17 DAYS TO GO | KWON SOONYOUNG

46

Kang Hana

The shadows still snarled behind us-alive, relentless, and furious.

Jiyoon's fingers were laced with mine, her grip the only thing keeping me grounded as we ran through the unstable landscape of Havoc's collapsing realm. The sky above us split open in places, showing glimpses of screaming memories and broken dreams, as if time itself was bleeding from the wounds we'd created by surviving this long.

"Hana, we're close," Jiyoon said, voice tight, winded. Her eyes stayed locked on the path ahead, a pale flicker of silver glowing faintly in the distance like a star just out of reach. "That door... it's your way out."

Behind us, the tremors returned. The sound of fists colliding, of bones shattering, of two divine beings locked in a battle that defied time.

Death and Havoc.

Brothers.

But now, enemies.
And one of them was fighting for me.

I dared a glance over my shoulder.

It was chaos incarnate.

Their forms shifted constantly-blurs of bone, wings, smoke, shadow, and flame. Death was no longer the silent, pale reaper who had offered me time. He was radiant now, cloaked in searing silver light. His scythe danced through the void, striking out against Havoc's wicked, twisting form. They crashed into each other again, their collision splitting the air and sending another wave of pressure toward us.

I stumbled, nearly falling. Jiyoon pulled me back up.

"Don't stop," she said. "You stop, you get caught again."

"Can't he-can't he just kill Havoc?" I breathed, trying to keep up.

Jiyoon shook her head grimly. "Havoc feeds on pain, despair. The more you suffer, the stronger he becomes. He doesn't die. He decays. And then he comes back."

"How is Death holding him off, then?"

"Because he remembers what he's fighting for." She looked at me, her voice softening. "You."

We kept running.

The world around us kept shifting-flickering between scenes of joy and despair. I saw Soonyoung on a rooftop, laughing under golden light. I saw my mother curled up on the kitchen floor. I saw Jeonghan painting sparkles on my cheeks for the festival. I saw blood.

All of it tried to grab me again. To drag me back into the spiral Havoc built.

But Jiyoon kept pulling.

The horrors had receded, but the silence that followed felt heavier than screams. The space around us was still distorted-a dream half-forgotten, unraveling.

"I can't go any farther," she said softly, her voice laced with sorrow and resolve.

I stopped. "What do you mean?"

She looked at me-really looked-and I saw the fading shimmer in her eyes. Like starlight swallowed by dawn.

"I'm not meant to exist in this space much longer," she whispered. "You've fought through more than most would survive. But from here... you have to go on alone."

Tears welled in my eyes. "I'm scared."

Jiyoon smiled gently, brushing my hair back. "So was I. But Hana... he believed in you. You don't have to carry the pain-just the love."

I nodded slowly, the weight of our shared past pressing down on me. And then, like mist on morning glass, she was gone.

The next room was wrong.