Static in the Sky

There are many ways to wake up. A warm bed. A phone alarm. The smell of pancakes. A bird screaming existential poetry at 5 a.m.

Jungkook woke up to the sensation of floating.

Not the peaceful kind, like in a hot spring.

The “I have lost all contact with gravity and may now be dead” kind.

“Okay,” he said aloud, which was hard because his voice came out like a weird echo of itself. “Okay. Okay? What the actual—”

His words stretched, bounced back at him in distorted waves.

The world around him was… nothing. But also, not nothing. A space that was dark but not black. More like the inside of a quartz crystal, if the crystal had been dipped in moonlight and sprinkled with static.

Glitching stars blinked in and out across the sky. They didn’t twinkle, they shuddered, like someone had uploaded the galaxy on dial-up.

Below him, if it could be called ‘below’, a surface shimmered, reflecting his body like liquid glass. Or maybe it was a mirror. Or a memory. He couldn’t tell.

Jungkook turned midair. Or maybe the world turned around him.

“This is… new,” he said slowly, blinking at a constellation that resembled a rice cooker.

From nowhere, a voice replied:

“You’re early.”

He flinched. “WHAT.”

No one there.

Just the vibrating hum of the static-sky, and the unsettling sense that someone, or something, was watching through a very old screen.

“Not your fault,” the voice continued. It sounded like a whisper made of thunder. Ancient and echoing. Genderless. Tired.

“It’s broken. Has been for centuries.”

“What’s broken?” Jungkook asked, trying to rotate toward the sound, even though there was no clear up or down.

“The seal. The stars fell too soon. The gate opened too wide.”

“You’re really bad at giving answers,” Jungkook muttered.

There was a sound like a sigh. A cosmic, earthquake-sized sigh.

“You weren’t supposed to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Him.”

Suddenly, a flash.

An image.

Dark eyes. Sharp cheekbones. A mouth just about to smile, and then not. A prince in navy robes. A painting he’d sketched without knowing why.

Taehyung.

The name hit him like a drum.

The memory crashed behind it.

The whisper grew louder, like wind turning into a scream:

“YOU WERE NOT MEANT TO ARRIVE THIS WAY.”

And then,

Boom.

The sky cracked again. Not like thunder like glass. A clean fracture split across the stars. Light poured from the break.

Jungkook shielded his eyes. His body jolted.

“NOPE,” he yelled to no one. “I WOULD LIKE A REFUND ON THIS DREAM SEQUENCE.”

“Too late.”

He was falling again.

Only this time, he saw the world twist beneath him, lush forests, wide rivers, winding palace walls.

He was no longer floating in void.

He was plummeting toward something green and ancient and real.

Then,

Nothing.

-×-×-

When he opened his eyes, he was lying face-down in a rice paddy.

In the rain.

Surrounded by very startled farmers.

And one goose.

The goose screamed at him.

Jungkook screamed back.

The farmers screamed third.

One of them, an elderly man with no teeth and perfect comedic timing, said, “Did the gods just fall out of the sky again? That’s the third time this decade.”

Jungkook sat up, drenched and dizzy.

“Where...?”

The goose hissed.

A teenage farm boy stared at him and whispered, “His robe is glowing.”

Indeed, Jungkook’s soaked hoodie shimmered faintly, still humming with leftover static.

The old man poked him with a stick. “Are you the star bride or the war general?”

“I’m an idol,” Jungkook croaked.

“Same thing,” the old man muttered.

Jungkook passed out.

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