Chapter 20: The Song That Remembers Us

White light swallowed everything.

Jungkook felt weightless, suspended in a void of silence. He couldn’t tell if he was falling or floating. The last thing he remembered was grabbing the missing sheet music. Now, he was nowhere.

Then—

A single note rang out.

Soft. Haunting. Like an echo from the past.

The world rushed back.

Jungkook’s feet hit solid ground. He stumbled, gasping, and the others landed beside him—Namjoon, Jin, Yoongi, Jimin, Taehyung, and Hana—all disoriented but standing.

But they were no longer in the Inner Vaults.

Jungkook’s breath caught. The air shimmered like ink suspended in water. Instead of walls, there were endless staves of music stretching in every direction, forming the sky, the ground, even the air itself. Notes pulsed like tiny heartbeats, shifting and rearranging with every breath.

Yoongi swore under his breath. “Where the hell are we?”

Hana’s face went pale. “No. No, no, no.”

Namjoon turned to her sharply. “What is this?”

Hana swallowed hard. “We’re inside the song.”

Silence.

Jin let out a sharp breath. “You mean… Moonlit Echo?”

She nodded. “When Jungkook took the missing piece, it didn’t just let us go—it pulled us in.”

Taehyung turned slowly, taking in the endless floating notes. “How do we get out?”

Hana hesitated. “The song has to end.”

Jungkook’s stomach twisted. “But if it ends as it is—”

“We don’t know what happens.” Hana’s voice was tight. “The original song was erased for a reason. If it was meant to be heard, it wouldn’t have been locked away.”

Yoongi’s gaze darkened. “Then we have to do what Namjoon said. Rewrite it.”

Jimin frowned. “Rewrite a song while inside it? How do we even—”

A deep, resonating hum vibrated through the air.

Jungkook froze.

The song was waking up.

The floating notes began to shift. The staves in the sky rippled, curving like they were rewriting themselves. The entire world pulsed with an unseen force, a melody not yet complete—but hungry to finish.

Namjoon clenched his jaw. “We need to move. Now.”

He pulled the silver pendant from his pocket. The one that had led them into the vaults.

But now—

It wasn’t a pendant anymore.

The metal twisted, shaping itself into a quill.

Jin inhaled sharply. “Is that—”

“A composer’s quill,” Hana whispered. “It’s responding to the song.”

Jungkook’s pulse spiked. They had a chance. If Namjoon could rewrite the melody before it completed itself—

The world shook.

The song screamed.

And suddenly, they weren’t alone.

The air behind them ripped apart.