Chapter 13: The Voices That Shouldn’t Speak

The Archive was different.

Jungkook could feel it in the air—the thick, suffocating stillness that had replaced the gentle hum of forgotten melodies. The walls, once lined with lost music, now seemed to stretch endlessly into shadows that hadn’t been there before.

Something had changed.

Something had woken up.

A whisper slid through the silence, curling around them like smoke. It wasn’t in any language Jungkook recognized, yet he understood it.

"You heard us."

His breath hitched. The voice was neither loud nor soft. It was just there—close and far away at the same time, like it came from everywhere at once.

Jimin took a shaky step back. “Did you hear that?”

None of them needed to answer. The weight in the air told them they all had.

Then came the sound.

A slow, deliberate creak from somewhere deep within the shelves.

Jungkook’s muscles tensed. It wasn’t the kind of noise a building made when it settled. It was movement. Deliberate. Measured.

Something else was in the Archive with them.

Namjoon swallowed hard. “Nobody move.”

Another creak. Closer this time.

The floating blue lights flickered. Shadows stretched unnaturally, shifting as if they had a life of their own.

And then, between the towering shelves, something moved.

A shape—tall, thin, its form barely distinguishable from the darkness.

It didn’t walk. It glided.

Jungkook’s pulse pounded. “What is that?”

Hana’s grip tightened around her hidden dagger. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “But I don’t think it’s alive.”

The whispering voices grew louder, overlapping like an eerie chorus.

"You shouldn't have listened."

"You shouldn’t have taken it."

"It was buried for a reason."

Jin exhaled shakily. “Okay. I vote we leave. Right now.”

But the moment he spoke, the figure turned its head.

Jungkook’s blood ran cold.

It had no face.

Just a smooth, empty void where its features should have been.

Then—it moved.

Faster than should have been possible, the faceless shadow rushed toward them.

“Run!” Hana shouted.

They didn’t need to be told twice.

Jungkook sprinted, his breath ragged, his legs burning as they weaved between the endless shelves. The Archive blurred around them, the once-majestic library now a maze of flickering shadows.

The whispers chased them, twisting into distorted echoes of their own voices.

"Jungkook."

"Yoongi."

"Jimin."

Each name was spoken wrong—stretched, warped, like something unfamiliar was trying to shape their words with a mouth it didn’t have.

Jungkook’s heartbeat roared in his ears. “Where’s the exit?!”

“I’m working on it!” Hana yelled, pulling out a small device. She pressed a button, and the air in front of them shimmered. “There! Go!”

A glowing doorway flickered into existence—a rift leading out.

One by one, they dove through.

Jungkook was the last to turn—just for a split second.

And in that moment, he saw it.

Not just one.