There wasn’t supposed to be anything in the sky.
Not this high in the mountains, not above a base with stealth shielding and triple perimeter scans.
Yet at 03:12, the alarms tripped. A light—blinding, silent—cut through the sky like a blade.
Then: silence. Systems went dark. Just for seven seconds.
But it was enough.
A crater formed half a mile off-base. Wide. Still glowing. At its center: someone.
Not armed. Not clothed. Not human.
But very much alive.
Commander Kim Namjoon stood in the control tower, eyes fixed on the feed coming in from the drone teams. The crater image flickered in static, distorted by the magnetic aftershock.
He didn’t speak for a while. Just stared. Then calmly:
"Bring him in. No chains. No exposure. I want him under Level Zero lockout."
One of the officers hesitated.
"Sir, he… has wings."
Namjoon didn’t look away.
"Then carry him carefully."
Seokjin, lead medical officer, had his gloves on before the stretcher even arrived.
What he saw made him pause.
The figure was light—too light for his build—but burning with heat. Wings stretched out across the table, beautiful even in ruin. Skin glowing faintly at the clavicles, as if lit from inside.
Seokjin stitched torn muscle and sealed plasma-weeping wounds. He didn’t ask questions.
But he stayed hours after the procedure, just watching.
He whispered once, barely audible:
"You weren’t made for war. But you survived one anyway."
Yoongi saw it all on footage that didn’t exist.
As head of internal intelligence, he tracked anomalies. But this? This was deliberate.
"No descent pattern. No flame signature. Someone hid him mid-fall. Someone powerful."
He played the footage over and over, muttering to himself.
"This wasn’t a landing. It was an execution."
Hoseok had been out on the range when the news hit.
By the time he arrived at the medical hold, the air smelled like static. He didn’t touch the bed, just stood over it, arms folded, brows furrowed.
He didn’t believe in signs. But something about this… shifted gravity.
"He’s dangerous," he said. But his voice wasn’t warning—it was wonder.
"Or maybe he’s what danger’s running from."
Jimin was already waiting outside the med hold when the others arrived.
He hadn't been called. He just knew.
He slipped inside without gloves, without armor. Sat beside the bed and whispered like they were old friends.
"Wherever you came from… you didn’t want to fall."
He looked at the bandaged wings and added, softer:
"But maybe you didn’t have a choice."
Taehyung hadn’t spoken since his recon team scouted the crater.
He stood with soaked boots and shaking fingers, flipping through a battered sketchbook.
He pointed to a drawing from weeks ago.
The figure was nearly identical.
"I saw him before. In my dreams. Falling. But not afraid."
He stared at the real thing now, breathing shallow.
"And I don’t think he fell alone."
Jungkook was already in the room when they moved the body.
He didn’t announce himself. He rarely did.
Sleeves rolled up, jaw tight, eyes locked onto the figure on the bed. He didn’t move when the others filtered in and out.
Later, when it was just him, he dragged a chair close. Sat forward, elbows on knees, arms tense.
"You're not supposed to exist," he said finally. Voice low. Measured. "But neither am I—not the way they built me."
His fingers hovered near the edge of one ruined wing. The glow pulsed under the bandages.
"Whatever you are… you chose to land here. Why?"
Silence.
He leaned back, eyes dark.
"And why does it feel like you’ve been looking for me?"
The being didn’t wake.
But the pulse in the room changed. The lights dimmed. The air thickened.
He was healing. Slowly. And something—someone—was drawing closer.
Namjoon called a closed meeting. No records. No files.
"He didn’t crash," Namjoon said. "He arrived."