The Boy of Cheongan (靑霧)

Episode 5: Rejected Bloodline

Those sentences remained still in the dry air, unmoving even a little, exuding a heavy, suffocating, deeply ominous feeling. Welcome to everyone except the natives. As the cruel reality engraved on the monument gradually seeped into our minds, only a heavy, silent stillness settled thickly all around us, and we could only look at one another without speaking.

"Natives,"

Hyunjin muttered softly as he lightly kicked a loose stone that had been rolling around on the floor with the toe of his boot.

"So you’re saying the people born on this planet weren’t even allowed into their own school? That’s completely twisted."

"And look at the date here."

Chanyeon added, staring with dark eyes at the very bottom of the deep blue wall.

"Year 3008. But those other numbers…… 49-12-2-4 make no sense at all. Are we in the future right now? Or did we land in a completely different timeline?"

No one could give an answer. We were all deeply confused by the alien number system, but once we confirmed that the entire courtyard was completely abandoned and desolate, we concluded that we couldn’t stay in front of this stone wall forever. If we wanted to find some way back home, we had no choice but to explore this unfamiliar place.

We slowly moved away from the blue stone structure. Each time we walked deeper into the ruins of the campus, our boots on the dry dirt floor made a low, steady rustling sound. The architecture here was strangely contradictory. Some structures were made of massive ancient stone blocks, carved so finely they looked as if they could withstand thousands of years, while other buildings were precariously built from simple, worn wood, as though they might turn to dust and collapse at any moment. Everything around us was utterly silent. Not a breath of wind blew, not a single bird flew overhead, and there wasn’t a trace of any living thing anywhere.

Jiseok came up right beside me and matched my pace. His gaze was sharply scanning the empty, skeletal frames of the buildings surrounding us.

"Keep your eyes open and look carefully."

Jiseok said quietly, and without thinking, he lightly rested his large hand near my arm. His steady gesture was close to instinctive protection.

"If this place was built to drive the natives out completely, then the defense systems or enforcement devices they used might still be lurking around here somewhere."

Even in the strange stillness, where not a breath of wind blew, a sudden chill slid down my spine, and I tightened the fabric of the black lace shirt I was wearing against my body a little more firmly. As we passed beneath the towering stone archway and rounded the corner, the ground gradually began to slope gently upward, leading us toward a cluster of old, hut-like wooden buildings gathered here and there along the edge of the estate.

At that moment, an inexplicable, heavy, intense pull yanked hard at my chest. That strange sensation swallowed my entire nervous system and began to draw my steps straight toward the largest wooden structure, located at the center.