Scene 1. The Blood Turns
The needle went in.
The inside of Lee Kang's arm. Doctor Jang's hand held Lee Kang's limp arm and searched for a vein. The veins had sunk. A body short on blood. Doctor Jang's thumb pressed the forearm, coaxing a vein to the surface. A thin branch floated up beneath the skin. The needle's tip pierced it.
Red flowed in.
The glass syringe's plunger depressed. The clear, transparent red that had filled the barrel traveled down the needle and into Lee Kang's bloodstream.
At first, nothing happened.
One beat. Two. Lee Kang's body lay limp on the floor, unmoving. Breathing shallow. Pulse irregular. Doctor Jang's thumb pushed the plunger to the end. The syringe emptied.
On the third beat, it began.
Lee Kang's heart struck once, hard.
Thump.
The body prone on the floor lurched with the impact. The heart struck a second time. Thump. A third. A fourth. A fifth. The heart began driving what it had just received into every corner of the body. Every vein swelled. The vessels in his forearm ballooned. The vessels along his throat bulged like rope.
Heat rose.
Different from the contaminated contents of the canteen. The contaminated heat had been erratic—hot and cold tangled together as they flowed. What spread now was different. Even, clean, hot, clear. A heat that warmed every passage the blood traveled through, all at once. Like opening the windows of a room that had been sealed for years—every channel inside his body opened simultaneously.
The lilac erupted.
Not at the tip of his nose but inside his brain. The fragrance was riding the blood. Lilac spread along the veins. Past the arms, past the chest, climbing the throat to reach the brain. Not a fragrance smelled through the nose—a fragrance drunk through the blood. Every cell in his body drew that fragrance in.
The silver bell chimed.
Clear. Vivid. A different dimension from the faint phantom sound he had heard inside the canteen. This sound rang from inside Lee Kang's bones. Each bone became a bell and vibrated. The two cracked ribs trembled and drew toward each other. The gap filled. The fracture healed. Bone returned to bone.
Lee Kang's back launched off the floor.
Not arching like a bow. Springing like a coil. His torso rose. His mouth opened. From deep in his throat, something climbed. Dark red. Yellow dregs. Glass dust. The rancid oil of kin. Every contaminant that had been shredding his stomach surged upward at once and poured onto the floor.
The smell of what he expelled was vile. But over that vileness, lilac descended. The vileness vanished. The pain vanished. Along the four diagonal gashes in his back—the flesh the sutures had been holding began to move. Muscle squirmed. Hard enough to snap the thread. The torn edges crawled toward each other. Flesh adhered to flesh. Closed.
The gouged-out flesh of his shoulder stirred. Over the exposed muscle, a new layer climbed. Not skin. Not yet. Raw, rough new tissue. That tissue met the air and stung once, then was washed away by the lilac and settled.
Lee Kang's lungs inflated. Once. Fully. The inhaled air filled everything inside him. When he exhaled, his ribs did not rattle. The fractures had fused. When he inhaled, his back did not pull. The flesh had closed.
Lee Kang's hand pressed the floor.
His body rose. Strength in his arms. Strength in his legs. His neck turned. No stiffness. The entire body—the body that had been shattered moments ago—had returned to its place.
The silver bell chimed once more.
Lee Kang's eyes opened.
Black. Not amber. Clear, deep, vivid black eyes took in the ceiling. Focus: perfect.
The lilac fragrance was breathing inside his lungs.
Lee Kang was alive.
Scene 2. Something Far Too Light
Lee Kang's gaze swept the room.
Ceiling. Wall. Floor. Lamp. Doctor Jang stood leaning against the wall. Empty glass syringe in hand. Watching Lee Kang's face. No emotion in Doctor Jang's expression. The eyes of a man recording the color change of a culture medium. Those eyes traced Lee Kang's back, his shoulder, glanced once at the corner of his mouth, and turned away.
Lee Kang's gaze dropped to the floor.
Yeonhwa was there.
Beside him. On the floor. Sprawled.
Her left sleeve was rolled up. Cotton was pressed to the inside of her forearm. The cotton was soaked red. The rubber tourniquet was still wound around her forearm, not yet released. Beneath it, veins stood out in blue relief. Several needle marks were visible.
Yeonhwa's eyes were closed.
