THE DAY THE SKY OPENED
[Korea Meteorological Administration - Seoul, South Korea]
Nighttime.
Bip --- bip --- bip
A faint, intermittent sound, barely perceptible, emitted from a strange yet sophisticated machine, resonating within a large and modern office.
The dimly lit and seemingly lifeless space was filled with numerous desks and tables, each adorned with monitors and keyboards, resembling a modern computer center.
Bip --- bip --- bip
Apart from the soft intermittent sound and a barely audible hum, everything was calm, as if the absence of daylight signaled this characteristic stillness.
Most monitors were powered down, indicating the end of the workday had long passed, reigning peace over this tranquil summer night.
However, despite the apparent calm, some machines continued their tasks as programmed.
On the front wall of the large room stood a video wall, prominently displaying detailed maps of the Korean peninsula, alongside various tables, numbers, and graphs, indicating the specific purpose of this office.
Suddenly, the apparent calm was shattered by a jarring melody. The intermittent tone of a small alarm mixed with the sound of a catchy song emanating from one of the few active monitors.
It was a song released five years ago by one of the country's most controversial singers, which despite its initial reception had become a global phenomenon, breaking records everywhere it played.
And now, its music softly played alongside the faint beeps in this quiet and modern room.
"Phew... though it was my mistake... staying up late is really killing me."
Suddenly, a groan sounded in sync with the beeps and music. A bored-looking man, reclining casually on a chair, arms dangling at his sides as if devoid of energy. His feet were propped up and crossed on the small desk in front, head leaning back.
"Who sends me to do such stupid things and get this punishment? Aigoo! At least it's just one more week, and this torment will end."
The man, appearing to be in his thirties, lamented being alone in this place. In another time, he would have gone out to have fun with friends, especially on a weekend like this, but now he was stuck here as punishment for fooling around during work hours.
"And no wonder, trying to install video games on these state agency computers was really dumb!"
Though he initially found the night shift somewhat appealing, after the first week, it all seemed dreadfully boring. Now, he couldn't wait for this torture to end, regretting his immature actions and internally swearing never to repeat them, feeling utterly bored in this vast, lonely office.
The only 'excitement' to be found at this hour was that faint, intermittent sound, which, though significant, could become quite burdensome over time.
The Korea Meteorological Administration, abbreviated as KMA, wasn't exactly a place where amazing things happened every minute. Discovering fierce storms or potential natural disasters like in the movies was a rare occurrence, thankfully.
Hence the man's complaints; he missed the daytime shift because at least then he could converse with someone.
"It really sucks to have no excitement."
The man complained again as he reached out to press a key on his keyboard to raise the song's volume.
¡Tzzzzzzzz!
¡Tzzzzzzzz!
At that moment, a static noise emanated from his computer, drowning out the song, and the monitor screen displayed interference like an old television before going completely black.
"Now what? Don't tell me this damn thing broke down? These computers are supposed to be top-notch; that's why I got in trouble trying to play with them!"
The now annoyed man composed himself and began clicking the mouse and hitting random keys in frustration, but to no avail.
He pressed the CPU button to try to reboot the machine, but nothing seemed to work.
"Great... this had to happen to me... damn it... I'm sure I'm going to get scolded. Can anything else go wrong today?!"
The man buried his face in his hands, rubbing his brow with a frustrated gesture.
¡¡Bip – bip – bip!!
¡¡Bip – bip – bip!!
¡¡Bip – bip – bip!!
"What the hell?!"
Suddenly, as if in response to his complaints, the slow beep of the calmly sounding alarm abruptly escalated, startling the complaining man and nearly causing him to fall out of his seat!
"And now what's happening?!"
Quickly readjusting himself, he looked in surprise at the video wall, where a large red alarm signal intermittently flashed with alarming numbers.
"Damn... this can't happen without warning; it must be some damn joke!"
The now surprised man exclaimed, paying little attention to his own monitor, which seemed to have turned back on.
His attention was now fixed on all the data displayed on the video wall.
The frantic and desperate sound of that alarm, coupled with what the large screen showed, could only mean one thing, a very, very bad thing.
Following the disaster in Japan in 2011 and as part of a region highly susceptible to natural disasters, the Korean government had invested heavily to create a system capable of detecting and preventing various unfavorable weather events, thereby safeguarding lives.
Four years of painstaking work and a strategic combination of meteorological observations from land surfaces, supercomputers, space weather satellites, accelerometers, and other methods had resulted in one of the best prediction systems.
The DISPRE system, capable of precisely predicting such complex weather phenomena based on rapid analysis of thousands of data points per second, with a remarkably quick response time, was the successful outcome of all these efforts.
Its predictive potential exceeded 95% of all disaster cases, making it one of the most effective creations of its kind!
During its two years of operation, this was the first time its perpetually running alarm had sounded, which was not a good sign, indicating a major and disastrous storm.
However, this shouldn't have happened, as there had been no prior data or indications suggesting such a terrible scenario!
These phenomena don't just appear out of nowhere; there are always prior records of any abrupt climatic change, sometimes even with a few minutes' notice.
But now, everything had happened without warning.
"Darn it, I think we've been hacked!"
