Hey there. Lycoris here. First time doing one of these author's notes on my own page, so bear with me. runs hand through slightly tousled black hair
I suppose I should start with some context. Yes, I'm Wisteria's boyfriend - though you probably gathered that from her enthusiastic announcements. small smile She's been my biggest supporter in taking this writing leap, and watching her pour her heart into her stories finally convinced me to share my own.
picks up antique fountain pen, turning it thoughtfully
The story you're reading has been brewing for a while. I've always been fascinated by the implications of the hunter world Solo Leveling created.
As for release schedule - After this week to get the story going, I aim for three chapters a week, barring exceptional circumstances. Wisteria teases me about my methodical approach, but every word needs to earn its place. adjusts silver watch Speaking of which, thank you for helping us reach 100 powerstones. The support means more than you know.
Regarding potential relationships... thoughtful pause I'm letting the characters dictate that. The American setting gives us freedom to explore interesting dynamics without being constrained by the original manhwa's limited U.S. roster. But every addition needs to serve the story, not just pad the cast or make Xavier's roster better than Jin-Woo's.
I should wrap this up. Midterms week and all that. These author's notes won't be frequent - I prefer letting the story speak for itself. But I appreciate you being here for the journey.
closes notebook
Enjoy the chapter.
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The traffic light ahead turned yellow. I tapped the brake, slowing the Mustang as my mind drifted back to that purple tear hanging in the empty space of the second floor. Not blue like normal gates. Purple. Vivid and wrong, yet somehow familiar.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter as the light turned red. The gate couldn't be real. If it were, Miguel would have seen it too. And Danny would have been sucked in, not walked through it like it was nothing but air.
Hallucination. Stress. Exhaustion. That's all it was.
The light turned green. I accelerated, the engine's rumble matching the churning in my gut. Two more miles and I'd be home. Noel would be there, probably hunched over her laptop with those business textbooks scattered around her. She'd look up when I walked in, those blue eyes—identical to mine—assessing my state in an instant.
What would I tell her? That I was seeing phantom gates? That I was losing my mind?
My phone buzzed in the cup holder. Miguel's name flashed on the screen.
"Home yet? You seemed off."
I didn't answer.
Another light ahead. Yellow again. This time I accelerated through it, the Mustang responding with a surge of power. Home was right at the next intersection.
My hand hovered over the turn signal. Right meant normalcy, routine, safety. Left meant... what? Confirming I was hallucinating? Or confirming something much worse?
"Fuck it," I muttered, flicking the left signal on. The car swung around in a hard U-turn, tires protesting with a squeal that earned me a honk from an oncoming sedan.
If the gate wasn't there, I'd call in sick tomorrow. Take a day. Sleep. Reset.
And if it was there...
I'd deal with that if it happened.
The construction site came into view, dark and silent now except for the security lights casting pools of yellow across the gravel lot. I pulled up to the chain-link fence, killed the engine, and sat for a moment in the sudden quiet.
This is stupid. There's nothing there.
But I got out anyway, retrieving the site key from under the seat where I'd stashed it. The lock clicked open, and I slipped through the gate, relocking it behind me.
The building loomed ahead, a concrete skeleton wrapped in shadow. My boots crunched on gravel as I approached, each step feeling heavier than the last. The temporary elevator wasn't an option now—the power to it shut off at the end of each workday.
Stairs, then. The door to the stairwell was propped open with a brick, a violation of site rules that I was suddenly grateful for. I pulled out my phone, switching on the flashlight function, and began to climb.
The beam bounced off bare concrete walls, my shadow stretching and contracting with each turn of the stairs. One flight. Two. I paused at the door marked "2," my heart hammering in my chest.
Just open it. Prove to yourself there's nothing there.
I pushed the door open.
The second floor stretched before me, dark except for the faint glow of security lights filtering through plastic-covered windows. And there, in the corner where I'd seen it before, hung the vertical tear—pulsing with violet light that shouldn't exist.
"Shit," I whispered, the word echoing in the empty space.
The gate was real. Or I was completely losing my mind.
I approached slowly, phone light trained on the phenomenon. It didn't illuminate the gate at all—the purple light seemed to exist in a different spectrum, unaffected by my flashlight.
Three meters tall. Two meters wide. Exactly as I'd seen it from the elevator. Exactly as I'd seen it in my dreams.
Static electricity raised the hair on my arms as I drew closer. The air felt charged, like the moment before a lightning strike. My mouth went dry.
