Scene 1. The Threshold
The door opened.
Lee Kang's body crossed the threshold. Crossed was not the right word. His left leg folded on the threshold, his right failed to follow, and his body pitched forward. The cement floor rushed up toward his face.
His chin hit first.
His teeth cracked against each other. Nearly bit through his tongue. Then his chest met the floor. The canteen in his coat's inner pocket wedged between sternum and cement, pressing into bone. His ribs rattled—the two cracked ones striking together.
It didn't hurt yet.
Yet.
Doctor Jang's footsteps quickened. He had run up behind Lee Kang. One glance down the corridor outside—at the trail of blood Lee Kang had dragged in—then he shut the door. The wooden door thudded closed. The latch followed with a metallic click.
Sealed.
The instant that sound reached Lee Kang's brain, something switched off.
Whatever had kept him running through Gyeongseong's alleys. Whatever had carried him over the barricade. Whatever had made him ignore cracked ribs and a shredded back. It shut down as though someone had pressed a power button.
Pain arrived.
All at once.
His back came first. Four claw-wounds screamed simultaneously. The flesh split diagonally from scapula to waist peeled open, and the edges of the sealed wounds burst apart again. Dried blood cracked and fresh blood pushed through. Hot. His entire back felt like it had been laid on a fire.
Then the shoulder. The chunk of flesh torn above the collarbone. Exposed muscle met open air and severed nerve bundles woke all at once. Not the pain of being scraped by a blade—the kind of pain that comes from being gnawed by teeth. It did not stop. It came and went in waves.
The ribs were last. With every breath, the cracked bones scraped each other. Inhale: they ground. Exhale: they collided. Hold breath: the pressure inside his chest pushed the bones outward.
Lee Kang's back arched like a bow. Face-down on the floor. Something burst from his mouth. Not a scream. No breath left for screaming. A blood-flecked cough. Hack. Hack. Red specks scattered across the cement.
Doctor Jang knelt beside him. Seized the coat. Pried open the shredded back panel. Drew scissors and cut the fabric. The coat peeled away from Lee Kang's back, baring the wounds.
"What the hell happened to you."
Doctor Jang's voice wavered.
Not his usual dryness. One corner of that parched tone had cracked. Very faintly. Through that crack, something leaked. Too brief to call emotion, but in the single vibration of Doctor Jang's vocal cords, what rode the sound was unmistakably shock.
Another cough burst from Lee Kang's mouth.
He could not answer. Had nothing to answer with. His left hand groped across the cement. Toward the stripped coat's inner pocket. The canteen.
Cold metal met his fingertips. His fingers closed around it. Pulled it to his chest.
Doctor Jang poured antiseptic over Lee Kang's back. Cold liquid ran into the gaping flesh. Lee Kang's body bucked once—the way a beast thrashes in a snare—then collapsed flat again.
He did not let go of the canteen.
Scene 2. Swallowing
"The wounds need suturing."
Doctor Jang said it leaning over Lee Kang's back. A curved needle in one hand, suture thread in the other.
Lee Kang did not answer. Cheek pressed to the cement, prone, both arms cradling the canteen against his chest. His breath snagged on his ribs and circled shallow. Blood running from his back was pooling on the floor.
Doctor Jang's hand touched Lee Kang's back.
The curved needle's tip bit into the edge of the torn flesh. No anesthetic. The sensation of the needle piercing through traveled up his back and into his brain. Lee Kang's body flinched once. But he did not pull away.
The second needle went in.
Lee Kang's jaw ground against the floor. His teeth scraped each other. A thin screee resonated inside his mouth. Third needle. The thread pulled the flesh taut, the edges of the wound drawing toward each other.
As the fourth needle was about to enter, Doctor Jang's gaze drifted to Lee Kang's chest.
The canteen.
The steel canteen Lee Kang was clutching. Doctor Jang's eyes dropped to it once. They narrowed. The clinical gaze he wore when picking up a pen. The eyes of an observer.
"Put that down."
Doctor Jang said.
"The wound extends to the front. I need to roll you onto your back—"
Lee Kang's hand moved.
It caught Doctor Jang's wrist.
A body on the edge of death. Back torn open from end to end, ribs cracked, shoulder flesh ripped away. The left hand of that body seized Doctor Jang's wrist with enough force to make the old man's wristbones creak.
Expression drained from Doctor Jang's face. Where expression had been, only observation remained.
Lee Kang's eyes were open. Cheek still flat on the floor, his gaze turned sideways and up at Doctor Jang. Amber still lingered. Inside the black pupils, the amber that had not yet settled burned like an ember. Those eyes were looking at Doctor Jang's wrist—the hand holding the curved needle.
Grrr.
The sound that climbed from deep in his throat.
"Don't... touch it."
Lee Kang's voice was shredded. Breath caught on ribs, each word breaking apart.
"I'll eat."
Doctor Jang's gaze moved from the canteen to Lee Kang's eyes, back to the canteen. The fingers gripping Doctor Jang's wrist released one by one. The moment they let go, Lee Kang's left hand returned to the canteen. Both hands wrapped around it. Turned toward the cap.
He bit the cap with his teeth.