The man considered the most likely scenario as he wheeled his chair over to the nearest active computer.
He began typing quickly to figure out what was happening while initiating a backup of this strange event.
Initially, he hadn't paid attention to what his own monitor was showing because the blaring alarm had genuinely scared him.
However, after a moment, his gaze shifted to his own terminal, seeing something truly bizarre.
The screen, which had been off just a while ago, suddenly turned on and began displaying a black background with a series of patterns and strange golden symbols.
[[{Kēxuéj22iāmen shìtú có44ng bùtóng de jiǎodù lái jiě&&shì lìshǐ jìnch00==éng zhōng fāshēng de bùtóng shìjiàn. Tāmen zh$ōng de dà duō??shù rén shēngc//hēng shì suí##jī yuányīn, yīzhǒng cuòzōngfùzá de suíjī xìng dǎozhìle wǒmen suǒ zhīdào de yīqiè}]]
The fact that the alarm went off without warning and only after his computer failed in such a strange manner led him to consider a possible cyber attack!
Suddenly, the map on the video wall updated, graphically displaying the same Korean peninsula region as before, but now with a significant difference.
Above it, a massive shadow completely covered it, even extending beyond the maritime boundaries, much farther.
¡¡Bip – bip – bip!!
¡¡Bip – bip – bip!!
"What the hell is that? Is... is one of the satellites malfunctioning or have they messed up our system?!"
The man nervously exclaimed as he stared in disbelief at the map before him, as this graphical representation couldn't possibly be true since the scale of this phenomenon was unprecedented, never seen before!
His eyes alternated between the terrifying image displayed on the video wall and his screen, still showing those strange symbols, unsure of what to do next.
¡Rumble!
¡Rumble!
¡Rumble!
Just as the poor man was picking up the phone to call his superior for help, a series of thunderous sounds reverberated outside the offices where he was, violently shaking the window panes almost to the point of breaking!
The man jumped up from his seat and quickly walked over to one of the windows, ignoring the alarm sounds and what was displayed on his screen, as he needed to see what had caused that loud noise outside.
What appeared before his eyes left him gaping; the scene in front of him was as terrifying as it was incredible.
The night sky, previously clear and cloudless, now seemed completely turbulent, with various dark, heavy silhouettes resembling clouds of a massive tropical storm!
In the blink of an eye, it became nearly impossible to see even a glimmer of space, as there was no horizon where this terrifying panorama ended.
¡Booomm!
¡Booomm!
The black formations continued to roll, thickening constantly and forming a dense mass over the entire city, over the entire country!
And without giving him time to even wonder what the heck he was seeing, the next moment a bright flash caught his attention, an almost golden flash that swiftly traversed the entire sky and momentarily illuminated the dark sky, accompanied by a deafening sound.
¡Crack!
Following the deafening sound, what seemed like lightning, another appeared, and then two more, then three, five, ten, a hundred... countless streaks of lightning streaked across the sky in a never-before-seen manner, generating a brilliance that seemed to have brought the sun in the middle of the night!
¡Crack!
Rumble
¡Crack!
The man was now completely terrified as it felt like he was witnessing the sky breaking apart!
However, this wasn't the most terrifying thing he could see, as the next instant some of those bolts began falling to the ground everywhere!
It was like a rain of lightning!
"Oh my god... oh my god... this is the end!"
The man ran back to his desk and grabbed the phone to make a call.
"Hello?! I'm calling from the KMA command center! Damn it! Yes! I'm seeing it! It's unbelievable, it appeared out of nowhere! Call the minister urgently to-!"
¡¡¡Booooooooommm!!!
¡¡¡Booooooooommm!!!
Before the man could finish speaking, a thunderous sound echoed everywhere, as if a massive bomb had exploded and swept everything in its path, causing the unfortunate man to throw himself to the floor in fright!
"AHHHH! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"
The terrified man screamed at the top of his lungs on the floor, covering his ears and tightly shutting his eyes in a fetal position, awaiting a horrific end.
However, what he thought would be the end of his simple life never came, as after that terrifying explosive sound, everything outside returned to an unusual calm.
Bip --- bip --- bip
Nothing could be heard outside, no light illuminated the dark sky, the only sound was the slow beeps of the alarm returning to its normal rhythm, while his screen stopped projecting those strange patterns, gradually giving way again to the music he had been listening to before.
<Eh, sexy lady~... Oh-oh-oh-oh Oppa Gangnam Style~>
The man, who struggled to get up from the floor, began to look around with a dumbfounded look, as moments ago the sky seemed to be falling, but now everything seemed to have returned to normal, as if it had all been a mere illusion.
Not even a minute had passed, but the terrifying sensation was as if that phenomenon had lasted for hours!
If not for the broken glass and all the destruction caused by the shockwave of that terrible explosion, this could be mistaken for a terrible hallucination.
The man's mind could barely process what had happened as he tremulously got up from the floor and slowly walked towards the nearest broken window, just to stand there like an idiot while staring at the sky.
Completely normal, like any summer night sky, completely clear.
"What the hell just happened?! Was it all a dream?"
And as if in answer to this question, different sirens and cries began to resonate everywhere in the city, as everywhere people who had witnessed this terrible event asked themselves the same question.