The air was thick, heavy with the sour scent of old metal and frozen dust. The ship creaked softly, as if breathing after centuries of silence. The boy—though he was no longer exactly a boy—searched the pockets of the body he now inhabited.
A piece of hard bread.
A length of rope.
A worn Aether crystal, barely flickering.
A small bone-handled knife.
And a dirty, nearly torn backpack.
Gwan sighed with annoyance.
"Just garbage…" he said under his breath, his tone a mix of mockery and resignation. He clenched his jaw. This body was not his. He felt the tremor in the muscles, the ache in his ribs with every breath. Every movement was a humiliation.
"So, the humans of this age collect scraps," he murmured, fastening the backpack. "Do they understand nothing of this technology? Perhaps to them… the leavings of a lost era are treasures."
He smiled bitterly.
"The rats always inherit the ruins."
He adjusted the backpack straps on his shoulder, testing its weight. "Light… but useless," he whispered. "Still… I might need it."
He searched for an exit. The automatic doors were sealed shut by the passage of time. The pressure system was long dead. Only a warped seam in the wall allowed a thread of air to pass through.
Gwan looked at it, and then down at the body he wore. Small hands. Narrow shoulders. Weak lungs. He gritted his teeth.
"This body is too weak…" he muttered, pushing against the metal with all his strength.
The metal shrieked in protest. The gap yielded a few scant centimeters. It was enough.
He squeezed through the opening, the ragged edges scraping his skin. For a moment, he was stuck; his clothing snagged, and the smell of fresh blood made him scowl. Finally, he tumbled through, landing on the other side, gasping. The child's body trembled, but his mind remained cold. Every breath sounded like an old machine on the verge of breaking.
He rose slowly, leaning against the wall for support. Before him stretched an immense corridor, shrouded in shadows and dotted with blinking red lights. The air vibrated with the distant echo of engines that no longer existed.
"The core…" he whispered. "This looks like the command center."
He advanced through the debris. The metal floors were blanketed in dust and desiccated bones. Some of the bodies still wore tattered white uniforms with broken insignia. The logo of the Union of Light was still etched on their chests, faded and rusted.
Gwan stopped before a console half-buried under rubble. A weak blue light pulsed faintly beneath the grime. Wiping it clean with his sleeve, he revealed a screen webbed with cracks. Beside it, a small golden plaque was still legible:
[CAPTAIN'S LOG TERMINAL // ACCESS RESTRICTED]
A smile curved on his lips. "Interesting."
He ran his fingers over the crystal. The system emitted a feeble sound. The screen flickered to life, projecting distorted letters into the air.
[SHIP LOG: VESSEL NAME UNKNOWN]
[CYCLE 00 – DAY 213]
"Our fall was inevitable. The propulsion system collapsed after the impact. Supplies are running low. Some still believe we can restart the core, but the readings are clear: this planet is alive. And it does not want us here."
The text halted. Gwan continued, searching for the next entry.
[CYCLE 00 – DAY 267]
"We have lost contact with the orbital fleet. The surface beasts are not natural. They are… responses. As if the planet is mimicking what it fears. The monks say we have awakened something."
The voice from the speakers was a distorted echo. Gwan listened without blinking, his expression distant, like one contemplating a memory too old to cause pain.
[CYCLE 01 – DAY 003]
"We have decided to establish a settlement. If one day we return to the sky, let them remember our names. If not… let the abyss erase them."
Silence.
The log ended.
Gwan rested a hand on the terminal. He could feel the pulse of the Aether flowing weakly beneath the metal, like the breath of a still-warm corpse.
"So that was it…" he whispered, closing his eyes for a moment. "Not an invasion. A fall. An exodus… turned into a burial."
The echo of the final recording still hung in the air, as if the captain's words refused to die completely.
Gwan straightened up. His reflection appeared in the cracked screen: the face of a child, golden eyes burning in the gloom.
"What you called gods… were nothing but frightened men," he said slowly. "And frightened men create monsters."
He turned from the terminal and continued walking through the shadows. The red lights kept blinking, marking the rhythm of his steps. Each flash illuminated fragments of metal, uniforms, rusted weapons. Relics of an era he himself had helped to destroy.
The silence in the corridors was thick, saturated with dust and echoes. Gwan advanced slowly, the boots of the body he now occupied making a hollow sound on the metal. He had learned to measure his breaths; each inhalation was an effort that reminded him of this vessel's fragility.
The air was heavy with that scent, a mix of rust and old flesh, a combination known only to places where life and death became confused.
As he sifted through the debris, a sound broke the stillness.
A moan.
Soft.
Human.
