught him staring at the drawings. He leaned back against the concrete wall, folding his arms and watching with deep amusement as Hwan shot him a desperate, pleading look for help.
Echo froze mid-sentence and spun around. She gasped.
His sleek, elegant K-pop idol aesthetic was completely gone, replaced by a street-level nightmare straight out of the badlands. Gone were the immaculate designer suits and the polished, practiced smile. He had styled himself like someone who slept in abandoned train stations and started fires to stay warm. The Resistance was his tribe. It felt good to finally express his rage. His spiked hair defied gravity, and his heavy fur-lined coat was painted with black graffiti that read: Power is not given, it’s taken.
"Whoa. You look different," Echo breathed.
Romance chuckled, a low, rasping sound. He could say the exact same about her. "I’m done pretending."
Echo tilted her head, trying to process the shift, before her eyes darted to the figure shrinking behind him. "Is that you, Kyra?"
Kyra nodded, stepping out from the shadow of Romance's heavy coat. “I’m repaired. Thanks to Romance."
Romance found her quietness strangely endearing. Gone was the malfunctioning cybernetic cheerleader he had purchased at the auction. Faint brass gears ticked visibly beneath the synthetic skin of her neck, and heavy, industrial copper wiring snaked along her collarbone. She looked raw, sturdy, and unmistakably analog. A work of art.
Romance squeezed her hand gently, his thumb brushing her carbon fiber palm. For all that she had survived, he felt the immense weight in her grip. And it was warm. His eyes softened when he looked at her.
Echo looked from Kyra to Romance, then back to Kyra. Romance knew exactly how they must look to her. They were no longer an idol and a toy. They looked like a couple forged in a warzone.
Kyra avoided Echo’s gaze for a second, then looked up long enough to notice the swollen brand across the girl's chest. Her smile faltered. "Are you hurt?"
Echo's hand instinctively pulled the shirt closed.
Romance recognized the gesture immediately. She wasn't trying to hide the wound. She was trying to hide what it would do to everyone else.
"Yes," Echo admitted. "The Resistance had medicine to help me. It doesn't sting as bad now."
Hwan cleared his throat loudly.
The room's attention shifted back to the desk.
"As I was trying to explain to Echo," Hwan said, tapping a heavy finger against a map of the city. "Long before Monstrum arrived, this land already had its own supernatural people. We lost the war against the invaders. Monstrum formed a pact with the government. All supernaturals were imprisoned in the Forbidden Zone. Monstrum claimed the Forbidden Zone as sovereign territory. In exchange for solving the rogue monster problem, Monstrum was given endless business opportunities in the human world."
Echo furrowed her brow, her logic snagging on the details. "But I’ve seen MasterGin, Romance, and you move outside the zone."
Hwan sighed and looked at Romance to explain.
Poor Hwan. He must have been answering questions like this all day.
Alright, Romance thought. I will help on this. He dug into his coat pocket and slapped a sleek, black passport onto the desk. A serpent swallowing the sun was embossed on the cover. "There are exceptions for the Zone elites and management. As for the Jeoseung Saja, like myself, we are too important to cage. Without us, Wandering Ghosts would flood the human world. We get free passage as long as we only guide souls and never consume them." Romance flashed a wicked, sharp-toothed grin. "But we didn’t make any promises about not eating Monstrum."
He licked his lips and winked, his eyes shiny with mischief. There was one asshole in particular he was going to relish.
"Are there any further questions?" Hwan added dryly. He looked at the cracked concrete ceiling, silently praying there were not.
Echo ignored him, turning her focus entirely to Kyra. "Are you okay? I mean, really?"
Kyra nodded. She patted her side, where the faint, rhythmic ticking of clockwork could be heard. "Analog power source. The Zone can't touch it. I'm not running on their energy anymore." She looked up, her quiet voice turning urgent. "Do you know where Lisa is?"
"No," Echo said. "But I know where we are all supposed to meet back up."
Romance pushed off the wall. Hwan straightened up from his maps. Both of them were suddenly very interested.
"All the students of Jae Won are planning to attack the ceremony?" Hwan asked.
"Well, we don’t exactly have a plan. Or we didn’t before we scattered. But we are supposed to reunite at the Safe Zone."
Hwan sat very still for a moment.
"The Sewer Safe Zone." He stood up abruptly and grabbed his heavy jacket from the back of his chair. "I know the place. Follow me."
He paused, his hand freezing on the collar of his coat. He turned back slowly and placed a heavy palm on Romance’s shoulder. "Actually, no. I am sorry. You stay here and wait. There is something down there you should not see."
Romance searched his friend’s face, his punk bravado dropping into genuine shock. "I’m not staying here. What are you trying to hide from me, old Dokkaebi?"
Echo made a soft sound, drawing their attention. She reached into her pocket. "I think he means this. I’m certain this letter was meant for you."
Romance looked from Hwan to Echo. Then back again. Something inside him went cold.
Echo held it out further.
Romance forced a puzzled smile. He tried to brush it off dismissively.
Then he noticed that neither Echo nor Hwan was smiling.
The fluorescent lights buzzed into the silence.
His smile faded.
He snatched the folded paper from her hand and began to read.
The cocky smirk vanished completely. His jaw tightened. His gold eyes scanned back and forth across the page, going wide. His next breath never came. The paper trembled softly between his fingers.
A flash of Sophia dumping water on his head, her laugh so infectious. He had never loved her more than in that moment.
Echo reached out, gently touching his hand. “I’m so sorry. Sophia’s body is where we are going."
The paper stopped trembling.
Somewhere above them, another hover train roared overhead.
