At 3:17 PM, the world blinked.
Traffic lights froze mid-switch.
A coin stopped spinning before it could fall.
A surgeon's scalpel hovered above an open chest.
Then the sky cracked.
Not with thunder.
Not with light.
But with a thin, black fracture stretching from horizon to horizon—clean and silent, like glass splitting under invisible pressure.
And those chosen disappeared.
---
Ji-Hoon hit stone hard enough to steal the air from his lungs.
Cold.
Smooth.
Black marble.
When his vision cleared, he wasn't alone.
Hundreds of people stood scattered across a vast circular chamber. The ceiling climbed endlessly into shadow. The edges of the room dissolved into darkness as if the world simply stopped there.
Someone screamed.
"Where are we?!"
"My phone—there's no signal!"
A child began sobbing.
Then the burning started.
It moved through the crowd like a chain reaction.
A woman clutched her wrist and shrieked.
A man tore at his collar, collapsing.
Ji-Hoon felt it a second later.
Heat detonated across his left forearm. It wasn't surface pain—it burrowed inward, branding him from the inside out. He dropped to his knees, biting down on a scream as the sensation carved into him.
The smell of scorched flesh lingered in the air.
Then it stopped.
Abruptly.
Like a switch flipped off.
Breathing. Whimpering. Shaking.
Ji-Hoon forced himself to look.
On his forearm, etched in pitch black—
♘
The symbol was sharp. Perfect. Not ink. Not carved.
Embedded.
All around him, others stared at their own marks.
♙ on someone's ankle.
♖ across a shoulder.
♗ at the base of a throat.
Near the center of the chamber, a tall man slowly turned his trembling hand over.
On the back of it—
♔
He didn't speak.
He didn't understand.
No one did.
A few people began backing away from each other instinctively.
"What is this? Some kind of sick prank?"
"It won't wash off—!"
A woman scrubbed her arm violently until her skin turned red.
The mark did not fade.
The air changed.
No wind.
No sound.
Just a shift in pressure.
Something was there now.
A figure hovered above the chamber.
Humanoid.
Featureless.
As though cut from the absence of light itself.
It had not arrived.
It had simply begun existing.
When it spoke, the voice didn't echo.
It pressed directly into their minds.
---
"Welcome."
---
A man near the edge of the chamber bolted in blind panic.
He ran three steps.
On the fourth—
He vanished.
Not exploded.
Not torn apart.
Erased.
The space he had occupied felt wrong. Like reality had sealed over a crack.
Screaming erupted.
"They killed him!"
"Let us go!"
"WHAT IS THIS?!"
The entity remained still.
"You have been selected."
A faint grid flickered beneath their feet.
Thin black lines spreading outward in perfect symmetry.
"You are now pieces."
The marble floor trembled.
Cracks tore violently across the chamber, splitting the ground with thunderous force. White light surged through the fractures.
The chamber fractured into squares.
Black.
White.
Black.
White.
The circular room dissolved into an infinite chessboard stretching into darkness.
Tiles shifted, separating.
Carrying each person away from the others.
Ji-Hoon felt his square slide backward.
Alone.
Above every head, a color ignited.
Black.
White.
Random.
A mother reached for her son as their tiles drifted apart.
She stepped across the line.
She disappeared.
Her son's scream echoed across the board.
"Breaking formation results in erasure."
Words materialized in the air.
---
GAME 1: FORMATION
One King per side.
If the King dies, the Queen dies.
If the Queen dies, all pieces demote.
Pawns may promote upon reaching the enemy end.
Death is permanent.
---
The tall man near the center stared at his hand again.
♔
Slowly, he looked up.
Across the endless board—
Another man stood on a white tile.
Also marked.
♔
Understanding spread like poison.
A woman several tiles away looked down at her wrist.
♕
Her breathing faltered.
The implications settled over the board in suffocating silence.
A timer ignited above them.
05:00
Five minutes until the first move.
Some vomited.
Some prayed.
Some stood in absolute stillness.
Ji-Hoon flexed his fingers.
And something clicked inside him.
Not knowledge.
Instinct.
Two forward.
One to the side.
A faint path shimmered in his vision.
He wasn't just standing on the board.
He was bound to it.
00:12
The entity's presence deepened.
00:05
Silence swallowed the sobbing.
00:03
No one moved.
00:02
Hearts pounded.
00:01
The timer vanished.
For one breath, the board held still.
Then—
A pawn stepped forward.
And the game began.