Lee Kang called her name.
"Yeonhwa."
His voice was clear. Not hoarse. Not shredded. The clean resonance produced by perfectly restored vocal cords. To that clean voice calling her name, no answer came.
"Yeonhwa."
Once more. Lee Kang's hand took her shoulder. Shook it. Gently.
Yeonhwa's head tilted to one side. The way a doll tilts. No muscle tension. Her cheek drifted toward the floor.
Lee Kang's hand touched Yeonhwa's cheek.
Cold.
Cold was not enough. Ice. Not the skin of a living person. Lee Kang's hand had been dead until moments ago and was now alive and burning, so the difference in temperature was all the more stark. Beneath Lee Kang's hot palm, Yeonhwa's cheek returned no warmth at all.
Lee Kang's eyes went to Yeonhwa's arm.
Cotton. Bloodstain. Needle marks. Tourniquet.
The empty syringe in Doctor Jang's hand.
Lee Kang's brain received the information.
Received it, paused one beat, and—
Pushed it away.
"What did you inject her with."
Lee Kang's head turned toward Doctor Jang. His voice was sharp.
"Why did you give her an injection. What kind of injection."
Doctor Jang looked at Lee Kang.
Did not answer.
"A cholera shot?" Lee Kang said. As he spoke, he tried to believe the sound coming from his own mouth. "It's a quarantine zone, so you gave her a vaccination, right? That's why she's weak, right?"
Doctor Jang's mouth opened.
Closed.
Did not open again.
Doctor Jang turned his head. Toward the window. Showed his back.
Lee Kang's hands unwound the tourniquet from Yeonhwa's arm. Peeled away the layers one by one. The skin beneath the loosened rubber was exposed. Where the rubber had pressed, red indentations were carved. The skin was so thin the marks looked as though they would last.
Lee Kang's hand lingered on Yeonhwa's forearm.
This arm was not this thin before.
The thought grazed his brain, then was washed away by the lilac.
"Wake up."
Lee Kang took Yeonhwa's shoulders again. Both hands this time.
"Yeonhwa. Wake up."
Yeonhwa's eyelids trembled. Very faintly. They did not open.
Something cold settled inside Lee Kang's chest. A coldness the lilac fragrance could not cover. The gap between the scalding vitality his perfectly restored body produced and the ice-cold chill of Yeonhwa cradled in his arms. That gap pressed down on the center of Lee Kang's chest.
Lee Kang did not name it.
If he named it, he felt he would crumble.
Scene 3. Incineration
Outside, the smell changed.
Lee Kang's nose caught it first. Petroleum. The acrid stench of burning oil. Different from burning wood. Heavier, stickier. The smell of oil poured and set alight.
Lee Kang's head turned toward the window.
Doctor Jang was stepping back from the gap in the curtain. The last trace of color had drained from his face.
"They've started burning."
Doctor Jang said. A voice from which all feeling had evaporated. Only fact remained.
Lee Kang stood.
The motion of standing was fluid. Not the body that had been dying moments ago. His back did not hurt. His shoulder did not hurt. His ribs did not hurt. Lee Kang looked outside through the curtain gap.
Red.
Not the sky—the ground was red. Two blocks from the safe house, a row of shanties was burning. Oil-fed fire. Flames leaped from roof to roof. Black smoke blanketed the sky. Between the billows, fire burst upward. The sound of wood cracking and collapsing as it burned carried from the distance in succession.
People were running out.
From between the shanties. Draped in blankets. Clutching children. Running out only to hit barricades and turn, turning only to meet fire and stop. Screams rose tangled with the smoke.
Military police stood. Outside the barbed wire. Watching the fire. Not going in to put it out. Watching.
"This isn't quarantine."
Doctor Jang said. From behind Lee Kang.
"It's incineration."
Doctor Jang's voice caught for one breath.
"They're smoking you out. Making sure you can't hide in the haze."
Lee Kang's nostrils flared once. Petroleum. Wood. Burning flesh. Through all those smells, the lilac living inside his lungs trembled once.
Yeonhwa lay collapsed on the floor.
If the fire reached this building, Yeonhwa would not be able to stand.
Lee Kang's pupils contracted.
The black narrowed and from within, amber rose. Not slowly. In a single contraction, the black pupils flooded entirely with amber.