Gwan raised his head. The Aether lantern hanging from his belt cast a bluish beam over the remains of a collapsed bulkhead. There, amidst stains of dried blood, lay a girl. Blonde hair, skin pale beneath the grime, dressed in grey rags. Her right arm ended in a blackened stump, and blood still dripped slowly onto the floor.
Seeing him, she lifted her head with an almost animal effort. Her lips trembled.
"Eryn…" she murmured in a broken voice. "Eryn, I'm scared… please, help me…"
Gwan stopped. For a moment, he said nothing. He watched her, cold and silent. The name floated in his mind like a spark. Eryn. That was the name of the boy whose body he wore. That was who she saw.
"Eryn…" he repeated quietly, almost to himself. "I see."
The girl tried to drag herself toward him, but she fell onto her side, trembling. Her gaze was a plea.
"Please… there's something there… it's following me…"
Gwan leaned forward slightly, his expression neutral. Without a word, he pushed her aside with his hand, shoving her out of his way. She collapsed to the floor, weak, but did not let out a sob. She only watched him with damp, empty eyes.
He was about to continue on his way when something made him stop.
A sound… a metallic scraping.
He looked up.
Among the wreckage in the corridor, a shadow was moving.
It didn't walk; it crawled along the walls.
Several legs, far too thin, dug into the steel with a harsh screech.
Its body looked like a grotesque mix of living flesh and rusted mechanical parts,
and every movement left behind a viscous thread that sparked with bluish electricity.
Gwan's eyes narrowed.
"Shit… a Sanggok."
The name came out almost instinctively, an old word from his time.
A creature from the final wars:
biotechnological weapons created to devour life energy,
banned by both sides after the Aether rebellions.
To see one alive… meant that some part of that corruption had survived underground.
The Sanggok halted, and its eyes—a dozen tiny red lights—swiveled toward them.
A low sound, like a buzz mixed with wet breathing, filled the hallway.
Gwan didn't waste time.
He looked at the girl, then at their surroundings.
A side duct, narrow and twisted, just large enough to crawl through.
"This way," he murmured, more to himself than to her.
He broke into a run. The girl, gasping, followed with great difficulty, dragging her weak body. When the monster let out a mechanical shriek, she screamed too, and clung to the edge of the opening just before Gwan entered. He turned his head, exasperated.
"Let go," he said coldly.
"No… please…" she sobbed, trembling, "don't leave me alone…"
Gwan's body sighed, weary. He didn't respond. He kept moving through the pipes, the icy metal against his hands. He could hear her scrambling behind him, breathing labored. And then… the sound.
An impact.
A choked cry.
Gwan turned. One of the Sanggok's legs had thrust through the gap, piercing the girl's leg. The metal had skewered her tibia. She was suspended, hanging, blood dripping rapidly onto the floor.
Her lips trembled. Her eyes, wide and desperate, were fixed on Gwan's. She wasn't even screaming anymore; just panting silently, as if the air refused to enter her lungs.
"Cut your leg off," he said, without emotion.
The girl stared at him, uncomprehending. She blinked. Shook her head. He repeated, lower:
"Cut your leg off.
Now."
She remained paralyzed. Gwan scoffed. He pulled something from the backpack: a broken piece of metal, a shard from an old engineering blade. He looked at it for a second, then gripped it firmly.
"You're useless if you die crying."
And then he cut.
The sound was dry, sickening. The metal tore through flesh and tendon. The girl finally screamed, a sound that was not human but pure agony. She tried to pull away, but Gwan held her thigh tightly, digging his fingers into the wound to counter the beast's pull. Blood splashed onto his face, warm and viscous.
The Sanggok let out a low roar, a vibration that made the duct metal tremble. With a final slash, the leg separated, leaving the monster with a chunk of meat still impaled on its claw.
The girl fell backward, writhing in pain. Gwan pulled her with one arm, dragging her into a corner of the duct. Her breaths were short, ragged; her eyes rolled back, white with shock.
He observed her for a moment. He could smell the iron in the air, feel the weak pulse in her neck.
"A nuisance," he said, barely a whisper, "but potentially useful."
He propped her up in a recess in the wall where the metal still held some warmth. He fashioned a makeshift bandage from his shirt. She watched him, trembling.
"Eryn…" she whispered, "don't leave me alone…"
Gwan didn't respond. His golden eyes glinted for a moment under the red light. Then, he simply said:
"Rest. If you can."
He sat for a moment, staring into the dark duct where the Sanggok had retreated. He could hear it moving, crawling in the distance, waiting.
"An abomination that should not have survived…" he murmured.
"If there are more of those, this world is doomed."
He closed his eyes.
And for the first time since he had awoken,
he felt something akin to weariness.