Twisted. The muscles inside his mouth gripped the threading. One turn. Half a turn. The cap loosened. He pulled it free. The canteen's mouth opened.
Smell rose.
Lilac. No. Beneath the lilac, something else. The stench of rancid oil. Monster blood. Lee Kang's own blood. The scent of glass ground to fine particles. All of it mixed together and rising.
Lee Kang's mouth met the canteen's opening.
He swallowed.
When the first mouthful touched his tongue, taste arrived. The thick yellow taste came first. Beneath it, the metallic tang of iron. Beneath that, rancid oil. The glass dust was not a taste but a texture. Inside the liquid passing down his throat, fine grains were mixed in. The sensation of swallowing sand. The grains scraped the walls of his esophagus. Where they scraped, thin lines of searing pain ignited.
Lee Kang's body shuddered once.
His stomach rejected it. Tried to send back what he had swallowed. The esophageal muscles contracted in reverse. Something rose into his mouth. He was an instant from vomiting.
Both of Lee Kang's hands clamped over his own mouth.
Releasing the canteen. Both hands. Covering mouth and nose simultaneously. Sealing even his breath. So that what had risen could not escape. From Lee Kang's throat: gulp. Once. Twice. On the third, what had risen went back down. His stomach spasmed once more, then surrendered.
His hands fell from his mouth. At the corners of his lips, yellow and red glistened together. The glass-laced liquid had passed through his esophagus, reached his stomach, and begun to dissolve there.
The burning spread.
Heat. Warmth. What started in his stomach traveled outward through his veins. This time, unlike the injection in Chapter 19, it was different. Not pure drug. The heat was uneven. Cold streaks ran through it at intervals. Cold currents made by the kin-blood tangled with the drug's hot currents inside Lee Kang's vessels.
Even so—
Lilac rose.
From beneath the rancid oil. From beneath the glass dust. From beneath Lee Kang's own blood. Lilac climbed and covered everything. Filled his nose, filled his lungs, filled his brain.
The silver bell chimed.
Lee Kang's back settled to the floor. The bow-bent arch released. Muscles unwound one fiber at a time. Pain sank beneath the lilac fragrance. Not gone—buried. The fragrance had drawn a blanket over the pain.
Lee Kang's eyes sank halfway shut.
The yellow stain at the corner of his mouth was drying. The corner of his lips eased, barely. Not the face that had been choking back nausea moments ago. A different face. A serene face. The face of a false serenity.
Doctor Jang was looking down at Lee Kang.
With the eyes he wore when holding a pen. The eyes of a man recording the color change of a culture medium.
The hand holding the curved needle lowered slowly.
Scene 3. Your Hands Are Cold
Footsteps came from behind the folding screen.
Bare feet. Very light, very careful. Lee Kang's ears caught the sound first. The drug spreading through his brain was slowing every sensation, but those footsteps alone came through sharp and clear.
Yeonhwa.
Lee Kang lay on the floor with his eyes half-open. His back, freshly sutured by Doctor Jang, faced the ceiling. More precisely, he was lying on his side. He had to lie on his side because the canteen was cradled to his chest.
Yeonhwa came around the screen.
Bare feet entered Lee Kang's field of vision first. White. Very white. So white the veins beneath the skin of her instep showed through like blue thread. Her ankle—
Lee Kang's gaze climbed upward.
The ankle was thin. It had not been like that before. A full hand-span thinner than the last time he had seen it. The outline of bone showed just beneath the skin. The ankle bone jutted sharply to one side.
Yeonhwa knelt in front of Lee Kang.
She held a towel in her hand. A towel dampened with water. Her hand came toward Lee Kang's face. The towel touched his forehead. Wet fabric softened the dried blood and wiped gently. The blood loosened and transferred to the cloth.
Lee Kang looked at Yeonhwa's hand.
The fingers were thin. They had not been like that before. Each knuckle stood out in sharp relief. The tendons on the back of her hand rose like mountain ridges. Veins beneath the skin ran vivid along the border between blue and violet. When her fingertips touched Lee Kang's forehead—
Cold.
Not the towel. Yeonhwa's fingertips were cold. Hands drained of body heat. Not the temperature of a living person. Lee Kang's brain received that coldness, paused one beat, and translated.
She couldn't sleep, waiting for me.
The corner of Lee Kang's mouth moved. A smile. The dried yellow stain at his lips cracked as it stretched.
"It's all over."
Lee Kang said. A drugged voice. Slow and hazy. His tongue was heavy, the words slurring together.
Yeonhwa's towel wiped Lee Kang's cheek. The monster's blood dried against his skin loosened and came away. The towel stained red and yellow. She flipped it to a clean side and wiped again. The corner of his mouth. The line of his jaw.
Lee Kang's eyes found Yeonhwa's face.
Pale.
Paper-thin. Her skin looked as thin as parchment. The flesh had hollowed from her cheeks. Beneath her eyes, violet shadows pooled. Her lips had no color. The last time Lee Kang had seen Yeonhwa's face surfaced in his memory. Before he had left the safe house. When she had pushed the water bowl toward him. She had been pale then too. But now, more than then. Unmistakably more.
