Scene 1. [Slaughter]
Three steps down the slope, the whistle blew.
Lee Kang's feet did not stop.
Boot steps rose through the dark. Boots on gravel. Two. Three. Four. Five. Through the cresol smell came the cutting scent of leather oil and gun oil.
"Halt!"
Japanese.
Lee Kang's eardrums chewed the word and swallowed it. Before the meaning had dissolved, his legs were already moving. Knees bending, toes driving into the earth.
His body dropped into the dark.
The first soldier was still raising his rifle.
Before the barrel could swing to Lee Kang's chest, Lee Kang's forehead destroyed his nose. The dull give of cartilage crumpling traveled through the skull and down to the back of the neck. Bone punching through skin, blood spraying. Something warm on his face. The raw iron smell of it.
The rifle hit the gravel with a clang.
He shoved the collapsing body aside.
Next.
The second soldier drew his sword.
The metallic scrape of the blade leaving its scabbard struck the air. The sword cut through the dark and came down at Lee Kang's throat.
Too slow.
Lee Kang's hand was already reaching. Five fingers closed around the soldier's throat. Inside his palm, the trachea twitched — the frantic pulse of a swallowed breath with nowhere to go.
He squeezed.
CRUNCH.
Not a wrist bone. The trachea. The cartilage buckling and collapsing sent its vibration through his palm and up his forearm. The soldier's eyes bulged wide. Foam ran from his mouth.
He didn't let go.
He yanked the body forward and threw it into the third soldier.
Two bodies tangled and rolled across the gravel. The sword spun away into the dark. In that gap Lee Kang swept past the fourth soldier's waist. His fingers found the leather belt. Cold metal. A handcuff chain wrapped around his hand.
He tore it free.
He swung.
The chain end split the air — a sharp whistle of displaced air. The soldier's temple burst. Red and white flew together. Bone fragments scattered through the dark. The body toppled sideways and ground into the gravel.
"Mo — monster——"
The fifth soldier stumbled back.
His voice shook. His legs shook. The pistol in his hand rattled, muzzle wandering through the dark. He could not pull the trigger. Could not make himself.
Lee Kang's eyes found him.
In the darkness, amber light bloomed. The beast's glow burning in the pupils. Not the eyes of a human.
One step.
Two steps.
On the third step, the arm reached out.
His palm covered the soldier's face.
A scream leaked between the fingers. Exhaling a low, short breath — the sound of an animal — Lee Kang's arm drove down.
CRACK.
The skull caved into the gravel. The heavy sensation of stone pressing into bone traveled through his palm. Beneath his hand, something wet burst and seeped between his fingers. It was warm.
The convulsing stopped.
Lee Kang slowly lifted his hand.
Blood ran down his wrist.
Over his clothes, down his forearm, onto the gravel.
Five bodies were strewn around him. Some dead. Some still pulling ragged breaths. It didn't matter. Lee Kang's eyes didn't register them.
He raised his head.
Far below, past the foot of the slope, the estate's silhouette was visible. Dark windows. A garden swallowed by night. Somewhere inside — a silver bell, asleep.
Lee Kang's lips did not move.
His feet moved instead.
One step.
Then another.
A blood-soaked beast walked through the night streets of Gyeongseong.
* * *
Scene 2. [Flicker]
Twenty steps to the wall.
At fifteen, the world tilted.
Lee Kang's knees buckled. His hands groped through the air. A damp brick wall met his palms. His fingernails dug into the moss-filled cracks. He pushed force into his fingertips — anything to keep from sliding, from falling. The skin under his nails tore and bled. He couldn't feel it. The only thing he could feel was the burning pain that boiled from inside his chest, from where the rib fragment had ground through the pleura.
He tried to breathe in.
He couldn't breathe in.
Instead of filling his lungs, the air was leaking out. Like a punctured balloon, like a split sack — the breath he drew was draining away somewhere inside his chest. His throat clicked and choked. A cough tore loose. What had pooled in his mouth spread across his tongue. Metallic. Warm. Thick.
He bowed his head and spat.
A dark red clot hit the gravel. It gleamed in the darkness like splattered oil.
His back found the wall.
The cold of the damp bricks seeped through his spine. His clothes were soaked — sweat or blood, impossible to say. Both, most likely. Cold and warm mixed and ran down his skin. His fingertips went numb. His feet grew distant. His left arm had been without sensation for a long time now. The necrotic muscle was stiffening, fusing to the bone.
His body was heavy.
As though he had sandbags of a thousand pounds strapped to his back. As though lead had been poured over his flesh. Blood and muscle and bone were surrendering to gravity, sinking toward the earth.
