The Halazia Chronicles

Hongjoong worked alone in his cramped room, surrounded by wires, half-finished beats, and the cold glow of his laptop screen, the cursor blinking like a dying star. Midnight had folded itself around the tiny space, the walls thin enough to hear the city sigh in its sleep. It wasn’t much, but it was his—his first real space since leaving home to chase a dream his parents never understood.

He pressed one key, then another. The melody wavered—shy at first, then stubborn. Tonight, he wrote to keep from disappearing. Music was the only place he could breathe.

But the song he was chasing proved elusive. He reached for the oversized soda cup beside his bed and found it empty, the ice clinking loudly in the quiet room.

He glanced at the clock on his laptop. The convenience store down the street was still open. With a long exhale, he snapped the laptop shut and swung his legs out of bed. He wasn’t finishing anything without caffeine. And...right. He hadn’t eaten dinner either. He rarely noticed anything outside the notes in his head.

He dug through the piles of clothes on the floor until he found his shoes, tugging them on. A quick rake of his fingers through his electric blue hair, a glance in the mirror, and he slipped out into the night.

The air felt strange—charged, like time was holding its breath. He was alone on the street, but that didn’t bother him. He often walked at night when sleep refused him. He was used to being alone.

The convenience store clerk barely glanced up as Hongjoong paid for a soda, a bag of chips, one package of Nutella & Go (his favorite), and a banana milk.

He ate the Nutella & Go slowly as he walked home. In front of a television store, he stopped, watching the images scroll across the wall of display screens. Commercials. Variety shows. Idol groups on brilliant stages, dressed in impossible colors under impossible lights.

The worlds inside the screens felt so close. So bright. So far away.

Without thinking, his hand lifted toward the glass, as if the screens were small windows, and he was peering into other worlds that existed only a breath beyond reach. The glass fogged beneath his exhale, blurring the images.

Suddenly, he missed his family. What were they doing? Had they eaten dinner together tonight? Did they think of him at all?

He wondered, not for the first time, if he were someone shining on one of these screens…would they see him? Would they come find him?

A hollow ache opened in his chest, slow and deep, threatening to swallow him whole.

He stepped back sharply from the glass and turned away, walking fast.

Back in his dark little room, the computer screen glowed like a low-hanging moon. For a long time, he just stared at it. Then he placed his hands on the keyboard and let the first notes fall.

----

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Seonghwa silenced the alarm with a precise tap of his finger.

Task twenty-seven: Reorganize backpack for tomorrow—complete.

His room was dim, just one desk lamp angled downward, creating an island of orderly light in a sea of shadow. Outside the cone of brightness, the rest of the room blurred into soft darkness—the perfect environment for Seonghwa to focus.

He flipped over the page of his planner. The neat columns calmed him. Checkmarks lined the entire day. He exhaled, pleased at the sight.

He hadn’t always relied on lists like this. They had begun as simple reminders, then routines, then something almost ritualistic—anchors to keep him from drifting. If he kept moving, kept completing, kept perfecting, then the day felt like a shape he could hold.

The timer flashed again. Ten minutes until the next task.

Seonghwa straightened the items on his desk: pen, pencil, eraser, notebook, all aligned exactly. Then he stacked the textbooks by height. Then he wiped away a speck of dust that only he would have noticed.

Still seven minutes left.

His fingers moved restlessly. Staying still felt wrong, as if the world might collapse inward if he wasn’t in motion.

He turned to the window. Outside, the street was quiet, washed in layers of night. A lone streetlamp flickered in uneven pulses, as if trying and failing to stay awake. Its rhythm unsettled him. The inconsistency. The wobbling light.

He looked down at his planner again. Tomorrow’s schedule already crowded half the page. School. Chores. Study group. Night shift at the convenience store.

And still, even with every hour accounted for, something inside him felt unfinished.

He ran a hand through his hair and drew a slow breath the way his counselor had once taught him: In for four. Hold. Out for six.

But the tight feeling in his chest didn’t quite leave.

