Noryangjin Station had changed in subtle but eerie ways. The glass entrance was newer, cleaner, almost sterile. But Jin-Woo's gut twisted the moment he stepped through. It was like walking into a memory rewritten by someone else—close enough to fool the eye, but just wrong enough to set your instincts flaring.
The air smelled of bleach and mold. The occasional flicker of dying lightbulbs above cast brief shadows on the freshly polished floors. Jin-Woo could feel something unnatural in the silence, like the station itself was holding its breath.
Han Seo-Yeon adjusted the strap of her small tactical bag and gave him a curt nod. "The cache is beneath platform six. I found the access point five years ago. It was buried after a fire—officially ruled an electrical fault. But I wasn't so sure."
Jin-Woo exhaled slowly. "And you never checked it out?"
"I didn't have the key. You do."
She handed him a worn envelope. Inside was a transit token—one of the old brass ones from the early 2000s—and a folded note that simply read: Some doors only open for the dead.
"Subtle," Jin-Woo muttered.
Together, they moved through the empty corridors of the abandoned annex. Fluorescent lights buzzed weakly overhead, casting sickly glows on graffiti-stained walls. Somewhere deeper, water dripped rhythmically, as though the station itself had a heartbeat. There were no security guards. No maintenance workers. No witnesses.
They reached platform six. The rails were rusted over, the dust choking the air, thick enough to taste.
Seo-Yeon pointed to an old payphone bolted to the far wall. "Insert the token there."
Jin-Woo did. There was a metallic click. Then the wall behind the payphone groaned and slid open, revealing a dim stairwell spiraling down into shadow.
Into the Core
Cold air wafted up from the stairwell, sharp and metallic, stinging Jin-Woo's nose. They descended slowly, each step groaning under their weight. Time seemed to slow as they moved deeper beneath the station, the oppressive silence pressing in from all sides.
At the bottom, a massive circular vault door stood like the entrance to a tomb. Carved into its surface were four words in Latin:
"Memoriam, Veritas, Iterum, Ordo."
"Memory. Truth. Again. Order," Jin-Woo translated, his Latin rusty but passable.
Seo-Yeon gave him a sideways glance. "You're full of surprises."
"Just one of many perks of living twice."
A fingerprint scanner blinked beside the door. Without hesitation, Jin-Woo pressed his thumb to the glass. A green light pulsed. The vault groaned, unlocking with a hiss of air and a slow, grinding swing inward.
The Seed File
The room beyond was smaller than expected—more server room than secret base. Four towers stood in a square around a central pedestal holding a single terminal. The buzz of electricity was faint, but constant.
Seo-Yeon approached the pedestal. "If the seed file exists, it'll be in here."
Jin-Woo slid into the chair. The interface was clunky, old-school, command-line only. No GUI, no prompts. Just raw code.
He typed: INITIATE > RETURN_PROTO.ROOT
A loading bar appeared. Slowly, it filled.
Lines of data poured across the screen—census records, death certificates, birth logs, surveillance footage, and more. Dozens of timelines, stitched into a maddening stream of inputs and outcomes. And hidden deep beneath it all: a single repeating string.
Project Janus
Seo-Yeon's breath caught. "No one ever mentioned a project name before."
Jin-Woo clicked into it. The interface expanded, revealing sealed logs: brain scans, stress reports, neural decay patterns—all tagged with names. Some were strangers.
Some were not.
Lee Sang-Hyun.
And then…
Song Jin-Woo.
He stared. "They've been watching us. Since the beginning."
Ghost Protocol
Then the screen glitched.
The power surged, and the lights blinked out. A moment later, red emergency lights kicked in. Sirens wailed faintly above them, echoing like a distant alarm from another world.
Jin-Woo was on his feet instantly. "They know we're here."
Seo-Yeon pulled a USB drive from her bag and tossed it to him. "Grab everything you can. We don't have long."
He inserted the drive and began dragging files frantically. The screen flickered again. Static washed over the display.
Then…
A face.
A woman appeared on the screen. Pale skin. Dark braid over one shoulder. Eyes like polished obsidian.
"Song Jin-Woo," the woman said calmly.
Seo-Yeon froze. "That's her."
"Yoon Mi-Ra," Jin-Woo whispered.
"No. Look at the timestamp."
Jin-Woo checked.
Two days from now.
A cold chill crawled down his spine.
"How is that possible?"
Seo-Yeon stared at the screen, expression unreadable. "It's not a warning. It's a message. For the future. And she knew we'd be here."
Escape and Echoes
The vault began to shake. The floor trembled beneath their feet. Somewhere above, footsteps thundered down the stairs—boots, many of them.
"Move!" Seo-Yeon barked.
Jin-Woo yanked the drive out and stuffed it in his pocket. They sprinted out of the room, the heavy vault door grinding shut behind them.
Explosions rocked the stairwell as they fled, sending clouds of dust and shards of concrete into the air. The tunnel twisted violently as the structure groaned from sabotage. They ducked through side halls, weaving through forgotten maintenance corridors.
At last, they emerged near the old platform's ventilation shaft. Gasping, covered in dust, they collapsed to the floor.
"We have it," Seo-Yeon said. "We have proof."
But Jin-Woo didn't respond.
He was staring at the USB drive in his hand, replaying the woman's calm face.
"She recorded that two days from now," he muttered. "Which means… she's still ahead of us."
Seo-Yeon nodded grimly. "We crossed a line tonight. One that can't be uncrossed."
"What kind of line?"
"One that separates returnees… from those who manipulate time itself."