The pre-dawn air cut through his lungs like ice.
Rain fell like needles, carving silence into the streets of Gangnam.
Twenty-five floors above, the wind howled.
Below—
A white sheet, motionless.
Park Min-ji. Early thirties. Researcher.
Fell—or was pushed?
The police called it suicide.
But the Emotion Court didn't summon Ha-yul for suicides.
They only called when something didn't fit.
"Thank you for coming on short notice."
Director Do approached, umbrella tilted against the rain, eyes sharp beneath his soaked hair.
"I apologize for the early summons. But this one's... different."
Jin Ha-yul didn't look away from the body.
"How different?"
Do hesitated. His voice lowered.
"Park Min-ji was a researcher for Devigen. She filed an internal complaint—experimental irregularities involving a drug labeled 'Afterlife.'"
Ha-yul's gaze didn't shift.
"When?"
"Two days before her death."
The rain intensified.
He noticed something else, too.
Si-on hadn't been assigned to the case.
Maybe it was coincidence.
Or maybe the Court knew this one needed silence.
---
Later, in the Court.
Blue flowed across the chamber—cool, consistent.
The Emotion Flow displayed no violence, no resistance.
No red. No deep blue.
No spikes of panic or dread.
Just... gray and yellow.
Doubt. Caution.
Flickering at the edges of something missing.
"This doesn't make sense," Ha-yul said.
"Even if she jumped, there should've been fear."
He reached out. The flow resisted nothing—just as if nothing had been left behind.
Then—an anomaly.
A flicker of black.
Not darkness.
Contamination.
"LUX," Ha-yul said.
Above, the light moved.
LUX—the Judge of Light. A sentinel made of logic and algorithms, watching silently from above.
"Begin deep scan," he commanded.
A pulse.
And then—the ripple expanded.
Not emotional noise. Not anomaly.
Something artificial.
Planted.
---
Back at the Center, Do reviewed the data logs.
"We found no alteration signs."
"There wouldn't be," Ha-yul said. "Not if they bypassed the Court's detection filters."
"You're saying someone erased her emotions?"
"No," Ha-yul replied.
"I'm saying someone replaced them."
He placed the datapad on the table.
The last three seconds of the Flow played.
Static. Then a name.
PROJECT AFTERLIFE.
And then it vanished.
Ha-yul stared at the blank screen.
He didn't feel fear. He couldn't.
But the shape of what he couldn't feel...
left a mark.
And somewhere in the stillness—
he began to wonder if the Flow was lying.
→ [To be continued in Episode 4]
---
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