The Halazia Chronicles

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world forever, it seems.

—Arthur O’Shaughnessy, “Ode,” in Music and Moonlight (London: Trübner & Co., 1874)

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The bare, white room lit by a single fluorescent tube was cold.

At the center of the room sat a man behind a seamless synthetic desk. It was molded from a single sheet of pale material, sterile and smooth. Nothing lay on its surface. Not a pen. Not a file. Not even dust.

He folded his gloved hands neatly atop the desk just as the overhead light flickered. When he lifted his head, the thin strip of light glanced off the dark lenses covering his eyes, throwing back a brief, distorted reflection. For a moment, the lenses seemed almost fused with his face—an extension rather than an accessory—before the flicker settled and they dulled again to opaque black.

His expression remained unreadable behind them.

He dropped his gaze to the second man standing before him, who clutched a pen and a pad of paper as if both might slip from his grasp.

“Begin the record,” the seated man said.

The man with the pad faltered, shifting nervously. “Sir, this is only a concept briefing—”

“Concepts shape nations. Record it.”

The second man dipped his head and pressed two fingers to an earpiece, whispering something out of range. Moments later, the door hissed open and a third person hurried inside, pushing a metal cart that rattled loudly across the hard floor.

The sound bounced off the white walls like gunfire, too loud for a room that seemed designed for silence. The second man winced with each clatter.

The cart was positioned beside him. The third person exited quickly, as if lingering might be dangerous.

The second man switched the machine on. A low, steady hum spread through the room, a mechanical heartbeat that made the stillness feel sharper.

The first man began speaking—clinical, assured, cold.

“Human beings are engines of waste. They burn too hot and destroy everything. They bleed emotion in every direction. Desire, obsession, fear, hesitation, self-hatred, trauma, frustration, distortion. Inefficient, uncontrolled, dangerous.”

A quiet swallow sounded from the other man. “And your…solution?”

“Quiet. Absolute quiet. A world where nothing shatters because nothing feels.”

The second voice hesitated. “A doctrine, then?”

“Call it mercy.”

-----

The sirens blared, sharp and metallic, ricocheting down the narrow steel corridors.

Large men in white uniforms marched in intersecting lines, their movements precise, synchronized, empty. They followed orders without thought, without hesitation, without even the faintest flicker of feeling.

Then a voice broke through the alarm—calm, almost gentle, threaded into every hallway through hidden speakers. The system broadcast seeped into every chamber of the vast labyrinth below.

“Prepare the transition. Effective immediately, my former identity is retired. On all channels, use the designation Z.”

In a room at the top of the tallest tower, a gloved finger eased off the broadcast switch.

The man behind the desk leaned back slowly, folding his hands over the smooth surface. The faint flicker of light skimmed across the lenses covering his eyes.

“We’ve come so far,” he murmured to himself, almost reflective. “And yet…there is still so much further to go.”

An engineer stood before him, back straight, face devoid of expression. “What of the dissidents, sir? The ones wearing—"

“The hats? The ones with the device?” The man cut in smoothly. “They will break. We will take their memories, one by one, until they are silenced.”

“And their reflections?”

A pause. Time seemed to lean in close to listen.

“Destroy the reflections first.”

-----

Deep underground, a different system clicked on. A precise, dispassionate voice issued its directives.

“Directive 1—Initiate docile-state calibration through biochips.

Directive 2—Deploy the smoke across all sectors to optimize memory harvesting.

Directive 3—Extract surplus emotional signal.

Directive 4—Report anomalies to Overseer Z.”

The transmission crackled, then dissolved briefly into static.

A technician’s voice emerged, thin and robotic. “Warning. Unregulated dreams detected. Unauthorized sentiment rising.”

A colder voice responded immediately—flat and sharp like an ice chip. “Source?”

“Designation: H—” The response burst apart in a shower of static. “Status: Anomalous. Recommendation: Erase on sight.”

The silence stretched, punctuated only by the soft whir of cooling vents.

Then the technician’s voice returned, softer this time, glitching at the edges as if something unseen were distorting the signal. “Secondary anomaly detected across the citizen grid. A forbidden term.”

The metallic voice paused. “Identify.”

A long silence followed, as though the entire network were listening.

Then, barely formed, almost a breath:

“Halazia.”

-----

Across a fractured frequency—somewhere outside the reach of white-uniform patrols and sterile towers—an old radio sputtered to life.

“If you can hear this, you are still alive. If you can feel anything at all, you are already one of us.”

Static swallowed the words, then spit out more.

“They think we should be grateful for what they gave us: comfort, wealth, two centuries of life to enjoy it. But what did they take in return? They call us criminals. We are not criminals. We are only trying to return what was stolen. Your grief. Your joy. Your breath.”

Another burst of interference.

“The eight are coming. When they arrive, follow the light.”

-----

Some say the worlds were once one. Some say they were never meant to meet. Some say fate is a loop and every ending is simply a door back to the beginning.

Whatever the truth, know this.

Somewhere, children in a warehouse were dreaming.

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This is a fan-made, transformative work based on Ateez’s official storyline. Ateez, the Cromer, and all associated concepts belong to KQ Entertainment. I make no claim to the original IP, and this project is not affiliated with or endorsed by KQ.