Lee Kang's brain received this.
Paused one beat.
And—
Translated.
She's tired. Didn't sleep. Worried about me. Probably skipped meals.
Lee Kang's left hand rose. It found Yeonhwa's hand. The hand holding the towel. The bones of her fingers pressed firm and distinct inside Lee Kang's palm. Because the flesh was thin. Because the bone was close.
"Your hands are cold."
Lee Kang said. That was all. About the pallor, about the hollowed cheeks, about the violet shadows—Lee Kang said nothing. Cold hands. That was all that left his mouth.
Yeonhwa's eyes looked at Lee Kang's face.
Lee Kang did not know what to read in those eyes. Yeonhwa's eyes were always still. Always holding Lee Kang at the same depth. Now too. They held his blood-covered face. They held his amber-flecked pupils. They held the canteen cradled against his chest.
Lee Kang felt her gaze rest on the canteen.
"It doesn't hurt anymore."
Lee Kang said.
A lie. His back hurt. His shoulder hurt. His ribs hurt. Beneath the blanket the lilac fragrance had laid over him, the pain was still curled and waiting. He said it anyway.
"It's all over."
A lie. Nothing was over.
Yeonhwa's hand moved inside Lee Kang's. She did not pull away. She squeezed his hand once. The grip was weak. Before, she could have squeezed harder than that. That faint pressure pressed Lee Kang's palm once and released.
Lee Kang read it as It's okay.
The possibility that it might have meant It's not okay was buried beneath the lilac.
Lee Kang's eyes closed. Holding Yeonhwa's cold hand. The canteen cradled to his chest. He sank slowly into the false serenity the drug had made.
Scene 4. Inside the Trap
Sounds from far away reached Lee Kang's ears.
Not the silver bell. Beyond the drug-made haze, sounds from the real world seeped through the thin wall.
Engines.
Something heavy. The blunt rumble of military truck diesel engines. Not one. Two. Three. Brakes squealing to a stop on the main road outside the safe house, one after another. Screech. Screech.
Lee Kang's eyelids were heavy. The drug was forcing them shut. To open them meant peeling back the blanket the lilac had laid. Beneath the blanket was pain. Feeling the pain meant waking. And waking—
A loudspeaker blared.
A metallic shriek tore through the safe house's thin walls. Japanese.
"—In connection with the subversive incident at Gyeongseong Station, an indiscriminate search of this entire district will be conducted. Any residence that does not open its door will be subject to forced entry. Repeat—"
Lee Kang's eyes did not fully open. Half-shut. The faint light on the ceiling showed blurred.
Doctor Jang's footsteps quickened.
Toward the window. He pinched one edge of the curtain apart by a thumb's width. Through the gap, the outside was visible. Doctor Jang's back faced Lee Kang, so Lee Kang could not see. But he could read Doctor Jang's back.
The shoulders stiffened once.
The curtain closed. Doctor Jang turned. Crouched beside Lee Kang again. Shadow had fallen across his face.
"A bomb went off at Gyeongseong Station."
Doctor Jang said. Voice suppressed to its lowest. A metallic whisper.
Lee Kang's eyelids trembled once. One layer of the drug's haze peeled away.
"The Koreans detonated theirs on that end." Doctor Jang continued. "The 731 branch burning is a separate matter. They may not have connected the two incidents yet. Or they may have."
Doctor Jang's pen was absent. No clipboard either. His hands were empty. The fingers of those empty hands trembled once on his knee, then stilled.
"But the beast they're hunting is you."
Lee Kang's eyes found Doctor Jang's face. Still half-shut.
"The bomb at the station was the Koreans'." Doctor Jang swallowed one breath and spoke. "But this district search isn't just about that. The factory is gone. The tank inside it is gone. The test subjects are gone. And one monster has disappeared."
Doctor Jang's gaze swept once across Lee Kang's back—the four sutured claw-wounds.
"If they determine that a blood-reeking monster is hiding somewhere in this district—"
Doctor Jang stopped. Beyond the curtain, the tramp of military boots. Multiple pairs. Passing outside the building that housed the safe house. Steady cadence. A patrol.
"The dogs are out." Doctor Jang said each word in clipped fragments. "Right in front of this building."
Lee Kang's hand moved.
Not the hand gripping the canteen. The other. The hand that had been holding Yeonhwa's. His fingers squeezed her cold hand once. The grip was weak. The drug was stealing the strength from his muscles.
Outside, a military dog barked.
Once. Short and sharp. The safe house's wooden door vibrated faintly with the sound. Doctor Jang's gaze went to the door.
Lee Kang's eyes closed again. The drug's downward pull was too strong. His consciousness was being dragged beneath the surface. The lilac fragrance descended over his head like a blanket. The silver bell chimed from far away.
Doctor Jang said something more.
It did not reach Lee Kang's ears.
What reached him was a different sound.
Beyond the safe house's thin door. Very close. Military boots coming to a stop. And then—
A rifle butt knocking on the wooden door.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Lee Kang's hand gripped Yeonhwa's. The canteen cradled to his chest. Eyes closed.
Thud. Thud.
The wood shook.