"We are hunters."
The cabin lights dimmed to a soft amber glow, casting long shadows across the rows of sleeping passengers. Yena sat by the window, her fingers curled loosely around a paper cup of cooling tea. Outside, the clouds stretched like silk beneath the plane’s wing, the horizon just beginning to blush with the first hints of dawn.
She turned the page of the in-flight newspaper, her eyes catching on a familiar headline:
“HUNTRIX SETS SEOUL ABLAZE—TRIO’S FINAL WORLD TOUR STOP HYPES FANS”
A photo accompanied it. Rumi mid-spin, Mira with her mic raised like a blade, Zoey grinning widely under the stage lights. Yena’s lips curved into a quiet smile. Even after all this time, they still burned so brightly.
She traced the edge of the photo with her thumb, a flicker of pride warming her chest. They’d done it. Without her.
Her phone buzzed in the seat pocket.
Yena blinked, startled. She fished it out, the screen lighting up with a familiar group call banner: “Huntrix 💫”
She hesitated for half a second, then tapped “Accept.”
“YENA-AH!” three voices chorused in unison, loud enough to make the businessman across the aisle flinch in his sleep.
Yena chuckled, the sound soft and genuine. “You guys are going to get me kicked off this flight.”
“Worth it,” Zoey said, her voice bright and teasing. “We heard a little rumor floating around... something about a certain someone leaving China?”
Yena groaned, leaning back in her seat. “Ugh. Don’t tell me the fan sites are still tracking my every move.”
“It was dramatic,” Mira chimed in, mock-serious. “Like, ‘Mysterious Idol Vanishes from Retreat—Spotted at Airport in Disguise.’ You should’ve worn a cape.”
“I wore a hoodie,” Yena muttered. “And sunglasses. Paparazzi just love to overstep boundaries. It’s their whole brand.”
“She’s not wrong,” Rumi added, her voice calmer but laced with affection. “Still, you could’ve warned us. We’ve been refreshing your socials like stalkers.”
Yena smiled again, this time with a hint of guilt. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, mission accomplished,” Zoey said. “So? When do we get to see your face in person?”
“I land tomorrow morning,” Yena replied, glancing at the time on her screen. “Assuming this plane doesn’t fall out of the sky.”
The line erupted into shrieks and cheers. Yena winced, laughing as she pulled the phone slightly away from her ear. “You guys haven’t changed at all.”
“And you’ve missed it,” Rumi said knowingly.
Yena leaned back into her seat, the girls’ laughter still echoing in her ears. As their voices faded into playful bickering, her gaze drifted to the window again, her smile softening.
It had been years since they were all together like this, together. She remembered the late-night rehearsals, the cramped dressing rooms, and the way they used to huddle under one blanket during winter tours. Mira’s off-key warmups, Zoey’s endless snack stash, Rumi’s quiet humming when she thought no one was listening.
A breath hitched in her throat.
She blinked quickly, but a single tear slipped free, trailing down her cheek before she could stop it. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, composing herself with a practiced ease.
“Anyways,” she said, voice light and teasing, “is Bobby still alive? Or has he finally combusted from stress?”
That earned another round of laughter.
“Oh, he’s hanging by a thread,” Rumi replied dryly. “Our private plane just took off, so we’re waiting for his inevitable meltdown once we land.”
“In his defense,” Mira added, “we did kind of miss rehearsals yesterday for a quick wild goose chase.”
“Which he specifically told us not to do,” Zoey chimed in, utterly unrepentant.
Yena chuckled, imagining Bobby pacing the tarmac, phone in hand, muttering to himself in three languages. “Classic.”
In the background, the clatter of trays and the rustle of wrappers filtered through the call. “Are you guys eating again?” Yena asked, raising an eyebrow. “You eat like you’re feeding an army.”
Mira snorted before smirking. “We are the army.”
Zoey gasped in mock offense. “Excuse you, Miss Midnight Ramen. You’re the one who once ate three servings of tteokbokki before a live.”
Yena narrowed her eyes at the screen. “That was one time.”
“Uh-huh,” Rumi said, deadpan. “And what about the time you tried to hide your boba tea under the mixing desk during recording?”
A beat of silence passes before Mira and Zoey burst into withheld laughter, barely holding it together.
Yena rolled her eyes, but her smile betrayed her. “I was hydrating.”
“With brown sugar and tapioca?” Zoey wheezed.
“Liquid courage,” Yena said with a mock-sigh, shaking her head in amusement.
She reached for the service button, intending to ask for another cup of tea, but paused.
Across the aisle, the seats were empty. Unkept blankets. No chatter. No laughter. Yena’s hand lowered from the service button; her gaze fixed on the row across the aisle.
Empty.
But not just empty—wrong.
She was sure those seats had been occupied earlier. A middle-aged couple, as well as a businessman, were right behind them. She remembered the rustle of a newspaper, the faint scent of cologne, the quiet clink of a spoon against porcelain. Business class wasn’t the kind of place where people just vanished. And this was a nonstop flight. No layovers. No midair drop-offs.
The silence pressed in, thick and unnatural.
“Yena?” Rumi’s voice came through the phone again, softer now. “You okay?”
Yena blinked, forcing her expression to relax as she turned her gaze back to the screen. The girls were still there—Rumi’s brows furrowed, Mira's deep stare, Zoey leaning forward with concern.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah. Just getting sleepy... I’ll call you guys once I’ve landed.” Before they could respond, she ended the call and slipped her phone into her pocket.
The cabin lights flickered, just once. Barely noticeable but enough for her to find it out of the ordinary.