From next door, he heard laughter from a variety show playing on his neighbor’s television. Bright voices. People shining.

Seonghwa swallowed. His next task beeped.

He turned back to his desk, picked up his pen, and wrote, Task twenty-eight: Step outside for fresh air.

He paused. He hadn’t planned that. It wasn’t on the list this morning. But something in him felt…pulled.

So he slid on his slippers, tightened the drawstring of his hoodie, and stepped out into the hallway. The apartment door closed softly behind him, leaving him in the cool night air.

The streetlamp flickered again, dim then bright, shadow then light, like a heartbeat trying to find its rhythm.

Seonghwa stood under it for a moment, eyes lifting to the waning moon peeking through torn clouds.

He didn’t know it yet, but something in the darkness was shifting. Something waiting. Something calling.

He checked off task twenty-eight.

And for the first time that day, the box felt too small for whatever he had just completed.

Somewhere above him, elevator cables groaned as someone descended—a long, low metallic sigh slipping down the building’s spine.

Seonghwa looked up at the sound. It echoed strangely in the quiet, as if the city itself were shifting in its sleep.

----

Wooyoung shoved open the stairwell door with his shoulder, the metal groaning as if annoyed at being woken.

The bulb overhead flickered with the same unsteady rhythm it always had—bright, dim, bright, gone—before sputtering back to life. The light was terrible. Perfect for hiding in.

He dropped his bag on the steps and exhaled sharply, letting the bravado he’d worn all day slip off his shoulders.

School had been loud. People had been louder.

He’d laughed at all the right moments, grinned when he was supposed to, tossed jokes around like confetti, so no one saw how his hands shook.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, stretching his arms, “just ten minutes. Then home.”

His voice echoed down the stairwell, bouncing off concrete. He winced.

He scrolled through his playlist and chose a song with a steady beat—something that filled the hollow places without asking for anything in return. The moment the music started, Wooyoung closed his eyes.

His body moved before he told it to: a twist, a slide, a soft tap of his heel against the cool floor.

In the dim stairwell, he wasn’t stage-shy. He wasn’t the class clown. He wasn’t the kid who froze whenever someone said, Show us, Wooyoung, dance for us.

Here, he could breathe.

He spun lightly, the edge of his sneaker brushing the step. The bulb flickered, shadows jumping like startled birds. He danced anyway, letting the beat fill the empty stairwell until it felt less empty.

He tried a turn he’d been afraid to practice in public—too sharp, too bold—and stumbled, catching himself on the railing. His breath hitched. Heat rushed up his neck.

“God, Wooyoung, you’re ridiculous,” he whispered, pressing a palm over his face. A laugh slipped out—thin, shaky. Not his usual laugh. A private one. The kind he never let anyone hear.

He took another breath, rolled out his shoulders, and tried again.

This time, he landed the turn clean.

A small, quiet spark lit inside him. He looked up at the flickering bulb, almost grateful for its inconsistency. In this half-light, he didn’t have to shine. He could just be.

The music faded out. He didn’t press play again.

His reflection in the dusty stairwell window caught his eye—a faint outline, dim and indistinct. For a second, he lifted a hand toward it, as if greeting someone he hadn’t met yet.

Someday, he thought, staring up at the empty stairwell. Someday I’ll dance without being scared.

He grabbed his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and pushed open the stairwell door. His footsteps faded down the hallway, swallowed by the quiet of the sleeping building.

-----

The precise ticking of a clock was the only sound in the room as Yeosang tightened the last screw on the miniature drone, the LED blinking weakly under the dim desk lamp. He paused, listening to the propellers warm up, the sound barely audible against the hush of his room.

It was long past midnight.

The house was dark except for the single lamp he’d positioned carefully to avoid spilling light into the hallway. His father didn’t like light after a certain hour. He didn’t like noise either. Or questions. Or reasons.

Yeosang looked out at the last sickle of the moon, half-concealed behind dark clouds.

