The phone felt heavier than it should have.
Joon-seo sat alone beneath the overpass long after Seo-yeon disappeared, the city's distant noise filtering through concrete and shadow. Cars roared above him like indifferent thunder. He didn't move. He didn't breathe properly.
PROJECT SOUTHERN CROSS — SUBJECT 017
He tapped the screen.
Nothing happened.
No password prompt. No encryption wall. Just… access.
That terrified him more than if it had been locked.
The first file opened into a short video.
A room. White. Windowless.
A boy sat at a metal table, hands folded. He couldn't have been older than sixteen.
The boy looked up.
And stared straight into the camera.
Joon-seo's vision blurred.
"That's not me," he whispered.
The boy on-screen tilted his head slightly, as if hearing him across time.
A woman's voice spoke off-camera—calm, precise, unmistakably Seo-yeon's, though younger.
"Subject 017. State your name."
The boy's lips parted.
"Kang Joon-seo."
The phone slipped from his fingers and hit the concrete with a dull crack.
He staggered back, heart hammering, breath shallow. His mind rejected what his eyes had seen, scrambling for excuses, for logic, for anything that didn't feel like the ground dropping out from under him.
Fake.
Deepfake.
Someone messing with me.
But the way the boy had sat—too still.
The way his eyes had watched—too alert.
Joon-seo picked up the phone again with shaking hands.
More files waited.
Training logs. Psychological evaluations. Mission summaries—redacted, fragmented, but horrifying in implication.
Words jumped out at him like accusations.
Compliance: Excellent
Empathy Response: Suppressed
Termination Efficiency: Above projected threshold
His stomach twisted.
He closed the phone and pressed it to his chest like it might burn through him.
"No," he said aloud, voice breaking. "No, no, no…"
Memories pressed against the inside of his skull, not as images but as sensations—the weight of a weapon, the tension before movement, the calm that came right before violence.
He'd always thought his nightmares were just nightmares.
They weren't.
They were memories trying to breathe.
By morning, Melbourne was pretending nothing had happened.
The news called the docklands massacre an "isolated criminal incident." No names. No follow-ups. The kind of story designed to disappear.
Joon-seo didn't.
He moved through the city like a man already dead, hoodie pulled low, eyes scanning reflections instead of faces. Every sound felt like a threat. Every passerby like a potential hunter.
The phone vibrated in his pocket.
Unknown number.
He stopped walking.
Let it ring.
It stopped.
Then buzzed again.
Unknown:
You should be somewhere safer.
His jaw tightened.
Joon-seo:
Is this you?
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
Unknown:
No. She wouldn't text you.
His pulse spiked.
Joon-seo:
Then who are you?
A pause.
Longer this time.
Unknown:
Someone who thought you were dead.
A café window reflected his face back at him—pale, hollow-eyed, older than yesterday.
Joon-seo:
You're wrong. I don't even know who I am.
The reply came instantly.
Unknown:
That's how it always starts.
...
The address arrived ten seconds later.
An apartment building in Footscray. Old. Cheap. Familiar in a way that made his skin crawl.
He didn't go straight there.
He circled the block twice. Watched from across the street. Counted exits. Timed the foot traffic. Not because he wanted to—
Because his body demanded it.
When he finally entered, his hand was already hovering near his waistband.
Third floor. Unit 3B.
The door was unlocked.
Joon-seo pushed it open slowly.
The smell hit him first—instant coffee and dust. A place lived in lightly. Carefully.
A man sat at the small kitchen table, back to the door, hands visible, posture relaxed but not careless.
"Kang Joon-seo," the man said without turning. "Or do you prefer Seventeen?"
Joon-seo raised the gun. "Turn around."
The man complied.
He was Korean. Early thirties. Scar across his eyebrow. Eyes sharp with something between relief and grief.
"You don't remember me," the man said. It wasn't a question.
Joon-seo swallowed. "Should I?"
The man smiled sadly. "No. That means they did their job."
"Who are you?"
The man stood slowly. "My name is Park Min-jae. I was Subject 021."
The number echoed.
Joon-seo's knees nearly gave out.
"You're lying."
Min-jae shook his head. "I escaped. Barely. They wiped most of me too—but not enough."
He stepped closer, voice low. "You were better than all of us."
Joon-seo's grip tightened. "Stop."
"You were faster. Quieter. They used to say if Seventeen moved, the room went silent."
"Stop!" Joon-seo shouted.
Min-jae did.
Silence stretched, heavy and brittle.
"They sent her, didn't they?" Min-jae asked carefully. "Seo-yeon."
Joon-seo didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
Min-jae sighed. "Then time's already up."
"What do you mean?"
"They don't activate Phase Black unless they're cleaning everything." His gaze hardened. "Including loose ends like me."
As if summoned by the words, a sharp crack shattered the window behind Min-jae.
He jerked—and fell.
Joon-seo caught him as he collapsed, blood blooming dark against his shirt.
"No," Joon-seo whispered, panic flooding him. "Stay with me—"
Min-jae's hand clutched his sleeve with surprising strength.
"They're watching you now," he gasped. "They always were."
Footsteps thundered in the hallway.
Min-jae's eyes locked onto Joon-seo's.
"Remember this," he said, breath failing. "She wasn't always the hunter."
Then his hand went slack.
The door exploded inward.
Joon-seo turned.
Something inside him snapped into place.
His fear vanished.
His hands steadied.
His world narrowed to angles, movement, survival.
And somewhere deep inside, a buried voice whispered—
Again.