Yena unbuckled her seatbelt slowly, rising from her seat with practiced quiet. Her boots made no sound against the carpeted floor as she stepped towards the aisle, heart thudding with a rhythm she hadn’t felt in months.
She glanced around.
The flight attendant station was empty. No carts. No chatter. Just the low hum of the engines and the occasional snore from the far end of the cabin. She turned toward the row across from hers.
The blankets were still on the seats. The seatbelts still buckled. But the air felt... colder. Like the warmth had been sucked out of the space entirely.
Yena’s fingers twitched at her side, instinctively reaching for something she hadn’t carried in a long time. Her Norigae, the talisman that brings good luck, more specifically wards off evil, was a note of protection she had used all the time.
But she had left all that behind, or so she thought. She took a cautious step forward, eyes scanning the seats, the overhead bins, the shadows that seemed just a little too deep.
Something wasn’t right.
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The backstage hallway was dim, lit only by the flicker of overhead fluorescents and the soft hum of stage monitors echoing from the rehearsal hall. Yena sat cross-legged on the floor, tablet in hand, double-checking the schedule Bobby had barked at her to revise for the third time that day.
The girls were on break. The crew had scattered. She was alone. Or so she thought.
A chill crept up her spine.
She paused, fingers hovering over the screen. The air had shifted—gone still, heavy. The kind of silence that didn’t feel empty, but watchful.
Then she saw it.
A faint red glow bled from the far wall, like light seeping through torn wallpaper. The surface rippled—peeled—as if something behind it was clawing its way through.
Yena stood slowly, heart pounding. The wall split open.
A jagged tear of crimson light burst across the plaster, and from it emerged a creature, twisted, its limbs too long, its eyes glowing like gold. It shrieked, a sound like metal scraping bone, and lunged.
Yena screamed and bolted down the corridor.
She didn’t think, just ran. Past the dressing rooms, past the prop crates, her breath ragged and her vision blurring with tears. But no matter how fast she moved, the cold followed. More rips opened in the walls. More creatures spilled out, shadows with teeth, hunger in their eyes.
She turned a corner and stopped.
Dead end.
A stack of unused lighting rigs blocked the exit. Behind her, the monsters closed in, their snarls echoing off the walls. “Help!” she cried, voice cracking. “Somebody please!”
No answer.
Her legs gave out. She collapsed to the floor, trembling, her back pressed to the cold metal of the rig. The shadows loomed closer, their claws dragging across the floor.
This was it. She was going to die here. Alone. Forgotten. Just another intern in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Her breath hitched.
No.
Not like this.
She thought of Huntrix, of the first time she heard them sing. The way their voices made her feel like she could fly. Like she mattered. She wanted to live.
She wanted to sing.
Through the panic, a melody surfaced. One she had written as a child, when the world felt too big and she needed something to hold onto. A lullaby of hope. Of light.
She whispered the words, barely audible.
“Nobody bringin me down, they can try, but I'm wearing the crown.”
The air shimmered.
Thin, glowing threads—like strands of bluish sliver light, began to weave around her, spiraling from her chest, her throat, her breath. They pulsed with the rhythm of her voice, forming a barrier between her and the monsters.
The creatures recoiled, hissing, their forms flickering like static.
Yena stared, wide-eyed, as the threads expanded, growing brighter, stronger, until the hallway was bathed in light.
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Yena stood in the aisle, her breath steady, her senses sharp. The memory of that first encounter still lingered in her chest like a phantom heartbeat, but she wasn’t that terrified intern anymore. The silence in the cabin was no longer just unsettling. It was unnatural.
Demons.
Her gaze swept the empty seats again, and this time, she didn’t look away. She parted her lips. Not to scream, not to chant, but to hum. A soft, simple harmony.
“La-la-la...”
The melody was gentle, almost childlike. But as the notes left her throat, the air shimmered. Threads of light, the Honmoon, unfurled from the effect of her voice, weaving through the cabin like strands of moonlight.
The shadows recoiled. The cabin brightened, not with electricity, but with a silvery glow that peeled back the veil of darkness. And there they were. Three figures, once hidden, now revealed.
Two flanked her on either side. Tall, sinewy, their skin like cracked obsidian, eyes glowing with malice, but it was the third one that drew Yena’s attention.
At the far end of the aisle stood their leader—a grotesque, feathered creature with a twisted feminine form. Her wings were tattered, her face a mockery of beauty, and her grin stretched too wide. Yellow slitted eyes' piercing gaze at the hunter.
“Well, well,” the demoness purred, voice like rusted silk. “The little songbird returns. We thought you’d clipped your wings for good.”
The other two demons laughed in perfect sync, their voices echoing like broken glass. Yena didn’t flinch. Instead, she reached up and casually tied her hair into a messy bun, her expression super relaxed and unreadable.
Their laughter faltered. “Oh no,” the feathered one hissed. “Don’t act like you’re still one of them. You’re retired. Forgotten.”
Yena rolled her shoulders, loosening the tension in her arms. “Maybe,” she said coolly. “But I’m still capable enough to deal with you.”
With a flick of her wrist, a shimmer of light coalesced in her hand—her Buchae, an evil warding blessed fan, or, for short, divine fan, shaped into form.
Elegant. Deadly. Its steel ribs gleamed with etched runes, and the fabric shimmered with protective sigils that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She opened it with a sharp snap.
“I’ll go easy on you,” she said, stepping into a ready stance. “I might be rusty.”
The demons snarled, and then they lunged at her.
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and then Add to home screen.