Methinks I see things with parted eye, when everything seems double. It seems to me that we yet sleep, we dream.[1] The words floated up out of the darkness unbidden into his mind. He let the words settle.

Sometimes he wondered the same thing—if this life of rules and locked doors and silent dinners was real, or if the real world was something he hadn’t stepped into yet.

A tiny propeller chirped to life. The drone wobbled unsteadily, then hovered an inch above the desk, its blue LED casting faint constellations across his hands.

He smiled—small, private, fleeting. The kind of smile no one ever saw.

“Though she be but little,” he whispered, “she is fierce![2]”

The drone rose a little higher, its whir soft but insistent, as if it believed him.

Suddenly, from the hallway came the creak of floorboards: his father’s warning.

Yeosang snapped off the lamp’s power, plunging the room into sudden darkness while simultaneously swiping the tiny drone out of the air and cradling it against his chest. He held perfectly still, breath caught in his throat.

The footsteps paused, then retreated.

Yeosang exhaled slowly, carefully, as if the darkness itself might shatter if he breathed too forcefully.

He glanced at the drone in his palm.

Dreams. Awake. Worlds apart from worlds.

Sighing softly, he laid the drone in its case.

“And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow’s eye, steal me awhile from mine own company,[3]” he whispered at the drone before zipping the case with finality.

-----

San sat on the edge of his bed, the dim light from the hallway spilling in through his half-open door. His bag lay open on the floor in front of him, half-filled with clothes neatly folded. He pulled the zipper closed with a smooth, practiced motion.

He could do it with his eyes closed by now.

They were moving again. First thing in the morning.

This would be the…what, twelfth move? Thirteenth?

He’d stopped keeping track. The numbers didn’t matter. The result was always the same.

New streets, new school, new faces to smile at, new lockers, new classrooms, new everything. And then, after a few months, he would be packing again. And the new faces he smiled at would be just more faces to forget.

San ran a hand through his hair and flopped down on the mattress. The room was almost entirely dark now except for the sliver of hallway light cutting across the floor like a glowing scar.

He stared at the ceiling. He knew exactly how it would go: he’d walk into the new school with his usual bright grin. He’d joke at the right moments, be polite, be friendly, be easy to like. People always complimented him on his bright outlook.

Only he knew the trick.

If you pretend you don’t mind leaving, you can trick yourself into believing you might actually stay.

If you pretend you’re okay, people won’t ask whether it hurts.

He sat up and pulled his bag towards him, tossing a few more items into an open side pocket and zipping it shut, the sound loud in the stillness.

He stood and walked to the window. Outside, the streetlamps flickered in passing gusts of wind, each blink revealing a different version of the same place he would soon leave behind. His eyes refocused on his blurry reflection pressed faintly against the glass, a shape almost swallowed by the dark. Beads of moisture gathered along the pane.

He lifted a hand and wiped the droplets away.

“Do you ever get tired of disappearing?” he whispered.

He turned away, suddenly afraid the reflection might answer.

As he turned the sheets down to get into bed, it occurred to him—not for the first time—that all his life felt like the act of stepping out of one shadow and into another.

But somewhere deep inside, beneath all the practiced smiles and schoolyard jokes, a quiet hope pulsed.

Maybe this time, he thought, maybe this place will be different.

He didn’t know why, but the night felt strange. Charged. As if something in the darkness had shifted slightly off its usual axis.

Getting into bed, he lay with his head resting on a hand, staring at the ceiling for some long minutes. He listened to the night around him settle, his father packing, and his mother brushing her teeth and getting into bed.

Finally, with a deep sigh, he rolled over and snapped the bedside lamp off.

-----

Yunho slipped into the small practice room at the neighborhood music academy, easing the door shut behind him. He flicked the fluorescent overhead light on. It sputtered uncertainly before settling into a weak, pale glow. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep the dark from swallowing him.

He set his backpack down gently, afraid to shatter the silence surrounding him.

Most kids used this place to practice vocals or instruments. He used to come here to practice vocals and piano. Now, he came here to remember his brother. Or how his brother used to be.

