I always thought change would come with fanfare sirens, fire, at least some dramatic music. But mine began in the soft, forgettable silence of a Thursday night.
Most people wouldn't call my life remarkable. And I wouldn't argue. I lived in a narrow apartment in western Seoul, above a bakery that opened too early and a bar that closed too late. My room smelled faintly of instant coffee and old books, and the only other heartbeat in the space was mine.
Still, it was mine. Predictable. Safe.
I worked as a junior assistant at the National Museum of Ancient History. Not the sleek, glass-covered one in Gangnam, no, this one was tucked behind a busy university street, with ivy creeping up its old stone walls and an archive basement that felt like it hadn't been dusted since the Joseon Dynasty.
It was quiet down there. I liked quiet.
Most days, I catalogued relics no one remembered. Broken amulets, clay fragments, faded scrolls that crumbled at a breath. I was good at being invisible. Nobody looked too closely at the assistant in the archives.
And then the disc arrived.
It came wrapped in linen, buried inside a mislabeled crate marked "Nordic 18th Century?" with a scribbled question mark. I remember the first time I unwrapped it. Cold metal, circular, about the size of a dinner plate. At first glance, it looked like dark steel. But when I tilted it under the light, it shimmered with a hue that didn't exist in nature…somewhere between violet and midnight.
More unsettling were the markings. They weren't language as we know it. Not runes, not symbols. They looked like motion frozen in time swirls and curves that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking.
"Probably decorative," my supervisor said with a shrug. "Tag it and shelve it. We'll assign it later."
But I didn't shelve it.
I couldn't.
Over the next few days, I found excuses to return. Sometimes I told myself I needed more notes. Other times, I just stood there, staring at it. It felt... familiar. Like déjà vu I hadn't earned. The more I touched it, the warmer it got. Once, I swore I heard it hum beneath my palm.
I laughed it off. Told myself I was tired. Overworked. But deep down, I knew something had started the moment I unwrapped it.
The night it happened, the museum was nearly empty. The city outside was muffled by spring rain, and the sound of my footsteps echoed too loudly as I descended into the archive.
I should've gone home.
Instead, I turned on the lamp, walked straight to the relic, and placed both hands on it.
I expected cold.
Instead, it pulsed once, like a heartbeat. Light bloomed under my fingers, bright and unnatural, spilling across the floor. I gasped, tried to pull away but I couldn't move. The disc held me in place, humming louder now, the markings glowing.
Then, everything vanished.
I didn't fall. I drifted.
There was no up. No down. Just light and pressure, like the world had turned inside out and folded me with it.
And suddenly air.
I hit the ground hard.
My palms scraped against moss. The scent of earth filled my lungs. I coughed, rolled onto my back, and blinked up at a sky I didn't recognize. Two moons hung above me. The trees were too tall. Too still. Their leaves shimmered silver in the windless dark.
I sat up slowly, heart thudding.
This wasn't Seoul.
And this certainly wasn't Earth.