So were his eyelids.
Slowly. Very slowly. Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision.
Flicker.
White.
Black.
White.
The clinic ceiling grazed him. Cracked plaster. A smoke-darkened corner. The dim glow of a bulb hanging from the center beam. Dr. Jang's face looking down, backlit against the light. Lips moving. Sound reaching him. From very far away — blurred, as though heard through water.
Live.
You have to live.
You idiot.
You can't die.
The voice scraped into his eardrum. Like fingernails dragging across the deepest layer of memory. He tried to open his lips. Tried to answer. Blood came up through his throat. No words came out.
Live.
Why.
Why should I live.
His eyelids tried to fall.
The darkness was soft. It erased the pain. What had been cold turned warm. What had been heavy turned light. If he simply sank into it, the fire tearing through his lungs, the rot eating his flesh, the exhaustion grinding his bones — all of it would disappear. Just like this.
Just.
Like this——
JINGLE.
A sound.
A silver resonance striking the air beside his ear. Small. Clear. Precise.
A hallucination. It had to be. The estate was still dozens of meters away. Yeon-hwa's bell was there. At this distance, in this darkness, there was no way that sound could reach him.
And yet it reached.
JINGLE.
Once more.
It rang in his eardrum, rang in his skull, ran down his spine and rang inside his heart.
Lee Kang's eyes opened.
Amber light bloomed in the pupils.
The beast's glow.
A flame that swallowed the dark and burned the night.
The fingers against the wall drove into the gaps between bricks.
Moss tore.
Brick cracked.
The knuckle bones ground and screamed. It didn't matter. He put force into his arms. The sensation of shoulder muscle tearing spread across his back. It didn't matter. He planted his knees. His thighs shook as though on fire. It didn't matter.
His body stood up.
Blood seeped from his lungs.
The necrotic muscle of his left arm ground against bone.
The rib fragments stabbed his flesh with every breath.
It didn't matter.
Lee Kang launched himself forward.
His toes drove into the earth. His body surged upward. The torn lung screamed. The broken ribs gouged his organs. The dead arm thrashed against gravity. Wind struck his ears. The smell of blood streamed from his nose. The black outline of the wall rushed toward him.
His hand reached.
His fingers drove into the roof tile.
CRUNCH.
Fingernails snapped. Finger bones ground. The skin of his palm tore and bled.
He didn't let go.
He pulled his arms.
He hauled his body upward.
He stood on top of the wall.
Lee Kang's eyes looked down at the estate.
Amber light burned in the dark.
The annex window was visible.
Yeon-hwa's room.
The light was out.
* * *
Scene 3. [Shadow]
Crouched on top of the wall, Lee Kang did not move.
He held his breath. Blood sloshed inside his lungs. A cough rose. He swallowed it. The back of his throat burned. Something metallic ran over his tongue. He swallowed it. Swallowed it again.
Footsteps on gravel below.
Two guards.
The rhythm of their boots was steady. A patrol route. The lantern in one hand swayed, washing yellow light along the base of the wall. Lee Kang's shadow was just reaching the edge of that light when the beam swung away to the other side.
"Anything?"
"Quiet."
The voices receded.
The boot steps receded.
The yellow lantern light rounded the garden corner and vanished.
Lee Kang's eyes moved to the annex.
Yeon-hwa's room was at the rear of the main building — a small structure standing alone, separated from the house by the width of the garden. Two windows under the tile roof. Curtains drawn behind the bars. No light leaked through the gaps. No sound. Not even the sound of breathing.
She was asleep.
In this darkness. Inside this estate. Knowing nothing.
Alone.
Lee Kang's fingernails raked the roof tile. The tile edge crumbled and scattered to dust.
He should drop down right now. Break that window. Lift Yeon-hwa up and carry her out of this cursed estate. That was the only purpose. The reason he had kicked free of the clinic. The reason he had dragged a broken body all the way here.
He began to rise.
Then.
Movement.
Behind the annex.
A shadow slipped through the dark.
No sound of footsteps. No sound of breathing. As though it were shadow itself — born from the dark, swimming through the dark — the black silhouette flowed along the annex wall.
It stopped beneath Yeon-hwa's window.
A hand rose.
It touched the window frame.
The window opened.
Without a sound. With practiced ease. As though it had been opened dozens of times before.
The shadow slipped inside Yeon-hwa's room.
In Lee Kang's eyes, amber light detonated.
Lungs be damned.
Bones be damned.
Blood be damned.
Before that thing reached Yeon-hwa.
His body left the wall.