Lee Kang turned.
Scene 4. Breaking Down the Door
Lee Kang knelt before Yeonhwa where she lay on the floor.
He slid both arms beneath her. Under her back. Under her knees. Lifted.
Light.
The weight that met Lee Kang's arms was—nothing. Light enough to feel like nothing. Like lifting an empty coat. Like there was no one inside. Lee Kang's arm was bracing Yeonhwa's back, and each vertebra pressed against his palm like a string of beads. No space between flesh. Only skin over bone.
Lee Kang's heart dropped once.
She should have been heavy. Should have carried the weight of a person. The weight of circulating blood and clinging flesh. The weight Lee Kang's arms remembered of Yeonhwa was not this. The last time he had held her—when, he could not clearly recall, back when Yeonhwa was still warm—what had rested in these arms was far heavier than this.
Now she was a feather.
A feather made of bone and skin.
Lee Kang's brain tried to calculate the meaning of that weight. The lilac washed the calculation away. It washed away, but the cold thing in his chest remained.
"Doctor Jang."
Lee Kang said. Yeonhwa lifted in his arms.
"We're leaving."
Doctor Jang looked at Lee Kang. Looked at Lee Kang's arms holding Yeonhwa. At Yeonhwa's body, light as a feather. And at the new tissue growing on Lee Kang's forearms, which held her.
Doctor Jang's mouth moved once, then closed.
"Grab the bag."
Lee Kang said. Did not look back. Walked toward the door. Yeonhwa's head leaned against Lee Kang's shoulder and swayed. Her hair brushed his neck. No lilac fragrance. What came from Yeonhwa's hair was only the smell of sweat and blood and antiseptic. Lee Kang's nose classified it, then pushed it away.
The lilac was coming from inside Lee Kang's lungs. Not from Yeonhwa.
Lee Kang's brain did not register that fact.
He stood before the door.
The latch was set. Lee Kang's right foot rose. Left arm cradling Yeonhwa, right foot kicking the door.
The wood burst.
Not the latch—the door itself shattered. Hinges ripped from the wall. The wooden panel split in two and flew outward. Debris scattered across the corridor floor. Where the door had been, a rectangular hole gaped.
Heat slammed in.
The outside air was hot. The blaze two blocks away had pushed its heat through the corridor. Lee Kang's coattail snapped in the hot wind. The shredded coat. The coat crusted with dried blood. Inside that coat, Yeonhwa was cradled.
Lee Kang crossed the threshold.
Into the corridor. The exit at the corridor's end was visible. Beyond it, Gyeongseong's sky stained red. Black smoke cut across the heavens. Sparks flew between the billows. In the distance, screaming. A loudspeaker blaring. Military dogs barking.
Lee Kang's feet crossed the exit.
Outside.
The heart of a burning slum. On both sides, flames danced on shanty rooftops. Smoke choked the street. Through the haze, the silhouettes of running people appeared and vanished. Beyond the black wall of smoke, the white beams of searchlights wheeled in confusion.
Lee Kang's pupils opened wide.
Amber held the fire. The fire churned inside the amber.
Yeonhwa's hair streamed in the hot wind. Over Lee Kang's shoulder. His left arm tightened around her back. His right hand was empty. No gun. None needed.
Doctor Jang followed out behind him. Bag in hand. Stood at Lee Kang's back.
Lee Kang looked ahead.
Through the smoke, boots were moving. Military police inside the wire, patrolling, shoving fleeing people back. With rifle butts. The muzzles still pointed skyward. For now.
The corner of Lee Kang's mouth did not move.
Not a smile. Not a snarl. No expression at all. Amber eyes scanned the uniforms beyond the smoke. He did not count them. No need to count. However many, it did not matter.
Against his chest, Yeonhwa's breathing was faintly perceptible. The small breath leaking from her mouth where it pressed to Lee Kang's chest. The only proof she was still alive.
Lee Kang took one step.
Onto the burning street.
"Follow me."
One sentence. Directed at Doctor Jang. Without turning. A metallic sound stripped of feeling. Not the voice of a beast. Not the voice of a hunter. The voice of something that had no name. Something standing in the center of hell with a dying thing held in its arms.
Lee Kang's amber pupils fixed on what lay beyond the fire.
The path would be opened with blood.