I should report this. Call the Hunter Association. But what would I say? "I found a gate no one else can see"? They'd think I was crazy.
The gate pulsed, the violet light intensifying for a heartbeat. Calling me. The same pull I'd felt in my dreams, but stronger now, almost physical.
I extended my hand toward the tear, stopping just short of touching it. The static feeling increased, making my skin tingle.
What the hell am I doing?
But I knew the answer. I was doing what I'd always done in my dreams. Following the pull. Answering the call.
My fingers inched forward until they broke the plane of the gate. There was resistance, like pushing through thick syrup, and then—
My hand disappeared into the violet light.
No pain. Just a strange sensation, like plunging my hand into water that wasn't wet. I tried to pull back, but something tugged at my fingers, gentle but insistent.
"No," I said, pulling harder. My arm didn't budge. Instead, the pull increased, drawing my forearm into the gate.
Panic flared. I planted my feet, leaning back with all my weight. It was like fighting a current, invisible but relentless. My elbow disappeared into the light. Then my shoulder.
"Stop!" I shouted, as if the gate could hear me, could be reasoned with.
My feet slid across the concrete floor, leaving scuff marks as I fought for purchase. My other arm was drawn in. Then my head.
The world twisted, colors inverting, sound compressing to a single high-pitched tone that made my teeth ache. For an instant, I existed in two places at once—half in the construction site, half... elsewhere.
Then the last of me slipped through, and I was falling.
Voices surrounded me, unintelligible yet somehow familiar, like a language I'd known in childhood and forgotten. They spoke urgently, the words slipping past my comprehension even as they tugged at something deep in my memory.
The falling sensation stopped abruptly. My feet hit solid ground with a jolt that traveled up my spine. I staggered, arms windmilling as I fought for balance.
When I steadied myself and looked up, the construction site was gone. The gate was gone. Everything familiar was gone.
I stood on obsidian ground, smooth and reflective, stretching in all directions. The sky above wasn't sky at all, but a vast purple expanse illuminated by stars that formed patterns I didn't recognize. The air tasted metallic, and that static electricity feeling remained, making my skin prickle.
"No way," I breathed.
It was exactly like my dreams. Exactly. The obsidian ground. The purple sky. The stars. The static in the air.
I turned in a slow circle. Mountains rose in the distance, jagged formations of the same black glass-like substance beneath my feet. No buildings. No people. No obvious way home.
The exit was gone. Just smooth obsidian where the gate had been.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me. I fought it down, forcing myself to breathe slowly. Panicking wouldn't help. I needed to think. To plan.
My phone.
I pulled it from my pocket. No signal, of course. The screen flickered once, then went dark, the battery drained instantly.
"Perfect," I muttered, shoving it back in my pocket.
Movement caught my eye. In one of the obsidian formations ahead—not quite a mountain, more like a massive shard jutting from the ground—a new gate had appeared. Purple, like the one I'd come through, but smaller. It pulsed with that same violet light, beckoning.
The pull returned, that inexorable tug I'd felt in my dreams. Drawing me toward the new gate. Promising... something. Answers, maybe. Or a way home.
I hesitated, looking back at where I'd arrived. Nothing there now. No way back.
Forward, then. The only option.
I approached the obsidian formation, my reflection distorted in its polished surface. The new gate hung in the air before it, suspended without visible support.
The voices returned, whispering at the edge of my understanding. Almost words. Almost familiar. They seemed to emanate from the gate itself, calling to me.
I stopped before the tear in reality, close enough to feel that same syrupy resistance in the air.
What choice did I have? Stay here in this alien landscape? Wait for... what? Rescue? No one knew where I was. I didn't even know where I was.
The gate pulsed again, stronger this time. The pull increased, less a suggestion now than a demand.
"Alright," I said to the empty air, to the voices I couldn't quite understand. "You got me here. Let's see what you want."
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with that metallic-tasting air. Then I stepped forward, into the violet light.
The world twisted again, that high-pitched tone returning as colors inverted and reality bent. For a moment, I was nowhere, suspended between spaces that shouldn't exist.
Then I was through, stumbling onto new ground.
This place was different. Still obsidian underfoot, still that purple sky overhead, but now structures rose around me—buildings of impossible architecture, their angles wrong, their proportions defying physics. They gleamed in the starlight, surfaces reflective and sharp.
And I wasn't alone.