The darkness didn’t fall — it folded.
A slow, suffocating sort of black, like velvet pressed against the skin of the world.
The lights died.
The monitors blinked out.
The hum of the power grid stilled, leaving only the steady sound of her breathing.
Mirae didn’t move.
Her reflection stared back from the window — faint, ghostlike, the last shimmer of emergency light outlining her shape.
And then… a second shape appeared behind it.
Tall. Still. Watching.
Her pulse jumped.
She turned—
Nothing.
The library stretched quiet and empty behind her: books, tables, shadows layered like fabric.
The others were still asleep — Rihan slumped at the far desk, Joonseo half-sitting against the wall, Taewoo and Harim sprawled near the reading lamps.
She swallowed the sound of her own heartbeat
