The wind kept sweeping through the city, carrying with it a whisper that never quite ended.
That morning, Kuro woke earlier than usual. Not because of an alarm. Just a quiet pull in his chest.
His hands lay still on the blanket. For a moment, he didn't want to move. There was a comfort in the quiet. But also something unfinished.
A strange stillness lay across the room. For a moment, he thought it was still midnight.
But then he checked the screen. 6:00 a.m. After that, the sound came - the hush of rain, soft against the rooftop. He remembered the dream only in fragments.
Something stirred in his chest. Not quite fear. But something had followed him out of the dream.
A shape. A shadow that didn't quite belong. And now, the whole room felt like it was… listening.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Breathing. Watching.The wind curled under the door, brushed the edge of a faded red flag
That's weird. Just a dream…. at least, I hope.
He got out of bed, tried to avoid thinking about it.
He often sat by the corridor just to feel it – the movement,like some ancient memory the air hadn't finished whispering.
Repeating itself. Again and again.
…
Eventually, the rain stopped. And when the first light bled into the curtains, he was already up.
Dressed. Bag over shoulder.
A soft beat in his chest – not panic, not excitement. Something between. He opened the door. The street outside still wet.
What kind of new day is this?" he muttered.
"Just don't let another wild thing run past me again.
Still,he biked. Stopped at the usual place. Bought a bánh mì, it had become a habit more than a choice. It was convenient so he kept it.
Mist hung low, threading through tree branches and steel rails.
Somewhere behind him, traffic buzzed like a different world.
But here, the morning was wrapped in quiet.
Luckily, it was just a peaceful morning with Kuro. Even Though, a bit of rain still stick on his shoes made he uncomfortable somehow.
He crossed the hall toward the lab building. The air inside held its own kind of hush, cold and slightly ionized from the machines.
There he was - Mike.
Slouched in his chair, fingers knotted into his unbrushed hair, eyes locked on three overlapping data panels. He barely noticed Kuro enter.
On Mike's desk, the anomaly data was still looping. The sensors hadn't caught enough. Nothing definitive. No hard sample.
Only those strange waves that kept returning. Fainter. But always... there.
"Eat anything?" Kuro asked, stepping closer.
Then show up with a bánh mì on his hand, "Take it, brain new", Kuro said.
Mike glanced up, blinked once, then wordlessly took it. No thanks, no expression. Just a bite.
Kuro stood beside him now, eyes drifting toward the panel on the far side of the desk. The needle moved again, microwaves shifts. Slight but repeating.
On the mapped they stretches out, many coordinates - each have different in frequency. Most matched the exact locations where Kuro had "felt" something.
Most were in the northern outskirts.
"Could be coincidence," Mike said, eyes fixed on the screen.
Kuro nodded, then say: "We should check on the library".
…
That afternoon, they went to the old library.
Mike unearthed a stack of scanned records, from pre-war local chronicles, books on northern terrain, and regional climate.
One book's map had torn pages, but after some digging, they noticed the patterns. Rugged land. Sparse population. Mostly minority communities. Northern trade had been severed for decades.
Mike leaned back, rubbing his temples.
"My brain's melting."
"Then let it drip onto the table. Maybe it'll make sense of these pages," Kuro muttered. They shared a small laugh. But Kuro kept scanning - faster now.
There was something about the north that pulled at Kuro.
Another reference to "access restricted due to instability," dated decades ago. Most maps showed clear routes north, but here... a blur. A whole cluster of coordinates missing, like someone had erased them on purpose.
He pulled up his tablet, searched the region on multiple networks.Satellite view glitched. Street data stopped halfway. Even government terrain APIs gave a fallback message:
"Data unavailable for selected coordinates."
The same message blinked across three different databases.
Kuro tilted his head, then murmured, "A little suspect, isn't it?".
Mike didn't respond right away. He was flipping back to the printed map, eyes narrowed. "Could just be an old system glitch," he said eventually.
"But for three different sources?" Kuro pressed. He tapped the screen again, refreshed. Still blank. Still that same sentence.
He leaned back slightly, fingers drumming the edge of the desk.
"Either no one ever cared enough to map it… or someone made sure it stayed like this."
Mike gave him a quick side-glance. "You sound like one of those fringe forums.". Kuro grinned. "And yet, here we are. Digging through dusty books to prove something seems silly."
…
After a while, Mike frowned. "We don't have much to go on."
Kuro kept looking. He asked around, searched old articles, borrowed temporary access to the historical archive.
Then, he found something.
Stuffed between dusty books was an old newspaper, creased and almost unreadable.
It told of a vague incident. Two people heading into deep snow. Disappearance. Depression. The area was later marked under wildlife danger and signal interference.
The final line stuck with Kuro: "Geologist Than V."
"Mike. Read this."
Mike scanned it, "This accident happened near the blur point.", then paused. "We should find him. But how?".
Kuro pointed at the footer, an address tied to a mine.
"It's something. We follow that."
Kuro tossed his bike aside at the school gate. He jumped onto the back of Mike's e-bike.
No one asked questions.
"This might not even lead to anything," Mike exhaled.
"Then think of it as luck," Kuro said. "If it's nothing, at least we get a break."
Mike smiled. Just a little.
Like hitting a small jackpot, they ran into an old woman living nearby. She'd been there for forty-five years. Like a living archive.
They'd only been asking around randomly before that - but no one else had anything useful.
"Ma'am, could we ask you something?" Kuro approached gently.
"Oh dear," she chuckled. "What brings you boys to bother an old ghost like me?"
She invited them in. Tea. Dusty cups.
The house smelled of old tea leaves and forgotten calendars. A wall clock ticked softly, slower than time itself. Her cat blinked at them from a dusty shelf, then turned away.