His mind flew back to the sterile hospital room he’d just left, where a sea of machinery engulfed his brother. The blue-white light in the room had an otherworldly, ethereal softness, beautiful in any context except this one.

The steady beeping of an EKG rose in his memory, faint at first, then crescendoing.

Beep…

Beep…

Beeep—

Yunho’s breath hitched. He shook his head violently to dislodge the sound.

He crossed the room slowly, fingers trailing along the edge of the keyboard standing sentinel on one side of the room, across from a battered drumset. His reflection hovered faintly—dim, distorted, someone he didn’t recognize—in the smudged glass of the framed band posters on the walls.

He lifted the polyester dust cover off the keyboard and laid it gently aside. Yunho sat down on the bench and pressed a single key. The note rang out pure and lonely.

He closed his eyes.

They used to practice harmonies here. His brother’s voice had filled the room in a way Yunho’s never could—strong, clear, always teasing him when he missed a note.

He could still hear it. Memory or imagination, he wasn’t sure.

Yunho rested his hands on the keys but didn’t play. Not tonight.

“I waited,” he whispered, barely audible even to himself.

His throat tightened painfully. He swallowed hard.

He hadn’t told anyone this, that he had been here, in this room, the day of the accident. That he had practiced the same section over and over, waiting for his brother to walk through the door and tell him he was flat on the third note.

He hadn’t known that the moment would never come.

Yunho pressed another key, softer this time. The note wobbled slightly, as if even the piano felt the ache crashing like waves inside of him.

He let out a long, shuddering breath.

People always said he was the bright one. The reliable one. The one who held others up. But some nights—nights like this—it felt like he was made of thin glass. One wrong note and he would crack.

He lifted his hands from the keys and let them fall loosely into his lap.

Outside, a gust of wind pressed against the academy windows, rattling the thin metal frames. The sound echoed through the practice room—clear, sharp, unsettling.

Yunho looked up. The air had shifted imperceptibly, as if the wind had woken something up.

He stood, replaced the keyboard’s dust cover gently, and picked up his backpack.

“Goodnight, hyung,” he murmured to the silent room as he turned off the light and shut the door behind him with an echoing thud.

-----

Jongho dribbled the ball, scattering loose gravel under the flickering streetlamp. He hissed as the ball rolled away, his hand pressing to his knee, wincing as the ache flared—sharp and familiar.

Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to shoot again tonight. Maybe he should listen to his doctor and rest more than he has been. But the court felt empty in a way that almost called to him, and he couldn’t ignore it.

Not tonight.

The streetlamp buzzed overhead, casting a shaky cone of light across the pavement. Beyond it, the rest of the neighborhood dissolved into shadow. He liked it this way. The dark made it easier for him to hide. Made it easier for him not to think about what he had lost.

He limped toward the ball, picking it up slowly. The rubber felt cold and alien under his palm.

He used to love this feeling. The weight of the ball. The promise of movement. The rhythm of the bounce syncing with his heartbeat.

Now it was just a constant refrain reminding him of everything he couldn’t do anymore.

He dribbled once and pivoted on his left leg. Pain shot through his knee. He clenched his jaw and kept going.

His friends at school still asked him sometimes whether he missed it, whether he thought he’d ever play again.

He always laughed. Said something easy or funny.

“Why? Do you miss me mopping up the court with you so badly?” They’d all laugh at that, shoving him playfully.

He knew they meant well, but he wished they would stop asking.

The lamp flickered again, the wind setting it to swaying. Its shadow swung wildly across the court, like a pendulum trying to keep time and failing.

Jongho closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He lifted the ball, aimed at the hoop barely visible in the half-light, and released.

The ball hit the rim and careened off, rolling to the chain-link fence with a dull clatter.

“Figures,” he muttered.

He didn’t know if he was referring to the shot or his life.

For a long moment, he simply stood there, watching the wind gently rock the ball against the fence. His knee throbbed in slow, steady pulses.

He should go home. His mother would worry if he stayed out too long. He didn’t want her to see him limp, though. He didn’t want anyone to see that limp.

The streetlight buzzed again, a sharp crackle that made him flinch. Something about the sound felt wrong tonight. Like the darkness had electric teeth.

He walked over slowly and bent to pick up the ball, dragging in a breath.

“Fine,” he told the empty court. “I’ll try one more time.”

He set his feet, ignoring the pain, lifted the ball, and aimed.

Before he could shoot, a sudden gust of wind rattled the hoop’s loose chain net, metal jangling like bones. Jongho froze, lowering the ball.

The court suddenly felt…different. Heavy. Expectant.

He swallowed. Sometimes the night felt so thick he could almost hear it breathing.

He tucked the ball under his arm, bending to rub at his knee.

Someday, he thought, I’ll get back up.

The wind eased. The streetlight steadied.

Jongho turned and limped toward home, leaving the court behind him. Its shadows stretched long, thin fingers across the pavement, reaching after him.

-----

Mingi tore out of the alley, ignoring a limp and clutching his side with one hand. He wiped blood from his lip with the other. The night swallowed him whole, every streetlight a dim, flickering threat.

His breath came fast and jagged, fogging around him.

He wasn’t sure which hurt more: the bruises blooming under his hoodie or the sound of laughter still ringing in his ears.

Their voices echoed in his head, pinging off the sides of his skull, laughing about his cheap shoes. Mocking the way he dressed. Whispering about how poor he was. How his family must be “freeloaders.”

How kids like him didn’t belong anywhere.

Or was that his voice?

He swallowed hard.

He hadn’t meant to fight them. He never meant to fight anyone.

He glanced down at the bruised and bloody knuckles on his hands. He was so tired of fighting.

He’d just been walking home, the same route he always took, when the boys from school stepped out of the convenience store doorway.

They’d looked him up and down, sneering at his fraying backpack, his quiet voice.

He’d tried to keep walking, kept his head down, didn’t make eye contact. But then one of them shoved him. Hard. Another grabbed his hoodie and laughed. The third swung first.

After that, it was all a blur—shouts, fists, the sharp crack of someone’s knee against his own.

And now he could barely walk.

He ducked behind a row of dumpsters and pressed his back against the wall, heartsick and shaking. The alley smelled like smoke, rust, and rain. A single bulb overhead flickered, buzzing weakly.

He covered his mouth with a trembling hand, trying to stay silent. Trying not to sob.

He hated this. Hated how small he felt. How scared.

How badly he wanted someone—anyone—to stand up for him.

How he knew his one friend would stand up for him…if only his stupid pride would let him ask.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself off the wall and straightened. He limped out of the alley, each step sending a spike of pain up his leg.

The night air was cold against the cuts on his face and hands. He reached up to the earbuds hanging around his neck and placed them in his ears. The heavy beat of a song invaded his head.

He hated crying in public. Hated looking weak. His chest ached with humiliation, with anger, with the whisper of a dream he didn’t think he deserved.

A gust of wind blew down the street, sharp and sudden, lifting his hair and scattering loose papers at his feet.

Mingi froze.

Something about the air changed, as if the world had inhaled sharply.

He pushed himself to continue moving, one broken step after another, because standing still felt too much like giving up.

As he turned the corner, the streetlight ahead flickered violently and buzzed—a strange, electric sound that made him stop.

He didn’t know why, but it felt like a signal.

Like something was coming. Something big. Something that would tear open the dark he was drowning in.

He suddenly missed his friend’s laugh—missed it so much it hurt more than his bruises. His friend, who never once thought he was weak.

“…Please,” he whispered to no one. He didn’t even know what he was asking for.

He only knew the night suddenly felt alive around him.

And that, for the first time in a long while, he wasn’t entirely afraid.

----

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.

This retelling draws from the events depicted in the Fever Diary Film embedded above and the Zero: Fever Pt. 1 Diaries.

[1] William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, New York: Avenel Books, 1985, Act 4, Scene 1

[2] Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2

[3] Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2