"That one doesn't trust anyone," she said, pointing. "Except me. And the lemon tree."
She spoke like she hadn't had visitors in years - about her cat, her lemon tree, her daughter who now lived oceans away. They couldn't even get a word in.
"So... what are you kids doing around here?" she finally asked. "Never seen you before."
They showed her the printout. The article. The name: Than V.
Kuro noticed her face change. Only slightly. But enough. She fell silent for a moment. Then, softly:
"If you find him… don't ask too much. He used to be brilliant. Then he chose silence."
She looked at them kindly. But there was something else.
A warning? Kuro wasn't sure.
"Don't go when it rains." she added. "The slope gets slick. And people lose their way."
Kuro nodded, offering a small smile: "Thank you. If we have time, we'll come back. Maybe for a tea gossip."
She chuckled lightly, a sound brittle like dry leaves in wind.
As the two of them left, she stood by the door, watching them fade into the mist. Then, to no one in particular, she murmured:
"Keep watching. I suspect the one called Kuro… might be naturally open."
…
Mike dropped Kuro off at the base of his apartment. The sky was still gray. The air, damp and uncertain.
"Morning. 7 a.m." Mike said flatly.
Kuro gave a half-smile.
"Too late for an old man like him, huh?"
He chuckled. Lightly. Awkwardly.
Mike didn't laugh. Didn't even look.
He just nodded, then rode off. Leaving Kuro standing there, the silence catching on his shoes.
Kuro stared after him for a second. Then muttered, almost to himself
"Fine. What did I expect?"
…
On a gray morning, they pedaled along a gravel road into the woods.
Each turn brought doubt. Each slope brought the question, what were they chasing?
At last, a wooden house appeared between thinning pines. Weathered, moss-cloaked, but steady. On the porch, a steaming kettle sat beside a folded chair.
Kuro knocked politely. From inside, an old voice called, "Who's there?"
"We're students," Kuro lied gently. "Interviewing residents about local life."
They came prepared. Notebooks in hand. Smiles polite.
They sat down. Asked about the region. About Than himself. Mike was nervous, but Than didn't seem to mind.
He chuckled. "Haven't seen school kids come out this far in years."
Kuro gave a half-smile. Mike opened his notebook. Flipped pages.
"Sir... did you ever join a geological expedition up north?
One with three men? Only one came back."
Than froze mid-pour. His eyes darkened for a breath. He looked at both boys. Slowly.
"Where'd you hear that?"
"At the library. Not much detail. But your name was in it," Kuro said.
Silence.
Then, Than placed the teapot down. Quietly. As if afraid to disturb something fragile.
"Yes... we went. Three of us. Just a survey. Power lines to a remote village. Officially a tech demo. One geologist. Two electrical engineers."
"We heard only one returned."
"Correct. Phung, classmate of mine. Methodical. Wrote everything down. He vanished. No trace."
"And the other?"
"Lu. Fast-talker. Bright. I thought he'd be the last to return. But he made it back to the checkpoint, and never spoke again."
"He... couldn't speak?" Mike asked.
"Trauma, they said. Maybe worse. His hands still moved. Eyes still saw. But his voice... gone."
Kuro shivered. "And you?"
Than leaned back. Gazed at the ceiling.
A crack ran across the beam, like a scar in memory.
"I came back. But I don't recall the end. There was... a hollow. Not terrain. Something else.
When we stepped in, sound vanished. I fell. When I woke, I was alone."
Silence again. Only wind sighed through the window slats.
"Why wasn't it investigated?" Mike asked.
"It was," the old man said. "But the area got cordoned off. Official reasons: signal distortion and wildlife activity. We got hazard pay, if that says anything."
Mike unfolded the old map. His fingers traced over the worn creases.
"Can you show us where?" he asked.
The old man barely looked. Just a quick glance - then his finger landed on a spot without hesitation.
"I didn't forget," he murmured. "I just chose not to remember… too clearly."
He looked outside.
"You see, what's terrifying isn't being lost. It's making it back... and never walking forward again."
They stood, bowed.
"Thank you, sir," Mike said. "I think... I understand why you stayed."
Than didn't answer. Just nodded.
A gesture from someone who had once spoken too many unheard words.
Outside, Mike marked a new point on his old map. "The Hollow."
"I'm not sure this is a path we want to take," he told Kuro.
"Besides… it seemed he didn't want to talk more about that silent companion," Mike said, voice lowered, a shadow of hesitation still in his eyes.
Kuro furrowed his brow slightly, replying slowly,
"Maybe we should just survey the area. We don't have to find that man. It's clear he doesn't want the past dug up."
Mike looked up toward the distant tree line, his voice barely louder than a breath.
"I think we need to check the terrain maps again… but what gets me is this: the government said nothing more either. Do you think… it really exists?"
Kuro paused for a beat, then gave a small nod.
"It might be real. But I also think… if it is, it's way too easy to use as an excuse. For anything people can't explain."
Mike gave a faint smile. It was hard to tell if it meant acceptance, or simply letting go.
He didn't say anything else.
They pedaled back along the old path.
The evening wind brushed against their sleeves, carrying the scent of dry pine and decaying resin. The way back felt shorter, but no easier.
Their thoughts lingered somewhere behind them, caught in the gaze of an old man who knew too well the line between moving forward and standing still.
They biked the same way back. Dry pine air brushing their sleeves.
The return felt shorter.
But not easier.
In their minds lingered Than's eyes, eyes that had seen the line between going on and staying still.
But they weren't the only ones watching.
On the third floor of the research wing, someone else had noticed.
…
Tara, a third-year in Energy Biology, had tracked small irregularities.
Lab logs. Lab tool use. Mismatches with coursework.
She tilted her head.
Something about it all... made her curious.